When I rejoined the Centre, I was determined to be a good disciple. I got a programming job in Newport Beach. I studied advanced topics in computer science at UC Irvine. I rented a condo for seven-hundred-twenty-five dollars per month, based on Rama's suggestion in Boulder. I worked hard, meditated deeply, and stole three eggs from a supermarket after Rama hiked the tuition again.
Rama treated me with kindness. Perhaps he believed that this time I was really with him. He invited me to his house. He invited me to the desert. He invited me to partake in his chemical experiments.
Roughly one hundred fifty miles southeast of the beaches of Orange County, in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, was a peak called Split Mountain. More than thirty miles away, by the edge of the park, was Casa Del Zorro, a cottage-renting resort catering to the upper middle class. Here, Rama divined, was a good place to drop acid in a group.
During the drive to Casa Del Zorro, a fast-food restaurant triggered a flashback of Rama giving Sal and me LSD and taking us to MacDonald's. "Whatever you do," Rama had said, "don't order a strawberry shake!" Rama and Sal proceeded to repeat the warning as if it were a mantra. Perhaps the drug magnified my sensitivity to the way Sal parroted Rama. Perhaps it magnified my sense of independence. Perhaps I was not in the mood for chocolate or vanilla. I stumbled to the counter and ordered a strawberry shake. It was delicious. Rama and Sal looked at me disapprovingly. I couldn't have cared less.
The memory of the MacDonald's trip made me smile. Later, as I approached Casa Del Zorro, I had a flashback of Rama giving me acid at his home in Malibu. I had been sitting on a rug in the living room. A Beatles record played. ("You never give me your money... ") Rama entered the room.
"How are you doing, kid?" he asked.
"Not so good." I had been thinking about money. The world of my finances had appeared as menacing walls of debt that were surrounding and closing in on me. I felt miserable. Tears formed. I told Rama what I was going through.
"Listen to the words of the song," he said. ("Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go... ") "See, kid? Nowhere to go."
I gazed at the floor.
"You need to take time and rethink your life," he went on. "Somehow you got entrenched in the dark side. But life does not have to be that way. Life can be wonderful."
Typically, I would have felt elated by the attention he was giving me. It had been years since we were close. But through hallucinating eyes he seemed distant and small, and his attempt to cheer me up made me feel worse.
"Why don't you go jump in the pool," he finally said. Years before, in La Jolla, he had often suggested "Pool Therapy" as a way to douse the flames of a conflict burning within. In Malibu, as in La Jolla, my woes soon diffused among ripples from the impact of one hand slapping.
I played in the shallow end during that LSD trip until Rama asked Sal, who was not tripping, to drive me home. When we arrived at my apartment I felt lucid, creative, fearless. I started to say whatever popped into my mind. Sal looked surprised. He looked at me as if I were someone else.
Sal offered to take me for a walk. With my arms dangling and torso bent, I moved like an injured ape. But gradually I slouched with Sal's support down the hill to the beach.
"Look, Mark," said Sal. "There's the ocean."
I looked to the frozen snapshot of the sea. I blinked and the waves rolled closer—then they froze again. Then I saw whales diving and breaching in slow motion. I found myself among them. We swam together. We spoke a silent language I thought I never knew. I felt complete. They accepted me.
"Are you okay?" asked Sal, holding me up.
I longed for the freedom to roam. I longed for the support of community. I looked to the sea, but the whales were gone.
Later that day I overheard Sal say to Rama, "You know, Mark is really bright."
"Of course he is," Rama replied, snapping his fingers. "He's quick."
I appreciated the compliment. But I wondered, "How could I be bright and quick if I was also possessed and non-functional?"
The memory of the Malibu trip was fresh on my mind when I arrived in the Anza Borrego Desert and approached Casa Del Zorro. Soon I sat waiting in the cottage with Sal, Bill, and Al. Rama arrived late. He looked doughy faced and haggard. He said he was stressed out and exhausted. Perhaps he was in more of a rut than we were.
Rama distributed the stamps. Later he drove us to the top of a hill where he had us watch him. At some point I threw up. My awareness that I was me faded in and out. Behind my opened or closed lids flashed continuous, multi-colored explosions. From the chaos formed a spot, and the spot became shapes, and the shapes became symbols. I startled myself when I realized that I had been gazing in my mind's eye at the word "eliot." Perhaps, as the rug of my ordinary perception was wrenched out from under me, I needed something solid, such as my middle name, to hold on to.
