by Siri Ved Kaur
August 1987
A loud buzzing noise intrudes into my world, literally yanking me out of the sky, where I am flying above the clouds and into the stars, and snaps me forcefully back to earth, to my little apartment on Preuss Road across from Siri Gurbani Sadan (an ashram where several families live together), and to the snug coziness of my comforter. It’s time to wake up for sadhana. I haven’t done sadhana in many months, but things in my life have gotten to a point… divorce, failure at love, peddling harder and faster with work, school at night, my social life and still getting no where… that I have decided to do forty days of morning sadhana. I’m twelve days into it. For the last year I have kept my waking hours so full that I allowed barely a moment for the Universe to speak to me and none at all for my Self to listen. I knew I had to make a change and sadhana is the best way I know.
Siri Ved Singh and I have been divorced for almost two years now. I am working at a print shop in West L.A. as a typesetter, mostly for magazines and legal briefs. I’ve been going to school two nights a week at UCLA Extension and just finished the graphic design program. I’ve been through two years of failed relationships… Starting with my divorce from Siri Ved Singh, then a devastating non-affair with a man I thought I loved, and followed by a string of empty relationships that left me feeling, well, empty. Thus, I have now signed off forever from men. I have vowed never to fall in love again, never to trust a man again. I go to the beach to enjoy a sunset by myself and ignore that whining little voice in me that bemoans its loneliness, begging for a daddy, a husband, a man, something male that it must have. I know I have to assert my own wholeness. I don’t want to feel that I need another person. I don’t need anybody.
The Siri Singh Sahib called to me the other day and asked, “So, do you want to be married?”
“No Sir," was my stalwart reply.
“What if I find a nice Italian man for you, like I did for Akasha?”
“I’m really not interested Sir,” I asserted again.
He laughed, “Oh, I can find someone great for you!”
“Maybe I would think about it. Sir, all I want is a boyfriend, someone who can take me to the movies and then I can go home.”
“Not possible.”
“Yes it is.”
“No, it is not.”
“Yes it is. I don’t want to be married. I just want someone to go out with."
“I tell you, it is not possible,” he insisted. “Let Guru Ram Das be your boyfriend.”
“But, Guru Ram Das can’t give me hugs, Sir.”
“Yes he can. He can hug you like you cannot believe!”
I could come up with no other retort. He doesn’t understand. I really don’t want to be married. I don’t ever want to open my heart again. I have been so hurt by men in my life and don’t want to go through that again. I am absolutely fine on my own.
However, the problem is that I have an overwhelming feeling of missing an integral part of myself, of being stuck in a sort of spiritual inertia. Yesterday I was talking to my good friend Guru Simran Singh about this. After gurdwara he came up to me and said, “Siri Ved Kaur, how are you doing?” (He has been such a support to me during all of my divorce and the miserable aftermath).
“God, Guru Simran, I just feel so stuck.”
“Why don’t you pray to Guru Ram Das? Tell him what you want. He’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t know what I want. I feel lost.”
“Well, then just ask him to show you your next step.”
That sounded reasonable enough to me. I spent the afternoon driving around in my silver Corolla coupe, talking aloud to Guru Ram Das (this has always been my most effective way of prayer, driving and talking), pouring out my heart about my life and asking him to please, please reveal to me my next step.
Here I am, still waiting for an answer, getting out of bed at 3:30 in the morning. Dr. Dyal Singh has asked me to lead the yoga set once a week and today is my first day. I lead my favorite set. It’s the one where you raise your legs up and down chanting Ra Ma Ra Ma for 11 minutes. Just when you think you can stand it no more it becomes blissful and you don’t want it to end. The yoga set ends and whoever is leading the meditation is taking over. As much as I love chanting, I decide to lie down and go back to sleep for the meditations. I lie on my sheepskin, snuggled under my blanket, close my eyes, and set myself on “sleep mode” for the next hour.
