Eight walk in silent tribute along the clifftops

davSudipa describes how eight friends of Sannyas News co-founder Parmartha, who died on July 20, went on one of his favourite walks in his memory.

Parmartha used to organise and lead silent walks on the South Downs and in the Chilterns. I loved these walks, and so I felt it would be a fitting way to show my gratitude, and to honour him, to organise a silent walk in his memory. It was a case of third time lucky when we finally set off on September 30 because we had to cancel twice – once because the trains were not running properly, and once because there was a storm.dav

Eight people came, four from London (Navajat, Katie, Pankaja, and myself) and four from Brighton and Newhaven (Ruth, Garry, Nuro and Prabha). The London contingent took the same 9.46 train from Victoria to Ore that Parmartha used to take and we met the others on the seafront at Seaford .

The weather was fine and sunny. We walked along the seafront and began the silence as we started up the cliff at the east end of Seaford beach, just as with Parmartha we used to start the silence once we had left the urban environment. We walked along the path at the top of the cliff with the sea on one side and a beautiful view of the Seven Sisters ahead. Just before we reached Cuckmere Haven beach, we stopped at the top of the cliff, and sat silently for 10 minutes remembering Parmartha and others we have loved and lost. davThen we ended the silence and had our picnic, again following the pattern of Parmartha’s walks.

After that, we walked up beside Cuckmere Haven, crossed the bridge over the river and went to the cafe at Exceat, which we used to frequent with Parmartha, for tea and cakes.

Still full of energy, most of us who had time walked back the same way to catch the train back to London, or to drive back to Newhaven and Brighton, Of course, this was a short walk compared to the whole day walks we did with Parmartha. We are older now! Parmartha’s walks often ended by walking this same route after leaving the cafe. Katie took some great photos, with help from passers-by, four of which are here.

I hope to organise some more silent walks in the Spring. Contact me by email on sudipa@zen.co.uk if you want me to let you know about them, and I’ll put you on the list.

dav

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33 Responses to Eight walk in silent tribute along the clifftops

  1. veet francesco says:

    How to comment on an invitation to silence, as a way to communion?

    The reason why I would like to see SN keep running is to read about this kind of experience, as a reminder. Thank You.

    The things shared here rarely can be found elsewhere.
    Lack of time or social situations do not support a climate of trust for an intimacy based on the authenticity of those who want to be themselves, the only threat to the Status Quo and its favorite creature, the Homo Economicus.

    SN is one of the rare islands where it is possible to be happily wrecked, weakened by the hedonistic flattery or by the mechanisms of exploitation of the Market, of which I, Daniel Blake, am goods among goods.

    SN, where time is not money, if space is a sky of white clouds above a path of white rocks.

  2. Kavita says:

    First of all, thank you, VF, for such a wonderfully poetic post.

    Hope, Jitendra, you can take forward this rare island, Sannyas News. If not, it’s also ok with me. We all have the freedom to decide our priorities. Also, thanks for the photos, you somehow seem like a familiar Poona face!

    And sorry, Jitendra, if I have been harsh in our communications.

    • Kavita says:

      Jitendra, thanks for correcting me.

      We are all in our own worlds I guess!

    • veet francesco says:

      Thanks, Kavita, I’m not used to the compliments, I become red.

      • Kavita says:

        VF, you don’t seem like a Poona face & red symbolises dangerous to me!

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Seconded, Kavita.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          I can not afford the face of a luxuriously bored one, especially when I work in August.

          Maybe you’re worried about the size – I did not think the photo was published so big.

          • Kavita says:

            No, VF, don’t take it so seriously. You look a bit doped due to working in August – probably you are sober in November by relaxing!

            • sw. veet (francesco) says:

              Thank you, कविता, for your invitation to relax and not take it seriously, your exclamation points are a clear example.

              Btw, if one day, near Palolem, you had trouble staying afloat, do not be afraid of the boy dressed in red who swims towards you shouting “Relax, Ma!!!! You just cling to this inflatable Lingam!!!” .

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            No, Veet, I was not that much worried about the size of your pic, more about the facial expression re pain in the eyes of a human with a security guard key locket (?) around the neck, standing in surroundings which looked either like a desert or a quite deserted (almost military (?) space and place), wheresoever (?).

            And yes, Veet, be sure you´re not the only one of us here, I guess, having one or other way to deal with issues, which the top UK-situated doc film-maker-´scout´, Ken Loach, has been making us all acquainted with in the doc-drama ‘I, Daniel Blake’, which I watched with a Q&A in 2017 in Germany.

