Two days before I was to leave for my first visit to Amritsar, I had a pleasant, yet startling surprise. As parents began arriving to pick up their children from daycare, my Sikh sister and our retired Navy Commander brother suddenly appeared in the doorway. Wide-eyed, I exclaimed, “What a treat! What brings you both here out of the blue?”
My sister, “We just want to wish you well on your trip to India, and celebrate your birthday, since you will be in India on that day.”
My brother admitted, “You are probably surprised to see me. I don’t think I have ever visited you at your own home, except maybe once, and that was years ago.”
I was indeed blown away, mystified. I never sensed that my brother respected my judgment. And in my sister’s last emails she had expressed deep and repeated concerns about my going to India alone. But they consoled and cajoled me, adding, “We came to take you out to dinner for your birthday! How soon can you be ready?”
Well, sure. “We can go after the last child leaves.”
We drove all the way to Santa Fe. I protested at first, suggesting nice restaurants closer by. But they were friendly, full of great energy and had come all the way from California, just for me. Whew!
It was a Mexican restaurant in the Old Town of Santa Fe, colorful and cozy. We sat down to eat in the middle of the dining room, and the grilling started—but not of vegeburgers, for petey sakes, but of me! It became more and more intense, every bite painfully delicious. They took turns tearing me apart as a sister, a mother—my sister saying she had invited my disgruntled daughter to join them. They negated me as a teacher of young children, as a person without feelings or a heart. So much like my ex-husband’s animated line of derision, I could not digest it. I mentioned that our rude conversation was disturbing folks all around us and suggested we leave. My brother and sister mercifully agreed.
They drove me home too late for me to wash my hair or pick up dry cleaning—last minute details. But they were family. That torturous evening ended with them offering, “Let’s get together tomorrow night. We’ll have birthday cake and pleasant conversation just to celebrate your birthday. This time it’s a promise!”
We headed toward Santa Fe, again. I asked, “Why so far? I am leaving tomorrow, I’m tired and need a good night’s sleep before my trip!” My sister responded, “It’s okay, it will give us time to talk in the car.”
I agreed to go along with whatever they wanted, glad to be with family, but I do not recall much discussion.
We went to a different restaurant. My sister commented, “Did you notice it is on the same street as last night?”
What a surprise. This time it was Italian food. Like my Ex! After all the meditation I have done, I figured I could get past that.
My brother did most of the talking, something about a management technique that my sister had heard of. Conversation was off-me, enjoyable, the meal sublime. We even celebrated with a delectable fruit tart alamode cake…so yummy.
Immediately after my last delicious bite, my sister’s face dropped. I asked, “Is something bothering you?”
Glumly, she replied, “I do not feel good about your mental state.” My brother nodded his head in agreement.
I wanted to help them through this, “You have seen my daycare, how nice it is (I had given them a tour of the farm), and how peaceful my life is here. How can we resolve your misgivings about me?”
“Well,” my sister looked over at my brother, “We have discussed that, too.” She paused as she braced herself, “We feel you should see a psychiatrist. That would put our minds at ease. In fact, it’s the only way.”
I said, “That’s all it will take? Sure!” Then I glanced at my watch. It was 9pm. “Where would we find one this late?”
My sister, “We already looked into it and found someone nearby, just two minutes away, at the Saint Vincent Hospital ER. They are open all night.”
I thought to myself, I have agreed, I am obliged to keep my word—anything to assuage their fears and misgivings. In their own way, they truly care about me….
At Saint Vincent’s a nurse escorted me away from my family to an ER stall, similar to the inhospitable space I had occupied a year earlier following an accident, where I sat, and waited. Over the course of two hours different attendants checked in on me, took some blood. A psychologist came by and felt me out with deep loving eyes and asked why I let my family take me there!
“Anything to assuage….”
Left alone, I did the meditation for mental stability Yogiji had given me and the ten-body prayer for my daughter—my usual evening prayers and blessings, figuring those kriyas would not be easy to do in the car on our way home.
Curiously, I overheard an attendant on the phone exclaim, “It’s a hard call. She’s almost six feet tall! We’re afraid that if we tell her what we’re going to do, she might go berserk!”
Berserk! About what?
After hearing that remark I left my bed to make a phone call, hoping to create a sane opening. A friendly attendant gave me a phone book and pointed to a booth. I called Gurumeet Kaur, Guru’s angel, who had given me sanctuary once before from family abandonment, and described my predicament.
She urged, “I do not know why your sister would do this, but you need to stay calm. Chant ‘Guru Guru Wah-hay Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru’ continuously. Pray for Guru Ram Das to extinguish the fear in your sister’s heart since she orchestrated this out of her concern for you. When you are interviewed, answer only the questions that you are asked and do not volunteer additional information. Call me in the morning if you still need my help.”
