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One time I lay in bed thinking about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, a book Atmananda had recommended to me. At first I thought about the similarities between Atmananda and R. P. McMurphy, the novel's free-spirited protagonist. Both men, I realized, exuded auras of self-confidence. Atmananda, for instance, had once offered to teach me the secret of attracting women.
Had Atmananda's techniques ended there, I might have seen him as a confused combination of Big Nurse and McMurphy and left. But he managed, by flipping between abusive and supportive personas, to keep me off balance on an emotionally gut-wrenching roller coaster ride.
Jutting his chin forward like a boxer's glove, he focused on an imaginary horizon and began taking long and rhythmic strides. He suddenly seemed eight feet tall, and I watched in awe as he ignored the young women who were checking him out. Both Atmananda and McMurphy, I realized, shared their knowledge with others. Atmananda, for instance, made a special effort to make his followers feel big.
Louis goes to bed early only the drugstores and the moving-picture theatres are still flaringly awake. His eyes read the sign that he passes mechanically, "Dr. Edwin K. Buffinton Chiropractor," "McMurphy and Kane's," "The Rossiter," with its pillars that look as if they had been molded out of marbled soap. Thought. Memory. Pain.
I am also constantly ill as a result of the massive amounts of bad karma that I absorb from you on a regular basis." I began to think not about McMurphy and Atmananda's similarities, but about their differences. I recalled Atmananda saying, "When you attain my level of enlightenment, you transcend good and evil.
But then I thought about how, unlike McMurphy, Atmananda increasingly blamed others for the role he chose to play. "I incarnated into this world of pain and suffering," Atmananda often claimed, "to help my students from past lives. Many of you don't seem to realize it, but I am in a constant state of pain as a result of the bad energy that you continuously bombard me with.
Suddenly it struck me that while Atmananda might be like McMurphy, he might also be like the novel's mean-spirited antagonist, Nurse Ratched, also known as Big Nurse. Both Atmananda and Big Nurse, I realized, discouraged their wards from exploring the outdoors. I remembered Atmananda warning me, before I went backpacking in Yosemite, that he was picking up bad vibes from the trip.
"How can you become strong and self-confident?" he asked at Centre meetings. "By doing all the things I have been recommending. By meditating. By leading impeccable lives. By cutting off those such as your family who are draining your power. And by learning to trust in yourselves." Both Atmananda and McMurphy, I also realized, were teachers of self-sacrifice.
Atmananda, for instance, lectured on Jesus Christ, Gandhi, and McMurphy. "McMurphy," he said at Centre meetings, "leads twelve men to the sea and takes them fishing. After the fishing trip, McMurphy is worn out. He is in pain. He has exhausted his energy so that others might be free. This is the essence of self-giving. This is why I do what I do."
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