“The Flood” by Clare Simons

Mother Nature was angry.

She unleashed the Flood Of Woes: cloudbursts of black water, streams of melted glaciers. Snow-capped mountains became killer rivers, uprooting forests, slaughtering herds of barking deer, packs of mules. Villages and good sons vanished.

Highways, bridges, buildings, bodies disappeared in the valleys leading to the hallowed temples of Char Dham, the four abodes of Shiva in the northern state of Uttarakhand. 300,000 seekers on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage were trapped. Some walked out without a scratch through incessant rains, past undeterred destruction, their faith stronger than nature’s power. 6,000 bodies decayed waiting for rescue teams to arrive. The Indian Air Force helicoptered corpses back to their home states; the Army evacuated the wounded.  It was liberation for all — a win-win apocryphal moksha bestowed by the God of Creation & Destruction. 

Scott hasn’t slept for days. He brings me English Breakfast tea in bed, puts his laptop on my belly, and presses replay on a YouTube video of an Indian family perishing in the flood.  The family is dressed for a drive to a scenic cafe, not a trek into the Kedarnath valley. The weather reports had said nothing of rain. The mom wears a floral-print top, dad, an aqua tennis jacket, a girl and two teenage boys dress in striped Polos.  The footbridge connecting the entrance to the temple and the carpark gives way and traps worshipers on the hill. The devotees wade over stones across a frenzied stream, that splits in a flash into a raging river. The family is the last to cross. They hold hands and wade into ankle-deep water. The tallest teens, a boy and a girl, stand on a rock, like figureheads on a ship bow and face the wind. The middle son straddles two rocks, holds his sibling’s hands and pulls his dad up to the rock. Dad holds tight to mom’s hand until her pink plastic sandal floats past and he tries to catch it. They do not see the embankment break and the land slide into the water. Onlookers scream when the stream bed becomes a torrent. The family locks hands and floats like a five-headed serpent downstream.  They cry out like a Shesha, who sings the glories of the Lord Vishnu from all its mouths and holds the planets on its hoods. The family is sucked down into the void. Scott hits replay on the video with 3 million shares, many of them his.

Each morning, through teary, bloodshot eyes, he reads me the latest death count published in the Times of India. His lips quiver, unable to form words, grieving for people he has never met, but seems to know. He shows me footage of more landslides, frontiers being washed away, buildings dissolving like wads of wet paper. Tragic, yes, but I do not understand why he cares so deeply. He lays his head in my lap, “When will Amma send her disaster relief team to the Himalayas?” I kiss his head, bewildered by why he mourns so hard, so profoundly, for a foreign people in a foreign land.  

“Good news. Help is on the way.” 

Scott says, standing on the landing while I carry heavy bags of groceries up the steps from the garage. He clutches his laptop while I step around him and set the bags down on the kitchen floor. Oblivious to my fatigue, he leans his elbows on the counter and reads a blog from the ashram of our guru, Sri Mata Amritandamayai Devi, known by millions of followers as Amma – the hugging saint.

Amritapuri, June 29, 2013

Amma’s team of first responders walked through mud and carrion searching for inroads into villages, finding people rendered homeless and bereft. Amma’s advance team set up basecamp in a village named Rudraprayag, the medical unit and ambulance arrived, and 200 villagers received free medical care, prescriptions, baby formula, and rehydration salts. 

I put away frozen food. I have no doubt he is hatching a plan.  It will emerge days later, fully formed, like the birth of Athena, gloriously armed. Scott’s hands and heart will move as one, his capacity for love will reach across time zones, off the grid, off the washed-away map, deep into the blue Shiva mountains. Days later, after dinner, Scott says,

“What would you think if I asked Amma’s permission to help her “Embracing The World” team in the Kedarnath Valley?

I give him my “It doesn’t matter what I think,” smile, and do the dishes.  

Getting into a pissing match with the Mother of the Universe would be dumb. Amma wants a westerner to photograph and blog about her humanitarian projects.

