Hidden between UCSD and the Pacific Ocean were burial grounds,
Rama said, that were sacred to Native Americans. Surfers on their way
to Black's Beach passed through this land of cliffs and ravines.
They pointed to a graceful, white mansion and said, "Heyyy, duuuude,
that's Atkinson's place, duuuuuuuuude." Several properties south
of the UCSD Chancellor's mansion lay a burned-out car abandoned
on a charred foundation. The address seemed to be 951, but in my
mind the missing tile was in place: 9514 La Jolla Farms Road,
where Rama became "enlightened" and where I moved into darkness.
It was 1988. I parked my Volkswagon Bus at a mall one-and-a-half
miles east of campus and walked with Nunatak toward the sea.
I had cut through the not-yet-bulldozed chaparral just east of
Interstate-5 many times since returning to UCSD--a twenty-seven year
old undergraduate--but now the sun was setting and the air seemed heavy.
Suddenly, I had a sense of where I was going. During the past two years
I had dealt with my Rama experiences intellectually. But you can
only sit cooly, unmoved and protected on the cap-of-things-that-were
for so long before the cap blows and sends you tumbling.
There are many ways to grapple with the enormity of what lies beneath
the surface world of reason. I approached 9514 La Jolla Farms Road.
The last time I got near the place had been the year before, with a friend.
"I lived there once with some radical people," I had told her.
"One of them became...enlightened."
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"That's where Atkinson lives," I said, pointing away.
Now, as the sun sank in the Pacific, I stood with Nuna on the edge
of the property. I took a few steps forward but quickly stopped cold.
I could almost hear Rama saying in his Kermit-the-Frog voice,
"Make millions of people happy." I stepped to where my room used
to be when suddenly, superimposed over blackened concrete slabs,
images appeared. Rama was in the kitchen cooking for a hundred
spiritual seekers. Rama was in the meditation room giving a talk
beside a larger-than-life photo of an Indian guru. Rama was at
the same spot giving a talk beside himself. Rama was in the garage
surveying stacks of WOOF! Rama was offering me cookies to cheer me
up because I doubted his enlightenment--my *friend's* enlightenment.
Rama was hopping around the house like a kangaroo, and I was right
beside him, and we were laughing like children, and at that moment,
in the fading light, the cap blew and tears streamed down
my face.
* * *
Over the next few years, I grappled with conflicting images of Rama.
Sometimes I saw him as a friend. Other times I saw him as a
semi-enlightened seeker or as a powerful sorcerer. But the more I
researched his past, the more I discovered he was human.
He was born Frederick P. Lenz III on February ninth, 1950, in Mercy Hospital,
San Diego. He was raised Catholic in Connecticut where he lived,
alternately, with his grandparents, aunt and uncle, and father.
His parents divorced when he was a child. His father remarried,
joined a yacht club, and, in 1974, was elected mayor of Stamford.
In 1967 Fred graduated from Rippowam High School. The following
description of him appears in the yearbook: "A streak of the unusual--
chasing the beautiful, hiding from the known. Cut-rate philosopher--
monopoly on the side..."
At seventeen, Fred left the east coast and experienced the mushrooming
of the psychedelic movement while living in San Francisco's
Haight-Ashbury district. It was during the subsequent year,
which he spent in prison for selling drugs, that he was handed
a promotional brochure for Indian guru Chinmoy Kumar Ghose.
Chinmoy, whose path was paved with "peace, light, and bliss,"
had several hundred followers worldwide, including rock musicians
John "Mahavishnu" McLaughlin and Carlos "Devadip" Santana.
Fascinated by Eastern philosophy and meditation techniques
popularized in the late '60s, Fred returned to the east coast
where he studied the art of quieting the mind with Chinmoy.
He also studied English at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
While still an undergraduate, he married and divorced a Chinmoy
disciple named Pam, built dulcimers in a wood shop in his basement,
joined the university debating team, and began hosting free public
lectures on meditation.
Chinmoy, who often asked disciples to start "divine enterprises,"
asked this well-spoken, Phi Beta Kappa graduate to start a laundromat.
When Fred chose instead to enroll in a Ph.D. program in English at
the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Chinmoy kicked him
out of the Centre for roughly one year in an apparent attempt to teach
him obedience and humility.
By the time I met Fred several years later, Chinmoy had dubbed him
"Atmananda" or "Bliss-of-the-Soul," whereas the State University
of New York at Stony Brook, after accepting his dissertation
("The Evolution of Matter and Spirit In The Poetry Of Theodore
Roethke"), had bestowed upon him the title "Frederick Lenz, Ph.D."
