3. The Joining
In the days following Atmananda's talk, I longed to know if my vision of the "snow" had been a mystical experience, an optical illusion, or a figment of my imagination. Graduation was only weeks away. I assumed that Atmananda would help me solve the mystery, and I counted the days until his next public lecture.
I did not tell my friends much about Atmananda. They seemed content, even after reading the Castaneda books, to view the world through a rational framework. In contrast, I grew excited about the possibility of transcending the world of reason altogether. They were proud of their letters of acceptance from the Harvards and the Princetons. I was proud of my letter of acceptance from The School Of Mysticism. My letter arrived in the form of brilliant white specks which swirled about me like snow.
Nor did I tell my parents, who represented discord, anxiety, and manipulation—the opposite of what Atmananda seemed to stand for.
Instead, I spoke with my brother. He and I were close. I wanted to be just like him. He used words such as disciples, selfless-service, humanity, humility, purity, soul, soul-mate, past-lives, karma, fast track, and cosmic evolution. He got excited when he talked about Atmananda. He told me that he too had experienced perceptual distortion during Atmananda's talks. We returned to "Yoga Life Perfection."
About thirty minutes after the talk was scheduled to begin, Atmananda strode through the door. He wore a light brown suit.
"Anne," he said, "did you bring the Transcendental?"
The sari-clad woman who had sold incense at the last lecture placed a frame on the table beside Atmananda. The Transcendental was a photograph of Atmananda's Indian guru, Chinmoy. But it was so underexposed that it seemed not a picture of a guru, but rather a mug-shot of a ghost with high cheekbones. It reminded me of one of the experimental images which had emerged from my father's darkroom.
"The Transcendental portrays Guru in his highest transcendental consciousness," my brother told me.
Atmananda scanned the audience, mostly women in their sixties. Then he began to lecture, not on meditation, but on reincarnation, which he had done many times before.
"Maya, or illusion, eclipses the original perfection of the soul," he said. "The soul reincarnates over thousands of lessons known as lifetimes."
I could not recall learning about reincarnation at Hebrew school.
"As the soul evolves, it transcends desire and attachment, which is the root of all suffering. Finally, enlightenment occurs."
Unaware that he was borrowing Hindu and Buddhist doctrine, and intrigued but not convinced that in a future life I would attain enlightenment, I kept one eye on Atmananda and the other on Anne.
"Everything can be classified according to its level of spiritual evolution. Rocks and minerals are very primitive, whereas plants have more developed auras. After thousands of years, the soul seeks an animal incarnation. Except in rare instances, enlightenment occurs through the human form only."
I grinned and wiggled my thumbs, figuring I was already ahead of the game.
"Humans in their early incarnations are responsible for many of the world's problems. But evolved people are not better than others. Are college students any better than third graders?"
This diffused my concern that Atmananda's line of reasoning justified the formation of an evolved elite.
"Karma is a cosmic feedback mechanism triggered by past actions. In a universe governed by karma, few experiences are coincidental."
I supposed a lottery winner could have been a generous philanthropist in a past life. But remembering the various times I had been robbed while growing up in New York, I doubted that I had spent incarnations as a mugger. Still, I liked his contention that it was karma's role not to punish, but to educate.
"After thousands of human incarnations, you become ready to study with an enlightened teacher. You may suddenly notice a teacher's poster. You may have seen the poster many times before—only this time something *clicks*."
I looked at the Transcendental and wondered if the Guru, who looked like he badly needed sleep, could make something in me *click*.
Atmananda turned toward me, as if in response to my newest doubt, and said, "An enlightened teacher can take a person through thousands of lives in just one lifetime."
"What's the rush?" I thought.
"The sooner you attain enlightenment, the sooner you can help others transcend this world of pain and suffering."
"How did he do that?" I wondered, unsure if he were addressing typical doubts, or if he were actually reading my mind.
Atmananda continued to look at me. I found myself gazing, without blinking, into his eyes... I began to feel as if I were floating... somewhere far away I sensed my body breathing... I heard "bzzzzzzzz" droning on and on and on...
He turned away, and I returned to normal consciousness.
"Holy cow," I thought. "He did it again!" Suddenly, I imagined that he was a sorcerer and I, his apprentice. I forgot about Anne and carefully followed his words.
"Advanced seekers say that after they attain enlightenment they will return to earth to help others. But most of them end up choosing eternal ecstasy instead."
