Atmananda left the room. I lay in bed, listening to the macaws.
"I won't let the Negative Forces take me over," I determined. "I am going to be a true spiritual warrior." When thoughts about Atmananda's other side resurfaced, I refused to confront them. Instead, I silently repeated Atmananda's recommended doubt-combating mantra: "NO!"
"NO!" I thought, after reading in a Castaneda book Don Juan's assertion that under no circumstance should you stay on a given path if your feelings tell you to leave.
"NO!" I thought, whenever I found myself questioning the process by which I censored my own thoughts.
I was still thinking, "NO," on the day Atmananda noticed the hole in the roof.
"GRAAAAAUUUUHHHHG!" squawked one of the colorful, captive birds.
"BAM! BAM! BAM!" echoed Atmananda's hammer as he blocked off the escape route with some two-by-fours.
13. Breakdown
In the months after I tried to run away, Atmananda kept me busy expanding his postering routes north to Los Angeles and to the Bay area. Once he had me plan and coordinate a campaign in which one hundred disciples distributed four thousand posters and one hundred thousand promotional newsletters across the entire state of California. He did not seem concerned that I was only twenty-one. He seemed to have faith in me. But after the work was complete, his faith regressed into stinging verbal attacks on my level of consciousness, loyalty, and sanity.