I saw memories of him telling me to act like a warrior before
the Forces destroyed what we had worked so hard to achieve.
I saw him telling me with a concerned look on his face that he had
spent more time with me than with any other student.
"I..."
I had developed over the years a deep trust in him, as if he were family.
I had allowed him to access and to control an important part of me,
my imagination, and now I feared that without him, the window
to worlds of dreams and fantasy would never open up again.
There were other fears: of death, of God, of the absence of God,
of being lost without a world, without a friend...
"I..."
I could not admit that I had trod what had in part become a bogus path.
I wanted so much for there to be a simple solution.
"I...I see sparks flying from your hand, Atmananda," I said,
allowing myself to imagine--and therefore to see--the sparks.
Atmananda left the room. I lay in bed, listening to the macaws.
"I won't let the Negative Forces take me over," I determined. "I am
going to be a true spiritual warrior." When thoughts about Atmananda's
other side resurfaced, I refused to confront them. Instead, I silently
repeated Atmananda's recommended doubt-combating mantra: "NO!"
"NO!" I thought, after reading in a Castaneda book Don Juan's
assertion that under no circumstance should you stay on a given
path if your feelings tell you to leave.
"NO!" I thought, whenever I found myself questioning the process
by which I censored my own thoughts.
I was still thinking, "NO," on the day Atmananda noticed the hole
in the roof.
"GRAAAAAUUUUHHHHG!" squawked one of the colorful, captive birds.
"BAM! BAM! BAM!" echoed Atmananda's hammer as he blocked off
the escape route with some two-by-fours.