            What I experience here in this SN/UK Chat has never been boredom, as you presume, more the opposite of that.

            Sometimes I’ve written distorted love-letters, some pleas for help, sometimes bitterness and complaints about times long, long gone, somtimes helplessness – quite rarely stuff like this actual one, just sharing some beautiful moments of togetherness of friends.

            And the question could be, what we all are able to see or understand, when exposed to some information.

            If Kavita writes – at another chat-spot here: “We are all in our own world I guess” – that´s as right as it is not.

            Always good to have a second look. And maybe ask for more information if hooked in a projection of whatever story we don´t really know about.

            Wish you well, Veet, and have a good day.
            Today.

            Madhu

  3. jitendra says:

    Kavita,
    Thanks for your comment. I have not noticed any harsh words. First, please note that it was Sudipa who wrote the piece – she is credited in the opening paragraph. I edited and formatted her writing for Sannyas News, and my name appeared above it only because I posted it. This is one of several infelicities in the design of the site that need to be addressed.

    I did not go on the walk because I was in the US at the time. I am not pictured in the article but I was in Poona 1 for some months. Sannyas to me is like my old school: somewhere formative from my past where I made a lot of friends. But it is past and I have moved on, which is why I am not the right person to run SN. My involvement is accidental. Parmartha asked me to help get it back online and it ended up in my name simply because I paid the bills for him. I paid the last bill of around £59 myself because I could not face trying to sort out who would pay what, so SN is paid up for another five months or so.

    I know about computers but I am a novice with WordPress, the system used to publish SN. It is easy to use for posting articles but maintaining and updating the software can be tricky, though not impossibly so. Someone better acquainted with WordPress could probably sort the site out in a day but for me it is a learning process that might require several fully-focused days. I’ll try to get round to it but at the moment I’m concentrating on publishing my own books, including one about my travels and how I ended up in Poona. A couple of people are interested in taking over my role and we’re going to see what is possible.

    • Arpana says:

      Hi Jitendra.

      For a WordPress technician, here’s a link:
      https://maintainn.com/

      or
      Google wordpress technicians.

      I’m happy to make a contribution.

    • satchit says:

      “I was in Poona 1 for some months. Sannyas to me is like my old school: somewhere formative from my past where I made a lot of friends. But it is past and I have moved on, which is why I am not the right person to run SN. My involvement is accidental.”

      Nothing is accidental, Jitendra.

      Sannyas is like breathing. Can breathing be “old school”?
      Enjoy the river of life!

      • satyadeva says:

        You seem to miss the point, Satchit, simply because there are many ways to the Truth, to being one with Life, Osho’s Sannyas being just one of them – IF it works for any given individual.

        If Jitendra or anyone else decides Osho’s Sannyas is over for him/her because it’s not working for them, “breathing” having become more of a ‘death-rattle’, as it were, then so be it. No need to assume it’s necessarily ‘the ultimate’ path, or to confuse the term ‘Sannyas’ with an all-encompassing definition of ‘seeking God’ etc. that implcitly or actually excludes all other ways or regards them as inferior.

        Further along that way, the way of ‘exclusivity’, wait delusions of superiority, and even authoritarian, fascistic concepts such as apostasy, where people are condemned, even to death, for leaving their religion.

        Surely each path is not for everyone – otherwise why are there so many of them to choose from? And neither is any particular way necessarily right for a person for ever. As always, it depends on the individual, who is always more important than the movement, the ‘Church’.

        • satchit says:

          Jitendra is free to do what he wants, Satyadeva.

          Anyway you should consider the fact that Osho makes a distinction between “sannyas” and “real sannyas”. Easy to find in the scriptures.

          • satyadeva says:

            Well, that’s a relief, I’ll inform Jitendra straightaway.

            As for the distinction you mention, the onus is on you to clarify this and how it supports your earlier comment, not on me to do the research and work out its relevance.

            • shantam prem says:

              Sannyas and real sannyas!
              Wow!

              Blessed are the ones who have dropped the both.

              • satchit says:

                What do you want to drop?

                Dropping is as much an illusion
                as taking.

                • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                  The very Beauty of this thread topic-sharing, Satchit (Shantam too), lies in its flavour of ´flesh and bones´ embedded in and supported by the power of Nature: its very simplicity and Humanness.