I vowed to come back and help the downtrodden.
"It is even rarer for fully enlightened souls to return," he said, pointing out that his Guru was fully enlightened.
Fully enlightened souls, Atmananda explained, were aware of those who meditated sincerely on their photograph. Atmananda then instructed us to meditate on the Transcendental. After about ten minutes of silence he asked, "Who saw the light around Guru?"
One woman shot up her hand. Then another. I admitted to myself that I thought I saw the photo glow.
"Guru flooded you with light from another world," he explained. Then, inviting the audience to experience the "advanced" side of self-discovery, he told us about Chinmoy's free weekly meditations at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University.
By this time, in keeping with Atmananda's suggestions, my brother had applied to study with Chinmoy. He was accepted. He lived near the State University of New York at Stony Brook, near the eight or so Chinmoy disciples, near Atmananda. When I asked him to take me to his Guru, he said that he would.
We met at our parents' home. He wore all white clothes. "White symbolizes purity—the spiritual quality men need to develop most," he explained, quoting Chinmoy. "Wearing white only adds one or two percent more purity to your consciousness, but every bit helps."
My mother came into the room and looked at my brother.
"Uh-oh," I thought. I felt bad for my mother. She typically had to deal with me and my brother on her own. Perhaps in anticipation of an ulcer condition, my father tended to avoid so-called family discussions. "If only she would leave us alone," I figured, "she would not get so bent out of shape."
I also felt bad for my brother. Everything he did, it seemed, aggravated my parents. "They should support him in his spiritual quest," I decided.
Now my mother looked upset. I did not know it then, but she was not upset that her sons were interested in yoga. In her youth she had satisfied a similar interest in the East by taking a course on Gandhi's philosophy. She grew concerned, however, when she realized that we were intensely focusing on one person—on a living guru.
"Where are you boys going?" she asked.
"It's okay, Mom," I replied, assuming my role as mediator. "We're just going to a talk on relaxation and meditation—you know, stuff like that." I had already told her about Chinmoy and Atmananda ("Mom, I think I found a teacher right here in New York!"). But she wanted to know more. She looked hurt.
"You're upset about relaxation and meditation?" I said, trying my best to reason with her. "This is nothing, Mom. What are you going to say when I hitchhike to Mexico to study with a *brujo*?"
The silence that ensued bore with it all the weight of a mother's love, hope, and fear for her sons.
We said good-bye and rode to the city.
"I mean, I have to lead my own life," I thought, and focused on my parents' shortcomings to offset pangs of guilt.
Manhattan's ivy-league citadel of the intellect seemed an unlikely spot for people to be led beyond thought. But then, finding a guru with an enlightened soul uptown seemed no less likely than meeting a sorcerer with a Ph.D. downtown. We switched at Grand Central Station to an uptown train and emerged at 125th Street. The clatter of subway cars gave way to traffic noise which faded once we entered the Columbia University campus. Soon we ascended steps to St. Paul's Chapel. Ahead of us were men with closely cropped hair wearing all white clothes. With hair clenched in braids, the sari-wrapped women walked apart from the men—who were not looking at them. At the top of the stairs, dressed in a red tennis outfit, stood Atmananda.
"Hi, Atmananda," said my brother, looking up.
With folded arms, Atmananda looked down and said, "Hello, Dan."
"You remember my kid brother?"
"Hello, kid brother."
Atmananda and I were roughly the same height, yet as disciples flocked by him he seemed much taller. I was again struck by his piercing eyes, sharp nose, and thick crown of brown hair. With such a countenance of nobility, he could have passed as a high Roman senator or Greek god.
"Guru couldn't make it this week," he said. "Why don't you go in and meditate, and pick up on Guru's vibes?"
My brother and I went inside. High above us on the massive chapel dome were paintings of angels. Perhaps it was the distant angels, the two hundred or more silent disciples, and the rising scent of sandalwood incense, that made me feel foreign and small. We meditated for about five minutes and left.
Outside, Atmananda was speaking with a man in white, when it struck me that he was wearing red. "A non-conformist within a group of non-conformists!" I thought.
He nodded to us but continued talking.
I walked by and noticed his name tag. Directly beneath "ATMANANDA" glimmered a sticker from AAA and this warning: "Fasten Your Seat Belt."
That night, in the Castaneda books, I read how ordinary events were often portentous omens. I wondered if there was a significant message hidden in the Guru's absence. I wondered, too, if I was supposed to meditate with this Guru before hitchhiking west.
