Take Me for a Ride Part 16

"Who are you really, Atmananda?" I wondered. I felt frenzied and dazed, as if a dark and powerful cyclone had swept Atmananda's train off its tracks--and me with it. I thought about the time Atmananda had narrated at a Centre meeting the tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

He had likened himself to the story's truthful, outspoken child.

"Is he like the child?" I now wondered. "Or is he really like the deceitful tailor?" Looking up, I chose to see him as my kind, warm-hearted friend.

"There are a few of you," he said, "who are letting the Forces fill you with confusion and doubt. But overall, you are a fairly advanced group and should have no trouble perceiving what your inner beings already know."

"He sounds like he believes in what he's saying," I thought.

"Look, you can think about it all you want. But until you learn to *see*, believe me, you won't get very far."

The Santa Barbara disciples suddenly stood up.

"You folks are invited to stick around," Atmananda said.

They stepped outside and closed the door.

At around 9:30 p.m., Atmananda announced that those who sought to continue their studies with him should return to the Centre later that night. Then, pointing out that we were letting ourselves get fogged, he suggested that we meditate to clear things up.

Many in the audience closed their eyes to meditate.

"Open your eyes and look at me," Atmananda scolded.

Despite my new credentials as an old mystical seer, I looked but could not *see* if Atmananda was an enlightened spiritual teacher who had found the way, or a charismatic megalomaniac who had lost it.

But the thick fog of illusion, which prevented me from gaining insight into his true nature, might have partially cleared had I known what Atmananda told Tom only weeks before, during a meditation with Chinmoy in New York.

"Have you noticed anything different about Guru?" Atmananda had asked him.

"No," replied Tom, who had not yet joined Atmananda's west coast entourage.

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

Atmananda said. "Call me in San Diego in late December, and I will fill you in."

10. Bicycle Ride--Utica

One week into the cross-country bicycle trek, I stopped near the New York-Ma.s.sachusetts border by a sign pointing to a campground.

It was getting late. I wondered if I should save the money and sleep in the woods. I recalled Atmananda's penchant for lodging at exclusive, expensive hotels. I realized that I did not want to follow him.

I also realized that I did not want to *not* follow him.

I wanted to do what was right for me. I followed the sign.

I stood at the campground entrance beneath a totem pole, whose carved faces reminded me of the Negative Forces. But I was no longer bound by Atmananda's interpretation of the world, I told myself.

"Sweet dreams," I said to the faces and rolled past them.

The next morning I crossed over the Hudson River into Albany and walked up the hill toward the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza. Endowed with intricately sculptured arches and columns, the majestic New York State capitol building contrasted with the modern structures across the street, which included four towers labeled in letters of gold. I sat by a reflecting pool where I watched wavering images of pennies at the bottom.

I thought about my financial situation. I was doing okay.

In Boston I had stopped paying Atmananda's ever-increasing tuition, moved from a studio apartment to a small room in a house, and commuted to my computer job each day by bicycle. I had managed to pay off one student loan and, after selling the car, to build a small buffer. Why, I now wondered as I tossed a penny in the pool, did I feel so bad?

Because it was Atmananda, I suddenly realized, who had sent me to computer school. It was Atmananda who had bought me that car.

I felt bad because I still considered myself to be in his debt.

I needed to distinguish, I told myself, between the effects of his unsolicited gifts and the results of my own hard-earned efforts.

Two days later, as I continued to travel, the cars whizzing by served as a constant, crus.h.i.+ng reminder that towing a three-foot wide trailer down a country road at night was probably not such a good idea.

But driven by the thought of staying with a friend in Utica, I continued despite the danger. The road gradually rose into thick, dark woods, and there were no houses in sight. To complicate matters, I was a devout believer in the excitement and mystery of a journey and carried no maps. I was completely lost.

The road began following a winding river, and it became increasingly difficult to convince myself that a town or phone was just ahead.

Exhausted, I stopped at the edge of a clearing and set up the bent, many-sided tent--another gift from Atmananda. I lay on my sleeping bag and listened to the river and to voices from the past.

I could almost hear Atmananda talking, back in 1979, about the pending move from New York to southern California.

"It's very important that the right people go," he had said to Rachel and me.

We nodded.

"I'm not sure about Dana and Connie," he confided. "But I'm sure I made the right decision about you two." Then he squinted and focused his gaze above our heads.

"You realize, of course, who I am," he added haughtily.

I was eighteen at the time and thought I already knew who he was: a devoted Chinmoy disciple, a respected English professor, and a kind, sensitive person. His remark had left me so confused and repulsed that I let it drop from my conscious mind.

Now, as I listened to the gurgling river, I realized that Atmananda had made the same remark two years later, when he announced that Chinmoy had fallen. I realized, too, that there were other foreshadowings of his rise to power. There were the money and the "surprise gift"

schemes. There was the bas.e.m.e.nt samadhi announcement, which came during a debilitating thirteen-day fast. And there were numerous times he manipulated Chinmoy's disciples through the use of images, such as when he told me to picture my parents as "two red lobsters sporting bow ties."

Why, I wondered, had I largely ignored these and other warnings?

Part of the answer, I supposed, had to do with the masterful way in which Atmananda used words. Equipped with a seductively compelling voice, he built vast, virtual kingdoms which were subject to constantly changing, contradictory etiquette.

One week, for instance, it was spiritually correct to save money for ourselves, to have s.e.x with someone outside the Centre, to study with Chinmoy; the following week, it was not. It had been difficult to maintain a perspective. I sensed that another part of the answer had to do with me and my need to believe, but now, as memories and realizations grew too painful to touch, I let my thoughts swirl slowly downstream with the gurgles of the river.

Soon I was asleep.

That night, I woke to the noise of a racing engine and screeching brakes.

"This is no dream," I thought. "This is real!"

Two blinding lights sped straight toward me.

"HEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" I screamed. Suddenly, the screeching and skidding stopped. My heart pounded. No more than ten feet away was a vehicle. It kicked into reverse, spun around, and disappeared into the night in a cacophonous squeal of metal, rubber, and asphalt.

It was some time before the sound of rus.h.i.+ng water lulled me back to sleep.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of car doors slamming.

From the tent I saw a family walking toward the river. They stepped past long skid marks. "Excuse me," I called out, "which way is it to Utica?"

11. Displaced

"Aren't enlightened souls supposed to be more quiet?" I thought, recalling Atmananda's newfound access to a world without words.