Take Me for a Ride Part 14

"You swine!" cried Atmananda. "All along you've been hiding him in...your nose!"

"How can you tell?"

"Hah--so you doubt my ability to see!"

A few minutes later, the waiter arrived. I ordered a quesadilla and a chile relleno.

"C'mon kid," said Atmananda, "where's your capacity?"

I admitted I was low on money.

"Stop worrying about money," he admonished. "If you're in the right consciousness, believe me, the money will come."

"Okay," I agreed, adding a large cheese crisp to the order.

So the disciples, now reunited with Sal, happily broke bread and chips with our nurturing spiritual shepherd. A ditty from the Paul Winter song Icarus played in the background.

Atmananda often spoke about myths. Icarus, according to Greek mythology, took flight from prison on wings of wax which were crafted by Daedalus, his father. Despite warnings from Daedalus, Icarus soared too near the sun and fell with melted wings to his death in the sea.

I knew about the myth of Icarus from my childhood. "Icarus was punished,"

my father had taught me, "because humans are not supposed to fly among the G.o.ds."

Atmananda did not teach the myth of Icarus. He spoke, instead, about the role of the Self-Sacrificing Hero. "Be like a star,"

he said at Centre meetings, citing Guru, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ.

"Burn your own substance so that others may see."

Yet as the months in southern California slipped by, he spoke increasingly about the myth of the Fluid Warrior. "Be fluid,"

he said. "Don't let people pin you down as being a certain way."

Perhaps, then, the deviation from his role as Feeder Of The Tribe should have come as no surprise. It was during a Centre meeting that he announced the fast. Missing meals for thirteen days, he explained, would raise the level of our consciousness, increase our personal power, and bring us closer to Guru. "Besides," he said, "it's the thaaang."

I longed to raise my consciousness, increase my power, and develop a deeper connection with Chinmoy. I wanted to maintain my status as an "advanced" follower. I hungered, too, for Atmananda's approval.

About twenty of us agreed to limit our nourishment to a gla.s.s or two of juice a day.

Painful, dizzying hours of drinking water pa.s.sed. Several devotees, including Atmananda, claimed that their meditations were growing increasingly powerful. In contrast, my efforts to empty my mind were interrupted by gurgling complaints rumbling up from the caverns of my gut. I found myself concentrating not on eternal salvation, but on persistent growls. I found myself thinking not about G.o.d, but about vast quant.i.ties of food.

On the sixth day of the fast, I stood at the edge of the meditation room trying not to think about the sharp pains now forking my belly.

I gazed at the larger-than-life Transcendental on the tall, wooden table.

Atmananda typically lectured from beside this shrine. It was also from here that he continued his effort to spread Spiritual Light--to play guru-- during public and private meditations. After weekly Centre meetings, Atmananda often cooked for the nearly one hundred Chinmoy disciples.

It was a joy to watch him sing and dance around the kitchen, adding spice to our lives and to the simmering vats of Indian curry.

On occasion, he asked Cheryl to cook for the Centre. He loved the way her eggplant parmigiano patties tasted. Leftovers were wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in the freezer.

On the seventh day, I opened the door to the freezer and there, wrapped in aluminum foil, were eggplant parmigiano patties waiting to be plucked like gems from a cave. I felt weak and disoriented.

I was so hungry. Memories of the peppery patties brought back the luscious aroma. I thrust my hand toward a s.h.i.+mmering treasure...

On the eighth day, I wondered if I should confess that I had cheated.

I recalled the story of a priest who, out of concern for his congregation, hid his doubts about G.o.d. I, too, chose not to confess, and the ensuing guilt served to strengthen my resolve not to stray from Atmananda's suggested path again. And though I did eat part of a patty, I still shared with the disciples an overpowering emptiness and a heightened receptivity to the fast leader.

During the second week, my meditations began to improve.

Typically, when I gazed at the Transcendental, I only saw a subtle glow around the photo. Now I saw thousands of swirling dots swimming before me. Typically, when I meditated on my heart chakra, I had to remind myself to visualize the ocean. Now I became immersed in a world of blue light. Typically, when I realized that I was having a powerful mystical experience, I found it difficult to reenter a state of meditation after a self-congratulatory interruption.

Now I found it easy to resubmerge my awareness into a thoughtless calm.

My newfound calm, however, was broken by what Atmananda said at a Centre meeting several days later. He announced that he had recently attained levels of consciousness so powerful and sublime that he was no longer the person that we thought him to be.

Each time he dipped into these higher realms of perception, his old self died and a new one emerged, forged in the fires of what he called perfection.

"A number of you have already sensed the change," he said.

"I first started entering into these higher states--which I call bas.e.m.e.nt samadhi--during deep meditation. Recently, though, I have been slipping in and out of them spontaneously: while walking at the beach, for instance, or while eating at Howard Johnson's. Now I am finding that I can enter them at will."

Atmananda repeatedly described his newfound abilities until the disciples, a number of whom had not eaten in nearly two weeks, appeared to accept the restructuring.

After the meeting I sat on the toilet, contemplating what had pa.s.sed through Atmananda's lips. "What is going on?" I wondered.

"Who does he think he is?" I felt angry and confused. I had been taught that samadhi was a state of consciousness so exalted that precious few enlightened souls achieved it. But now I was dizzy and nauseous from hunger. I was having difficulty concentrating.

I saw swirling dots before me whether I was meditating or not. I found myself realizing that Atmananda had studied meditation in past lives.

I found myself realizing that he was an advanced disciple of the Guru.

I found myself feeling bad that I had doubted so advanced a soul, so educated a man, and so close a friend.

"The thing to remember," I told myself, recalling Atmananda's lessons on humility, "is that it's only *bas.e.m.e.nt* samadhi."

After the fast, Atmananda took me to an Orange Julius shop in a mall.

We sat by a window, sipping the sweet, rich drinks.

"What do you *see*?" he asked.

I looked and saw our reflection superimposed on the image of the crowd.

"The people," I said. "They don't seem real."

"Yes," he agreed. "Theirs is a world of illusion."

9. Off The Map

"Something heavy has been going down in the inner worlds,"

Atmananda announced at a Centre meeting in late December, 1980.

"Can anyone *see* what it is?"

"Is Guru coming to visit us soon?" asked one disciple.

"No."

"Is the earth's psychic energy field getting progressively worse?"

tried another.

"Yes, but that's not it. Anyone else?"

"This is going to sound crazy," said Kara, a UCSD student who seemed entranced by her own melodious voice. "But has Guru fallen?"

"Yes."