The following week, I ventured with my brother to another of Atmananda's lectures. We also returned to meditate with Chinmoy. When we arrived at Columbia, disciples were arranging flowers, lighting incense, and otherwise darting about in preparation for their master's presence. Chinmoy apparently was on his way. Several minutes later a short, stocky Indian entered the chapel. He had a shiny head, a hooked nose, and high cheek bones. He was draped in a light-blue dhoti, the male version of a sari. He walked slowly toward the front. He sat in a big blue chair, opened his eyes wide, and blinked a couple of times.
Disciples in the audience sat with their hands folded, as if they were praying to him.
"Are they praying to him?" I asked my brother.
"No," he whispered. "They are aspiring to the Infinite in him."
The Guru sipped from a glass which he held with his pinky pointing out.
"Well," I thought. "As long as they aren't praying to him."
Suddenly Chinmoy belted out, "Aummm. Auuummmmmm. Auuummmmmmmmmmmm." After five minutes of meditation, the Guru folded his hands and bowed to the audience.
My brother whispered, "He is offering his meditation to the Infinite in us."
"That about evens the score," I thought, feeling better about the whole business of guru worship.
Chinmoy signaled a disciple who placed a box of oranges before him. He stood behind it and nodded to the audience, which began forming a line.
At first I thought he was just giving out oranges. But by filling the fruits with spiritual light, my brother explained, the Guru was really giving darshan.
One by one, the disciples looked into Chinmoy's eyes with out-stretched hands. When they received the darshan they touched the orange to their heart chakra, bowed, and walked reverentially back to the benches.
When it came my turn, I approached slowly so that people would think I was spiritual. "When Guru flickers his eyes," I recalled my brother telling me, "he is entering the perfect awareness of Nirvakalpa Samadhi." I looked up. Chinmoy smiled, flickered his eyes, and pulled from the box... nothing! He had run out of oranges.
"An omen!" I thought. I was unsure, though, what the delay exactly meant. Nonetheless, I decided to take advantage of the situation. I focused my gaze on Chinmoy. Soon everything in the chapel, except for his shiny face, seemed to disappear. Then, borrowing a technique from the Castaneda books, I squinted and crossed my eyes until Chinmoy transformed into swirls of shimmering light. "Wow!" I thought. For a moment, the distorted image before me reminded me of the Transcendental.
When Chinmoy came back into focus, he shot a glance at the side of the chapel. A disciple brought him a fresh crate. After the second flickering, I took the orange with both hands, touched it to my heart chakra, and bowed. I walked away feeling grateful. A wave of joy washed over me. I saw the disciples, including my brother and Atmananda, gazing lovingly at Chinmoy. I felt touched by a power which seemed greater and more romantic than that of the world of reason. "How many people get a gift from a *fully* enlightened guru?" I wondered.
"Don't just stare at it," my brother reproved, explaining that oranges were poor retainers of Spiritual Light. "Eat it!"
Moments later, the Guru announced in a lilting voice, "Atmananda, pleeeez bring."
Atmananda led the five or six potential initiates to the front of the chapel. He had found, inspired, and persuaded them through his lectures. While Atmananda watched the Guru initiate them, he did not return to his seat. Instead, he remained in front, several feet away.
Chinmoy rapidly oscillated his eyes at the new recruits. His eyes were still flickering when he placed his hand on each of their foreheads. When his eyes returned to normal, he flashed a smile at Atmananda, at the new disciples, and at the rest of the audience. Then he left the chapel in a flurry of whites and saris.
As I watched him leave, I felt secure that he and Atmananda knew a lot about the unknown. I glanced across the room at the disciples. I realized that I wanted to be part of their fellowship.
My brother and I found Atmananda outside, addressing a group of Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples.
"Do you want to go with us to Au Natural?" he asked us.
At that moment I would have gone with him anywhere, partly because I was not keen on going home, and partly because he was so compelling. There was something about him that felt nurturing yet electric, casual yet happening.
"Yes!" we chimed.
Atmananda organized rides, gave directions, warned us about potholes and drunk drivers, and suggested that we maintain a meditative consciousness, lest we lose the Guru's light. Then he led us away from the other Chinmoy disciples, from the chapel, from the campus, and onto the streets.