I am drifting off just as lovely music (is that a harp?) fills the room. It is a harp, and the sound is so gentle, relaxing…. and what is this man’s voice leading the chanting? Already taken by the harp, I am now flooded with the sound of this voice. I feel tingling and whooshing all over; my heart center saturated by this voice… resonating in a most wonderful way. Jolted by the experience, without a moment’s thought or hesitation, I ask my self, “Who is this man?” Then, as clear and pure a voice as you can ever imagine… I don’t know if it’s male or female, simply a pure, clear, strong, true voice… answers, “This is the man you are going to marry.”
The man I am going to marry? Who said that? Did anyone else hear? I don’t hear voices, yet I have never heard a voice so purely real. I spend the remainder of the hour fully awake, still on my back, blissfully listening, meditating, and wondering who that man is leading the chanting. I can tell that Nirankar Singh is playing tabla with him. As soon as the chanting is over and Nirankar walks by me to exit I ask him, “The chanting was so nice today. Who was that leading the meditations?” “Oh, that was Gurujodha Singh.” Gurujodha Singh?? Gurujodha Singh?
I had already, a year ago, gone through the entire list of available men in 3HO and determined that none of them were of any interest to me. I had skipped Gurujodha Singh. I don’t know if I would have considered him. I don’t know him at all. He doesn’t even live in L.A. Where does he live, anyway? I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t want to be married. I don’t need a man. I don’t want a man. With deliberation I shove the whole experience to the back of my brain hoping it will not surface again.
Except, now I seem to see Gurujodha Singh everywhere I go. We don’t talk. I don’t even look at him. I don’t want to give any energy at all to this dream I had. It must have been a dream. I don’t hear voices. Yet, he is at Siri Dharma Kaur’s harmonic convergence party at the Shotokan karate studio. He’s at Gurdwara. He’s leading meditations one day a week, the same day that I lead the yoga. And, unbelievably, on Yogiji’s birthday when it is my turn to lead the long Ek Ong Kars, coincidentally, who sits down next to me for my last half hour (each leader has an hour and the hours overlap for 30 minutes) of chanting? Gurujodha! Who scheduled this?! We lead a half hour together and it is like a bomb of energy has exploded in the room. Everyone is awake and chanting with full spirit and voice. We take off! It’s incredible! I can’t handle this. When my hour is up I go back to my sheepskin and try to focus on chanting. All I notice is that the energy has shifted again. Something special happened when we chanted together. The last straw is, that when Gurujodha finishes his hour (and the chanting is over) he goes to pick up his sheepskin and blanket and they just happen to be the vacant sheepskin and blanket right next to mine.
A few days later and it is Sunday night. I’m sitting at my kitchen table paying some bills. My daughters Avtar and Sat Kartar have come to spend a few days before they go back to New Mexico for school and they are in the living room playing the game "Life." The phone rings. I let it ring a few times more and then pick it up saying, “Sat Nam.” And a man’s voice, one so familiar it frightens me, replies, “Sat Nam Siri Ved Kaur. This is Gurujodha Singh.”
My stomach falls through the floor. I have made a point to not look at this man, not give him any energy. We have never spoken to each other in our lives or even made eye contact. Why is he calling me? I know why he is calling me. No I don’t. Yes I do. No, I don’t. Yes, I do and that’s why my stomach has fallen into the floor. I am trying to pull myself together.
He continues, “Siri Ved, I just came back from New Mexico. I was visiting Awtar Singh in Albuquerque for a few days [Awtar is the guardian of the boarding children who attend Amritsar Academy in Albuquerque] and saw your daughters there. They’re beautiful. I talked to your daughter Sat Kartar and met your younger one, Avtar, too.”
“Oh, that’s so nice,” I reply, trying to sound polite and not reveal my anxiety at his call.
“I went to Albuquerque because I needed to get away from L.A. [I can certainly understand that] and think clearly. And that’s why I am calling. [Oh no, what’s he going to say? Why is he calling? What was he thinking about?] I have strong intuition, and it’s always right. But I have been fighting it. I can’t fight it anymore so I will just come out and say it. Whenever I meditate I hear a voice, and it says, ‘What about Siri Ved Kaur?’”
