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Updated: May 5, 2025
Atmananda occasionally paced the carpets of the new Centre, improvising a song from Fiddler On The Roof in which pious dairyman Tevya aspires for a little wealth from God. "If I were a realized soul!" Atmananda began. "Ahhh yaahtuh daahtuh daahtuh yaahtuh daahtuh daahtuh daahtuh duhm. All day long I'd bittih bittih buhm. If I were a realized soul! Ahhh wouldn't have to work hard... "
Rachel, who had donated generously to the "surprise" gift, felt that they should share the garage door opener. She decided that Atmananda was being unfair and told him so. The next day, Atmananda instructed Dana to tell Rachel that, spiritually speaking, she was heading for some serious hot water and had better apologize quickly.
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."
The reluctance to view myself as a victim persisted, and now, draped with a sleeping bag to protect me from mosquitos, I found it difficult to admit that the "Atmananda phenomenon" may have had as much to do with Atmananda, and with me, as it did with the balance of society.
In contrast, Atmananda told me, "I once had several girlfriends at the same time each named Susan." There was the problem of ego. Chinmoy emphasized over and over the importance of humility. Atmananda often pointed out, to his inner circle of friends, that in a past life he was Sir Thomas More. There was the problem of cinema. Guru prohibited the viewing of sexually explicit or violent movies.
Seconds later he was done meditating on me, and I returned to the audience. Then he called me back. "You are rejecting me inwardly," he accused and tried again. After the third time, he frowned. "Next," he said. Now I struggled with the memory and with the realization that Atmananda considered me less his friend than a subject. I had believed in him. I had loved him. I was devastated.
When Anne had lit the stove moments before, an explosion singed her hair and propelled chocolate and marshmallow covered graham crackers across the room. Now, as we cleaned the mess, Atmananda began to speak. "Guru protected us from the Negative Forces," he said in a rich, lulling voice.
Southern Californians have been exposed to more New Age teachers than perhaps any population in the United States. Yet the forty or so people seemed unprepared for Atmananda, who strode into the lecture hall twenty minutes late, with a can of diet soda in one hand and a pack of green gum in the other.
I tried to approach life with a similar gusto, which may explain why, in 1979, Atmananda invited me to move with him to southern California to start a spiritual centre. From 1979 to 1981, I lived with him by the cliffs of La Jolla where I witnessed his rise to power. Today, in 1993, he controls the minds of several hundred computer consultants, businessmen, doctors, and lawyers.
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.
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