Remembering Rama - Dr Frederick Lenz

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Reflections In A Crystal Wind
by UT

At my seventh birthday party, some adult friend of my parents gave me a toy. I don't know why -- the gift was far too delicate and expensive for a seven-year-old. I don't even remember whether the giver was a man or a woman. But I do remember the gift. It was a kaleidoscope. Not the cheap, cheezy kind made of cardboard, with bits of colored glass inside -- when you looked through one of them, all you saw was a cute, geometric jumble of colors. Twist it, and Click! -- the pattern changed. Big deal. No, this gift kaleidoscope came from Switzerland, so the tube was hand-crafted of polished maple and capped at both ends with brass. And when I first held it to my eye and gazed into it, I found to my shock that I could see *through* it.

Sure enough, when I looked through the tube, there was my living room and all the birthday festivities, but it wasn't the same. It had become a mandala of light. I could see familiar faces and objects, but they had become part of Another Reality. The Magical Swiss Kaleidoscope took whatever I aimed it at and shattered it into a million pieces, then rearranged them into a precise geometric pattern. Twist the tube, and Click! the pattern shifted. I lowered the kaleidoscope and examined it carefully, trying to figure out how it worked. My rational mind told me that inside the tube was a maze of lenses and prisms and mirrors, but my intuitive mind knew better. Inside was magic -- this was a machine for changing the universe!

I wandered all over the house, gazing at familiar objects through the kaleidoscope and making them unfamiliar. Click! The dog develops a dozen eyes. Click! He wags multiple tails in multiple directions. Click! The ugly green sofa becomes a splendid emerald. Click! Billy the Block Bully, who my mother insisted on inviting to the party, and of whom I am normally scared shitless, is transformed into a squat, multi-nosed little toad. I laugh at the sight of him, for the first time in my life. Click! This is serious magic!

Over the next few weeks, the Swiss kaleidoscope becomes my constant companion. Wherever I go, all it takes is a flick of the wrist -- Click! -- to transform the mundane into the otherworldly. Click! One twist of the Tube of Power turns anything that's weird or serious or scary into an object of delight. Click! Anything that's already delightful becomes more so.

The best, though, is when I aim the tube at a light source, like a candle. The magical kaleidoscope turns the glow of the flame into a shimmering crystalline tunnel, with multifaceted walls of ever-shifting, dancing, golden light. I remember how beautiful this sight was to me at age seven, and how completely it captured my attention. I would feel an intense, heartbreaking longing to dive into the tunnel and follow the light back to its source. I would twist and twist the tube, trying to find the ultimate geometric pattern that would allow me inside. Click! Nice pattern, but not good enough. Click! Nope, not yet. But I kept trying. I was convinced that if I could find the ultimate pattern, the magical Swiss light-tunnel would lead me out of this world forever, into a better one filled with ice cream and light and adventure.

I had forgotten about the kaleidoscope until recently, when I sat down to reflect on some of my experiences over the years with my spiritual teacher, Rama. As I compiled adventure after adventure on a list, and then began to whittle them down to the "ultimate" experiences I wanted to write about, I started to notice a strange immediacy to them. Whether the experience took place seven years ago or last week, whenever I began to focus on it, it became totally present, as if the adventure was not in the past but was still going on, right now, and I had somehow accessed it. And there were multiple nows. When I would shift from thinking about an experience that took place in a four-year-ago now to one that occurred yesterday, the yesterday-adventure would suddenly snap into foreground awareness and assume that quality of nowness with a resounding Click!

It was when I heard the Click! that I recalled the Magical Swiss Kaleidoscope. And sure enough -- Click! -- the memories of how it gave me my first glimpse of simultaneous realities came flooding back, imbued with that same feeling of nowness. Somehow the memory of that long-lost toy helped me make sense of a growing perception of the simultaneity of my experience with Rama. My memories of studying with him range from moments of beauty that flash past in an instant to amazing adventures that changed my life forever when I first experienced them and do so again as I remember them. But they all share this same sense of nowness.

Although the experiences cover an eight-year span, for me they are all still happening in some eternal present, which can be accessed and drawn into this present. As I recollect the moments, and shift my attention from one to another, I can almost hear the Click! as the particular banding of spiritual light that made the original now memorable does a cosmic two-step through the dimensions to transform and brighten this now. This recollection process is an awesome experience in itself, the mental equivalent of my magical kaleidoscope. Let me try to give you an idea of what it's like.