* * *
Fundamental to my research on Rama were my discussions with
former disciples, some of whom I tracked down, and some of whom
I happened to meet at movie theatres, airports, and gatherings
of Amnesty International. Talking and writing about my
experiences helped me to work out much of the emotional pain.
Listening to what others had gone through also helped a great deal.
But as I listened, I realized that my darkest fear had come true.
Rama had been getting progressively worse.
In the fall of 1985, weeks after I left the Centre, Rama disbanded
Lakshmi and encouraged roughly one hundred followers to move
from Boston to Los Angeles. He directed these disciples to donate
their time to his software company, Vishnu Systems.
In 1986, Rama moved from Boston to Seattle with about eight
men and three inner circle women: Laura, Cindy, and Anne.
Once they arrived in Seattle, Rama informed the three women that he
had asked them along specifically to satisfy his sexual appetite.
He told them that they were to be his "Geisha's." By then, he explained,
he needed to sleep with two or three women at a time; an individual,
he maintained, had too little "energy" to stimulate him.
He confessed to Anne that for most of his life something had been
hurting him, keeping him down. He told her that during a recent
trip to a family event, he saw that his aunt and uncle had been
using their psychic powers all along to make him deathly ill
and to try to kill him. He told her that I had been sending him
a great deal of Negative Psychic Energy and that, in response,
he had been sending me Entities so my life would be "miserable
on a daily basis."
Also in Seattle, Rama repeatedly administered LSD to the three women.
During their hallucinogenic trips he kept them up all night,
shouted at them, told them that they were possessed, and tried to get them
to confess that they had incarnated on earth to destroy his mission.
Then he threatened their lives.
During one such episode described by Anne as "nightmare weekend,"
Rama fed them acid--five or so hits each--and showed them his
new puppy.
"This dog is possessed," he claimed, citing its frequent need to urinate,
and its habit of whining when confined alone in the basement.
Rama then fed the dog seven hits of LSD. "Look--it's still standing!"
he said in an effort to substantiate his claim. Rama placed his hands
around the puppy's neck and began to squeeze. Earlier he had claimed
that the Evil Forces were trying to get to him through his pets.
All of his pets, he complained, became demonically possessed.
Now he continued to choke the puppy to the brink of death.
Then he scowled at the three women and boasted that he had just used
his *willpower* to stop himself from eliminating this "enemy."
Through the sleepless night and following morning, Rama repeatedly
told the women that the puppy's situation was remarkably similar
to their own. He reminded them that they had better confess.
"Barbara confessed!" Rama finally snapped. "Barbara has come clean!
If you want to study with me in this or in any future lifetime,
you had better come clean!"
After Rama left the room, memories screamed across horror-fried
synapses of Anne's acid-drenched brain: the puppy...he's strangling
the puppy...can't breath...it's possessed--EVIL...like us...--
EVIL... like us...five hits of acid...the room...the furniture...me...focus...
the Forces...the puppy...he's strangling the..."Anne, I will send
you to hell for thousands of lifetimes!"...can't breath..."What you
will experience will make AIDS look like fun!"...he, he threatened
to kill me..."Cindy, I have a special place for you in hell!"...--
EVIL...li ke me..."Consider your future lives!"...the puppy..."Barbara
confessed!"... like me..."Come clean!"...--EVIL..."Confess!"...
When Rama returned to the room, the three young women confessed.
Weeks later, when the women asked Rama about the health of the puppy,
he replied that it had passed on to another world.
"Do you know how I did it?" he whispered. "With my *will*."
Months later, Rama announced to hundreds of followers: "No, friends,
I am not paranoid. In fact, three students recently confessed to me
that they had incarnated on earth to destroy my mission."
Also in 1986, Rama wrote to followers: "A very close friend of mine,
Jack Kukulan, died several weeks ago. I know Jack was a friend to many
of you. We will miss him. Jack was the best part of all of us.
His tremendous help and economic support of the spread of meditation
has benefited many. Jack died a warrior's death."
A squat man with dark, curly hair and a sardonic smile, Jack had applied
to be a student shortly after Rama's 1982 Berkeley lecture series.
He had allowed the Bay Area postering crew to use his house as a base
of operation, and seemed willing to help his new spiritual teacher
in any way that he could. When Rama closed the San Francisco Centre,
Jack sold his house and moved to southern California, where he
continued to run an Oakland-based fruit distribution company.
Each week I stopped by Jack's Malibu apartment to pick up a crate
of fruit for Rama, who lived down the block near Point Dume.
Before I left, Jack slipped me a small, brown, paper bag.
"That's for you," he said.
"Thanks," I replied and I pulled out a plum.
One time I asked him how he could run a company that was hundreds
of miles away.
"By making a lot of phone calls."
Another time I invited him to see a movie.
"Can't make it," he told me. "I need to take a client out to dinner."