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."
Rama hesitated. "I don't know, Mark; I'm worried about Dana."