Chapter 10

As we prepared for the journey back to the cars, Rama invited me to walk with him at the front of the line.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" he asked several minutes later. As he scanned the path for rattlesnakes, his powerful beam cut a sharp tunnel through the darkness.

I agreed. It had been a blast. Over the past five years, moments of deep meditation had been typically interrupted by thoughts such as, "Hey--I'm meditating!" But moments earlier, I witnessed thoughts objectively, as if they belonged to someone else.

"Tonight I helped you see a beautiful world," Rama said. "My intent is to show my students how to fly through these worlds on their wings of perception. It is easy to show you because you like me. Many of my students fear me or hate me--or, even worse, they worship me." Suddenly he flipped off the light, and a fifteen-foot high ocotillo shrub vanished.

"I don't perform miracles to show off my powers, but to expand your view of reality. If my students can accept that I disappear, just imagine what they will be capable of."

Though I was learning to fly on my wings of perception, and though in the months after the Stelazine trip I continued to deeply suppress part of my rational side, I never fully accepted Rama's world in its entirety. I never accepted, for instance, the story of "Rama and the Enchanted Taco." The Enchanted Taco, Rama said, was an immense, luminous, and other-worldly treat. It could be seen in the desert, hovering casually over mystical power spots, garnished with divine light, knowledge, and guacamole. But in a parking lot at four a.m., I saw Rama wave to three hundred bleary-eyed disciples, get in a black Turbo Carrera, and disappear.

16. Ride To Heaven

"I didn't do well enough to remember," wrote Donald Kohl in 1984. "Bye, Rama, see you next time."

Months later, Donald's father called me. "Do you have a few minutes?" he asked. I knew that Rama would not want me to talk with Mr. Kohl. But I was shocked by the image of blood spurting from Donald's wrists.

"I have time," I said. "I'm sorry about your son."

Mr. Kohl asked about Rama and the organization.

"I know what you're thinking," I said. "But Donald was not involved in a cult. We're not like that. Rama teaches us to accept or reject his recommendations based on our own perceptions. He teaches us that he's no more important than anyone else." I did not mention that Rama had distributed to each devotee a larger-than-life poster of his face.

"Rama asks that we help cover the cost of room rentals and things like that. But we're in charge of our own money." I did not tell him that Rama actively sought gift money to supplement the skyrocketing "tuition." Nor did I tell him that Rama worshipped and had named the organization "Lakshmi," the Hindu goddess of beauty and prosperity.

"Our goal is to teach people to meditate." I did not mention Rama's stated interest in finding students from his past lives, filling stadiums, and starting a world religion. Nor did I mention that Rama actively pursued these interests. He payed many thousands of dollars, for instance, for promotional photographs featuring a back-lit aura. He shifted his advertising copy and name to reflect a growing sentiment that gurus were out while Zen masters were in (he called himself "Zen Master Rama"). And he persuaded thousands in the two years since the Stelazine experiment that he was a living legend, a rare presence, and a direct line to God.

"We normally meditate on our own for forty minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes at noon, and fifty minutes in the evening. Once a week we meditate with Rama at a Centre meeting. Sometimes we'll attend a public lecture or a field trip to the desert. Sometimes we'll help out on a project like office work or postering. But that's pretty much it. Basically, we're just a group of healthy individuals who happen to meditate. It's not like we live in an ashram or anything." I did not mention that Rama had been initiating disciples with names--Prema, Hanuman, Arjuna--taken from Hindu mythology. Nor did I mention that Rama had been teaching us to flip between various "caretaker personalities." He taught, for instance, that within the hostile environment of the "outside world" we should adopt the shrewd powerful personality of a warrior, whereas within the safe environment of a Centre meeting we should adopt the gentle, trusting personality of a child. Nor did I mention the details of Rama's spiritual etiquette, some of which he described in his tape, "Welcome To Lakshmi" (see Appendix B).