I'm sitting in my seat on the Metro-North railroad, commuting into New York for another day of work. It's several days after a Seminar in which Rama has asked us to write a paper on our highest moments with him. I pull out a notepad and begin an outline. After a few minutes' thought, I write down the first major heading -- Fast Flashes -- and under it, the first indented entry -- I Get On The Bus.

Click! I'm in the Los Angeles Convention Center, sitting in the fourth row of one of the meeting halls. Rama is in front of the room, giving an introductory talk on meditation. At the moment, he's talking about how difficult it is to tell whether a spiritual teacher is for real or not. He goes over every aspect of the subject -- how from one angle Guru Fwapnoid could "talk the talk" and look really hot, but when you shift your point of view and look at him from another perspective, he could turn out to be simply an occult manipulator, in "The Biz" only for the money and the opportunity to rip off his students' energy. It's a fascinating subject, but I have to admit I'm not really paying attention. I'm too busy trying to figure out why I'm here.

I hadn't planned to be here tonight. In fact, I had made pretty concrete plans to be elsewhere, but at the last minute had canceled them and decided to come see Rama again. This is the fourth lecture I've been to in the week-long series, and I simply cannot figure out why. I mean, I like the guy, and the meditations are really hot stuff, but six months ago I became thoroughly disillusioned with the spiritual organization to which I had dedicated the last fourteen years of my life, and walked away from it forever. I have sworn off of this spiritual teacher stuff, and wish to have nothing more to do with it. Yet here I sit.

Just then, some fellow, thoroughly confused by Rama's talk, asks, "Well, if it's so difficult to figure out whether a teacher is legitimate, how do you know when you finally meet your spiritual teacher?" Rama smiles and says, "Oh, that. That's the easiest thing in the world. You simply can't stay away."

Oh. Suddenly I feel as if several hundred pounds have just been lifted off my shoulders. My body relaxes completely for the first time in years and I begin to smile. I'm on the bus again.

Click! I'm meditating with Rama in a lecture hall at UCSD. I've been attending Lakshmi meetings in Los Angeles for about two months, but this is the first time I've ever driven down for one of the La Jolla meetings. Tonight's meditation is particularly powerful, so about halfway through I decide to open my eyes and see whether I can see some of the flash -- the siddha powers -- other students have been talking about. So far, either I've seen nothing much out of the ordinary, or the phenomena I have seen have been so subtle and fleeting that I wrote them off as illusions.

As I gaze at Rama tonight, I still don't notice anything flashy, like levitating or disappearing. What I do notice is that the room seems to be growing brighter and brighter. At first I think it's someone playing with the rheostat, but when I check, the level of the ceiling lights hasn't changed. But still, the room is filled with golden light. Moment by moment it grows more intense. I seem to remember that the woman sitting next to me has on a red dress, but as I look, it has turned golden. The green chalkboards have turned golden, the air has turned golden -- the overall impression is that all the people and objects in the room have been carved from a gold ingot.

What seems to be happening is that as Rama meditates, he is emanating a particular banding of golden light so powerful that it overwhelms the other colors in the room, absorbing them into itself. I look down and try to see my own body -- all I can see is golden light. I have a growing suspicion that this phenomenon is not simply visual -- I close my eyes again and try to feel my body. Nothing is there but golden light. I stop worrying about flash and just continue to meditate.

Click! Joshua Tree National Monument. The students from Lakshmi are on a desert excursion. Rama walks back and forth in front of us, talking and meditating and demonstrating various siddha powers, which I am having a lot of trouble seeing, because I can't see him. Even though I am sitting in the front row of the semicircle of students surrounding Rama, it's so dark I can see him only when he's really close.

I am thinking about this, grumbling about it mentally, when Rama stops directly in front of me. He's less than three or four feet away, but I can still see him only as a dark shape against the background of stars. The silhouette of his head tilts, so I can tell he's looking down directly at me, and then he disappears. I don't mean that he walks off -- he literally disappears. His body becomes more and more transparent until all that's left is a vague outline of a human body, filled with stars. I concentrate harder, trying to focus and make sure this phenomenon is not just a result of eye fatigue, but it doesn't go away. I can see half of the constellation of Orion to the right of him, and the other half through him. I shift back and forth, to see if my view of the stars through his body changes perspective the way it should -- it does. After about a minute, Rama "comes back," his body slowly becoming opaque again. In spite of the darkness, I can distinctly see him flash a quick smile at me before he walks off.