I watched the blur of city lights from the back of Atmananda's Saab, which hurtled through the streets at a velocity close to that of a New York taxi. He skillfully avoided potholes and drunk drivers. He told my brother of his plan to have Stony Brook disciples advertise his free public lectures by placing posters in Manhattan. I relaxed, believing he was in control.
At Au Natural, a yogurt shop, Atmananda introduced me to the Stony Brook disciples. There were Anne, Dana, and Suzanne, the sari-clad women from his lectures. There was Tom, a dark-haired young man who was as tall as Atmananda and who seemed easygoing. There was Sal, a balding young man who seemed intense. There were other Chinmoy disciples milling around, but the Stony Brook group stuck together.
I expected the conversation would be spiritual, seeing as how we had just meditated with a fully enlightened guru. To my surprise, Atmananda and Tom recalled an episode from The Twilight Zone.
"And he totally disappeared."
"Into the fifth dimension."
"Yeah, he really got zapped."
That night, when I got home, I wondered if Atmananda should have been more meditative. But I recalled that Don Juan often acted absurd, funny, and irreverent. He did so to balance the utter seriousness of The Path, as well as to shake up Castaneda's pre-conceived notions of what it meant to be a seeker. "Besides," I thought, quoting Atmananda, "who says spirituality can't be fun?"
The following week, I wondered if Chinmoy would accept me as his disciple. I asked my brother what my odds were.
"If you are drawn to Guru," he said, "the chances are you have studied with him in past lives. But if he sees that he's not the right teacher for you, he'll guide you inwardly to the right one."
I wanted to believe what my brother and Atmananda had been telling me. I wanted to believe that the Guru installed disciple-specific, invisible channels through which peace, light, and bliss could, if the disciple were receptive, inwardly flow. Yet I was not sold on the theory of reincarnation. Nor was I convinced that Atmananda was fully accurate when he claimed that Chinmoy was the Cosmic Boatman, an avatar [incarnation of a Hindu deity], and the most advanced soul ever to have incarnated anywhere in the entire universe.
"Why would the messiah live in Jamaica, Queens?" I wondered. But then I felt bad. After all, the Buddha and Christ probably didn't live in such fancy neighborhoods either. I also realized that my doubts were based on the premise of rationality, the very nature of which Atmananda had taught me was limited, flawed, and often destructive. "I suppose Chinmoy *could* be the Cosmic Boatman," I told myself as part of a compromise.
Days later, after one of Atmananda's public lectures, I grew curious about my earlier vision of the snow. I asked Atmananda to explain.
"Your third eye chakra is opening up a bit," he explained matter-of-factly. "You are seeing into another world. It is not unusual to have this type of experience if you have meditated in past lives."
"Thanks, Atmananda!" I said.
"Sure, kid," he said, suggesting that I sit back and enjoy the process.
Except for occasional doubts, I had been enjoying the process. I enjoyed hanging out with the Stony Brook disciples. They were not only fellow seekers, but they seemed to have a good time. Atmananda, in particular, was fun to be around. He sometimes made me feel important and powerful. I enjoyed his lectures, during which he quoted The Bhagavad-Gita, The Bible, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Star Wars, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Thoreau, Roethke, and Carlos Castaneda. One time he even recited my favorite passage from the Castaneda books, the one about traveling on paths that have heart.
Now convinced that I had found a home in Atmananda's world, I decided to seek initiation from Chinmoy.
My mother knew that my involvement with the group was intensifying. She had been trying to get me to talk to the rabbi.
"Why should I talk to the rabbi?" I responded.
"Will you at least listen to what he has to say?"
But I had been listening to the rabbi since my bar mitzvah four years ago and, frankly, I was not impressed. A kind and sometimes humorous man with a keen intellect, the rabbi represented a religion which seemed less mystical than social. He struck me as being extremely reasonable, if not a little dull. In all the years I studied, sang, and prayed in his congregation, not once, as I recall, did he capture my imagination.
"I don't want to talk to the rabbi," I had replied.
Now I told my mother that I wanted to become a disciple.
She grew quiet and pale.
I told her that I had had mystical experiences while meditating with Chinmoy. I did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge, that the mystical experiences mostly occurred after I crossed or squinted my eyes, or after I gazed at Chinmoy for two minutes or more. I told her that Chinmoy was an enlightened guru, and that I respected him greatly. I did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge, that my respect—my reverence—was shaped largely by Atmananda and the other disciples.
I was convinced by these reasons. So was my brother. My parents were not.