I am completely freaking out. All of my organs drop to the floor, joining my stomach there in a helpless mass.
He concludes, “I can’t deny it anymore. I know it is right. Siri Ved Kaur, what do you think about the possibility of a marriage partnership?”
This is the first conversation I have ever had with this man, a man who, according to a voice I heard a few days ago, is going to be my husband, and he is asking me to marry him. This is more than I can deal with and I feel as though hurled into an alternate universe. There is an audible silence when it is my turn to speak. With every ounce of self-control I can muster, I gather myself and politely respond, “Gurujodha, first of all, let me just say that it must have taken so much courage for you to call and ask me that and I respect so much that you could do that. Really. But I am sort of under the Siri Singh Sahib’s wing right now and he has told me he would find someone for me [I dare not add that I basically told the Siri Singh Sahib he could forget such a plan] and I am really under his guidance right now. I think you should put this idea aside for now and wait and see what happens.” Gurujodha has a disappointed tone to his voice as he agrees to this and the conversation ends. I sleep little this night.
Two days later I run into Siri Bhrosa Kaur on the sidewalk outside my apartment and for the first time I tell someone the whole story, about the sadhana experience, the avoiding him yet running into him everywhere, and about the phone call Sunday night. She is my ages-old sister who is supposed to set me straight, keep me on track, and not let me run off on one of my wild tangents. So, I am completely taken aback when she excitedly replies, “Siri Ved! That’s great! That’s so great! Gurujodha is great! He’s a good friend with Kirtan Singh too. He’s a martial artist. He’s so dharmic. And, he’s got a great body! This is so perfect!!!”
What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she see that I need reining in? Why is she saying these things? And then it hits me. My God, she could be right. She is probably right. She is right. And I have left no door open for Gurujodha to contact me again. I basically have closed the door in his face. I spiral downward, recognizing that I have totally screwed this up.
However, Gurujodha did give me his office phone number. I decide on Friday morning, after much tossing and turning, to call him. I hope to get his answering machine and leave a message and then if he still wants to he can call me back.
However, his actual real voice answers the phone and I feel that familiar flush of energy spread through my body; my heart takes a leap. I don’t even know this man. Stop feeling this way! Just tell him what you’ve decided! So, I do. “Sat Nam, Gurujodha Singh? This is Siri Ved Kaur. I just want to let you know that I’ve thought about what you said the other night and I am open to discussing it.” And he says, “Outstanding!” with such appreciation and happiness, I am thrilled and devastated. This is too real. We talk a little and agree to talk again in a few days.
Sunday I go to gurdwara and see him there. Oh God. I cannot look at him. If even one person sees us talking or looking at each other God knows the rumors will start. I cannot acknowledge our non-relationship in public. I have suffered so much gossip in the last two years; I cannot bear any more. I avoid him entirely, do not even once look his way, and as soon as gurdwara is over I immediately leave and begin to walk up Preuss Road, heading home. To my greatest chagrin and delight, I hear Gurujodha’s voice call out behind me, “Siri Ved! Wait up! Let me walk you home.” So he does. We walk the three blocks, chatting about this and that. I am so shy to say anything. As we get to my door Ram Das Singh, who lives at Siri Gurubani Sadan, sees us and flashes a knowing smile. What the hell does he think he knows? He knows nothing! There is nothing to know! We talk a little more and agree to get together the following weekend.