She chooses Scott. He gets to be a seva rock star—the only non-Hindu on the bus, bunking with brahmacharis, drinking chai, washing his laundry on a rock in the Ganges. My sixty-five-year-old Indiana Jones, off to the Temple of Doom with a pacemaker and his Nikon. Takin ‘one for the team, Scottiji plays starter for The Dharma Destroyers. Amma’s assignment for me: sit, stay. But I want to be special tooooooooo, my sixty-year infantile ego whines. 

At Thanksgiving we fly to Detroit and stay downtown at the Marriott Renaissance Center, for a three-day spiritual retreat with Amma and hundreds of other devotees from all over the U.S and Canada. During our darshan, Scott pleads with She Who Is The Sunlight That Dispels The Darkness of Old Age to let him help people who’d lost their homes.“Please. I am strong now,” he says.

Amma holds her little hand over his pacemaker and anoints his heart with cooling sandalwood paste. A low moan escapes his throat. The brightness between them stuns me. I feel wonder at much he loves her—and anger at how powerless I am against the Guru/Disciple bond.

Amma binds our hands in hers and kisses them; one two, one two.  She gives me Her “You’ll be fine. Get with program. “look.

Her #1 swami leans in, confers with Amma, and tells Scott,

“Go to New Delhi ashram. Speak with the swami. He will be your seva supervisor.” 

An attendant helps us rise and tells us to “Take rest next to Amma’s chair.

We sit cross-legged on the floor next to Amma’s chair and Scott leans face first towards her. Disturbing thoughts loop in my mind; I want him to turn around and pay attention to me. Once again, I feel inferior, the only kid not chosen to play on the team.

Amma says, “Be like a bird on the twig” … ready to fly off at any time.”

To me, this lesson on non-attachment is a linear concept. If a Messiah came and said follow Me, I’d be inclined to ask for some lead time. My tamasic nature, my inner sloth, kicks in and I become inert. Not my groom; He Of Meritorious Vision springs off that proverbial twig in his illumined sattvic state, the essence of pure intelligence, and performs every task without a hitch. 

Whatever my mate does in India; he will do it effortlessly and perfectly, for he is a Maha Sevite, a selfless person whose heart and hands act as one.

The Bhagavad Gita lays out says three spiritual paths that can lead to enlightenment. Karma Yoga—action, work, carrying bricks, feeding a beggar, helping others; Jnana Yoga—knowledge of the sacred texts through reading and studying leading to realization, and Bhakti Yoga—worship though prayer, chanting, singing; all of these practices, when performed with the right mental attitude, open one’s heart to a personal God. Worship is the essence.

I vow to not let my transference issues run amok, stop comparing my devotion with his, keep my growing litany of doubts, fears, and confusion in check, crush this pettiness, and try to live up to my new name.

It is customary for Amma to bestow a spiritual name on those who ask for this blessing. It is said the name is how Amma sees your soul. For most devotees, it is aspirational, but some change their names legally and update their drivers’ licenses with Sanskrit words. Scott never asked for a name. All the Indian’s call him “Scotti—adding the “i,” and Amma did too. The Jyotish astrologer elaborated on this meaning; Scott had no ego.

I was afraid to ask, but wanted to know, or so I thought. Amma ignored my half-hearted requests. Seven times in twelve years she gave me the, Get serious, who are you trying to kid, look. On my eighth attempt she whispered, “Gunaja” into my ear and rocked me like a baby in her arms. A helper gave me an unlined 3×5 file card with my new name written with a black Sharpie. A swami translated the meaning. 

“You can meditate on form,” he said, “You can meditate on the formless, or you can go beyond. That is Gunaja—She Who Is Beyond Form. Born out of Divine qualities…”

I have a photo of Scott’s only tattoo—taken the day Amma named me—exactly three years and—almost to the hour—of his death.

 He asked a Brahman aunty to write my new name on his forearm with a Flair pen, then off he went in search of a tattoo parlor; his girl Gunaja, forever inked into his skin.

Everyone who asked about the tattoo heard stories of our marriage as a spiritual practice. Even Amma’s monastics, who are schooled on the evils of women and gold, marvel at our love.

I leave my husband alone with his other woman, and go to lunch. Today is build your own burrito day, a carbo load awaits me. 

For more information on Embracing The World go to:    https://amma.org/humanitarian/?rd

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