Click! Disneyland. We're in line for Space Mountain. There are two lines running parallel to each other, each filled with literally hundreds of Rama's students. The lines twist and turn back on each other as they wind towards the doorway of the ride. Sometimes one line moves faster, then the other, so you wind up watching friends pass you on the right, then your line moves, and you pass them on the left. Rama is in the opposite line from me and the group of friends I am with, and he's having fun with this zig-zagging. Every time he passes us, he flashes a different smile, radiates a different banding of light.

The lines wind and wind and wind into the building itself, around the long spaceship suspended in the center of the hall, and down the final catwalk to the loading platform. All along the twisting path, Rama has been sometimes in front of us, sometimes behind, but as we near the point where you board the cars for the ride, it's a toss-up as to whether he'll be in the same group of cars as we will. Finally, however, when we reach the end, I see Rama and friends getting into the first car of the group of four, just as I and several other students are ushered into the last two. Hot damn!

The cars take off, round the first turn, and start the long, slow climb up the "blast-off" ramp. The Disneyland special effects come on, a series of red laser beams emanating in a circle from the top of the ramp, turning the ride into a long tube of light. Just as I am thinking that the effect reminds me of descriptions of the Bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Rama starts adding his own special effects. The opening at the top of the tube turns golden and begins to emanate beams of golden light that completely overshadow the red laser beams. Time slows down, and what usually is a 30-second climb to the top turns into a long, slow glide through a tunnel with walls of brilliant crystal. The overall effect is that we are being slowly but inexorably drawn upwards, towards and into a golden ball of light. We see the first car -- the one containing Rama -- melt into this ball of light and disappear. Then our car reaches the top of the ramp, glides into the light, and goes over the edge.

Click! I'm on the Hawaiian island of Maui. I am dressed not in a bathing suit but in a down jacket. The warm clothing is necessary because I'm standing at the edge of the Haleakala crater, 10,000 feet above sea level. Rama is standing about ten feet in front of me, directly between me and the setting sun, and the fiery glow has turned his curly hair into a golden halo. I'm having trouble focusing on it, however, because my eyes are full of tears.

I'm not crying because I'm unhappy, or even because I'm happy. I don't know why I'm crying -- I just don't seem to have any choice. On the short walk that we just took with Rama down in the volcano's crater, something has happened to me. Whatever it was -- the power of the place, the winds, or the light emanating from Rama as he danced from cinder cone to cinder cone to entertain us -- something has washed me clean. I feel so empty, so formless, that I'm not even completely sure there is a me left in there any more! As I stand here, gazing at the golden light of sunset through a haze of tears, I begin to realize that all I can really identify inside me as me is that same golden light. Rama has blown away all of my old selves and replaced them with formless light. It's as if the BARRY.PARAMETERS file has been purged, and all of the old descriptions of who and what I am no longer apply. I am unformed, new.

I think, "This must be what it feels like to have just been born," and with that thought, suddenly recognize why I am crying. It has nothing to do with sadness or happiness or emotion or even the beauty of the sunset. It's just a rule of nature -- the newborn cry.

Click! The train jolts as it passes White Plains and switches from the local tracks to the express line. The conductor comes by asking for tickets; I flash him my monthly pass, and he moves on. I glance up and down the aisle for a moment, check out the sea of neatly folded Wall Street Journals, then pick up my pen and write another major heading on my notepad: Moments That Transformed Me Forever.

Click! We're in the Gorge. It's my first desert trip, and I'm doing everything I can to be underwhelmed by all this mysticism stuff. We've walked and walked and walked down this long canyon, stopping now and then to meditate and watch Rama put on his magic act for us. I'm having somewhat of an ambivalent reaction to all this. Sometimes it seems as if something is happening -- the sky will change color slightly or Rama will seem to float above the ground as he walks around in front of us. He'll say he's going to "call up the wind" and sure enough, a gust of wind comes along. Many of the students ooh and aah as if they see these things clearly, but for me, they're just the barest suggestion of a phenomenon, and the instant I notice it and concentrate harder to make sure it's really there, the phenomenon fades and it really isn't!

