But now, as I strayed from the condo grounds, I wondered if Cathy had been on to something. I thought about how the other disciples had seemed pensive lately, as if they too shared her concern. I thought about how, during the trip, Rama seemed to be flipping out of control. "Maybe Rama is not okay," I thought.
Meanwhile, my readings and reflections on Kesey had located Rama within a cultural context which, like the knowledge that the Wizard of Oz was a man behind a curtain, largely deflated his projected images and metaphors. This enabled me to question elements of his world without fear of reprisal.
I questioned the Negative Forces. The Forces, I realized, had never affected me before I met Rama. Furthermore, they seemed to disappear as soon as I stopped thinking about them. "Maybe the Forces only exist in my mind," I thought. "Maybe they are a part of Rama's trip—Rama's experiment."
I questioned Rama's claim that I was mentally ill and that I could hardly deal with the real world. I recalled my success as an undergraduate at a competitive university, as a computer operator and programmer, and as Rama's distribution coordinator. I recalled his claim that nearly *everyone* on the planet was mentally ill. "Maybe Rama isn't qualified to diagnose mental illness," I thought. "Maybe playing doctor is his way to control people."
At one point during the walk, I wondered what the consequences were for doubting the "Last Incarnation of Vishnu." But Rama had encouraged us, in the early years, to question him and to think for ourselves. "Besides," I thought, "I haven't burst into flames yet." So I went right on remembering, questioning, and thinking.
I thought about The Razor's Edge, a movie about one man's attempt to walk the narrow path between the spiritual and the mundane. What struck me about the film was that the man does not have a guru. Life is his teacher.
I recalled the hour-long conversation I had had with Donald Kohl's father, and suddenly the dam burst open and a flood of suppressed memories washed over me. I pictured Rama shouting "Fess up!"; announcing his name change; telling me to swallow the Stelazine; bursting into my room on the night that I wanted to leave...
I walked briskly back to the condo and knocked on Rama's door. "Things don't feel right," I told him. "I think I need to take some time off."
"You have to do what is right for you," he replied.
I wanted to make a clean break. I still had a few hundred dollars. I told him that I wanted to give him back the car.