Late one night, Atmananda met three hundred disciples in a parking
lot in the desert ninety miles east of San Diego. He led us
for hours over soft, cooling sand to a spot in a dry river bed.
He had us form a circle around him. As we scanned for scorpions
before sitting down, the desert floor lit up like a circular,
gyrating constellation, until one by one the flashlights went out and it
grew difficult again to see.
"If you enter a higher level of consciousness," Atmananda began from
the center of the circle, "you will see the Warriors on the cliffs across
the gorge. They are subtle beings from another plane of existence.
They look a lot like American Indians."
Hundreds of braves, tall and unflinching, were conjured in my imagination.
"What do you *see*?" Atmananda asked the group.
I made no response. I did not doubt the images cast on
the back of my eyes by my brain. Nor did I doubt Atmananda.
In the months after the week-and-a-half-long Stelazine experiment,
the doubts and the conflict had vanished. I was reluctant to speak
because my vision had been so subtle, so fleeting.
Meanwhile, others in the circle--engineers, teachers,
doctors, lawyers, students, and business professionals--
also remained as silent as the rocks and hills around us.
"If you are at all serious about the study of mysticism,"
chided Atmananda, "you must learn to talk openly about what you
*see*. If you don't, your mind will play tricks on you and you
will doubt your experiences later on."
More silence. The next ten seconds passed very slowly.
"Atmananda," I suddenly announced. "I *saw* the Warriors."
Others in the circle soon *saw* them too.
Atmananda held desert trips once or twice a month and, by mid-1983,
followers *saw* him walking above the ground on a "cushion of light,"
flying to distant mountains, sending columns of light into the sky,
and causing constellations to gyrate and disappear.
On one starlit night, Atmananda raised his hands above his head.
As he slowly lowered them, he made a low, whistling sound like
the wind.
"What did you *see*?" he asked afterward.
"I didn't *see* anything," one new follower bemoaned.
"Advanced psychic vision is necessary to perceive what I am doing or,
more accurately, not doing," Atmananda said patiently.
"I hate to sound negative," persisted the follower, "but what exactly
are you doing?"
For a moment I felt tense. The disciple had unearthed a question
that had badly stung me many times before.
"Sometimes I alter actual physical objects, sometimes I alter
your perceptions, and sometimes I alter both," Atmananda said,
dispelling the tension with his gentle, soothing voice.
"Atmananda, I *saw* you become a luminous egg," said another follower,
borrowing a phrase from the Castaneda books.
"Anyone else?"
"I *saw* light from the stars pass through your body," tried another.
"Very good. Who *saw* me disappear?"
I often saw Atmananda disappear after I stared at him for several
minutes without blinking. But during one desert trip in 1983, I saw
him vanish independently of the dilated pupils. Then, a moment later,
I saw him reappear as someone else.
"What I am about to say," he had announced that night, "is going
to come as a shock to you. You see, I am not who you think I am."
The followers stopped fidgeting.
"A few days ago," he continued, "when I stopped drinking Tab, I knew
something was up. This morning when I woke, I looked at my body.
There was nothing but Light. I suddenly understood. It was all
so simple."
He paused. "Who am I?" he asked.
Dead silence.
"Don't all answer at once."
Nervous laughter.
"I thought you were a man named Atmananda who meditated extremely well,"
said a man.
Atmananda did not reply.
"Are you a doorway to eternity?"
"Please--no philosophy tonight," he said sharply. "Who else?"
After several more tries, a devotee suggested that he was Vishnu,
a Hindu godhead.
"Close," he approved.
I felt a rush in the pit of my stomach. Atmananda's private jet,
after years of accumulating the fuel of our trust and belief,
was finally taking off. I was worried. "Fastening my seat belt"
would do me no good if he started thinking he was on par with Jesus
Christ or the Buddha.
"Are you Rama?" someone asked.
"Yes," he replied. "I am Rama, the last incarnation of Vishnu.
You people think that I am a person, but I am not. Over the years
I watched my various selves fade away. I fought the process tooth
and nail--like each of you are doing now. But it was in vain.
I could not stop the process of dissolution. I had to admit that I
was no longer a person. This morning I suddenly knew who I was.
I have been cycling...I am beginning to remember...Eternity
has named me Rama...Rama most clearly reflects my strand
of luminosity...We're at the end of a cycle...At this time,
Vishnu takes incarnation as a person...Vishnu is that aspect of God
that preserves and protects life...Rama...the last incarnation
of Vishnu..."