I found myself sitting in the cottage, observing the way in which I thought about my thoughts. I noticed that my thoughts arrived in the form of words. I could read and understand them, or I could hide from them and let them pass. When Rama started to speak, his words were tightly packed, and it was difficult to hide. He talked for what seemed an eternity. Hours later, when Rama decided to drop acid—which he may not have done since the early '70s—I had for the most part come down from my trip.
Roughly forty-five minutes after Rama took the drug, he called me into his room. He lay in bed. His hair was messy. His face was contorted. He seemed disturbed. "Is it okay?" he asked meekly.
"It's okay, Rama," I said.
"Are you sure?"
I looked at him tossing and turning. I remembered how he had repeatedly knocked me down psychologically, helped me, and knocked me down again. I remembered how he had often told me that revenge was worth waiting for. I had the sudden urge to help him up—and knock him down. But my anger quickly dissipated when I realized that trembling before me lay not ruthless Rama, but rather the shell of a thirty-four-year-old man named Fred Lenz.
"I'm sure," I said.
I had an idea. "A beautiful, blue bird is here, Rama," I whispered. Birds, I knew, were something he genuinely loved.
He looked confused.
"Yes, it's a beautiful, blue bird, and it's large and friendly, and it's flying all around—there it goes! Rama, don't you *see* it?"
He followed my finger with his eyes as if he were *seeing* the imaginary bird, and soon he fell asleep with a smile across his face.
As he slept, I thought about what had just happened. An incarnation of God, I realized, would not have had a bad LSD trip. Rama was not who he said he was. He was not one of twelve fully enlightened souls on the planet. He was an ordinary man, he was vulnerable, and I wanted to believe he was my friend.
After about thirty minutes, Rama awoke. He lifted his quivering hands above his head. "Did you *see* that?" he asked.
"See what, Rama?"
"I am filling the room with light. The powers are cycling through me. I am reattaining enlightenment."
"Uh-oh," I thought. "Here we go again."
Rama seemed utterly fascinated by his hands, which he wiggled and waved in front of his face.
An uneasy feeling permeated my gut. I recalled the aftermath of his last enlightenment. "Just because he believes that he's perfect," I thought, "why should I suffer?" I recalled a few of his more outlandish claims. He had lectured a doctor about the nature of illness: "Disease is merely the result of a difference in vibrations." He had taken credit when his father survived a coronary bypass operation. He had taken credit when disciples got decent jobs.
I now realized that if I were to remain a disciple, I would need to humor myself about Rama's claims—lest I rekindle the debilitating conflict between my rational and mystical natures. I had the impression that Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters kept a sense of humor about their experiments, and I wondered how they might deal with someone afflicted with Rama's particular brand of enlightenment. I recalled reading in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test that one prankster often said: "Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!"
"That's it," I decided. "When Rama starts getting out there, I'll say to myself, 'Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!'"
At that moment, Rama raised his arms again. "Do you *see* it?" he quavered.
"I *see* it, Rama. Golden light is filling the room." ("Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!" I thought.)
Rama waited for me to continue describing the Light which I did, and though I was lying and probably fanning the flame, I supposed this would beat an ongoing dark night of the soul.
Rama now looked directly into my eyes. I could not recall him doing so, except during lectures and meditations, since 1981. "We used to be friends," he murmured. "What happened?"
"Rama, I don't know."
"Should there be any problems between us?" he asked.
I felt that this was Fred trying to break through, and I struggled to hold back the tears.
"You and I used to be friends," he continued. "But then something happened. We should be friends. Would you like that?"
"Yes, Rama."
He smiled at me with big, puppy eyes.
I told him that Sal, Bill, Al, and I had maintained a high consciousness earlier that day, before he arrived. "We talked about what we hoped to gain from the power drug, Rama. It was as if we were spiritual warriors."
Rama looked at me resolutely. "You are spiritual warriors," he said. Then he lay back down and fell asleep. I felt happy and self-confident.
When Rama awoke, he turned to me and said, "You are okay. You are on the net."
"On the what?"
"The net. The network. The psychic energy network."
"Really?" ("Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!")
"Yes."
Rama, who wanted to see who else was on the net, hobbled out to the living room where Sal and Al quietly sat.
"Are you on the net?" Rama asked them.
"Yes," replied Sal, who had always been adept at learning rules to new games.
Rama looked at him suspiciously, when suddenly the phone rang. It was Dana. Rama told her that she was on the net, seeing as how she had called at so auspicious a moment. "So," he told her, "it's me, you, Mark, and Sal... " He paused and said, "Sure, Mark is on the net. He's quick like mercury. He's right there."