"Rama teaches us a combination of spiritual paths like Taoism, mysticism, and Christianity." I did not describe what might happen at a typical Centre meeting. Rama, who usually arrived about forty minutes late, might begin with a discourse on the teachings of Lao Tzu, Castaneda's Don Juan, or Christ. Then, couching parables in modern terms, he might proclaim: "Short is the path of the fast lane on the freeway to enlightenment." Or he might say: "As the coyote tries to catch the road runner, so too tries the seeker to comprehend the life of a fully enlightened teacher through rational means."

He might make the several hundred disciples laugh with: "Many are cold (called) but few are frozen (chosen)."

He often lectured the men in the Centre that our untamed sexual energy had been stunting the spiritual growth of our sister disciples. He often lectured the women in the Centre that they needed to learn how to emotionally detach themselves from men. And he often lectured both sexes that he attracted very powerful souls, that we were way too powerful for our own good, and that we had been making him physically ill by relentlessly attacking him in the inner world.

He lectured, too, about the inevitable eclipsing of the world's spiritual light, a process which seemed to be perpetually accelerating. "Haven't you been feeling it?" he asked.

"Yes, Rama," came the inevitable response. "I feel it."

Rama quoted Chaucer, Roethke, and Shakespeare. He also told a story (from The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury) about a Martian who, when approached by humans, transformed into the object of their desires. The Martian became a woman's dead son, for instance, until someone else walked by. "I am like the Martian," said Rama. "I am constantly being called upon to fulfill your desires."

Rama might question disciples with a portable microphone, a la Phil Donahue. "Why don't you share what you saw tonight," he said, roaming the aisles. He seemed to enjoy interrupting us when our response was spiritually or grammatically incorrect.

Then Rama sat in front of the auditorium, wiggling his toes and fielding questions, a la Chinmoy.

"Rama?" a woman might begin.

"Yes."

"The men where I work are constantly sending me sexual energy. Each day I come home completely drained."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a receptionist."

"Why don't you study programming?" he suggested. "Software professionals tend to be less visible and, therefore, less prone to psychic attack."

Rama often lectured on the nature of consciousness: "Consciousness, like a complex system of software, has thousands of levels of nested, self-accessing subroutines." He taught that the next step along the path to self-knowledge was to debug those subroutines hidden in our minds at an early age by our teachers and, in particular, by our parents.

Rama lectured on the nature of words: "Words are inaccurate pointers to reality and should by no means be trusted." Logic, he said, was based on the shaky foundation of words and was of primary value to those who could not access Truth directly. Since he had transcended these limited tools, attempts to comprehend his actions on a rational basis were meaningless. In fact, those doubting his behavior through a framework of words and logic were merely reflecting their own mediocre level of awareness. Those who concluded that he was greedy were, therefore, guilty of greed themselves.

I felt confident as I listened to Rama's words that I was learning new, valuable ways of understanding knowledge. Just as often, though, I felt confused by the belief that words had no fixed, real meaning. It was as if Rama were yanking the rug on which my descriptions of the world were centered. But then I recalled that confusion was an essential part of the process through which the Infinite dissolved our countless selves in the clear light of the void. "If you think you have it figured," Rama often pointed out, "you have what we refer to as an inflated ego."

At one point during a typical Centre meeting, Rama frowned and said, "Okay, what's up?"

No response.

"Hello, friends. What's going on out there?"

The silence and tension grew.

"Let's talk!"

It occurred to me that I did not like his tone. Suddenly, a hidden, mental "subroutine" activated, reminding me that those who questioned his methods were asked to leave the Centre.

"Fess up!" he snapped.

"Rama," started one disciple, "I don't know what it is, but..."

"Of course you know. Look--you're fooling no one but yourselves. C'mon people--fess up!"

"Rama, are we focusing on the l.o. [lower occult] again?"

"What do you think?"

"Yes, Rama."

"Look, none of you realize what you are getting yourselves into. Once you open the door to the Negative Entities, it is nearly impossible to get rid of them." He read our expressions and paused, as if to assess the point at which to start building us up again.

