New York City

September 12, 2001

I thought people here might be interested in

my impressions of life in New York yesterday.

If people think this topic is inappropriate for

the list, please tell me and I won't do it again.

Yesterday I took the subway to Manhattan and walked

around for several hours. I wanted to experience

the feeling of community that springs up when a

disaster occurs. I expected to find strangers

talking to each other with the feeling that we are

all in this thing together. I also wanted to see

the disaster and visit a hospital to donate blood.

In the afternoon my local subway line was working

so I went to Times Square, the center of

Manhattan. The train was delayed and people began

to talk. I expected them to talk about the

disaster, but mostly they talked about the delay.

One woman was going to her office to work. I said

that surely the office is closed. She said she is

responsible for something at work and she has to

go and unfortunately she can't call them for a

reason that I didn't understand. She seemed to be

an intelligent, capable, mature person who was

acting irrationally.

Three men including the subway driver were

standing at the front of the train talking

animatedly about the delay. I mentioned the World

Trade Center, and for a moment they talked about

it. But then the conversation shifted to an

earthquake in Greece that one of the men had

witnessed. It was as if the World Trade Center

itself was too big a topic.

Everybody was cheerful. There was no sense of

disaster.

Nobody talked about who might have done it, or

what the government might do in response, or how

life in the United States will change, or how many

people had died, or anything of that kind.

While we talked, the plume of smoke was visible

through the train windows (we were stopped on an

elevated track).

I reached Times Square, the heart of Manhattan.

Manhattan is an island and the mayor had closed

all the bridges and tunnels. Police everwhere.

There was no traffic on most streets, and people

were using them as pedestrian malls. It was a

beautiful day. People were strolling, smiling,

pointing into store windows, just enjoying a

beautiful day. The smoke from the burning

buildings was visible in the sky, but almost

nobody was looking at it.

The sense of community that I anticipated did not

exist. Nobody was talking to other people. It was

like an ordinary holiday.

Maybe people didn't realize yet how large this

event was. The world's superpower is now at war,

a war of a new kind, and large events will follow.

Maybe people realize that things have changed too

fast for their ideas to keep up, and so they keep

quiet.

Or maybe it was because many of the people were

tourists from other countries visiting the United

States. It's hard to tell whether people are

visitors or residents because so many New York

residents come from other countries.

I walked south toward the World Trade Center (it

was at the southern tip of the island). The mayor

had barricaded the island from west to east at

Houston Street. This in itself was incredible

because the barricade was several miles long, a

solid barrier of sawhorses and police. Now

finally I encountered other New Yorkers who had

walked or bicycled or roller-bladed to this place

to see the disaster for themselves. Houston

Street was being used as a staging area for heavy

construction equipment. Small crowds stood on the

sidewalks watching. They were quiet. There was

little or no conversation except for the police

imploring people, "Please get out of the street.

You can't stand here."

At almost every corner there was a police

barricade, but the police were disorganized and

didn't seem sure which way foot traffic should be

permitted to pass. By zigzagging from block to

block, taking advantage of the inconsistent rules,

I was able to walk west to the river. The largest

crowd of observers stood here staring at the plume

of smoke, which was now just a few blocks away.

Standing and staring. Nobody was talking. Many

people seemed cheerful.

I say police, but most of these people were

students from the police academy. They wore

bulletproof vests and baseball caps. Some of

them came from relatively obscure city agencies

like the Sheriff's department. Obviously, every

possible city worker had been mobilized.

During the whole time I walked around Manhattan, I

didn't see a single moving ambulance. Clearly,

living people were not being found.

The most moving sight was in the large playground

at the corner of Sixth and Houston. Hundreds of

men in blue overalls sat in folding chairs. They

were gardeners, maintenance workers for one of the

large city projects. Somebody was giving them

instructions through a bullhorn. They were about

to put on face masks and drive their half-ton

trucks to the World Trade Center and search for

bodies. Yesterday, these middle-aged men were

gardeners. Today they are heroes.

I walked north to Saint Vincent's hospital, the

closest hospital to the disaster. About a hundred

people in green surgical scrubs sat in folding

chairs in front of the entrance. I don't know if

they were workers waiting for patients or patients

who had lost their clothing. I couldn't get close

enough to ask. Nobody seemed to have any work to

do. Two ambulances were parked. They didn't have

anything to do either.

Lots of people in various kinds of uniforms stood

around. It was apparent that they had come from

the disaster site because their shoes and pants

were covered with white dust. They had grim

facial expressions. It was clear from their faces

that they had seen something terrible but I didn't

talk to them.

It was odd how nobody was talking. That's my

biggest impression overall. Nobody was talking.

Nobody could donate blood because blood collection

wouldn't start until the next day, even though the media

have been begging people to donate blood. Reminded

me of the old World War II joke that the army is

organized on the principle, "Hurry up and wait."

Well, it makes sense. It's easy for an official

to say "We need blood" at a press conference, and

easy for the media to report it, but it's much

harder for the hospitals to organized a program to

collect it.

September 12, 2001

om namo bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Dear Sri Rob,

Your mail of yesterday talked of maya with which we

are in love. Today your exploration into talking maya

gave new experiences. I would have done the same thing

today if I were NY.

When there was a serial Bomb blast in March 1993, in

the city of Mumbai, I was in Hampton, Va. My family

was then in Mumbai.( I live in Mumbai now.) I got

reports from my family then that everybody went about

their work from the next day onwards as though nothing

had happened, though the death toll was a few

thousands then.(No comparison to the current tragedy

though) Surprisingly, though many of these terrorists

involved in the bomb blasts were identified they are

resident VIPs in a neighboring country.

As a student I had a great fascination for a poem of

Henry David Thoreau. I have given below the first

paragraph of that poem.

"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

By a chance bond together,

Dangling this way and that, their links

Were made so loose and wide,

Methinks,

For milder weather."

I now realize that it is no chance bond. Nor is it

loose and wide. The knot is so strong, holds my vanity

so firmly together and is weather proof. And calamity

proof. What a maya!

I have the strong faith that it is certainly not

Ramana proof.

I pray to Bhagavan Sri Ramana to strike at the very

root of this vanity.

May we all merge in that Glory of Ramana.

namo ramaNA

Yours in Sri Bhagavan,

suri

--- Rob Sacks wrote:-----------------