I realized it was less a network than it was Rama's net, but I was happy because the man I had once been friends with was back. I was also happy because my conflict-diffusing strategy seemed to be working.
The following morning, I greeted Rama.
He squinted his eyes and looked away.
"Is anything the matter?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," he answered, haughtily. "I know all about it."
"About what? I thought we were friends."
"Oh, sure," he replied. "I know all about that part of you. That's the part that wants to control me."
"Rama," I said, looking him squarely in the eye. "You have two very different sides. And I like the other one better."
In the weeks that followed, Rama mostly ignored me until he uprooted the four hundred or so disciples from southern California to the suburbs of Boston. At the last meeting in Beverly Hills, he called me to the stage, put his hand on my forehead, and said, "The Infinite is naming you Agni."
The entry in my journal for the following day, April 4th, 1985, reads, "yea! got my spiritual name... AGNI... Fire... Breaker of Illusions... Vision... Third Eye... Now, everything is totally fresh & new... I feel good."
I liked the name. It represented the spiritual progress I had made despite the difficulties of the past few years. As I caravanned across America in Rama's group, the new name boosted my confidence.
It was springtime in New England. Rama rented a large house in Needham, Massachusetts, and held Centre meetings in a church in Boston. Many disciples followed his suggestion and moved to Concord, Lincoln, or Wellesley. I moved to Wayland.
One day I bought a copy of Walden by Henry David Thoreau. My journal entry for June 15th, 1985, reads, "Economics chapter in Walden... didn't provide any answers, but caused me to ask questions which lead to a variety of possibilities... "
One question I asked myself was: how can I pay off my debt? One solution I came up with was: commute to work by bicycle. The entry continues, "By driving to a free lot in Arlington, parking, and bicycling the remaining 7-8 miles... save $100/month; instill spirit back in me; get exercise & strength; pass Harvard & MIT daily for brain power; bike around Boston lunch time. meet girls at Faneuil Hall; be independent, mobile, self-reliant!"
The following day I bought a used three-speed for forty-five dollars and put the plan into effect. Each weekday I parked in a free lot, pedaled several miles along the Charles River, and braved downtown traffic as I sped to work, which was located two blocks from the site of the Boston Tea Party. I began to think of myself not as Rama's disciple, but as a bicyclist. On June 29th, 1985, I wrote, "i am a bicyclist. that is my nature. swift. light. strong & sure. motion. speed. agility. pivotable. flexible. colorful. self-propelled. motivated. bad forces beware. i am back. and i'm riding high. that's me. Agni. free spirit. go, now. and do not look back."
It felt good to be pursuing a dream of my own. But I sensed that Rama would equate my project with the Negative Forces, so I chose not to tell him about the daily commutes and my newfound esteem.
Perhaps as a result of my new, street-wise sense of self, I grew increasingly critical of Rama. Another entry for June reads, "What really pisses me off is that Rama changes everything he says, contradicts himself, turns a situation around completely—so you never have a handle on him."
The following week, Rama invited me to a group LSD trip at his house. On July 7th, 1985, I wrote, "... may be a picnic [LSD trip] tomorrow at Rama's. my intent is: to change my view of reality completely, with particular attention given toward: *becoming someone who has a girlfriend, *becoming my own person, i.e., my happiness & well-being is not hinged upon the absence (parents) or presence (Rama)(girlfriend) of any person(s)... to regain my kinship with the earth... to renew my excitement in life, to regain my integrity, self-reliance and confidence... "
The next day Rama distributed drug-soaked stamps to ten or so followers in his living room. He let us wander around the house. Hours later, he called us to the living room and began to talk. And talk. And talk. I tried to understand how his words were affecting us. I thought in terms of computers. I decided that he had rebooted us with LSD and now, as we were coming down, he was downloading his wordy operating system to our unformatted, receptive minds.
"He's formatting us like floppy disks!" I thought. I was about to plug my ears with my fingers when suddenly I remembered that I had brought my journal. I retrieved it and sat back down. Rama was still talking. In the upper right hand corner of the page, where I typically included the date, I wrote, "**timeless". I was still high. Then I wrote, "... the basic Agni Operating System: boot: breath deeply 2x. Take your time. where is your stomache... who has control of it? NOTE: nothing else matters. who ever is letting or not letting you take deep breaths of air—>if this is someone other than me, eliminate them. you breathe. You take it ez. get good exercise. Learn ANYTHING at a pace healthy for you! So, 2 traps to avoid: 1) other people... who live my life (not me living my life); 2) people trying to help me, but i take it wrong (due to #1). whatever TRIP you're on, remember breathing. remember who you are... never look to others to patch... Agni... You must be strong... even now, i am drawing upon a very healthy basic energy that supports me. That so is good. But over the last 7 years, i have been always rushing to meet someone else's gap. No thanx... Everyone is the same. Some people think they are special. No... "
Rama was talking about American Indians. "They weave people's attention," he said, "to help sell their products."
