"How would you like to get out of the spiritual rut you are in?"
Rama asked me in the spring of 1984.
"I would like that very much," I replied. I knew that there was
something wrong with my life. For years I sought enlightenment,
but was no longer happy. For years I sought the Spirit, but was no
longer animated. For years I sought the Self, but was no longer me.
I was ready to try anything, I told him.
He offered to give me LSD. "I suggest that you take it," he said.
"But you should only take it if it feels right."
In the past he had used Chinmoy's line that hallucinogens damaged
the subtle body. But the potential benefits, he now explained,
outweighed the risk, provided that a fully enlightened teacher
was around to supervise. "Don't worry," he added with a smile.
"I am very familiar with the drug."
I was startled by the offer. As a teenager, I had responded
to similar solicitations with: "I'm high on life--drugs would
just bring me down." But the buzz of youth had long disappeared,
and I knew that the rut ran deep. Sensing, too, that three years
before Rama had diffused my internal conflict with Stelazine,
I wondered if LSD could quell my recently resurfacing doubts.
There were other factors involved. Months before, Rama had asked Tom,
the bass-guitar-playing disciple who had finally moved west,
to compile a tape of songs from the late '60s. "I want to tap into
the people who had been involved in the early consciousness movement,"
Rama explained. Subsequently, the list of musicians whose
songs Rama played at Centre meetings and at public lectures--
without regard for copyright law--grew from Tangerine Dream,
Walter Carlos, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and the Talking Heads,
to now include the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix.
Perhaps my decision regarding the LSD was affected by the music.
Perhaps it was affected by my fascination with the drug scenes in
the Castaneda books. Perhaps it was affected by my realization that,
according to the dictates of Rama's etiquette, there were grave karmic
consequences for those foolish enough to ignore his suggestions.
I told him it felt right.
Roughly one hundred fifty miles east of the beaches of Los Angeles,
in Joshua Tree National Monument, was a rock climbing route called
"Therapeutic Tyranny." Less than ten miles away, by the edge
of a mountain, the five or six disciples probably did not see Rama
handing me a tiny stamp. On it was a picture of Mickey Mouse dressed
as a wizard, waving a wand.