So my mind is doing this flip/flop -- either I have nada going on in the subtle vision department or there's really nada going on -- when Rama does the cloud trick. Although it's late in the evening, it's still quite light out, and the winds high overhead have been zipping small, compact little clouds past us. Rama looks up into the sky, picks one small, billowy cloud, and points it out to us. He raises both of his arms and aims his palms at the cloud. It stops. Not the other clouds surrounding it, mind you, just the one he pointed out to us.

Rama is silent for a while, and when he speaks, he tells us that he has had a conversation with the cloud. He has explained to it that we are his students, and that if the cloud would allow Rama to dissolve its existence, it would be of great benefit to our welfare. The cloud has reluctantly agreed -- Rama points out that this involves no small sacrifice on its part, and that we should appreciate the gesture.

"Watch carefully." Rama stands there holding the cloud against the wind with his upraised hands, and then he begins to whistle, blowing air lightly through his pursed lips. In a few seconds, the cloud begins to dissolve, from the inside out. First it starts to thin out in the middle, and then a hole develops in its center. We can see the sky through the now donut-shaped cloud. Rama continues to bombard the cloud with whatever energies can do a thing like this, and it continues to dissolve until, after a minute or two, the cloud is completely gone. So, at least for the evening, are my doubts.

Click! I'm sitting in the Neptunian Women's Club in Manhattan Beach, at our normal weekly Lakshmi meeting, but it's not normal. I doubt it ever is, but tonight I can't even cling to the illusion of normality -- Rama is farther "out" than I've ever seen him. It's hard to put a finger on what makes this night different -- he's as funny as ever, his talk is as precise as ever -- but somehow there is a quality to Rama and to the room that I've never felt this powerfully before. The quality is absorption.

Rama talks and answers questions as usual, but as the night gets later and later, the pauses between each burst of speech grow longer. He will say something, answer someone's question, but then instead of looking for the next question, his eyes close, seemingly of their own volition, and he slips seamlessly into samadhi. Rama just sits there, totally absorbed, and the room fills with silence and an intense white light. It is as if tonight the silence is running things, and when it calls, Rama has no choice but to follow. Some of the pauses last for seconds; others go on for 30-40 minutes.

No one seems to mind. We meditate along with Rama, experiencing first-hand what it is to be a Prisoner of Light. Around midnight, he opens his eyes, looks around the room, and says, "That's enough for tonight. Go home." About half the group gets up and leaves, but Rama's eyes close again and he remains in his chair, seemingly unable to move. The rest of us know the feeling -- we don't move, either. We sit quietly for another hour or so, no one daring to disturb the incredible level of silence in the room. Rama opens his eyes again, seems surprised to see us still there, and says, "OK, this is it now -- everybody go home!" But then he slips back into samadhi, and although about half the remaining group get up and leave, I cannot join them. I couldn't move if I tried.

This goes on for hours; I think we finally left sometime after 4:00 a.m. At some point, Rama gives up the pretense of trying to get the rest of us to leave, and begins to intersperse his periods of absorption with amazing talks. We're talking high-level stuff here -- answers to questions he's refused to deal with for years, prophecies about what to expect in the coming decades, amazing amounts of data -- but somehow, at least for me, more information is conveyed by the periods of silence. It's as if the "talks" are about finite bandings of light -- colors, as it were. But the real talk is about infinite light -- white light -- from which all colors emerge and into which they are absorbed. And the lesson is about how we can become absorbed, too.

Click! The Gorge. Rama is talking to us about the desert, about why we're here, and about why our attitude towards these journeys has to change. "This is a very, very, very advanced spiritual practice that hardly anyone on this earth gets into. There are only a few teachers in all the earth that teach this. And somehow you've gotten here. I don't think it's a gift -- it's just what happened. But you need to value it. Otherwise, it won't work. You see, we don't have all the time in the world. I try to be subtle about certain points because I don't know what else to do, but you have to get into it, because I'm just going to go away one day, and the whole thing will stop."

A student asks, breaking the shocked silence, "Do you know when you're going to leave?" Rama says, "No, I just keep waiting and waiting."

"Where are you going, " the student asks. Rama chuckles and says, "Nowhere fast." Then he leans back and gazes up into the desert sky. He stretches his arm up and points. "Actually, I'm going back to the place I came from originally. It's out there. All you have to do is go out past that star and to the left. Remember The Little Prince?"

