In the days following Atmananda's talk, I longed to know if my vision
of the "snow" had been a mystical experience, an optical illusion,
or a figment of my imagination. Graduation was only weeks away.
I assumed that Atmananda would help me solve the mystery, and I counted
the days until his next public lecture.
I did not tell my friends much about Atmananda. They seemed content,
even after reading the Castaneda books, to view the world through a
rational framework. In contrast, I grew excited about the possibility
of transcending the world of reason altogether. They were proud
of their letters of acceptance from the Harvards and the Princetons.
I was proud of my letter of acceptance from The School Of Mysticism.
My letter arrived in the form of brilliant white specks which swirled
about me like snow.
Nor did I tell my parents, who represented discord, anxiety,
and manipulation--the opposite of what Atmananda seemed to stand for.
Instead, I spoke with my brother. He and I were close.
I wanted to be just like him. He used words such as disciples,
selfless-service, humanity, humility, purity, soul, soul-mate,
past-lives, karma, fast track, and cosmic evolution. He got
excited when he talked about Atmananda. He told me that he too
had experienced perceptual distortion during Atmananda's talks.
We returned to "Yoga Life Perfection."
About thirty minutes after the talk was scheduled to begin,
Atmananda strode through the door. He wore a light brown suit.
"Anne," he said, "did you bring the Transcendental?"
The sari-clad woman who had sold incense at the last lecture
placed a frame on the table beside Atmananda. The Transcendental
was a photograph of Atmananda's Indian guru, Chinmoy. But it
was so underexposed that it seemed not a picture of a guru,
but rather a mug-shot of a ghost with high cheekbones.
It reminded me of one of the experimental images which had emerged
from my father's darkroom.
"The Transcendental portrays Guru in his highest
transcendental consciousness," my brother told me.
Atmananda scanned the audience, mostly women in their sixties.
Then he began to lecture, not on meditation, but on reincarnation,
which he had done many times before.
"Maya, or illusion, eclipses the original perfection of the soul,"
he said. "The soul reincarnates over thousands of lessons known
as lifetimes."