The Saipu Health Post
In memory of Gianni Goltz, we have enlarged the health project called Saipu Ahead with the objective of creating a Health Post in the village of Saipu.
Gianni didn’t travel to Himalaya only to climb the world’s highest top. For sure, they were the mountains, the vertigo when facing roof of the world, testing his own limits, the emotion when achieving a conquest, but they were also the people that welcomed him and accompany him always higher : When Gianni talked about his friends from Himalaya, even many month after he returned home, you could see his eyes sparkle. No, Himalaya was not just about climbing, but also about his spiritual brothers. It was about a fascinating culture, where the people, although materially much poorer than us managed to be happy in life against the odds, just as Gianni. It is not difficult to imagine that Gianni and his Sherpa friends communicated without difficulty, because they shared the same universal language : The language of simplicity, essentially, generosity and modesty.
That world so far away and so different of the one he came from but so close to him spiritually was still with him in the moment of death. Some of his Sherpa friends saluted and blessed him in our name, among the rocks and the snow of the Himalaya mountain on which, according to the popular tradition, reside the gods, the Buddhas, full of love for all the beings.
Also for the Buddhists of the Himalaya, life and dead are the same things. The dead is the beginning of a new chapter of life. Because of this, they call the body lu, this is “something that we leave behind”, like if it was some sort of luggage. The Himalayan spiritual tradition, that in the past thousands of year has developed a deep understanding of the mysterious process of dying, pretends that in the moment of the separation, the conscience exits the body mounting on the wind… and finds itself in the state of a infinite liberty that arises from the absence of the body. The causes of the negative emotions disappear together with the body : all the shadows are removed while our true nature is revealed, like a limpid sky without clouds. The farewell ceremony in Himalaya is thus above all a ceremony of accompaniment on the path that the conscience, the soul has to travel, to support it in its spiritual ascent, to guide it on the road of its new life, of the light and of love. For sure, Gianni has company on his path and not only consisting of the Sherpas : our thoughts, prayers and affection goes with him.
We are left with his love, the sweet memory of his frank smile, and one more project to get done. Before leaving for the Himalayas, Gianni told me that he would have liked to help the poorest people of Nepal in a concrete way, to help those children and families who live at the base of the largest mountains on Earth and struggle every day to survive.
Dear Gianni, now that you left, we would like to grant your wish, together with Daniela, Petra, with those who loved and appreciated you, with all the friends that would like to participate. Uniting our forces, we can do it because, as you know, love is the only thing that multiply itself each time you divide it, and, above all that never dies.
Avegno, 14 june 2008