"Eternity is all around us at every moment," he said gently, "be absorbed. Nirvana is a world of unlimited ecstasy, be absorbed. Go see the new Schwartzenegger movie, be absorbed. You are doing much better lately, be absorbed. Don't forget that we will soon be meditating together on the golden beaches of Maui, be absorbed. Be proud that you are taking a stand against the Negative Forces, be absorbed. Don't be so hard on yourselves--give yourselves a break-- be absorbed. Learn humility and you will learn the secret to happiness, be absorbed. A desert trip is coming up soon, be absorbed. Forget not that our mission is to spread light in the world, be absorbed. Our friends from past lives will soon be joining us, be absorbed."

Rama asked that we sit up straight. He put on electronic music, slowly scanned the audience, and raised his hands above his head. Many of us gazed at him intensely. It didn't matter that those occupying the same room as him were, during meditation, supposed to evolve hundreds, even thousands of lifetimes. We still tried to absorb as much spiritual light as we could.

Then, he might end with a quote from the teachings of Lao Tzu, Castaneda's Don Juan, or Christ.

At the next Centre meeting, Rama might announce that everything had changed and that we were in an extremely poor state of consciousness.

"At the weekly Centre meetings," I told Donald Kohl's father, "Rama teaches us to realize our full potential. He teaches us to love and respect life." I did not describe, however, Rama's fixation on death.

"Someone in San Diego is trying to kill me," Rama once told devotees in a turret of the castle he was renting. "I am moving to Los Angeles. I suggest that you do the same."

Another time Rama turned to me and said, "Do you realize that I can kill you at any moment?"

"He's only joking," I thought.

"No, really," he went on. "I am extremely strong and could kill you in an instant!"

Repeatedly during the '80s and early '90s, Rama expressed a desire to take disciples for a ride in a Lear Jet into a snow-capped mountain, into the other worlds. "That would be a clean way to go," he said.

One time after a beach meditation, Rama asked five or six disciples, "What do you see?"

"I see red," said Sal. "I see blood, destruction, war, global apocalypse."

"Very good," said Rama.

Repeatedly during the '80s and early '90s, Rama slept with numerous women devotees, several of whom claim that he took no measures whatsoever to prevent the potential spread of AIDS.

Also in the 80s, Rama encouraged followers to secure software contracts in ADA, a computer language used to control the United States' hardware of war.

On the night before his thirty-fifth birthday, Rama invited thirty or so disciples to a party. He had been either ignoring or abusing many of us, so the invitation came as a welcome surprise. Unlike other recent events, there was an upbeat feel to the party. He had asked Anne, for instance, to spend time decorating the room with colorful balloons. "Maybe," a few of us thought, "things are going to get better." During the party, though, Rama demanded that a handful of us confess, one by one, before the other disciples, that the demons had succeeded in talking over our souls.

"Anne is the worst," Rama proclaimed, lashing out at her. "She either looks like a witch or a whore." Then, in a seeming attempt to exorcise the demons, he told us to meet him the following day at the Los Angeles coroner's office. He wanted us to witness an autopsy.

The next day I watched two men saw the skull of a "John Doe" hit-and-run victim. The saw whined. They peeled off the face. The air smelled acrid. My stomach felt bloated. "That could be me on the table," I thought. I wanted to retch. The pathologist measured the brain. I found myself thinking about life. Not in terms of Rama's increasingly fearful descriptions of the world, but in terms of my gut feelings. "Something happened," I wrote in a journal that I had recently started. "I felt it, a change inside me..."

After the autopsy, I noticed the way I breathed. I noticed the way my blood pulsed through me. I slept more; I had been sleeping only five or six hours a night. I watched the way light played off ripples in a body of water. Rama had failed to appear at the coroner's that day. Until the next Centre meeting, his world seemed small.

Mr. Kohl listened to my descriptions of Rama and of the organization. "Tell me, Mark," he said. "Does Rama pressure the disciples to be a certain way?"