It was 11pm. I went back to my stall where I found my sister’s beautifully wrapped Nitnem of Sikh prayers on the ER bed. She and my brother had gone back to their motel and left me there.
That Nitnem saved her grace.
Resigned to spending the night, I asked an attendant for a real bed. “Yes, we have a place where you can rest. We will take you there in a bit.”
I sat cross-legged on the bed and breathed long and deeply, riding the Guru Ram Das mantra on my breath, chanting between Infinity and the Guru for protection, guidance and understanding. Time dissolved into divine remembrance.
Hours later, a kind male attendant came to take me to my room. It was 3:30am. I felt awake and clear, peaceful and happy and began to follow him. The attendent stopped me and said, “I’m sorry, you must ride in a wheel chair.”
“But there is nothing wrong with me. I can walk!”
“It is hospital rules.”
This gentleman wheeled me down a tedious series of corridors, with an armed officer in front of me and an armed officer bringing up the rear. Serious business. I smiled and joked with an attendant behind the ER counter as we passed by. Someone remarked, “Hey, she’s actually funny!”
It was a pleasant ride—well protected, guided, understood.
Still trusting, I was taken into a room with a simple bed and told to undress to my panties. My purse and clothes were taken away. I was given a hospital gown and a female nurse proceeded to search my body from my hair to between my toes. She wanted a urine sample. Okay. They weighed me. The scale read, 116 pounds. I said, “It must not be working properly. I weighed 136 pounds just two days ago.”
She wrote 116.
My male attendent wheeled me around a corner. We were in the mental ward. There were two rows of tables and a circle of couches and easy chairs on my left and a long glassed-in office on my right.
My attendant observed, “A Sikh has stayed here before. It is actually pretty pleasant.” I told him “I do not want to be known as someone who has been incarcerated here.”
It could ruin my reputation as it had ruined hers—I knew of whom he was speaking. The woman had been a very competent daycare assistant to me back in the eighties.
“Over here is the office and on this side you will have discussion groups and meals.”
I noted, “You know, I could teach them yoga techniques to help with stress. But I don’t plan on staying that long.”
“That will be discussed in the morning after breakfast when you meet with the psychiatrist.” He led me to my room and gave me a form to sign off on, restricting whom I would allow to call me.
I snuggled under the covers and was set to enjoy three hours of sleep when my attendant returned with my clothes, minus boots, purse and hair combs. He was friendly and open-minded and won my trust. We discussed the purpose of my trip to India, and how my sister had misunderstood and misconstrued my intentions, about the etheric Golden Temple meditation, and my going to the physical Golden Temple to merge the two realms. I described how everything was totally covered—all bills, the daycare, with a Montessori teacher voluntarily taking over. Even my arrival in Amritsar was planned out—being met, taken to a Nivas at the Golden Temple, a cellphone charged for me and all my meals prepared by a loving Punjabi family. My attendant acknowledged that the Golden Temple is a sacred, powerful Sikh shrine.
He told me, “If you speak to the psychiatrist with this same honest fervor and common sense, you will probably be let out in time for your flight.”
He spoke with me for over an hour. There were more forms to fill out, questionaires to answer, lines to sign. Finally he asked me, “How do you feel about being held in a mental ward?”
I smiled, “I am just going along with the flow. It’s all God’s Will.”
“That attitude will help you. I see no propensity for you to cause a rukhas. But, are you upset with your brother and sister for putting you here?”
I was elated. “It’s perfect! Do you see how powerful it is for my Sikh sister, my brother and friends in Sikh Dharma to work together to stop my trip? It shows how hugely important this trip is, to have such humongous opposition!”
He took notes.
I gave the attendant a nice hug and thanked him for being neutral.
Lastly the attendant gave me a small bag of toiletries—shampoo, but no conditioner; mineral body oil; toothpaste but no toothbrush; and nothing to comb my hair with. On request he fetched some lipgloss for my cracked lips.
Finally I lay to sleep, asking to be woken at 6:00am so I could make calls to cover my daycare the next morning, and slept as peacefully as I do in my own bed, for one and a half hours. At 5:20am I automatically awoke to start my morning blessing. The aide entered with a polite wake-up as I was finishing.
It was almost like home. I brushed my teeth with a finger, showered and washed my hair, combed it with my hands using a little mineral oil, and tied my wet hair into a tight rishi knot—a real knot of hair, since they had taken my hair ties. Then dressed and did Japji while wrapping my turban and neatening up. It was a delight, Guru blessing me with light to be even brighter. I looked in the mirror in gratitude to see Guru’s light on my face and in my eyes, my turban framing my soul, and felt like Guru’s gem. Then danced and twirled in bliss!