I wrote, "always be moving ON YOUR OWN STEAM! accept NO substitutes. everything has power. some things are good, others not."
Rama asked what I was doing.
"I'm writing in my journal," I replied.
"What have you written?"
I read the last few sentences aloud.
"Some things have more power than others," he editorialized. Then he began talking about me. He spoke about how, when I had lived with him, I made shakes in the blender with all kinds of "strange" ingredients.
"Why did Agni make these shakes?" he asked the disciples.
No one answered.
"One," he continued, "there was power to them. Two, to attract attention. Three, this boy is an asshole."
I wrote, "Asshole," and drew a circle around the word. Then I wrote, "ok but it is me. so, fine."
A few minutes later Rama said, "Fake obvious things fool everybody." Then he said, "Humans are continually knocking on your door. As long as they are alive, they try and suck your power. You need to get strategic and learn to intensely dislike them. Cut them. Push them away—anything to get them to fuck off."
I wrote, "cold."
About an hour later, Rama had us watch The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai on the VCR. I sat several feet back from the group. After the movie Rama announced, "Someone is way off. Can anyone see who it is?"
The disciples glanced at me.
"Of course, you all know that it's Agni. Now what's the matter, baby?"
I told him that things in my life were not working out. I told him that I needed to try something new.
"If you wish to leave, please don't bring everyone else down."
"Sorry, Rama."
When I got home, I wrote, "good. i feel much better already. keep breathing. slow. keep remembering Mark Eliot, is the breather. Before he met any of these people he was the breather; so too after. Before he dreamed himself into a don Juan/CC [Carlos Castaneda] world extravagansa... Fred—he's cool. But he was formatted improperly by a bad occultist. Simple. He also wanted to be a Guru, told me so in a UCSD parking lot. But cool guy. Powerful attention level. Controls every situation impeccably. cares about others what seems to be an enormous amount. Yet detached. cold. warm. whatever he was projecting. A master illusionist. Created/s dreams & realities with the flick of a wrist. This has not been healthy for me. 7 years occult training school has wiped me. Nothing wrong with it—taught by an impeccable 8th degree Black belt; only, I don't handle it too well. So, I recognize i tried something, and it didn't work. I have the humility to realize that it isn't working for me. And for God sakes, try new things in your life, as FDR says. But Fred is definitely bent out of shape. 'Let your hate grow,' devil ref's, paranoia... Not to blame him. Had weak 1st attention as a kid. Dad... Teacher bent. Important: i believe that the good side of Fred respects what I am doing & wishes me well. i have no desire to speak or see anyone with whom I didn't know 7 1/2 years ago... Still coming down, here, from 3 hits of 6-7?th Acid trip. Good thing. boy does that stuff make me sick! good for changing though. thrown away much unk stuff!... The journey, Eliot Mark Laxer, has just begun! Don't turn back! Go! & keep moving. I have graduated (7 yrs) an EKATEST [Electric Koolaid Acid Test]! Congrad!"
That night I wrote to Robert, the disciple who had gotten shot, "... the past 4-5 years have been a bad trip, a bad format. i was getting sicker, weaker. it is necessary for my well being that i live off my own power. i have no need to convince you of this. this my body knows. my body has been telling me for years to leave Rama. Finally, he stopped convincing me to stay. Then i couldn't make it on my own. So i left & came back. Now i'm stronger; off my own steam... unlike past times when i left Rama's Attention field, i'm not going to waste thoughts & power on the past. The past, people's thoughts about me, my thoughts about me—are all like Nately's Whore, in Catch-22; only she misses, and i jump... "
About a week later, Dana called me with a "Warrior's task." Rama, she explained, wanted me to get former disciple Tom to call him.
I told her that I was not looking for a Warrior's task—or any task for that matter. "You know I have left the Centre," I said.
"Don't you think you might be following your gut feelings?" she asked.
"You bet!"
I also followed my gut feelings during the group acid trip earlier that month when Rama asked the disciples to remain inside. I had walked outside and watched the small birds fly. "The bottom line is that he's wrong about me," I thought, my self-confidence germinating the way pine seeds flourish when their cones are scorched by fire. "I'm not possessed by demons, mentally ill, or bent on destruction. I'm okay."
