"And I would be willing to wager," he said, smiling warmly,
"that they are in for a heck of a good time.
"Until the warriors are close to attaining enlightenment, they will need
a genuine spiritual teacher. They will need a teacher who turns out strong,
free-thinking individuals, *not* spaced-out, dependent disciples.
They will need a teacher who is fully or partially enlightened,
and who has extensive experience in guiding souls to self-realization.
They will also need a teacher who has the power to ward off hordes
of Negative Forces."
Atmananda reminded us that the powers from his past lives had been
"cycling" through him and had been propelling him into basement
samadhi and beyond. He said that he had been carefully monitoring
his progress toward self-realization. He had not only asked
the Infinite for advice, he assured us, but had been reading
detailed accounts of the enlightenment process.
No one asked to review his source material.
He went on to describe the countless inner realms he had been
slipping in and out of lately. The realms, he explained, were so
deep and powerful that the man we had come to know as Atmananda
had all but disappeared inside the clear light of the void.
I was attempting to make sense of his claims, when he said that samadhi
was incomprehensible to the human mind. Then he paused, slowly scanned
the audience, and announced that he would be helping advanced,
sincere seekers in their quest for enlightenment...on his *own*.
"He's on a power trip!" I thought. "Maybe he's been planning this
all along. Maybe he actually believes in it. In either case..."
"You need to realize that I am doing this because it is what
the Infinite wants me to do. It certainly wasn't my idea.
You see, when you reach this stage in the enlightenment process,
you completely surrender your will to the Infinite."
"If that's true," I thought, "no problem. But..."
"Please understand that I am not a guru. I am a teacher.
How can you tell if someone is your teacher? By how you feel
when you meditate with them. By their glow. By how they treat
the people around them. By whether they practice what they preach.
But you have to be careful out there. You have to ask yourself,
'Are they phony or are they genuine? Are they trying to take your money?
Are they trying to sell you spiritual rhetoric laced with subtle,
complex half-truths?'"
"I agree," I thought, "we should watch out. But..."
"You have to ask yourself, 'Does the teacher give individual
counseling when necessary? Provide a community of advanced seekers?
Transmit light inwardly? Teach several spiritual philosophies
and disciplines? Point out traps along the Path? Ward off
the Negative Forces?'" Atmananda inundated us with so many details
that he appeared to be conducting a lesson, not a coup.
"Another way to tell if someone is your teacher," Atmananda said,
turning toward me, "is to see if you have studied with them
in a previous life. Several of you have been with me before.
Mark, for instance, has studied with me in Tibet, Japan, and India.
He doesn't remember very well, but he will. You may have noticed
how easy it is to see his aura."
"He's just saying that!" I thought. Yet I had always felt
a powerful affinity toward those countries. Several students cast
their gaze at me. I felt a rush. I felt powerful. It felt good.
Minutes later, Atmananda suddenly grew bitter. "Don't think
that I don't know what some of you are thinking," he accused,
as he aimed his eagle-like glare. "You realize, of course,
who I *am*," he added haughtily.
"Who are you really, Atmananda?" I wondered. I felt frenzied and dazed,
as if a dark and powerful cyclone had swept Atmananda's train off
its tracks--and me with it. I thought about the time Atmananda had
narrated at a Centre meeting the tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes."
He had likened himself to the story's truthful, outspoken child.
"Is he like the child?" I now wondered. "Or is he really like
the deceitful tailor?" Looking up, I chose to see him as my kind,
warm-hearted friend.
"There are a few of you," he said, "who are letting the Forces
fill you with confusion and doubt. But overall, you are a fairly
advanced group and should have no trouble perceiving what your
inner beings already know."
"He sounds like he believes in what he's saying," I thought.
"Look, you can think about it all you want. But until you learn
to *see*, believe me, you won't get very far."
The Santa Barbara disciples suddenly stood up.
"You folks are invited to stick around," Atmananda said.
They stepped outside and closed the door.
At around 9:30 p.m., Atmananda announced that those who sought
to continue their studies with him should return to the Centre later
that night. Then, pointing out that we were letting ourselves
get fogged, he suggested that we meditate to clear things up.
Many in the audience closed their eyes to meditate.
"Open your eyes and look at me," Atmananda scolded.
Despite my new credentials as an old mystical seer, I looked but could
not *see* if Atmananda was an enlightened spiritual teacher who had
found the way, or a charismatic megalomaniac who had lost it.
But the thick fog of illusion, which prevented me from gaining
insight into his true nature, might have partially cleared had I
known what Atmananda told Tom only weeks before, during a meditation
with Chinmoy in New York.
"Have you noticed anything different about Guru?" Atmananda had
asked him.
"No," replied Tom, who had not yet joined Atmananda's west
coast entourage.
"Something heavy has been going down in the inner worlds,"
Atmananda said. "Call me in San Diego in late December, and I
will fill you in."