"You remember my kid brother?"
"Hello, kid brother."
Atmananda and I were roughly the same height, yet as disciples
flocked by him he seemed much taller. I was again struck by
his piercing eyes, sharp nose, and thick crown of brown hair.
With such a countenance of nobility, he could have passed as a high
Roman senator or Greek god.
"Guru couldn't make it this week," he said. "Why don't you go
in and meditate, and pick up on Guru's vibes?"
My brother and I went inside. High above us on the massive chapel
dome were paintings of angels. Perhaps it was the distant angels,
the two hundred or more silent disciples, and the rising scent
of sandalwood incense, that made me feel foreign and small.
We meditated for about five minutes and left.
Outside, Atmananda was speaking with a man in white, when it struck
me that he was wearing red. "A non-conformist within a group
of non-conformists!" I thought.
He nodded to us but continued talking.
I walked by and noticed his name tag. Directly beneath "ATMANANDA"
glimmered a sticker from AAA and this warning: "Fasten Your Seat Belt."
That night, in the Castaneda books, I read how ordinary events
were often portentous omens. I wondered if there was a significant
message hidden in the Guru's absence. I wondered, too, if I
was supposed to meditate with this Guru before hitchhiking west.
The following week, I ventured with my brother to another of
Atmananda's lectures. We also returned to meditate with Chinmoy.
When we arrived at Columbia, disciples were arranging flowers,
lighting incense, and otherwise darting about in preparation
for their master's presence. Chinmoy apparently was on his way.
Several minutes later a short, stocky Indian entered the chapel.
He had a shiny head, a hooked nose, and high cheek bones. He was draped
in a light-blue dhoti, the male version of a sari. He walked slowly
toward the front. He sat in a big blue chair, opened his eyes wide,
and blinked a couple of times.
Disciples in the audience sat with their hands folded, as if they
were praying to him.
"Are they praying to him?" I asked my brother.
"No," he whispered. "They are aspiring to the Infinite in him."
The Guru sipped from a glass which he held with his pinky pointing out.
"Well," I thought. "As long as they aren't praying to him."
Suddenly Chinmoy belted out, "Aummm.
Auuummmmmm. Auuummmmmmmmmmmm." After five
minutes of meditation, the Guru folded his hands and bowed to the audience.
My brother whispered, "He is offering his meditation to the Infinite
in us."
"That about evens the score," I thought, feeling better about
the whole business of guru worship.
Chinmoy signaled a disciple who placed a box of oranges before him.
He stood behind it and nodded to the audience, which began forming
a line.
At first I thought he was just giving out oranges. But by filling
the fruits with spiritual light, my brother explained, the Guru
was really giving darshan.
One by one, the disciples looked into Chinmoy's eyes with
out-stretched hands. When they received the darshan they touched
the orange to their heart chakra, bowed, and walked reverentially
back to the benches.
When it came my turn, I approached slowly so that people
would think I was spiritual. "When Guru flickers his eyes,"
I recalled my brother telling me, "he is entering the perfect
awareness of Nirvakalpa Samadhi." I looked up. Chinmoy smiled,
flickered his eyes, and pulled from the box...nothing! He had run
out of oranges.
"An omen!" I thought. I was unsure, though, what the delay
exactly meant. Nonetheless, I decided to take advantage of the situation.
I focused my gaze on Chinmoy. Soon everything in the chapel, except for
his shiny face, seemed to disappear. Then, borrowing a technique
from the Castaneda books, I squinted and crossed my eyes until Chinmoy
transformed into swirls of shimmering light. "Wow!" I thought.
For a moment, the distorted image before me reminded me of the Transcendental.
When Chinmoy came back into focus, he shot a glance at the side
of the chapel. A disciple brought him a fresh crate. After the
second flickering, I took the orange with both hands, touched it
to my heart chakra, and bowed. I walked away feeling grateful.
A wave of joy washed over me. I saw the disciples, including my brother
and Atmananda, gazing lovingly at Chinmoy. I felt touched by a power
which seemed greater and more romantic than that of the world of reason.
"How many people get a gift from a *fully* enlightened guru?"
I wondered.
"Don't just stare at it," my brother reproved, explaining that
oranges were poor retainers of Spiritual Light. "Eat it!"
Moments later, the Guru announced in a lilting voice,
"Atmananda, pleeeez bring."
Atmananda led the five or six potential initiates to the front
of the chapel. He had found, inspired, and persuaded them through
his lectures. While Atmananda watched the Guru initiate them,
he did not return to his seat. Instead, he remained in front,
several feet away.
Chinmoy rapidly oscillated his eyes at the new recruits. His eyes were
still flickering when he placed his hand on each of their foreheads.
