2 Nelson residents among missing in India attacks

ADIAL - Two Nelson County residents who were visiting Mumbai, India, have gone missing after the terrorist attacks there that left more than 100 dead.

The Synchronicity Foundation, a spiritual group headquartered in Nelson, was hosting a meditation program at the Oberoi Hotel, one of the sites hit in the attacks. Eight Nelson County residents were there.

Alan Scherr, 58, and his daughter Naomi Scherr, 13, have been unaccounted for ever since the terrorists burst into a restaurant in the hotel, said Bobbie Garvey, the group’s vice president. The Scherrs live at the Synchronicity monastery near Wintergreen resort.

Garvey said six other Nelson County residents were in Mumbai for the program, but were not injured: Patty and Phil Duncan of Nellysford, Lisa Barizilay of Nellysford, Amy Venezian of Afton, Ben Radtke and Charles Cannon.

Cannon, the group’s founder and spiritual leader, and Radtke live at the monastery.

Garvey said that according to Cannon, three witnesses said that they saw Alan Scherr “go down.” Garvey, who said she’s been in contact with some of the group’s members by phone, would not elaborate.

Synchronicity’s Web site states that “several eyewitness accounts report the two being shot in the restaurant and they are feared dead.”

On Thursday afternoon, much of the city was on lockdown and authorities were still dealing with some hostage situations, making it unclear when the group will be able to return home.

“It’s not to that point where we can start to make those arrangements,” said Garvey, who did not go on the trip. “As soon as we get everyone out of the [the hotel], then we can start making arrangements.”

“I’m hoping that will be tonight.”

Cannon founded the Synchronicity monastery in Nelson County in 1983. In the decade before that, he studied Eastern philosophy in India and became a Vedic monk. Vedic philosophy is tied closely to Hindu sacred writings.

Cannon’s teachings incorporate technology, using music and vibrations to generate “authentic meditation,” Garvey said.

On 450 acres near Nellysford, the group built the Shrine of the Heart Synchronicity Sanctuary. The group has 12 monks who live on the monastery and about 30 members of the Synchronicity “secular community” who live nearby, Garvey said. The movement has thousands of members in other locations, she said.

Cannon’s role as spiritual leader takes him around the world, teaching seminars in spirituality and meditation. Often when he makes trips to India, “members of our community always say, we want to go and see what India’s all about,” Garvey said.

When Cannon scheduled his current trip to India, 25 members of the Synchronicity community, not all of them from Nelson County, signed up to go.

“They were having a wonderful time” visiting shrines and sacred sites, Garvey said. “Until the terrorists showed up.”

The attacks began after dark, hitting two luxury hotels, including the Oberoi, which was hosting Cannon’s program, an airport, railway station and sites popular with tourists. Up to 16 groups attacked nine sites, according to the Associated Press.

Naomi Scherr’s mother lives at the monastery and did not go on the trip, Garvey said.

Five of the members involved are Australian, four Canadian, and 16 American, Garvey said.

Two of the Canadian members of the group and two women from Tennessee were shot but were not killed.

Intelligence officials told the Associated Press that it is not clear who carried out the well-planned attacks, although a previously unknown group calling itself Deccan Mujahideen said it was responsible.