"Something heavy has been going down in the inner worlds,"
Atmananda announced at a Centre meeting in late December, 1980.
"Can anyone *see* what it is?"
"Is Guru coming to visit us soon?" asked one disciple.
"No."
"Is the earth's psychic energy field getting progressively worse?"
tried another.
"Yes, but that's not it. Anyone else?"
"This is going to sound crazy," said Kara, a UCSD student who seemed
entranced by her own melodious voice. "But has Guru fallen?"
"Yes."
No one stirred.
"Why don't you elaborate, Kara?" said Atmananda.
"I first felt it a few weeks ago," she said, glancing at the ceiling
as if she were trying to recall something. "I was meditating on
the Transcendental but didn't *see* much light, ya know, and well,
I just thought it was me but it just kept happening, and like I
love Guru and all but..." Months later, Kara would be hospitalized
for a mental disorder.
"You have truly *seen*," praised Atmananda.
My heart pounded. I felt like a bomb had exploded in my face.
I saw Kara gazing at Atmananda. It was only months before that
Atmananda had asked me to deceive the disciples into buying him
a "surprise gift"--the new car. I scanned the crowded room.
People seemed disoriented. Three disciples visiting from the Santa
Barbara Chinmoy Centre kept glancing at the door. They looked ready
to bolt.
"Many of you have been having difficulty meditating recently,"
said Atmananda in his familiar, soothing voice. "You have been
blaming yourselves. But you should understand that it is not you.
"For years I have meditated on the Transcendental and the room has
filled with a beautiful, white light. But lately, the light has simply
not been there. At first I thought that the level of my meditation
had dropped. Intuitively, though, I knew that that was not the case."
I could not believe what was happening. I had never heard Atmananda
criticize his--our--beloved Guru. Still, I had to admit that his
intuition was usually correct.
"When I tried meditating without the Transcendental," he continued,
"my consciousness suddenly jumped to a much higher level--
as if the Guru had been holding me down. And yet my logical
mind still refused to accept that the Guru had fallen. You see,
you don't just turn your back on someone you have devoted eleven
years of your life to, someone you have loved more than anyone else
in the universe."
I wondered if a con artist would devote eleven years of his life
to a guru.
"I had to make sure that the Negative Forces were not playing tricks
on my mind," he continued. "So I decided to visit New York and meditate
on the Guru in person. I found that he still looked like Guru.
But inwardly I could see right away that he had lost his power."