He followed my finger with his eyes as if he were *seeing* the imaginary bird, and soon he fell asleep with a smile across his face.
As he slept, I thought about what had just happened. An incarnation of God, I realized, would not have had a bad LSD trip. Rama was not who he said he was. He was not one of twelve fully enlightened souls on the planet. He was an ordinary man, he was vulnerable, and I wanted to believe he was my friend.
After about thirty minutes, Rama awoke. He lifted his quivering hands above his head. "Did you *see* that?" he asked.
"See what, Rama?"
"I am filling the room with light. The powers are cycling through me. I am reattaining enlightenment."
"Uh-oh," I thought. "Here we go again."
Rama seemed utterly fascinated by his hands, which he wiggled and waved in front of his face.
An uneasy feeling permeated my gut. I recalled the aftermath of his last enlightenment. "Just because he believes that he's perfect," I thought, "why should I suffer?" I recalled a few of his more outlandish claims. He had lectured a doctor about the nature of illness: "Disease is merely the result of a difference in vibrations." He had taken credit when his father survived a coronary bypass operation. He had taken credit when disciples got decent jobs.
I now realized that if I were to remain a disciple, I would need to humor myself about Rama's claims—lest I rekindle the debilitating conflict between my rational and mystical natures. I had the impression that Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters kept a sense of humor about their experiments, and I wondered how they might deal with someone afflicted with Rama's particular brand of enlightenment. I recalled reading in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test that one prankster often said: "Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!"
"That's it," I decided. "When Rama starts getting out there, I'll say to myself, 'Yeah! Yeah! Right! Right! Right!'"