The next Saturday arrives and so does Gurujodha, with a beautiful bouquet of flowers in hand. I was married for fourteen years and never once did my husband give me flowers. So, some ice is definitely melting here. We have plans to go on a hike and I take him to one of my favorite hiking trails, the Santa Ynez Canyon trail head in the Palisades, and we hike through beautiful forest and stream up high to the mammoth rock that stands over the canyon. We perch ourselves up there, a most beautiful crisp California day, sun pouring down, breeze blowing. I have a history with this rock, and the history is blown away in the wind. We are talking. We are talking about marriage. What we want in marriage. We talk some about our failed marriages and a little of what we went through after our divorces. Since divorce we have each been in love with someone else and have had that relationship painfully fail. We each want a spiritually founded marriage. We each come from completely different backgrounds and cultures. He is African American, I am white American. He went to the best private schools and finest colleges, was student body president, an athlete, is an attorney… I was gifted, but did poorly in school, had more than my share of trouble, ran away from home, never went to college, and now do legal typography. A perfect match.
We get together a few more times, spend hours talking on the phone, and finally, we agree: Before we take this any further, before we become emotionally involved, before we take one more step, we want to seek the Siri Singh Sahib’s counsel. Gurujodha writes a letter to the Siri Singh Sahib telling him that we are considering getting married and asks for his blessing. A phone call comes from his secretary, Nirinjan Kaur, “Siri Ved, the Siri Singh Sahib received a letter from Gurujodha Singh and he wants to talk to you about it. Can you come for an appointment on Friday?” Of course I can.
In the meantime, however, I ask Siri Bhrosa to do some investigating for me. I have realized that I know nothing at all about Gurujodha Singh except for what he has told me. Siri Bhrosa makes some discreet phone calls to people who have lived with him in the past and who know him well, to learn his weaknesses, any problems, anything someone who was thinking of being involved with him should know. She came back with a good report, although with a few prominent difficult points that I am trying not to dwell on. But they eat at me. I decide I can bring these up with the Siri Singh Sahib when I meet with him.
The Siri Singh Sahib has walked me, literally held my hand, through the worst two years of my life. He has seen me stumble, fall, wipe out, disappoint him, betray myself, learn my lessons, and through it all I never doubted his love for me and he never lost sight of my true identity. I had never needed him more. The last time I spoke to him I was once again swearing that I didn’t want to get married again. I was angrily determined to remain alone. So it is quite a leap for me to walk in to see him now and tell him that I want to marry Gurujodha Singh.
Gurujodha has bought some beautiful amethyst geode bookends as a gift for the Siri Singh Sahib. We plan on going in together and are waiting in the ashram to be called for our turn. Finally Nirinjan comes in and asks for me and tells Gurujodha to wait, “He wants to see Siri Ved Kaur first.” What is he going to do? Yell at me again? I cannot bear to have him raise his voice to me again. I don’t know at all what to expect. I try to expect nothing and just accept whatever is to come. Entering the sacred space of his living room, I touch his feet and take the spot in the room that has always been the most comfortable for me, on the floor, just at his feet, a little to the side of his recliner. Our eyes meet and I am helplessly flooded with love for him. The compassion that flows from him washes over me and washes away the burden of guilt I have carried for so long. And he says, “So, you want to marry this man?”
“Yes Sir, I think so.”
He catches the doubt in my reply and shoots back, “So, what have you heard about him?”
I begin to tell him some of what Siri Bhrosa shared with me, “Well, Sir, I have heard that he…”
“Stop. Don’t pay attention to that. Don’t listen to any of that. He is perrrrfect! Where is he?”
At this exact moment, Gurujodha Singh walks in the door. He had been sitting in the ashram and decided he was not going to wait any longer. He went to the side gate and as soon as someone walked out he slipped in and came straight inside, precisely when the Siri Singh Sahib asked for him! He walks right in the door, looking so beautiful and bright, and gives the Siri Singh Sahib our gift, “Sat Nam Sir.” The Siri Singh Sahib then says, “So, it is perfect. You want to get married? Great! Perfect! Do it right away. Tell me the date. I want to be there.”
There is a party tonight at Hari Bhajan Singh’s and Kaur’s house and after taking leave of the Siri Singh Sahib we go straight over there, and happily announce our engagement. Everyone is completely surprised and thrilled; everyone except Ram Das Singh, who says, “The moment I saw the two of you together that day, I knew that was it!
