Scientific and artistic conference dedicated to Wanda Dynowska Gardzienice, conference room in the Palace (simultaneous interpretation) 27-28.09.2014 11.30-14: 00
Known as Umadevi, or Goddess Uma, Luminous Soul. She was born on June 30, 1888 in St. Petersburg, died on March 20, 1971 in Mysore (India). Polish writer, translator, social activist, promoter of theology and philosophy of Hinduism in Poland. Ambassador of Indian and Polish culture, karma yogi, founder and organizer of the Polish-Indian Library. Co-worker of Józef Piłsudski and Mahatma Gandhi, adoptive mother of the Dalai Lama. During the festival, Włodzimierz Staniewski’s film Final Destination will be shown – about the search and finding of Wanda Dynowska’s resting place.
About Wanda Dynowska and the place of her burial …
In Indian travels, I had one more goal in mind, to find the last burial place of Wanda Dynowska, the Luminous Soul as Mahatma Gandhi called her. Today we can learn a lot about Dynowska’s greatness, about her life as vividly taken out of the epic, about her close relations and cooperation with Piłsudski, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Blessed Maharischi, and the Dalai Lama by just one click in an online search engine. Praise the internet for that.
This wonderful beautiful lady with an outstanding mind was gifted with a unique Dharma. One of the greatest Polish women of the 20th century. In 1935 he left for India. Shri Ramana Maharshi becomes her spiritual guide. In his ashram at the Mount of Flame, Arunachala, it is transformed. Her entire life is a great work to explore and disseminate the sources of spirituality. She gave herself, as she wrote, “for a great experiment, awakening a new, higher consciousness in man.” In 1969, he visits Poland for the second time after the war, mainly Krakow, where he gives a series of lectures. At that time I was a student of the Jagiellonian University. It was whispered that Krakow was visited by an extraordinary figure from India.
Shortly thereafter, in 1971, he dies in Mysore. Just before leaving, she takes a meditative position and clothed as always in a red sari, upright, and goes out. Her Tibetan pupils take the body to their settlement. All traces of her disappear. It was supposed to rest somewhere in the Dekan highlands, in Karnataka, near Mysore, somewhere in Bylakuppe, which turned from a primitive refugee settlement co-founded by Dynowska into an extraterritorial archipelago of rich colonies. Built in the 1960s from bamboo, plundered by wild elephants, today stands all in gold, resounds with the songs of many thousands of monks, and is one of the largest Buddhist shrines in the world. Golden Temple.
On January 18, 2012, with the sun setting over the plowed fields, I was walking along a track led by Mr Dorjee, who knew the place where Umadevi was buried. Her stupa is situated on a hill surrounded by branchy trees on which lamaistic banners flutter. On the horizon you can see buildings and picturesque groves on the surrounding hills. This unusual landscape resembles our Eastern Borderlands. Dynowska’s Stupa stands in a clean courtyard surrounded by a white wall. He stands like a haughty queen. Next to it, there is the stupa of her pupil – the Dalai Lama. Beautifully cared for, with smoking incense sticks on a pedestal and votive figurines made by Tibetan children. Here, among the Tibetans, Wanda Dynowska is remembered as Tenzni Chodon – the Dharma Torch bearing the teachings.
Włodzimierz Staniewski