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Rama, who often claimed that he took so much LSD in the '60s that he never came down, also convinced himself that he could access god-like powers. But Rama went further than Kesey. Rama professed to be an actual incarnation of a god. Rama professed that a few dozen disciples were causing extensive, invisible damage to a metropolitan area. "Maybe Rama has been hallucinating since 1969," I thought.
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.
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.
"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.
They are so critically needed that I have doubled my request under this act to $100 million in fiscal 1969. And I urge the Congress to stop the trade in mail-order murder, to stop it this year by adopting a proper gun control law. This year, I will propose a Drug Control Act to provide stricter penalties for those who traffic in LSD and other dangerous drugs with our people.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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