When his eyes returned to normal, he flashed a smile at Atmananda,
at the new disciples, and at the rest of the audience. Then he left
the chapel in a flurry of whites and saris.
As I watched him leave, I felt secure that he and Atmananda knew a lot
about the unknown. I glanced across the room at the disciples.
I realized that I wanted to be part of their fellowship.
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.
Atmananda organized rides, gave directions, warned us about
potholes and drunk drivers, and suggested that we maintain
a meditative consciousness, lest we lose the Guru's light.
Then he led us away from the other Chinmoy disciples, from the chapel,
from the campus, and onto the streets.
I watched the blur of city lights from the back of Atmananda's Saab,
which hurtled through the streets at a velocity close to that of a
New York taxi. He skillfully avoided potholes and drunk drivers.
He told my brother of his plan to have Stony Brook disciples advertise
his free public lectures by placing posters in Manhattan. I relaxed,
believing he was in control.
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.
I expected the conversation would be spiritual, seeing as how we
had just meditated with a fully enlightened guru. To my surprise,
Atmananda and Tom recalled an episode from The Twilight Zone.
"And he totally disappeared."
"Into the fifth dimension."
"Yeah, he really got zapped."
That night, when I got home, I wondered if Atmananda should have been
more meditative. But I recalled that Don Juan often acted absurd,
funny, and irreverent. He did so to balance the utter seriousness
of The Path, as well as to shake up Castaneda's pre-conceived
notions of what it meant to be a seeker. "Besides," I thought,
quoting Atmananda, "who says spirituality can't be fun?"
The following week, I wondered if Chinmoy would accept me as his disciple.
I asked my brother what my odds were.
"If you are drawn to Guru," he said, "the chances are you have studied
with him in past lives. But if he sees that he's not the right
teacher for you, he'll guide you inwardly to the right one."
I wanted to believe what my brother and Atmananda had been telling me.
I wanted to believe that the Guru installed disciple-specific,
invisible channels through which peace, light, and bliss could,
if the disciple were receptive, inwardly flow. Yet I was not sold
on the theory of reincarnation. Nor was I convinced that Atmananda
was fully accurate when he claimed that Chinmoy was the Cosmic Boatman,
an avatar [incarnation of a Hindu deity], and the most advanced soul
ever to have incarnated anywhere in the entire universe.
"Why would the messiah live in Jamaica, Queens?" I wondered.
But then I felt bad. After all, the Buddha and Christ probably didn't
live in such fancy neighborhoods either. I also realized that my doubts
were based on the premise of rationality, the very nature of which
Atmananda had taught me was limited, flawed, and often destructive.
"I suppose Chinmoy *could* be the Cosmic Boatman," I told myself
as part of a compromise.
Days later, after one of Atmananda's public lectures, I grew curious
about my earlier vision of the snow. I asked Atmananda to explain.
"Your third eye chakra is opening up a bit," he explained
matter-of-factly. "You are seeing into another world. It is not
unusual to have this type of experience if you have meditated in past lives."
"Thanks, Atmananda!" I said.
"Sure, kid," he said, suggesting that I sit back and enjoy the process.
Except for occasional doubts, I had been enjoying the process.
I enjoyed hanging out with the Stony Brook disciples. They were
not only fellow seekers, but they seemed to have a good time.
Atmananda, in particular, was fun to be around. He sometimes made me
feel important and powerful. I enjoyed his lectures, during which he
quoted The Bhagavad-Gita, The Bible, Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
Star Wars, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Thoreau, Roethke, and Carlos Castaneda.
One time he even recited my favorite passage from the Castaneda books,
the one about traveling on paths that have heart.
Now convinced that I had found a home in Atmananda's world,
I decided to seek initiation from Chinmoy.
My mother knew that my involvement with the group was intensifying.
She had been trying to get me to talk to the rabbi.
"Why should I talk to the rabbi?" I responded.
"Will you at least listen to what he has to say?"
But I had been listening to the rabbi since my bar mitzvah
four years ago and, frankly, I was not impressed. A kind
and sometimes humorous man with a keen intellect, the rabbi
represented a religion which seemed less mystical than social.
He struck me as being extremely reasonable, if not a little dull.
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 did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge, that the
mystical experiences mostly occurred after I crossed or squinted
my eyes, or after I gazed at Chinmoy for two minutes or more.
I told her that Chinmoy was an enlightened guru, and that I
respected him greatly. I did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge,
that my respect--my reverence--was shaped largely by Atmananda
and the other disciples.
I was convinced by these reasons. So was my brother. My parents
were not.
"Mark, would you please talk to the rabbi?"