In August, 1985, I began spending time with old friends and with people from work. I felt awkward. I did not know what to talk about. They used words like concerts, bar hop, chaser, dive, dude, hot babe, married, pregnant, job security, tax break, investment, global economy, third world, cold war, Reagan, Saturday Night Live, and Letterman. Their language felt alien to me. They used "party" as a verb, not as a noun. They used "to see" as a way to describe what they did with their eyes and with their mind, not what they did with their inner being. I learned to navigate within their world, but felt like I did not belong.
The initial reentry into society was difficult in other ways. I found myself constantly reverting back to Rama's world of fear, isolation, and self-doubt. When I had eye contact with someone, for instance, I had to remind myself that my reservoir of mystical power was not being drained. When I saw a flicker of light, I had to remind myself that the reflection was not Negative Forces. When a non-disciple told me of his or her hopes and dreams, I had to remind myself that theirs was not simply a world of illusion. And when I thought of my own hopes and dreams, I had to remind myself that I was not a mentally ill zombie unable to deal with the real world.
I realized that Rama had taught me to think this way. I also realized that I could, in time, unlearn these associations. I told myself I was doing okay. I was doing well at my job. I was saving money and paying off loans. I was commuting to work each day by bicycle. I was slowly getting stronger.
One day I had a conversation with the vice president of my company. I respected him. He seemed to be creative, bright, and energetic. He told me that he read a great deal. "I try to learn many different philosophies," he said. "A philosophy that discourages you from learning other philosophies is a good one to avoid." I liked his approach to knowledge. I was impressed that such wisdom was available in an office building in downtown Boston. I was impressed that in his own way, my boss was a seeker.
Another weekend a childhood friend invited me to a beach party in New York. There I met Christina, a young woman with long legs and deep blue eyes. I started driving to New York often. One evening, the phone rang. I had been expecting a call from Christina.
"Hi, Agni," said a woman's voice. It was Dana.
"I should have changed my number," I thought.
"There's going to be a meeting at Rama's for the Stony Brook group," she said. "Can you make it?"
"I'm doing okay on my own," I reminded myself. "I don't need to see Rama."
"Rama said it's going to be our last meeting together," she added.
I nearly laughed. He had been holding "last meetings" for years. I wondered if he were trying to suck me back into his organization. I thought about the disciples and about my brother. I had not seen them in weeks. "I'll be there," I told her.
Late the following night I rode my three-speed toward Needham. Rama typically conducted business between two and four a.m. because "the world's psychic energy was calm" and, perhaps, because disciples at that time tended to be tired and off balance. Yet as I pedaled through the dark and empty streets, blood pulsed quickly through my veins. I felt alert. I wore all black. Black for me was a symbol of power. I wore around my neck a string with a bicycle lock key. I had worn such a string during bike trips of my youth, before locking on to Rama's path. The key was a reminder that waiting just outside Rama's door was the trusted three-speed.
I entered the house. The disciples seemed friendly toward me. Rama approached. He said, "You look much better, Agni."
I offered him a classical music tape. This was my way of saying that I harbored no ill feelings.
He accepted.
It was well past midnight and the twelve had arrived. Actually there were only ten but we counted Tom's spirit. We also counted Lakshmi, the Centre's patron goddess.
Rama served a red wine which he said was expensive. I recalled that weeks before, he had counseled disciples to avoid alcohol.
He showed us a cake decorated with the image of a frog. "You will get some cake after the meeting," he said, as though addressing a group of children. The decoration reminded me of Kermit. I wondered if he had reincarnated the symbol as part of a spiritual lesson, or if it was just icing on the cake.
A few minutes later Rama put on electronic music, picked up the original Bliss puppet, and started to dance.
The disciples watched, their faces aglow with adoration. I wondered if I used to look like that. "Don't watch," I thought and walked away. In a corner of the room, I quietly danced with a Bliss of my own.
The music stopped. Rama instructed us to sit in a circle in the living room. I hesitated. "Something about this doesn't feel right," I thought. I sat down, nonetheless, and meditated with the group.
Roughly forty-five minutes later, Rama began to speak about the rapid deterioration of the earth's psychic energy field. His language sounded strange to me. Terms such as "Entities" and "occult attack" no longer seemed natural.
Several minutes after that Rama's bright, friendly eyes suddenly hardened. "Instead of aspiring to the higher worlds," he accused, "you are evolving into a horde of angry sorcerers."
"What am I doing here?" I wondered. "I don't have to listen to this."
"You are trying to increase your personal power by attacking each other—and me—in the Dream Plane," he charged. "I have no choice but to disband your Circle Of Power."