"Mark, would you please talk to the rabbi?"
I finally agreed to go.
When my brother, my mother, and I entered the book-filled office, the rabbi's expression, accentuated by a bulbous nose and glasses, was anything but humorous.
"Hello, Mrs. Laxer," he said. "Hello, boys."
"Hello, rabbi."
He asked us if we were getting involved in another religion.
"No, rabbi," explained my brother. "We are studying spiritual mysticism."
"We're just learning to meditate," I added.
"I see," he said. He mentioned an obscure mystical sect within the Jewish religion known as Cabalism. But Judaism, he explained, slowly, as though measuring each word, was based upon laws—not direct mystical experience. As he spoke, I recalled that Jewish law had been passed down through the generations since the time of Abraham and Isaac. Chinmoy's teachings, I realized, also stemmed from a tradition dating back thousands of years. I found myself picturing Chinmoy and Atmananda. "They are such colorful characters," I thought.
I glanced at the rabbi. He was saying something about the dangers of mind control. "The rabbi is so... plain," I decided. I felt certain that he had never read the Castaneda books.
My mother said little during the meeting. She was hoping that the rabbi would build for my brother and me a framework through which we could view our mystical quest. When the meeting was over, I went home and stared at the underexposed Transcendental photo of Chinmoy.
The next day I tried to meditate, but my mind dwelt on familiar thoughts: "As soon as I graduate, I'm going to leave my tired, depressed father. I'm going to leave my manipulative, demanding mother. I'm going to follow a path with heart, and things are going to get better."
Meanwhile, my mother had asked if she could attend one of the meetings with the Guru.
"Sure," I replied. I felt I had nothing to hide, and I secretly hoped that she would wish me well on my journey.
Dressed in Western clothes, she went to St. Paul's Chapel that Wednesday night and sat near the front. She felt uncomfortable being surrounded by a sea of whites and saris. She saw disciples praying to a short, Indian man dressed in robes. Her stomach became tense when the man placed his hand on the forehead of her youngest son.
I stood in front of the chapel, before Chinmoy, squinting. In the flickering of the Guru's eyes, I was initiated. I bowed and turned, and in the audience I saw my mother. I quickly looked away. I saw myself less as the son of caring, creative, and slightly mixed-up New York Jews, and more a disciple of the man Atmananda said was perfect.
After initiation, I began to spend less time at home, where I often heard things like: "Artie, you talk to your son about what he is getting involved in."
"Leave me alone!" my father replied, irritably.
"It's a *rotten* family!" my mother declared.
I happily spent time instead with my brother, Atmananda, and the other Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples.
One time, while camping with my brother in a marsh near Stony Brook, my calves began to itch. I tried not to scratch what seemed to be poison ivy, but must have done so in my sleep because by morning, the rash had spread.
When I went home, my mother applied lotion to my skin. The next day, she asked if I was better.
"Yup," I said and left for school. Confident that my skin would heal on its own, I did not want to make a fuss over the red bumps which now covered most of my body. Yet later that day in writing class I had to sto...p reading a poem becau...se I could no...t get the words out, and my mother arrived and rushed me to the hospital. After a shot of adrenaline caused the puffy, quarter-sized blotches to shrink, the doctor pointed out that had I not been treated in time, I might have been suffocated by the growing bump in my throat.
"How odd to have a near-death experience so soon after my spiritual initiation," I thought. I asked the doctor what he thought had nearly killed me. "Perhaps you had an allergic reaction to something you ate," he said. But after various food groups were one by one reintroduced into my diet, the cause of the hives remained hidden.
I asked Atmananda what he thought had nearly killed me. "It is no coincidence," he said mysteriously. "Whenever you make genuine spiritual progress, the Negative Forces in the universe try and hold you back. But don't worry. When you are attacked by the Forces, just think of Guru."
I did think of Guru. I often doubted, though, that nefarious, non-physical Entities from beyond the world of reason were getting underneath my skin. I recalled that Don Juan tricked Castaneda into pursuing the path to knowledge, and wondered if Atmananda's explanation was a ploy to maneuver me closer to Guru. But because I sought adventure, challenge, and entrance into the metaphysical worlds of Don Juan, Obi-Wan-Kanobi, Chinmoy and Atmananda, I willfully suspended my disbelief. I also suspended my plans to hitchhike west. After reading a speech at my high school graduation, I said good-bye to friends and family, and bought a one-way ticket east to Stony Brook.