A loud buzzing noise intrudes into my world, literally yanking me out of the sky, where I am flying above the clouds and into the stars, and snaps me forcefully back to earth, to my little apartment on Preuss Road across from Siri Gurbani Sadan (an ashram where several families live together), and to the snug coziness of my comforter. It’s time to wake up for sadhana. I haven’t done sadhana in many months, but things in my life have gotten to a point… divorce, failure at love, peddling harder and faster with work, school at night, my social life and still getting no where… that I have decided to do forty days of morning sadhana. I’m twelve days into it. For the last year I have kept my waking hours so full that I allowed barely a moment for the Universe to speak to me and none at all for my Self to listen. I knew I had to make a change and sadhana is the best way I know.Siri Ved Singh and I have been divorced for almost two years now. I am working at a print shop in West L.A. as a typesetter, mostly for magazines and legal briefs. I’ve been going to school two nights a week at UCLA Extension and just finished the graphic design program. I’ve been through two years of failed relationships… Starting with my divorce from Siri Ved Singh, then a devastating non-affair with a man I thought I loved, and followed by a string of empty relationships that left me feeling, well, empty. Thus, I have now signed off forever from men. I have vowed never to fall in love again, never to trust a man again. I go to the beach to enjoy a sunset by myself and ignore that whining little voice in me that bemoans its loneliness, begging for a daddy, a husband, a man, something male that it must have. I know I have to assert my own wholeness. I don’t want to feel that I need another person. I don’t need anybody.
The Siri Singh Sahib called to me the other day and asked, “So, do you want to be married?”
“No Sir," was my stalwart reply.
“What if I find a nice Italian man for you, like I did for Akasha?”
“I’m really not interested Sir,” I asserted again.
He laughed, “Oh, I can find someone great for you!”
“Maybe I would think about it. Sir, all I want is a boyfriend, someone who can take me to the movies and then I can go home.”
“Not possible.”
“Yes it is.”
“No, it is not.”
“Yes it is. I don’t want to be married. I just want someone to go out with."
“I tell you, it is not possible,” he insisted. “Let Guru Ram Das be your boyfriend.”
“But, Guru Ram Das can’t give me hugs, Sir.”
“Yes he can. He can hug you like you cannot believe!”
I could come up with no other retort. He doesn’t understand. I really don’t want to be married. I don’t ever want to open my heart again. I have been so hurt by men in my life and don’t want to go through that again. I am absolutely fine on my own.
However, the problem is that I have an overwhelming feeling of missing an integral part of myself, of being stuck in a sort of spiritual inertia. Yesterday I was talking to my good friend Guru Simran Singh about this. After gurdwara he came up to me and said, “Siri Ved Kaur, how are you doing?” (He has been such a support to me during all of my divorce and the miserable aftermath).
“God, Guru Simran, I just feel so stuck.”
“Why don’t you pray to Guru Ram Das? Tell him what you want. He’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t know what I want. I feel lost.”
“Well, then just ask him to show you your next step.”
That sounded reasonable enough to me. I spent the afternoon driving around in my silver Corolla coupe, talking aloud to Guru Ram Das (this has always been my most effective way of prayer, driving and talking), pouring out my heart about my life and asking him to please, please reveal to me my next step.
Here I am, still waiting for an answer, getting out of bed at 3:30 in the morning. Dr. Dyal Singh has asked me to lead the yoga set once a week and today is my first day. I lead my favorite set. It’s the one where you raise your legs up and down chanting Ra Ma Ra Ma for 11 minutes. Just when you think you can stand it no more it becomes blissful and you don’t want it to end. The yoga set ends and whoever is leading the meditation is taking over. As much as I love chanting, I decide to lie down and go back to sleep for the meditations. I lie on my sheepskin, snuggled under my blanket, close my eyes, and set myself on “sleep mode” for the next hour.
