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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?"
Atmananda pulled into one of the driveways, got out of the car, and said, "Here we are." Then he strode down the path as though leading us to his castle. He claimed the master bedroom which overlooked the garden. Dana's was next to his. Then mine. Then Connie's. Then Rachel's. "Welcome to Atmananda's bar and grill," he grinned from behind the kitchen counter, pretending to serve us.
Though enthralled by this path, I was bothered by Atmananda's insistence that a myriad of beings, human and otherwise, stood poised to destroy mystics who strayed from a constantly changing set of rules that Atmananda happened to know all about. I was also bothered by Atmananda's seeming obsession with "Dark Magicians."
While some aspects of Atmananda's program remained the same, others intensified. He repeatedly warned, for instance, that the Negative Forces would prey on those who did not meditate regularly, those who diluted their power with doubts about him, and those who did not regularly attend his meetings. He began holding "crucial" meetings each night to help us "combat the Forces."
Exhausted, too, from the shock of Atmananda's sudden grab for power, I became mesmerized by the sound and the rhythm of the words. "You are caught up in trying to be someone you are not, and it is clearly not working. You are fighting yourselves for no apparent reason. Look, it's easy.
Then we sat on the beach, soothed by gentle currents of the herb-scented air. I looked to the west. Blue on blue stretched across the horizon. I looked to the east. White buildings gleamed behind a row of tall, healthy palms. I remembered Atmananda's advice: "If you want to live in a pretty world, just cry inwardly to Guru." I could not help but feel that I had entered one of Dr.
The scene reminded me of my former plan to hitchhike west on a mystical quest. The plan seemed less glamorous now because I had already found a teacher and because of Atmananda's prediction. He often told me that had he not rescued me from that path I would have been shot by bandits and tossed in a ditch.
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?" Displaced "Aren't enlightened souls supposed to be more quiet?" I thought, recalling Atmananda's newfound access to a world without words. It was an hour or so after the coup.
Two years before, in New York, Atmananda and Tom had tried to swim across a channel in the Long Island Sound. Though a strong swimmer, Tom grew fatigued fighting the swift current, and Atmananda risked his life to save his friend from being swept to sea. Now, buoyed by Atmananda's legendary strength, I rode the swells beyond the breakers to where my feet dangled above the ocean floor.
Other reasons why I had felt compelled to take the Stelazine slowly dawned. I realized that Atmananda's senatorial countenance, his smooth, commanding voice, and his Ph.D. contributed to an aura of authority which I had found difficult to dispute.
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