"Yes."
No one stirred.
"Why don't you elaborate, Kara?" said Atmananda.
"I first felt it a few weeks ago," she said, glancing at the ceiling as if she were trying to recall something. "I was meditating on the Transcendental but didn't *see* much light, ya know, and well, I just thought it was me but it just kept happening, and like I love Guru and all but... " Months later, Kara would be hospitalized for a mental disorder.
"You have truly *seen*," praised Atmananda.
My heart pounded. I felt like a bomb had exploded in my face. I saw Kara gazing at Atmananda. It was only months before that Atmananda had asked me to deceive the disciples into buying him a "surprise gift"—the new car. I scanned the crowded room. People seemed disoriented. Three disciples visiting from the Santa Barbara Chinmoy Centre kept glancing at the door. They looked ready to bolt.
"Many of you have been having difficulty meditating recently," said Atmananda in his familiar, soothing voice. "You have been blaming yourselves. But you should understand that it is not you.
"For years I have meditated on the Transcendental and the room has filled with a beautiful, white light. But lately, the light has simply not been there. At first I thought that the level of my meditation had dropped. Intuitively, though, I knew that that was not the case."
I could not believe what was happening. I had never heard Atmananda criticize his—our—beloved Guru. Still, I had to admit that his intuition was usually correct.
"When I tried meditating without the Transcendental," he continued, "my consciousness suddenly jumped to a much higher level—as if the Guru had been holding me down. And yet my logical mind still refused to accept that the Guru had fallen. You see, you don't just turn your back on someone you have devoted eleven years of your life to, someone you have loved more than anyone else in the universe."