In the summer of 1994, Roop Jyoti, who helps run Vipassana Centers in Nepal and is a former minister of state for finance, received a call from the Nepal Home Ministry in Kathmandu.

The message said that the Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was on an official visit to Nepal then, wanted to visit Dharmashringa Vipassana Center in Kathmandu.

Everyone, including the teachers and trustees of the meditation centre, were excited and gathered in the morning awaiting her arrival. They had made arrangements to show her around and explain the ‘Vipassana' meditation technique in the tradition of Sayagi U Ba Khin as taught by S. N. Goenka.

Unfortunately, the visit was cancelled as the night before someone had mistakenly told Benazir that the meditation center was a half-hour walk after a 45-minute drive. She did not have that much time and put off the visit. Actually, the centre can be reached in 30 minutes.

Two years later, the Nepal Foreign Ministry contacted the meditation center again. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was going to Pakistan and there was a specific request from Benazir Bhutto to bring along a ‘Vipassana' teacher.

The Principal Teacher at the center Acharya Goenkaji asked Roop Jyoti and Nani Maiya Manandhar, both senior teachers, to go with the delegation. Benazir Bhutto was busy with the state visit and sent word that she would meet the ‘Vipassana' teachers as soon as she was free.

On the last day of the state visit, the Nepali delegates were returning to Karachi in the afternoon to fly back to Kathmandu. Nani Maiyaji and Roop Jyoti were finally summoned at 3.00 pm, after the rest of the delegation had left.

Benazir Bhutto had heard much about ‘Vipassana' and wanted to learn the technique there and then. The teachers told her it required a 10-day retreat. She did not have such time, and insisted to be taught right away.

Acharya Goenkaji had foreseen such a response and had given permission to teach her the ‘Anapana' technique. So, Nani Maiyaji taught her ‘Anapana'.

Benazir Bhutto started practicing right away and found it very calming. She said that she had not slept for days and after the session of ‘Anapana', she wanted to take a nap because she felt so tranquil.

We waited while she had a restful sleep. After a few hours, she emerged looking refreshed and happy.

Roop Jyoti and Nani Maiya Manandhar explained to her the salient aspects of ‘Vipassana': a means out of human suffering and misery; not a ritual of an organized religion but an art of living. ‘Vipassana' involves no conversion from one religion to another and is open to all without any barrier of caste, creed or gender.

The technique helps people control unruly minds and cleanse them of impurities like fear, anger, hatred, ill will, animosity, greed, passion and restlessness.

‘Vipassana' teaches how to diminish the ego and to find truth about oneself and to achieve inner peace.

We talked a bit more about ‘Vipassana' and where she could possibly sit through a full 10-day course. The two teachers also gave her books, tapes and videos.

By this time, it was late in the evening and the last flight from Islamabad to Karachi was about to leave. Then they rushed to the airport. Upon the Prime Minister's order, two seats had been kept for the two ‘Vipassana' teachers and the plane took off as soon as they boarded it.

When they landed at Karachi that night, they learnt that there had been a military coup and Benazir Bhutto had been deposed. In fact, Roop Jyoti and Nani Maiyaji had been the last visitors she met as Prime Minister.

Last week, as news of her assassination came in, Roop Jyoti says that she was filled with sadness, but took solace in the fact that Benazir had learned ‘Anapana', an important part of the ‘Vipassana' technique. May she be happy and peaceful in her heavenly abode!