"No."
"Then you must have an 'Uncle Lucius.'"
"Actually," I said, "we call it 'Bliss.'"
Over the next few years, Rama ordered thousands of yellow, red, green, pink, and blue Blisses.
"Oh, how adorable," said the flight attendants when they saw the grown man in first class playing with the colorful puppets.
"We donate them to children's hospitals," Rama claimed. He failed to mention that he brought the Blisses to Centre meetings, where he infused their beaks with a "special force" and where he sold them at a handsome profit.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Token Underdog." "A large part of what motivates me," Rama once confided, "is my concern for the underdog." He displayed his concern one desert trip by accompanying a handicapped student who was unable to keep pace with the group. I recalled one of Rama's lessons: "You can tell a person's level of spiritual evolution by how they treat those around them." I felt proud of my teacher. But shortly thereafter, Rama's attitude changed. He began four-wheeling the desert sands while the rest of us walked. He also banned from all desert trips those who were unable to keep up.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Menorah Incident." I once placed in the window of my room a menorah, a traditional candle holder used by Jews during the celebration of Hanukkah. But when my housemate and mentor noticed, he looked at me askance. "What, are you crazy?" he said. "Take it down right away!" It was inconceivable to me that behind a mask of intellectual and religious tolerance could lie so powerful a bent to control. I removed the menorah from my window.
I could have written the story of "Rama and the Satanic Billboard." In 1982 and 1983, Rama occasionally said that he'd like to place a billboard of his face above the busy intersection of freeways 10 and 405 in Los Angeles. He seemed excited about including this message: "666—We're Back".
And I could have written the story of "Rama and the Blade Runner Day." "Would you like to meet Harrison Ford?" Rama asked me over the phone in 1983. By then, many San Diego devotees had moved to the expanding Centre in L.A., based largely on Rama's advice. Centre meetings in Los Angeles were first held in a small room in Hollywood, and then in a large room with a stage in Manhattan Beach. By the time meetings were held in the ornate Beverly Theater on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Rama commuted each week from his ocean-view Malibu rental to the expanding Centre in San Francisco.