Jolted by the speed and the angle at which his jet now climbed--
he *was* putting himself on par with Jesus Christ and the Buddha--
I suppressed a reaction and awaited instructions from the pilot's
latest persona. But the instructions, it turned out, had been issued
months before. Each follower was supposed to write and submit stories--
typed, double-spaced--about his or her experiences with him.
Our prose, he had been telling us, was indicative of our mediocre level
of consciousness, so we wrote and rewrote and we tried to revise,
guided by his comments in the margin.
Stories about Rama--a figure from Hindu mythology--can be found
in the classic Indian text, The Ramayana. Stories about "Rama"
(Atmananda [Fred])--a guy from Connecticut--can be found in The
Last Incarnation.
The words, "THE LAST INCARNATION" flash from the cover in letters of gold,
above a backlit photo of "Rama," the book's editor, publisher, and focus.
The stories portray Rama as a warm, intelligent servant of Truth--
with enough mystical power to light up a city. A few of my stories,
which also depict him as a down-to-earth demigod, appear in
the 403-page collection. But there were other stories I could
have written.
I could have written, for instance, the story of "Rama and the Puppets
of Bliss and Profit." In 1980, Rama got a cuddly, white hand
puppet which had purple feet and a purple, toucan-shaped beak.
Rama called it "Bliss," and often played with it as though it
were alive. He appeared to make it talk, yawn, sleep, and soar.
"Bliss is soaring through the other worlds," he explained. In 1982,
I asked Rama what he wanted for his birthday.
"Another Bliss," he replied with a boyish grin. So I set out on a quest
with Paul to buy a Bliss for our benefactor. Together we combed
the toy stores of southern California, but the search was to no avail.
Weeks later, I spoke with a puppet designer in northern California.
"Sounds to me like you have a 'Take Me To Your Leader,'" she said.
"Does it have antennas?"
"No."
"Then you must have an 'Uncle Lucius.'"
"Actually," I said, "we call it 'Bliss.'"
Over the next few years, Rama ordered thousands of yellow,
red, green, pink, and blue Blisses.
"Oh, how adorable," said the flight attendants when they saw
the grown man in first class playing with the colorful puppets.
"We donate them to children's hospitals," Rama claimed.
He failed to mention that he brought the Blisses to Centre meetings,
where he infused their beaks with a "special force" and where he sold
them at a handsome profit.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Token Underdog."
"A large part of what motivates me," Rama once confided,
"is my concern for the underdog." He displayed his concern one
desert trip by accompanying a handicapped student who was unable
to keep pace with the group. I recalled one of Rama's lessons:
"You can tell a person's level of spiritual evolution by how
they treat those around them." I felt proud of my teacher.
But shortly thereafter, Rama's attitude changed. He began
four-wheeling the desert sands while the rest of us walked.
He also banned from all desert trips those who were unable to
keep up.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Menorah Incident."
I once placed in the window of my room a menorah, a traditional
candle holder used by Jews during the celebration of Hanukkah.
But when my housemate and mentor noticed, he looked at me askance.
"What, are you crazy?" he said. "Take it down right away!"
It was inconceivable to me that behind a mask of intellectual
and religious tolerance could lie so powerful a bent to control.
I removed the menorah from my window.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Satanic Billboard."
In 1982 and 1983, Rama occasionally said that he'd like to place
a billboard of his face above the busy intersection of freeways 10
and 405 in Los Angeles. He seemed excited about including this message:
"666--We're Back".
And I could have written the story of "Rama and the Blade Runner Day."
"Would you like to meet Harrison Ford?" Rama asked me over
the phone in 1983. By then, many San Diego devotees had moved
to the expanding Centre in L.A., based largely on Rama's advice.
Centre meetings in Los Angeles were first held in a small room
in Hollywood, and then in a large room with a stage in Manhattan Beach.
By the time meetings were held in the ornate Beverly Theater
on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Rama commuted each week
from his ocean-view Malibu rental to the expanding Centre in
San Francisco.
"You mean Hans Solo?" I asked. "You bet!" I drove west,
then north, toward Zuma Beach. Twenty minutes later, I turned
down a long driveway to Rama's house, which he claimed that he
rented from Goldie Hawn. Hawn wanted to sell; Ford wanted to buy;
and Rama, Anne, and I wanted to see, in real life, a favorite image
from the magic screen.
Rama wore a colorful shirt patterned with scenes of the tropics,
similar to one worn by Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) in The Mosquito Coast.
Obsessed with creating a world of his own, Fox bares a captive
community to his innovative dreams, poisoned experiments,
and diminishing sanity.
Rama suggested that we act busy, so I went outside and pushed a broom.