It was clear—a simple, although trickily humungous test! I effortlessly slipped through shunya’s zero into ecstasy. Guru’s grace and radiance filled my presence as I walked through the ward that morning. I smiled at inmates who looked forlorn and dejected. They were profound victims who could not see beyond the pain and anguish they carried like treasures, despite all the loving care given by the ward’s staff.
After many phone calls to find a substitute teacher, I could either not reach people or they were unable to help. So I called all the mothers to say the daycare would be closed until my yatra substitute came at noon, for I was stuck in Santa Fe.
Once all the morning Nitnem prayers were done I enjoyed a little breakfast. A meal with my name on it was among the other trays—a platter of scrambled eggs. I am vegetarian! So I took a banana, milk and cereal from general counter offerings. Then I noticed the psychiatrist through the office window. We were supposed to get together after breakfast—so how about now?
I had seen her greet patients and take them to her room and liked her energy. She was from India, and had dark, penetrating, intelligent eyes, expressing both heart and wisdom. I went over and knocked on the office door and asked if we could meet soon. She replied, “I am saving you for last. You are a difficult case.”
So be it. I excused myself to my room to nap. Keeping Guru Ram Das in my heart, asking Guru’s blessings to resolve everything gracefully, in the space of an hour I finished all my meditations, including a cozy layout under the bed covers.
When I entered the lobby a therapy group was in session. I sat in a comfy easy chair and joined them. A moderator gently asked women in the circle about their goals and offered helpful encouragement. They all needed help, immersed in subjection. Finally the moderator asked me what my goal was.
“My goal is to go to India. My arrangements have been made—bills paid, daycare covered and animals under care. A Punjabi family is meeting me at the airport, taking me to my lodgings and charging up my cell phone for me.” The moderator asked when I planned to go and I replied, “Today! I need to leave my home with my luggage by one o’clock!”
He blurted out, “That means you’ll have to be discharged within the hour!”
The moderator literally jumped out of his chair and dashed over to the psychiatrist’s door, knocked and halfway entered.
The psychiatrist welcomed me into her office minutes later. She was warm and gracious. First she asked questions pertinent to a form she was to fill out and commented, “Many people in your community are concerned about you. It is not just your family. How do you feel about that?” She leaned forward to hear my side of the story.
I gave the psychiatrist a bare outline, the essentials, about the book Yogi Bhajan gave me to write on the deeper, yogic meaning of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, how it is based on my memoirs and how a thousand people are destined to contest it. The psychiatrist knew of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, the Golden Temple and the Sikh Gurus. When I explained how I had led Golden Temple meditations for ten years where anyone was able to go there in meditation and be healed, she smiled and agreed, confirming my initial perception of her.
The psychiatrist asked if I had been depressed in my last marriage. I told her, “No, suppressed,” and explained how my husband, whom I loved and admired, had beaten me black and blue, how photos of my injuries were delayed in being returned because they were disturbing, and how he confiscated them. I told her I had been so upside-down in our marriage that I could not even chant without crying, how I would leave Gurdwara and sit outside to be close to the Guru so people would not see my tears.
Deeply affected by my words, the psychiatrist expressed appreciation for the great spiritual work I have done to come so far out of my attachment and confusion. She thought it was a very short period of time for such healing to have taken place, and asked, “About the voices you hear—what do they sound like?”
That was easy, “Like my conscience.”
She took notes. “And what did you tell your sister that made her have such great concern for you?”
My answer, “I told her I was Guru Arjan’s wife. I trusted her as my sister and as a Sikh to share something so intimate. Yet my sister's first response was, ‘Why did the Gurus choose you?’”
In a burst of realization I added, “I never asked to write this book. I never asked to be the Guru’s wife! It was as much of a surprise for me as it was her!”
This dear woman finally concluded, “It is clear that your sister simply does not understand you. I can see that you are on a spiritual quest and I have no right to hold you here against your will. You are free to go. I suggest you call your sister and have her pick you up, and tell her that I need to speak with her.”
I had to sign a form saying I would voluntarily seek counseling once a month to help me rule out any problems. She wrote no diagnosis, saying, “My diagnosis is ‘deferred’. I wish you well on your journey.”
My brother and sister met me at the hospital within the hour and drove me home. I did not have time to change out of my farmyard-stained clothes from the previous day--only to pack last minute items and bid farewell to the children and my old friend who was voluntarily taking over the daycare. She was Guru’s pure blessing, covering, covering, covering for me, having secured arrangements for my Amritsar yatra on both sides of the earth.
My friend's last words to me were, “Everything will change when you come back. You will be a different person and, like Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans, there will be the need of a whole new paradigm for your life.”
I thanked her for her generous insights and support. My life is gratefully, blissfully in Guru’s hands. Wahe Guru!
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