                  And yes, it seems to be quite difficult to let a heart’s response on a viral plane ´hold that kind of line´.

                  Some advaita-ish kind of a bookish two-liner – encapsulated psychologically in a bashing attitude towards another contributor – will not do, I´d say.

                • satchit says:

                  “Some advaita-ish kind of a bookish two-liner – encapsulated psychologically in a bashing attitude towards another contributor – will not do, I´d say.”

                  Bashing?

                  I don’t see any bashing, Madhu. But what I see is that you have not changed in your holier-than-thou style.

                  Enjoy it!

            • Arpana says:

              @satchit, 10 November, 2018 at 7:14 am.
              You and Shantam are both very naughty boys. Thank God for the headmistress Madhu being here to put you both right. Next time she’ll smack your legs.

  4. Lokesh says:

    Sweet article honouring PM. Good to see the site up and running although, according to Jitendra, not altogether smoothly.

    Look forward to writing a few wee articles to contribute when the time is right.

    • jitendra says:

      Lokesh, voice from the past. You’re still welcome to post articles. In fact SN needs new content so all are welcome to contribute. I’m not quite sure what the arrangement was with Parmartha. Do you have postings rights?

      Satyadeva, who is dealing with the editorial side here, was unsure how to post on the main page, which is why I got involved in posting Sudipa’s article. He should be up to speed in the next couple of days but if necessary I’ll post whatever content arrives. You can email me at edit@sannyasnews.org.

  5. matthew flint-ely says:

    How nice to read about Clive. My mother Pauline mentioned walks on South Downs and staying at Seaford YHA with him.

    Mum is grateful to Jitendra for all his help and am sure members of SN will repay him for his costs to keep SN going.

  6. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    From the numerous choices to have a first step into a meeting in a virtual caravanserai this chosen editing ( thanks, Jitendra) and this sharing (thanks, Sudipa & all the other unknowables…and your smiles) is most appropriate.

    I´ve been in awe, when seeing your smiles, the ground below your naked feet and these miraculous mysterious and magnificent landscape there (which is even sensible by just viewing it on a pic).

    Kim Wells spoke in his obituary beautifully of the “Queen Scout´s” essential qualities, embodhied by our late editor as its best and I remember when I did read that quite a while ago now, how that fits with anything in the human pilgrimage from Here to Here.
    “When we got lost”, Kim Wells humorously recalled, “it always was ´the map´…”

    We are wanderers, aren´t we?
    Sometimes celebrating, getting lost together, don´t we?

    Being natural in Nature, such a gift.
    Precious, taking care of that.
    And thanks for the reminder.

    Madhu

  7. POLLY PARMARTHA ESSENCE OF DESIRE says:

    I am unsure of who you were in my life. We have a wonderful son, just confused why you didn’t want me…A short time in our life together…I have you still and Matt…Sleep forever and rest in peace.

  8. anand yogi says:

    It is certainly a disgrace that the unconscious baboons of SN have refused to roll over in the event of the passing of the large primate known as “the guv`ner”, but instead are determined to keep the unholy organ of kali-yuga and cesspit of lower consciousness that is Sannyasnews functioning, so that the vile members of the Akashik rogue`s gallery there can continue to spout the vomit that exits their sacreligious minds (that are nothing but mind) and to continue to urinate profusely on our holy shrines!

    Rest assured, I speak for the true inheritors of the true religion of mighty Bhorat: Myself, Swami Ali, Shri Ghandoo and Swami Bhorat himself, when I vow to hold fast to the glorious principles of our mighty heritage with the stickability of a 5000 year-old pair of underpants wedged onto Shri Manu`s base chakra, that we will carry on the fight against the unsattvic western baboons with the relentlessness of a holy sage beating his vital ganglions into submission in a dungeon in Rishikesh with perfect karmic timing!

    Hari Om!
    Yahoo!

  9. shantam prem says:

    One wonderful thing about Parmartha’s death and this tribute walk is one sees not that top of the cliff expression, ‘left the body’.

    Dying as a human is very ordinary, very heroic.

    Those who claim to leave the body must show this much courtesy to send few selfies from their new abode.

    • Levina says:

      SN is taking its crutches up again, continuing the same old rickety dance……………Parmartha, do I hear you laughing from the Beyond?

      MOD:
      Not sure if Parmartha would be laughing, Levina. We’re allowing this off-topic stuff for now, but not for much longer.

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