Nelson spiritual leader recalls Mumbai attack

FABER — Adorned in orange and sitting in a wooden arm chair, Master Charles Cannon serenely described the two days of horror he lived through at Mumbai’s Oberoi Hotel.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said Cannon, founder and spiritual director of the Synchronicity Foundation, a spiritual group based in Nelson County.

Speaking Tuesday in front of a painting of the foundation’s revered “Divine Feminine,” Cannon, who was not injured during last week’s three-day terrorist attack on Mumbai, described the chaos at the Oberoi while he was barricaded in his room for 45 hours. After listening to gunshots and grenades explode throughout the hotel, Cannon saw blood and bodies strewn across the floor, scattered pieces of broken glass and damage from smoke and flooding.

Two of the Nelson group’s members, 58-year-old Alan Scherr, a meditation teacher and astrologer, and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, were victims of the 10 gunmen who killed at least 172 people. The 239 injured included four foundation members: Michael Rudder, of Montreal; Rudrani Devi and Linda Ragsdale, both of Nashville, Tenn.; and Helen Connolly of Toronto.

“It was like a bombed-out war zone,” Cannon recalled at the foundation’s headquarters near Faber.

Cannon said he last saw the Scherrs not long before the attacks that started last Wednesday — just as Alan Scherr left Cannon’s room to get something to eat with his daughter after the group’s program had ended for the evening.

“Shortly thereafter we heard loud gunshots,” he said.

After Cannon barricaded his door with furniture, thick smoke pervaded his hotel room so quickly that he had to break the window’s thick glass to not suffocate.

“We huddled there, sucking air for survival,” he said.

The Scherrs, who were participating in a religious pilgrimage with roughly 25 others, were both shot in the hotel’s lobby cafe. Once the assault had ended and Indian police secured the building, Cannon, who was covered in soot and had not eaten for nearly two days, was asked to identify bodies. In the cafe, he found the foundation’s two victims under a table, facing each other with their outstretched arms overlapping.

“Time just stopped,” he said.

Kia Scherr, the wife and mother of the victims, said Tuesday that she last spoke with her daughter and husband on Nov. 23 and 24. “They were enjoying each day to the fullest,” she said.

Scherr did not participate in the pilgrimage to India, and was in Florida last week with her two adult sons when she heard the news that her husband and daughter had been killed. The trip to India was Naomi’s first ever and Alan’s third this year.

The family had lived at the foundation’s 450-acre complex tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains for more than a decade.

Cannon, a disciple of Indian Swami Muktananda, established the Synchronicity Foundation in 1983. Its complex includes a monastery, living quarters for about 30 and a community building.

The slayings of the two Central Virginia residents have led to an outpouring of support here and abroad. The Chabad House at the University of Virginia will hold a memorial service at 7 tonight for those slain in the Mumbai terror attacks. A teach-in on issues surrounding the attacks will also be held at 5 p.m. today at UVa’s Newcomb Hall Art Gallery.

Cannon said a memorial service for the Scherrs is being planned, but no arrangements have been announced. A Web site established Friday in memory of the Scherrs, http://www.alanandnaomi.com, had more than 850 messages as of Tuesday evening, which Kia Scherr said shows people’s faith in humanity and their unified support.

“That’s where humanity is one,” Scherr said, adding that she does not condemn the terrorists. “We must send them our love, forgiveness and compassion,” she said.