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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.
At seventeen, Fred left the east coast and experienced the mushrooming of the psychedelic movement while living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. It was during the subsequent year, which he spent in prison for selling drugs, that he was handed a promotional brochure for Indian guru Chinmoy Kumar Ghose.
At Au Natural, a yogurt shop, Atmananda introduced me to the Stony Brook disciples. There were Anne, Dana, and Suzanne, the sari-clad women from his lectures. There was Tom, a dark-haired young man who was as tall as Atmananda and who seemed easygoing. There was Sal, a balding young man who seemed intense. There were other Chinmoy disciples milling around, but the Stony Brook group stuck together.
My brother and I found Atmananda outside, addressing a group of Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples. "Do you want to go with us to Au Natural?" he asked us. At that moment I would have gone with him anywhere, partly because I was not keen on going home, and partly because he was so compelling. There was something about him that felt nurturing yet electric, casual yet happening. "Yes!" we chimed.
And there was the problem that Stony Brook disciples learned the language of spirituality and of dreams less from Chinmoy than Atmananda. Able to speak at length about anything and nothing, Atmananda often did. For him, reality seemed to consist of an infinite number of levels which were interconnected in obvious and in not so obvious ways.
Yet at seventeen, I was the youngest in the group, the average age of which was twenty-one. Atmananda was twenty-seven. And I had learned from Chinmoy and Atmananda that humility was the quintessential spiritual quality. Besides, I loved the attention. Sal replied that rescuing maidens was wrong because he should have been at home meditating.
In all the years I studied, sang, and prayed in his congregation, not once, as I recall, did he capture my imagination. "I don't want to talk to the rabbi," I had replied. Now I told my mother that I wanted to become a disciple. She grew quiet and pale. I told her that I had had mystical experiences while meditating with Chinmoy.
I had followed Atmananda's suggestion and told them that I was studying spiritual mysticism. Nonetheless, they seemed convinced that their sons were getting sucked into a cult. I was sensitive to their reaction to me and intentionally saw them less as the weeks went by. I also thought about Chinmoy. He had instructed followers to memorize four of his disciple-published books.
We had studied together at a computer school in Los Angeles and, back in 1982, we had bicycled from San Luis Obispo to Monterey, California. I missed Alexander and Marty and Elizabeth and Carl and Karen and Jeff and... I missed my brother. Dan had already left Chinmoy to join Rama's Centre in San Diego.
As he spoke, I recalled that Jewish law had been passed down through the generations since the time of Abraham and Isaac. Chinmoy's teachings, I realized, also stemmed from a tradition dating back thousands of years. I found myself picturing Chinmoy and Atmananda. "They are such colorful characters," I thought. I glanced at the rabbi. He was saying something about the dangers of mind control.
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