I smelled smoke. Nearby brush fires had been fanned out of control
by increasingly strong winds. The thick, yellow sky reminded me
of Blade Runner, a science fiction film starring Harrison Ford.
The recollection caused my mind to digress down a corridor of memories,
smoke, and mirrors.
I pictured Rama in line at the movies, which is where he
met disciples on Saturday nights. He was easy to spot.
With arms folded, one foot forward, and head tilted back,
he played the part of the self-possessed, insurgent general who had
ordered his troops to carry on, despite the overwhelming odds.
His bush of hair made him seem taller than he was.
Rama incorporated into his teachings what he gleaned from the three,
sometimes four films he saw in a typical week. He taught, for instance,
that he was like Mike (Robert De Niro) from The Deerhunter. Mike risks
a game of Russian roulette in war-torn Saigon to try to save Nicky
(Christopher Walken), his friend.
"You are like Nicky," Rama told me frequently.
Drawing, too, from Mel Gibson's role in Road Warrior, Rama taught
that it was okay for spiritual Warriors to temper their valor
in order to survive.
Rama taught that it was spiritually correct to see such movies
as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Dawn Of The Dead, and The Shining,
each of which he viewed repeatedly. Horror films, he claimed,
were a clean way to alter our level of consciousness--"No drugs, no sex"--
and were a graphic reminder that each lifetime was but a brief,
fragile opportunity through which to evolve.
Citing Mick Jaggar in the concert film Let's Spend The Night Together,
Rama further taught that it was perfectly natural for powerful
men to develop their feminine side. "Part of the reason why
people are so attracted to Mick," he said, "is because he puts out
a very feminine energy." Rama later depicted himself in posters
and newspaper ads as an androgynous figure.
Perhaps as part of a doubt-diffusing lesson, Rama once invited
about twenty-five inner circle disciples to see Split Image,
a movie portraying a cult in the late '70s. When the cult leader
(Peter Fonda) blatantly manipulated his followers, Rama laughed out loud.
We laughed too. It was an odd moment; our laughter had a nervous
edge to it. I laughed partly to fit in, and partly because I sensed,
but refused to confront, the absurdity of the situation.
Another time, Rama took followers to see Conan The Barbarian.
When Conan (Arnold Schwartzeneggar) observes a cult leader raise his
arms to silence throngs of "DOOM"-chanting disciples, Rama, who sat
beside me in the theatre, turned to me and said, "He doesn't have
such a bad set up." I figured Rama was only joking. I laughed,
but laughed alone.
Rama's lessons about movies often turned my topsy-turvy world
further upside down. He told me, for instance, that Star Wars
creator George Lucas was wrong to have Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)
prematurely leave a mystical apprenticeship, wrong to have evil
unmasked by good, and wrong to portray Yoda as being gay.
"Yoda is gay?" I asked.
"Yes," Rama replied, "but don't worry--you are not gay. No way.
Of course you're not gay. Don't believe anyone who tells you
that you are. Why even allow yourself to think that you are gay?"
Then, after laughing heartily, he hissed an imitation of the Emperor,
Darth Vader's evil master.
Rama, who assumed broad powers to interpret reality and myth,
seemed to believe that he was made of the stuff of legends.
He got touchy, however, when disciples looked to legends outside
the realm of his control. One time, for instance, I excitedly told him
that I had seen an autographed photo of Mark Hamill.
"Here you are sitting next to a fully enlightened teacher,"
he said bitterly, "and all you can do is live in a world of fantasy."
Rama was right, I decided, as I pushed the broom down the long driveway
in Malibu. I was living in a world of fantasy. There, shaded by billowing,
yellow smoke and accompanied by a talkative real estate agent,
was Harrison Ford, quietly stepping toward Goldie Hawn's house,
toward the "Last Incarnation of Vishnu." Ford wore dungarees.
Rama introduced himself as the renter and as a teacher of advanced meditation.
Anne introduced herself as a friend of Rama's.
"Sure is a blade runner kind of day," I blurted.
Ford said hello and went inside with the agent. We followed.
When the entourage reached the master bedroom, Rama gazed
at the ocean and declared, "The Force is strong here."
But Ford did not seem interested in Rama's assessment of the local
mystical energy field. Nor did Ford seem interested in Rama's
recollections about his fire fighting days. (Rama failed to mention
that he had fought the fires while in a prison camp, where he
had been serving time for selling drugs.) Ford was interested
in the construction of the house, and now he had seen enough.
He started to leave.
Rama handed him a Self Discovery, the free, promotional publication
that had taken the place of WOOF!. Rama gave him an issue
that had been distributed throughout southern California.
