To be here is IMMENSE: A Memoir

She spent decades shopping for God. Then she fell in love. Part spiritual adventure, part passionate love story, and razor-sharp memoir, To Be Here Is Immense follows one woman's fearless search for meaning through ambition, addiction, activism, ecstatic devotion, and devastating loss. Raised in the violence of a working-class existence, Clare Simons grows into a fiercely independent woman with an irrepressible sense of humor, a skeptical mind, and an unrelenting hunger for what is true. From Manhattan's glittering ambitions to California's spiritual marketplaces, she spends decades testing every promise of transformation—while refusing easy answers. Then she meets Amma, the Hugging Saint. But every time Clare thinks she's found the answer, life asks a better question. A great man woos her with laughter, intelligence, and glorious, rock-star passion. Their romance culminates in a seven-minute Hindu wedding officiated by their guru.