Silence Isn't Quiet . . .
Nan Umrigar, Sounds of Silence: A Bridge Across Two Worlds
Listening to the Silence: True Stories of a Healing Love from the Spiritual
Realms
This book. . . . points to God's unfathomable ways and
the uniqueness of each soul's journey to the source.*
In August 1997, I was staying with friends in Miami on their houseboat when late one night (11 p.m. to be exact), while listening to water lapping the sides with my notepad on my lap, I began writing automatically. My pen moved across the paper without any thought. Yet none of my previous automatic writing had been this specific. This night became the bond of understanding I feel with Nan Umrigar, for we both personally know how dramatically automatic writing can change lives.
In her first book, Sounds of Silence, A Bridge Across Two Worlds, Nan writes of her "long and weary years" going through the motions of family life after the death of her teenage son Karl, who died as the result of his riding career as a jockey. After six of those years, her husband found a newspaper article entitled "They Talk to Their Dead Sons" and pointed it out to her. After much hesitation, Nan decided to track down Mrs. Khorshed Bhavnagri, the author of the article, and from her she learned that this talking was done through automatic writing. During this auspicious meeting, Nan received her first message from her son Karl.
"Mummy, my dearest Mummy, I love you so much more than you can
imagine on earth. . . . I have worked very hard for these past few years
to reach a high level and want to guide you on earth but only few can
do so. So do try please."*
Encouraged to try and following the directions she was given, Nan found her pen first making sweeping movements. Next letters e e e e . . . and o o o . . . —then words! Thus, Nan began the journey that not only brought back Karl into her life, as he answered her questions, but also introduced her to Meher Baba, whose messages Karl delivered, describing Him as his guru.
In 2010, three years later, Nan published her second book, Listening to the Silence: True Stories of a Healing Love From the Spiritual Realms.* One day, while checking the "give away" basket at a small kitchen I visited regularly, I was surprised, then highly pleased to discover that someone had left Nan's second book. Immediately I took it. It now has many bent page corners, reminders of passages that particularly caught my attention, but I've returned it to the basket for another reader to discover. In her second book, Nan writes of her developing relationship with Meher Baba, and her frequent visits to His Tomb-Shrine, along with the stories others brought to her of their successful communications with departed ones. At the book's presentation, held at the Sun-n-Sand Hotel in Pune, India, I had been sitting in a packed audience aware that I knew no one, yet fully sure that I was to be there, when an attractive woman of great presence walked across the stage. I was startled by her use of a cane, but Nan Umrigar's opening story that day had explained its need. Later I would see it as her symbol of courage, determination, and commitment. On the day that she had been taking the CD of her book to her publisher's new office, along with a bottle of red wine and sweets—both she and her life had been upended. The elevator had stopped at the 18th floor, rather than her requested 17th. She exited the elevator and began to walk down a flight of huge stone steps—only to find herself suddenly falling head first. During her recovery from multiple fractures and a head wound, she realized that her book needed more development, and that she wanted to spend additional time with the writers whose stories of automatic writing she was including in it.
My realization is, "There are people who hold a key to our lives. We meet them in person or by their written words—not in a meeting of serendipity but rather one of destiny."
* Related by Eruch, the Voice of Baba, an Interpreter of His Gestures. Nan Unrigar, Sounds of Silence: A Bridge Across Two Worlds (Mumbai, India: YogiImpressions, 1996), ii.
* Unrigar, Sounds of Silence, 20. To listen to Nan Umrigar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFHayH1Q1ys
* Nan Unrigar, Listening to the Silence: True Stories of a Healing Love from the Spiritual Realms (Mumbai, India: YogiImpressions, 1996).