On the front cover was a blowup of Cindy, a beautiful, young,
blond woman, meditating on the hood of Rama's red Porsche.
Inside were stories from The Last Incarnation. On the back cover
was Rama's past-life resume advertisement, in which he claimed:
"1531-1575, Zen Master, Japan; 1602-1771, Head of Zen Order, Japan;
1725-1804, Master of Monastery, Tibet; 1834-1905, Jnana Yoga Master, India;
1912-1945, Tibetan Lama and Head of Monastic Order, Tibet; 1950- ,
Self Realized Spiritual Teacher and Director of Spiritual Communities,
United States."
Ford took the issue and left.
"It's just like in Star Wars," Rama noted as Ford drove away.
"He doesn't really believe in The Force."
There was more to tell of that particular story--my house burned
down that day. And while disciples gave generously when Rama took up
a collection, no one could have replaced my birthday gift from Rama.
I found it lying on the scorched foundation, reduced from a sleek,
red bicycle to a meteor-like lump of distorted alloys.
But of all the sketches I could have written for The Last Incarnation,
perhaps the most telling would have been the story of "Rama and the
Enlightenment of Women." "Certainly we welcome men into our organization,"
Rama often announced. "But our primary focus is on the enlightenment
of women." His interest in helping hundreds, even thousands,
of women seemed a genuine reflection of his commitment to the underdog.
When I first met Rama in 1978, his crusade for women had already begun.
"Unless you are close to enlightenment," he had told potential
women disciples, "you will lose a great deal of your spiritual
and mystical power through sex and through sexual relationships."
Over the years, Rama spent many hours counseling and persuading
women seekers to leave their boyfriends and husbands in the name
of gender equality and higher spirituality. In 1981, for instance,
weeks after the coup, he wrote and published in WOOF!
(Issue #2; January, 1981): "Dear WOOF!, I love the spiritual
life and the vital life too. What should I do? - Sproutarina
J. Prana
"Dear Sproutarina, Your difficulty is that you are burning the candle
at both ends and sooner or later you are going to melt. I suggest a day
in the desert alone, a good movie, or a powerful occult experience.
You see, Sproutarina, God loves you no matter what you do. If you
want the vital, you can have it, and if you want the psychic you can
have that too. But you can't have both, at least not in our Centre.
Decide which will really fulfill you and choose that one. Only you
can decide what you want in this lifetime."
Rama--who preferred the term "having sex" to "making love"--
occasionally softened his position on sexuality and invited followers
to relax, accept their human nature, and do whatever worked for them.
"Hey, Kate!" he once said in an Italian accent. "You go out with-a
my boy Mark, and I'll take plenty good care a-you!" It was understood
that Rama meant business when he donned his Godfather persona,
and I subsequently enjoyed a several-month relationship with this
young disciple. Yet when I asked Rama if it was possible for a man
and woman to have an emotionally and spiritually supportive relationship,
he smiled, shook his head, and said, "Even if you find a woman
whose consciousness is spiritually refined, it still wouldn't work--
because yours is not..."
In contrast, his relationships with women were highly refined,
Rama pointed out, because for him sex had become an act of spiritual,
not physical, self-giving. Nonetheless, after he got his housemate Anne
pregnant in 1982, his self-giving nature was nowhere to be found.
Instead of offering her wisdom or support, he sat in the lobby of
the abortion clinic, sorting and counting cash from a workshop he had
given on spiritual evolution.
When Anne returned to the lobby after the abortion, Rama had disappeared.
Embarrassed, she approached the receptionist.
"He went to a bookstore," the woman replied. "He said he'd
be back later."
Women in the Centre were not supposed to let on that they were
sleeping with Rama. Anne therefore felt that she had no one with whom
to share the burden of the abortion. When she appeared depressed
a week later, Rama, in front of another disciple, remarked, "If it's
not one, it's the other."
Rama often invited women disciples to "talk" with him after
Centre meetings, Anne recalled years later. But there, in his bedroom,
they frequently exchanged more than words. Rama's relationship policy,
she also recalled, required inner circle women to limit their
relationships to one man: himself. His justification for the policy
was that it kept them from unwittingly transferring their partners'
lower male energy. Male energy, he frequently complained,
very much affected his finely tuned, delicate sensibilities.
Perhaps Rama sought protection from "baby energy" as well;
he managed to persuade one disciple in her late twenties to leave
her husband and newborn child.
Despite his ability to invoke adoration and fidelity, Rama seemed
concerned that his power to control female followers was
not absolute. He therefore kept certain men from the inner circle,
despite my recommendations.
"Jeff," I once advised, "is really smart. He's good with people,
and he's a lot of fun to be around."