"Well, technically we're not really disciples. We're students. Think of the organization as being like a university. Sure, there's some pressure, if that's what you want to call it. But it doesn't come from Rama. It comes from each of us wanting to do well."

I did not mention that Rama often threatened to spend less time with his disciples because we maintained an abysmal level of consciousness and because we bombarded him with Negative Occult Energy. "You should understand that I will still love you no matter what you do," Rama lectured. "But when you ignore my suggestions, when you succumb to the Forces, when you don't keep up with your tuition payments, you are setting yourselves up for a multi-lifetime pattern that will be extremely difficult to break. You are also letting down those we were sent here to help. Many of you don't seem to realize that you can easily be replaced. Believe me, there are plenty of seekers out there who would genuinely appreciate the opportunity that the Infinite is providing here."

Nor did I mention to Mr. Kohl that Rama followed through with his threats of replacement. In 1984, for instance, he kicked out four hundred followers after looking at their photos and reading their recently submitted essays. The purge gave him greater control over the remaining four or five hundred, who now lived in constant fear of getting kicked out. As for the outcasts, many had developed psychological dependencies on Rama. They continued to write him letters, to appear regularly at public lectures, and to send him money. Because he maintained their names and addresses in a database, he could always swap them back in when the current batch burned out.

Nor did I mention that, in response to the intensifying pressure, I had dropped out of UCSD a year before Donald, a sensitive, bright UCLA undergraduate, committed suicide.

The longer I spoke with Mr. Kohl, the more I became aware of-- and uneasy about--the discrepancy between what I knew and what I was willing to admit about my teacher and my organization. I felt particularly uneasy knowing that at one Centre meeting, Rama had promised to take closer devotees for a ride through the death worlds in a Porsche. After I hung up the phone, the uneasiness did not disappear. Though I did not openly entertain doubts about Rama, my ability to separate myself from his world, and to view myself as an individual, was suddenly infused with new life.

17. On High

"How would you like to get out of the spiritual rut you are in?" Rama asked me in the spring of 1984.

"I would like that very much," I replied. I knew that there was something wrong with my life. For years I sought enlightenment, but was no longer happy. For years I sought the Spirit, but was no longer animated. For years I sought the Self, but was no longer me. I was ready to try anything, I told him.

He offered to give me LSD. "I suggest that you take it," he said. "But you should only take it if it feels right."

In the past he had used Chinmoy's line that hallucinogens damaged the subtle body. But the potential benefits, he now explained, outweighed the risk, provided that a fully enlightened teacher was around to supervise. "Don't worry," he added with a smile. "I am very familiar with the drug."

I was startled by the offer. As a teenager, I had responded to similar solicitations with: "I'm high on life--drugs would just bring me down." But the buzz of youth had long disappeared, and I knew that the rut ran deep. Sensing, too, that three years before Rama had diffused my internal conflict with Stelazine, I wondered if LSD could quell my recently resurfacing doubts.

There were other factors involved. Months before, Rama had asked Tom, the bass-guitar-playing disciple who had finally moved west, to compile a tape of songs from the late '60s. "I want to tap into the people who had been involved in the early consciousness movement," Rama explained. Subsequently, the list of musicians whose songs Rama played at Centre meetings and at public lectures-- without regard for copyright law--grew from Tangerine Dream, Walter Carlos, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and the Talking Heads, to now include the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps my decision regarding the LSD was affected by the music. Perhaps it was affected by my fascination with the drug scenes in the Castaneda books. Perhaps it was affected by my realization that, according to the dictates of Rama's etiquette, there were grave karmic consequences for those foolish enough to ignore his suggestions. I told him it felt right.

Roughly one hundred fifty miles east of the beaches of Los Angeles, in Joshua Tree National Monument, was a rock climbing route called "Therapeutic Tyranny." Less than ten miles away, by the edge of a mountain, the five or six disciples probably did not see Rama handing me a tiny stamp. On it was a picture of Mickey Mouse dressed as a wizard, waving a wand.

I was slightly apprehensive. LSD was supposed to be a powerful drug.