I am drifting off just as lovely music (is that a harp?) fills the room. It is a harp, and the sound is so gentle, relaxing…. and what is this man’s voice leading the chanting? Already taken by the harp, I am now flooded with the sound of this voice. I feel tingling and whooshing all over; my heart center saturated by this voice… resonating in a most wonderful way. Jolted by the experience, without a moment’s thought or hesitation, I ask my self, “Who is this man?” Then, as clear and pure a voice as you can ever imagine… I don’t know if it’s male or female, simply a pure, clear, strong, true voice… answers, “This is the man you are going to marry.”
The man I am going to marry? Who said that? Did anyone else hear? I don’t hear voices, yet I have never heard a voice so purely real. I spend the remainder of the hour fully awake, still on my back, blissfully listening, meditating, and wondering who that man is leading the chanting. I can tell that Nirankar Singh is playing tabla with him. As soon as the chanting is over and Nirankar walks by me to exit I ask him, “The chanting was so nice today. Who was that leading the meditations?” “Oh, that was Gurujodha Singh.” Gurujodha Singh?? Gurujodha Singh?
I had already, a year ago, gone through the entire list of available men in 3HO and determined that none of them were of any interest to me. I had skipped Gurujodha Singh. I don’t know if I would have considered him. I don’t know him at all. He doesn’t even live in L.A. Where does he live, anyway? I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t want to be married. I don’t need a man. I don’t want a man. With deliberation I shove the whole experience to the back of my brain hoping it will not surface again.
Except, now I seem to see Gurujodha Singh everywhere I go. We don’t talk. I don’t even look at him. I don’t want to give any energy at all to this dream I had. It must have been a dream. I don’t hear voices. Yet, he is at Siri Dharma Kaur’s harmonic convergence party at the Shotokan karate studio. He’s at Gurdwara. He’s leading meditations one day a week, the same day that I lead the yoga. And, unbelievably, on Yogiji’s birthday when it is my turn to lead the long Ek Ong Kars, coincidentally, who sits down next to me for my last half hour (each leader has an hour and the hours overlap for 30 minutes) of chanting? Gurujodha! Who scheduled this?! We lead a half hour together and it is like a bomb of energy has exploded in the room. Everyone is awake and chanting with full spirit and voice. We take off! It’s incredible! I can’t handle this. When my hour is up I go back to my sheepskin and try to focus on chanting. All I notice is that the energy has shifted again. Something special happened when we chanted together. The last straw is, that when Gurujodha finishes his hour (and the chanting is over) he goes to pick up his sheepskin and blanket and they just happen to be the vacant sheepskin and blanket right next to mine.
A few days later and it is Sunday night. I’m sitting at my kitchen table paying some bills. My daughters Avtar and Sat Kartar have come to spend a few days before they go back to New Mexico for school and they are in the living room playing the game "Life." The phone rings. I let it ring a few times more and then pick it up saying, “Sat Nam.” And a man’s voice, one so familiar it frightens me, replies, “Sat Nam Siri Ved Kaur. This is Gurujodha Singh.”
My stomach falls through the floor. I have made a point to not look at this man, not give him any energy. We have never spoken to each other in our lives or even made eye contact. Why is he calling me? I know why he is calling me. No I don’t. Yes I do. No, I don’t. Yes, I do and that’s why my stomach has fallen into the floor. I am trying to pull myself together.
He continues, “Siri Ved, I just came back from New Mexico. I was visiting Awtar Singh in Albuquerque for a few days [Awtar is the guardian of the boarding children who attend Amritsar Academy in Albuquerque] and saw your daughters there. They’re beautiful. I talked to your daughter Sat Kartar and met your younger one, Avtar, too.”
“Oh, that’s so nice,” I reply, trying to sound polite and not reveal my anxiety at his call.
“I went to Albuquerque because I needed to get away from L.A. [I can certainly understand that] and think clearly. And that’s why I am calling. [Oh no, what’s he going to say? Why is he calling? What was he thinking about?] I have strong intuition, and it’s always right. But I have been fighting it. I can’t fight it anymore so I will just come out and say it. Whenever I meditate I hear a voice, and it says, ‘What about Siri Ved Kaur?’”