"This is why he called us here?" I thought. The tension in the room felt like nails in my stomach. I glanced at the door.
Rama explained that our final task, before he disbanded the Circle, was to take turns confronting one another. "It is very important for each of you to voice what is *really* going down," he said.
The people in the original inner circle had been through a lot together. The first few seemed reluctant to adopt his suggested role as angry, finger-pointing sorcerers. They said things like, "I think you may be sending me some bad vibrations in the inner worlds."
Rama frowned. "You think you are acting like Warriors, but you are really acting like wimps. If you don't *'fess up* now, it will be extremely difficult for you to continue making spiritual progress later on."
"You've been attacking me in the Dream Plane!" my brother accused me and several others.
"You've been trying to steal my power for years!" countered Sal when it came his turn.
"Yes," approved Rama.
Instead of listening and preparing for my turn, I recalled the way Big Nurse inspired patients to rat on each other. "Rama is manipulating us," I thought. "He's getting us to turn on one another. He's dividing us. Divide and conquer."
Suddenly it was my turn. I did not know what to say. I stood up. The others had remained seated. I turned to Rachel. ("I have always liked you," I thought.) I said, "We have gotten along well. I don't see any problems between us."
Rama looked surprised. This was not the kind of response he had in mind.
Rachel smiled at me.
I turned to Suzanne. ("You say that I suffer from delusions that I'm Luke Skywalker. Perhaps.") I said, "I hardly even know you."
I turned to Dana. ("I've had a crush on you since the time in the San Diego airport, under the palms.") I said, "I don't know if you've been sending me sexual energy or what, but for years I've been very attracted to you."
She raised her eyebrows. So did Rama. So did the others. I had broken a taboo. Sexual attraction was not something we were supposed to discuss, particularly in a group, particularly with Rama, particularly regarding one of Rama's women, and *particularly* regarding Dana who, along with Anne, was Rama's closest disciple.
I turned to Anne. ("If only I were older.") I said, "I feel the same way about you."
More looks of surprise.
I felt exhilarated. I was not accustomed to voicing my gut feelings. I turned to Sal. ("No, old friend, I'm not trying to steal your power.") I said, "You have gotten a little paranoid over the past few years. I hope you can work it out."
He frowned.
I turned to Donna. ("Are you still planning to marry Rama?") I said, "I have no problem with you."
She nodded.
I turned to Paul. ("What's the penguin doing on the tehlee?") I said, "We are friends."
He grinned.
"In other words," Rama interrupted, "you have Paul wrapped around your finger. You have learned much." His twisted compliment threw me off balance, and I failed to defend the seven-year friendship.
I turned to my brother. ("Love ya, bro.") I said, "I am not attacking you in the Dream Plane."
"Oh no?" Rama interrupted again.
"I'm not conscious of it."
"Oh, sure you're not," mocked Rama. Then, in a professorial voice, he explained how, in each family, only a limited amount of power could be passed to the offspring. "Typically, one child claims most of it. The others are often so drained that they don't even notice it's gone."
"Rama is an only child," I thought.
"Agni used to have the power," he went on. "Now Dan has it. They will have to fight each other for the rest of their lives... "
"That's bull!" I shouted.
The disciples looked shocked. No one spoke that way to Rama.
Now I was angry. It was still my turn. I turned to Rama. My heart was pounding. ("Why do you tell Dana to tell me to tell Tom to call you? Why can't you call your old friend on your own? You're playing power games.") I said, "You're a grown man. You have a Ph.D. You run a computer company and a spiritual organization. Given three phone numbers, I think you should be able to contact Tom by *yourself*." I sat down, stunned. I had spoken honestly to Rama. It was invigorating.
"That's going to be a tough act to follow," admitted Rama. Then he began to speak. Within minutes he transported me with a tranquilizing voice and abstract language inside a fuzzy, familiar bubble where words were not questioned and consciousness seemed high. I found myself being drawn into his world. It was comforting being back. Earlier, he had given me some play. That made me feel important. I let my thoughts drift aimlessly about. I found myself gazing, without blinking, into his eyes. I found myself mesmerized by the sound and the rhythm of his words. Somewhere far away, I found myself floating... my vision blurred... things went fuzzy...
"Hey!" I thought, bursting the mental bubble. "He's formatting us again—only this time without the LSD!"
I stood back up. I was ready for action. I did not know what to do.
Rama stopped talking, squinted his eyes, and aimed his index finger at me.
I recalled a scene from The Last Wave, a movie Rama once took me to see, in which a sorcerer kills a man by pointing a "death bone" at him.