"Chew it for a few minutes," Rama whispered.

It was as bitter as he said it would be. I soon noticed the deep blue sky turn to bands of crimson and yellow and orange. I noticed the lights of Palm Springs twinkle like stars thousands of feet below. I noticed the mammoth peaks of Mount San Jacinto gradually fading away. So stark and surreal was the scene before me, that I had to remind myself that this was how the desert appeared at twilight ordinarily.

"How do you feel, kid?"

"Fine, Rama," I reported, enjoying the attention. "Nothing yet." About fifteen minutes later he gave me another stamp when I found myself noticing that I was noticing that I was noticing that I was

that i was

that

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hey (hey) ((hey)) ((((hey)))) ((((((((hey)))))))) -* h e y * ------------ (it) ((it)) ((((it)))) ((((((((it)))))))) -* i t * ----------- (works) ((works)) ((((works)))) ((((((((works)))))))) -* w o r k s *-

I gazed at the lights of Palm Springs. I did not blink. I did not breathe. I lost awareness that I was on a mountain. I lost awareness that I was tripping. I lost awareness that I existed. The points of light grew fuzzy and bright.

Time touched the mountain world. I blinked. I inhaled. I turned from the light. "I am alive in this desert," I thought. Through the powerful, rose-colored lens of the initial rush, the thought magnified and blossomed into a stunning realization. I blinked again and exhaled.

I turned and saw Rama and the disciples. I knew that I was *seeing* on a different level than they were. This made me happy. A large, silly grin took hold of my face. The joy gradually receded, but the facial muscles held. I knew the grin was out of sync. I laughed.

I turned to some rocks. I grew serious. "The rocks," I realized, "are part of the Earth. The Earth is sacred." I did not realize, as I continued to astonish myself with my own profundity, that I had finally entered a world similar to the ones described in the Castaneda books.

Suddenly Rama raised his arms and made a whistling sound. The disciples looked at him as if he were a god. I felt detached from the scene, as if I were observing myself observe the disciples observe the man acting like a sorcerer. Soon I detected a faint glow from the corner of my eye. I gazed at what I felt was an incredible source of power, beauty, and wisdom. It was the rocks. They were glowing.

On the drive back to Malibu, Rama was perhaps experiencing flashbacks from the late '60s, because he "let me do my own thing." As a result, I rode with him in front, but focused on Cindy in back. Her flowing, blond hair and radiant face had made an impression on me long before she appeared on the cover of Rama's newspaper. I turned around often to smile at her.

"Hey there!" I said at one point.

Cindy looked slightly embarrassed. "Hey there!" she returned sheepishly.

This is fun, I thought. For the first time in years, things were looking up.

18. Where's My Tribe?

In the fall of 1984, Rama took twenty-eight disciples for a ride around the western United States. The purpose of the trip, he said, was to *see* which city we were supposed to move to. I was glad that he had invited me. I liked the idea of searching for a home. I loved to travel. And I looked forward to an exercise in *seeing*. "This is going to be fun," I thought.

The trip began in a parking lot in southern Malibu. Rama raised his arms, made a whistling sound, and said, "The ocean is your friend. You do not know how long you have left in this world. You may never see the ocean again in this lifetime. You should say good-bye."

It was a poignant moment for me. I loved the ocean. "Good-bye," I thought. Then Rama strode to his Turbo Carerra.

It no longer bothered me that Rama owned two Porsches at a time when many disciples were struggling to meet the increasing tuition. If he got what he wanted, I figured, maybe he'd go easy on us during the scorching demon-and-brimstone monologues. Besides, at three a.m. in northern Malibu, he once took me over one hundred and twenty miles an hour. The acceleration had been breathtaking; the ride, smooth.

The disciples now turned from the ocean to their cars. Anne, Dana, and I walked to our gifts from Rama--two Mazda RX-7's and a Honda Civic Wagon, respectively. Then we drove east by northeast into Los Angeles, the high desert, and southern Nevada.