I am completely freaking out. All of my organs drop to the floor, joining my stomach there in a helpless mass.
He concludes, “I can’t deny it anymore. I know it is right. Siri Ved Kaur, what do you think about the possibility of a marriage partnership?”
This is the first conversation I have ever had with this man, a man who, according to a voice I heard a few days ago, is going to be my husband, and he is asking me to marry him. This is more than I can deal with and I feel as though hurled into an alternate universe. There is an audible silence when it is my turn to speak. With every ounce of self-control I can muster, I gather myself and politely respond, “Gurujodha, first of all, let me just say that it must have taken so much courage for you to call and ask me that and I respect so much that you could do that. Really. But I am sort of under the Siri Singh Sahib’s wing right now and he has told me he would find someone for me [I dare not add that I basically told the Siri Singh Sahib he could forget such a plan] and I am really under his guidance right now. I think you should put this idea aside for now and wait and see what happens.” Gurujodha has a disappointed tone to his voice as he agrees to this and the conversation ends. I sleep little this night.
Two days later I run into Siri Bhrosa Kaur on the sidewalk outside my apartment and for the first time I tell someone the whole story, about the sadhana experience, the avoiding him yet running into him everywhere, and about the phone call Sunday night. She is my ages-old sister who is supposed to set me straight, keep me on track, and not let me run off on one of my wild tangents. So, I am completely taken aback when she excitedly replies, “Siri Ved! That’s great! That’s so great! Gurujodha is great! He’s a good friend with Kirtan Singh too. He’s a martial artist. He’s so dharmic. And, he’s got a great body! This is so perfect!!!”
What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she see that I need reining in? Why is she saying these things? And then it hits me. My God, she could be right. She is probably right. She is right. And I have left no door open for Gurujodha to contact me again. I basically have closed the door in his face. I spiral downward, recognizing that I have totally screwed this up.
However, Gurujodha did give me his office phone number. I decide on Friday morning, after much tossing and turning, to call him. I hope to get his answering machine and leave a message and then if he still wants to he can call me back.
However, his actual real voice answers the phone and I feel that familiar flush of energy spread through my body; my heart takes a leap. I don’t even know this man. Stop feeling this way! Just tell him what you’ve decided! So, I do. “Sat Nam, Gurujodha Singh? This is Siri Ved Kaur. I just want to let you know that I’ve thought about what you said the other night and I am open to discussing it.” And he says, “Outstanding!” with such appreciation and happiness, I am thrilled and devastated. This is too real. We talk a little and agree to talk again in a few days.
Sunday I go to gurdwara and see him there. Oh God. I cannot look at him. If even one person sees us talking or looking at each other God knows the rumors will start. I cannot acknowledge our non-relationship in public. I have suffered so much gossip in the last two years; I cannot bear any more. I avoid him entirely, do not even once look his way, and as soon as gurdwara is over I immediately leave and begin to walk up Preuss Road, heading home. To my greatest chagrin and delight, I hear Gurujodha’s voice call out behind me, “Siri Ved! Wait up! Let me walk you home.” So he does. We walk the three blocks, chatting about this and that. I am so shy to say anything. As we get to my door Ram Das Singh, who lives at Siri Gurubani Sadan, sees us and flashes a knowing smile. What the hell does he think he knows? He knows nothing! There is nothing to know! We talk a little more and agree to get together the following weekend.