I now saw Rama as both friend and foe, mentor and tormentor, Christ and anti-Christ. I was frightened and confused. Estranged, yet held by his seductively androgynous, authoritative face, I lapsed into a meditative stupor...
A glint of light caught my eye and snapped me out of the trance.
Rama was chanting something in a low, monotonous tone.
I seized the string with the bicycle lock key. I pictured bright purple sparks and blue lightning bolts radiating in all directions from the key. The light shielded me from attack and lit the path to the door.
"Gotta go," I said and slowly walked away.
"I've got your number," Rama replied, still pointing his crooked finger.
"You're full of it," I returned and stepped outside. Here the light was soft and grey. A morning dove cooed. The bicycle was there for me. It was 1985, and I was twenty-five.
In the months that followed, I occasionally bicycled to Walden Pond, where I read about Thoreau's experiment with self-reliance. Distracted by haunting memories, I gazed at the water in search of calm, but the wind spawned new waves and the surface swelled with complexity. "There's plenty of time to sort it out," I reassured myself. "Maybe I'll take myself for a ride across America and do some thinking."
Three months into the cross-country bicycle trek, I pulled off the road west of Walden, Colorado. I was stuck. The problem was not so much the physical journey. True, I was towing additional weight because towns were farther apart and because Nunatak was no longer a pup. But my leg muscles were rock solid from the miles in Massachusetts, New York, the southern tip of Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado, and I felt confident I could ride to the coast.
The problem was more the inner journey. The more I thought about Rama, the more I understood. The more I understood, the more I wanted to write. If I wrote, I might publish. If I published, I would betray Rama. If I didn't publish, I would betray those whom I might have warned. I thought, "Damned if I do, damned if I don't." I became emotionally exhausted. I decided to end the bike trip, return to school, and take a break from the past.
But I still wanted to believe that Rama was a powerful incarnation and that I was an advanced soul of sorts. I did not yet understand that only when I checked my desire to soar, like Icarus, too close to the sun would the impasse disappear, and I would accept who Rama was and who he was not.
That night on a bed of wildflowers, I petted the husky and gazed at the canopy of stars. A warm breeze carried the scent of pine. I felt at peace. I was proud and relieved that I had used my rational side to alter the course of my bike trip when my world was in need of balance. I looked forward to hitchhiking west with the dog. I looked forward to school. I took slow, deep breaths and listened to the silence of the valley. My thoughts ebbed into a sea of calm. Flecks of starlight grew brilliant and close. I felt complete. I lost awareness of the passing of time. Suddenly, I realized I had been meditating. I felt surprised. I had not consciously meditated since leaving Rama one year before. Yet the state of mind felt oddly familiar, and I tried to understand why.
I thought about the meaning of meditation. To meditate, I supposed, was to concentrate and reflect on thoughts, images, or phenomena. It was to work in a garden or stand in a subway and listen to currents of the mind. It was to lose track of time completely, absorbed in memories of a friend. It was to gaze down the highway of light where the sun lit into the sea. There were as many ways to meditate, it seemed, as there were facets on the jewel of the human condition.
It occurred to me that I had meditated on the first day of the bike trip at Walden Pond. I had become immersed in watching waves rise and fall and in listening to them lap the shore. Their pattern suggested a rhythm unlike any I had followed. When a friend asked which route I would take, I smiled. My plan was to follow the setting sun.
Now, stretched out on a sleeping bag in northern Colorado, I realized that I had started and ended the bike trip in spontaneous meditation. I recalled other times during the journey that I had meditated. I gazed, for instance, at the bands of bright color which arched from drenched cow fields to the luminous Wisconsin sky. I gazed at the blur of the Minnesota pavement when the wind was strong and at my tail. I pondered an encounter with a young, six-pack-carrying Native American who, when I mentioned the spirit of South Dakota's land, told me he had sold his for a bundle of cash. I contemplated an encounter with a Vietnam veteran in Rapid City who said his death was near and whose shirt read, "AGENT ORANGE KILLS." I meditated on the meaning of a bumper sticker in Wyoming that read, "MY OTHER CAR IS A HORSE." I reflected on Nuna's response when I encouraged her to help pull the rig. The nearly full-grown husky had sat down and scratched her ear.
The primary focus of the bike trip meditations, though, had been on my years with Rama. I had meditated, for instance, on the LSD trips. During the intense rush of the drug, my acquired knowledge of myself and of the world around me peeled away like layers of an onion. It was as if I saw the world through the eyes of a child. Hours later, as the effects of the acid began to wear off, it was as if I saw the world through the eyes of a young man whose self-confidence had not yet been shaken. Rama, who observed me during each trip, mostly let me re-form the layers which made up "me" on my own. The next wave of subjects in his chemical experiments would not be as fortunate (see Epilogue).
