Dada Vratadhiirananda passed away on July 2, 2008.

Born in Maharlika (Philippines), he was a high school teacher when he met Ananda Marga and decided to dedicate his life to serving humanity for Baba's Mission. He trained in Davao Training Center in the 1970's. First he was posted to Brazil in South America (GT Sector) where he worked until 1998. There he organized business projects (importing and selling Indian clothing) that raised enough money to buy the jagrti in Brasilia. Then he supported the Sectorial Office.

In 1998 he was transferred to Nairobi, Kenya as Sectorial Office Secretary, where he served until the end of his life. He started the Ananda Marga Academy in the Kangemi slum in Nairobi in 2000, a primary and high school registered with the Ministry of Education. His goal was to offer affordable education to needy students in a country where secondary education is very expensive. He was the principal and taught English and French. He inspired the Giants of Nairobi to construct a building complex for both the primary and the high school. This school empowered many promising children who would not otherwise have the opportunity to attend secondary school.

He was a speaker at the International Conference on An Interfaith Perspective on Globalisation for the Common Good in Kericho, Kenya, on April 21-24, 2005.

He was a very selfless worker. He loved to read and to sing and partcipated in the cultural program of every retreat. He was also an artist and a poet. His room at the jagrti in Nairobi is lined with his paintings and he self-published his poems.

Didi Ananda Giitika wrote: "One teacher at Kangemi Ananda Marga High School and Primary school came today with tears, asking 'Who will take over what Dada does?' But there is really no answer. Dada was not only the heart and soul of the school, he was prolific in painting pictures that line its walls, and in planting flowers in planters everywhere. I also cannot imagine RDS without these dadas."

"You will live according to His desire; you will die, too, according to His desire. Yesterday I told you to take the name of one only. Today I tell you to depend on one only, not on two. Death will not be painful for you, because in death too you attain Him. Merge with Him with all your love." (Baba, "You Live According to God's Desire")

More photos