The next Saturday arrives and so does Gurujodha, with a beautiful bouquet of flowers in hand. I was married for fourteen years and never once did my husband give me flowers. So, some ice is definitely melting here. We have plans to go on a hike and I take him to one of my favorite hiking trails, the Santa Ynez Canyon trail head in the Palisades, and we hike through beautiful forest and stream up high to the mammoth rock that stands over the canyon. We perch ourselves up there, a most beautiful crisp California day, sun pouring down, breeze blowing. I have a history with this rock, and the history is blown away in the wind. We are talking. We are talking about marriage. What we want in marriage. We talk some about our failed marriages and a little of what we went through after our divorces. Since divorce we have each been in love with someone else and have had that relationship painfully fail. We each want a spiritually founded marriage. We each come from completely different backgrounds and cultures. He is African American, I am white American. He went to the best private schools and finest colleges, was student body president, an athlete, is an attorney… I was gifted, but did poorly in school, had more than my share of trouble, ran away from home, never went to college, and now do legal typography. A perfect match.
We get together a few more times, spend hours talking on the phone, and finally, we agree: Before we take this any further, before we become emotionally involved, before we take one more step, we want to seek the Siri Singh Sahib’s counsel. Gurujodha writes a letter to the Siri Singh Sahib telling him that we are considering getting married and asks for his blessing. A phone call comes from his secretary, Nirinjan Kaur, “Siri Ved, the Siri Singh Sahib received a letter from Gurujodha Singh and he wants to talk to you about it. Can you come for an appointment on Friday?” Of course I can.
In the meantime, however, I ask Siri Bhrosa to do some investigating for me. I have realized that I know nothing at all about Gurujodha Singh except for what he has told me. Siri Bhrosa makes some discreet phone calls to people who have lived with him in the past and who know him well, to learn his weaknesses, any problems, anything someone who was thinking of being involved with him should know. She came back with a good report, although with a few prominent difficult points that I am trying not to dwell on. But they eat at me. I decide I can bring these up with the Siri Singh Sahib when I meet with him.
The Siri Singh Sahib has walked me, literally held my hand, through the worst two years of my life. He has seen me stumble, fall, wipe out, disappoint him, betray myself, learn my lessons, and through it all I never doubted his love for me and he never lost sight of my true identity. I had never needed him more. The last time I spoke to him I was once again swearing that I didn’t want to get married again. I was angrily determined to remain alone. So it is quite a leap for me to walk in to see him now and tell him that I want to marry Gurujodha Singh.
Gurujodha has bought some beautiful amethyst geode bookends as a gift for the Siri Singh Sahib. We plan on going in together and are waiting in the ashram to be called for our turn. Finally Nirinjan comes in and asks for me and tells Gurujodha to wait, “He wants to see Siri Ved Kaur first.” What is he going to do? Yell at me again? I cannot bear to have him raise his voice to me again. I don’t know at all what to expect. I try to expect nothing and just accept whatever is to come. Entering the sacred space of his living room, I touch his feet and take the spot in the room that has always been the most comfortable for me, on the floor, just at his feet, a little to the side of his recliner. Our eyes meet and I am helplessly flooded with love for him. The compassion that flows from him washes over me and washes away the burden of guilt I have carried for so long. And he says, “So, you want to marry this man?”
“Yes Sir, I think so.”
He catches the doubt in my reply and shoots back, “So, what have you heard about him?”
I begin to tell him some of what Siri Bhrosa shared with me, “Well, Sir, I have heard that he…”“Stop. Don’t pay attention to that. Don’t listen to any of that. He is perrrrfect! Where is he?”
At this exact moment, Gurujodha Singh walks in the door. He had been sitting in the ashram and decided he was not going to wait any longer. He went to the side gate and as soon as someone walked out he slipped in and came straight inside, precisely when the Siri Singh Sahib asked for him! He walks right in the door, looking so beautiful and bright, and gives the Siri Singh Sahib our gift, “Sat Nam Sir.” The Siri Singh Sahib then says, “So, it is perfect. You want to get married? Great! Perfect! Do it right away. Tell me the date. I want to be there.”
There is a party tonight at Hari Bhajan Singh’s and Kaur’s house and after taking leave of the Siri Singh Sahib we go straight over there, and happily announce our engagement. Everyone is completely surprised and thrilled; everyone except Ram Das Singh, who says, “The moment I saw the two of you together that day, I knew that was it!
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