I meditated during the bike trip on how, over the years, Rama flipped between "caretaker personalities" more frequently and how, starting in 1984, the flipping grew sudden and extreme. This unnerving phenomenon could be seen in the stages of his LSD trip. Perhaps, inadvertently, he had designed a multi-leveled, persona-flipping program of "sophisticated spirituality" to mask advanced symptoms of schizophrenia.
I meditated on what had happened the night I left the Centre. When I followed my gut feelings and spoke honestly to Rama and to the inner circle, Rama responded by turning my brother against me.
It did not matter to me, during the meditations on my brother, that Rama's childhood had been difficult. Rama had told me that his father was "power hungry" and "cold" and that his mother was "wacky" and "liked to take drugs." Nor did it matter that Rama had probably sought to fill the vacuum of his early years with promiscuity, LSD, devotion to a guru, money, expensive cars and property, and consummate power over hundreds of peoples' lives. Nor did it matter that his confusing set of personalities had probably developed from a simultaneous belief that he was a hustler on the one hand, and a living legend and god incarnate on the other. Nor did it matter that I wanted to forgive him.
When I meditated on the casual, diabolical way in which he pitted my brother against me, my understanding and forgiveness vanished. I tensed my gut and wrestled with a primal image. The water was red. I shuddered. I saw my brother clearly. He had an open, bleeding heart. I knew how that felt. I saw him treading water. There was no bottom. I knew how that felt too. A great white shark circled, rising effortlessly from the depths. I clenched my fists. There was nothing I could do. Dan could not hear me.
I meditated on what had happened later that night, after Rama rooted his divisive legacy in my brother's mind. When Rama pointed his finger at me, I knew that he was trying to intimidate me. I also knew that he was trying to maintain some semblance of control. But I feared that he might be a sorcerer. I intentionally visualized sparks and bolts of protective lightning radiating from the bicycle key. I understood that the colorful explosions were emanating from the world of my imagination. But that did not stop me from *seeing* them. The scene unfolding before me was, after all, not just another ending to a Castaneda book. It was real. And I needed all the inspiration I could generate.
The meditations during the bicycle journey helped me comprehend and come to terms with an earlier journey. When I was sixteen, I sought fellowship, Truth, and that which lies beneath the "surface" world of reason. I came to believe that I could find these things by studying with a sorcerer in a desert in Mexico, by gazing at an underexposed photograph of a *fully* enlightened Indian man, and by following the etiquette of a warm, funny, brilliant, persona-flipping man with a Ph.D. in English. I later looked to Gandhi and to William Shirer for answers. But as I rode west from Concord, Massachusetts, I found a teacher inside myself, and the lessons worked for me.
I learned that it is important not to follow someone blindly, even if he is truly childlike, humble, self-giving, and "Self-Realized"; even if he is a friend; and particularly if he is reluctant to openly admit that he can be seduced by his power over others. Genuine teachers encourage their students to question them throughout the *entire* apprenticeship, because genuine teachers accept their own imperfect human nature.
I learned that it is important to balance the mystical with the rational. Meditation tends to open the mind to suggestion. The art of the mystic seems to be, therefore, to know when to let go, be spontaneous, and open up to the universe, and when to gain control, use the power of reason, and protect the body, mind, and soul.
I learned, too, that it is not necessary to focus on a leader, a philosophy, or a technique to contact deep mystical currents. By facing intense sunlight and storms during the bike trek, I was in direct contact with the ancient, transcendental kingdom of nature. By observing my thoughts clarify as they projected and pulsed over fields, lakes, and mountains, I drew closer to the land, to the creation. By wrestling with winds born of colossal power, I was forced to make constant leaps of faith to merely carry on. But now, sitting by the Eskimo dog, I contemplated the awesome blackness of the night. I was unaware that the bicycle journey itself had been a natural expression of mysticism.
The following day, I ascended the purple peaks of the Continental Divide. The sky was clear; the wind, calm. A sign indicated that waters to the east flowed toward the Atlantic, and to the west, the Pacific. It did not indicate that the waters might return and follow a different path. I dismounted the 12-speed. Fragments of Rama's deepest hooks still lurked in my heart. But I was doing better now. The healing process had begun. Facing the east while walking backwards to the west, I quickly retracted my thumb whenever a vehicle or driver seemed unsuitable or unsafe to take me for a ride.