He talks to us for a while about this other world. As he speaks, it's easy to visualize -- it's as if Rama were creating a kind of psychic travel brochure for us. He briefly describes the sky and the oceans, but mainly talks about what it's like to live there. "It's a better place for self discovery -- they still respect it there. There is more potential for adventure. There are conflicts and wars, and the warriors' arts are highly developed, but at the same time they are perceived as a path to enlightenment."

Rama weaves his vision of this other world for a few more minutes, and then links it back to the main theme of the evening, "If you begin to take this study more seriously, you can join me there when we leave this world. We can continue our adventures together."

Click! I'm sitting in my car, driving out of Joshua Tree after a desert trip. I have two friends with me in the car, but the night has been so powerful and the experiences so overwhelming that none of us can speak. We can't even bring ourselves to put on any music. We just ride along, tuned into the higher music of silence.

The road twists and turns through the desert night. Every time I crest a hill, I can see this seemingly endless stream of tail lights in front of me. Gazing in the rear-view mirror, there is an equally long line of headlights behind. The line of cars driving out literally goes on for miles, a necklace of light winding its way through the desert night. I begin to groove on this necklace idea, having fun thinking of myself as just another bead on it. But after a while, I realize that this isn't just a fun thought -- there really is a connection between these cars. I can actually see a physical thread of light connecting each of the cars, and each of the students in the cars. I can feel it piercing me through the heart. It hurts, but in a pleasant sort of way. The physical experience of this nonphysical lightthread feels somehow like what would happen if you combined the terms poignancy and eternity into one subjective phenomenon.

As I drive, I develop more and more of a sense of how many students there are on this trip, how tightly they are connected, and how incredibly long they have been connected. Not for the first time, I wonder how many times and in how many places my companions and I have journeyed through the night like this, walking or riding in a single line behind Rama. How many more such journeys will we share? Will we ever figure out where we're going? Will I ever stop getting lost in meaningless questions like this? With a smile, I mentally shake myself out of this silly train of thought, pop a Tangerine Dream tape into the cassette player, and get back to just enjoying the ride.

Click! I'm standing in a line of Rama's students, in the center aisle of a large hotel meeting room in New York. This room has probably been used for everything from sales conferences to Bar Mitzvahs, but I'll bet it's never seen anything like tonight! The hall is decorated with Tibetan paintings, multi-colored balloons, and more flowers than you could shake a prayer wheel at. The line advances slowly, as each student steps up to Rama and stands face-to-face with him.

The ceremony is an initiation -- we are becoming Buddhist monks. As each student approaches, Rama places his hand on the student's forehead, holds it there for a few seconds, and then gives the student a flower. The student walks off, and the next steps up. Simple. Elegant. Efficient. But the straightforward actions don't explain the glow on the face of each student as he or she walks off. Each person looks changed in some way, transformed as a result of the interaction. You can see it in their faces.

On the previous two nights of the Seminar, Rama has spoken about this initiation and its significance, and has offered each of us the opportunity to "bail out" if we don't want to go through with it. He is completely serious -- we are leaving our previous lives behind, becoming monks in no less a sense than if we were shaving our heads and donning ochre robes. With this initiation, we are being placed on the short path to enlightenment, and he wants to make sure we know that it is an irrevocable act.

Rama completes the ceremony for the student in front of me in line. It's my turn. I consider once more the term "irrevocable act," then step up to him and smile. Rama reaches out and gently places his palm on my forehead. I notice that his hand is warm, but then remember that I am supposed to be stilling my mind, so I push the thought away. The lights in the room seem too bright, so I close my eyes and suddenly find myself in an even brighter world.

This world seems to be a parallel dimension to the one in which I am being initiated. In the outer world, Rama is lightly touching my forehead; in the inner world, it is as if he has plugged some enormous cable into a socket in my third eye. The instant I am "jacked in" to this inner network, light begins to flow through the "cable." It is really quite awesome -- I feel like I am standing in the center of some enormous tunnel, watching wave after wave of light wash over me like the visual effects from 2001, flooding my being with energy, dissolving my self in Light...

After a while -- who can tell how long? -- Rama removes his hand from my forehead. I open my eyes and look at him. He smiles, then turns to a vase of flowers on his left. I look at the flowers, too dazed to do anything but revel in their beauty, and one particular pink rose captures my attention. Rama reaches for it, pulls it from the vase, and hands it to me. I bow briefly, then walk off to the left. Now I understand the glow on the faces of the other people. We are no longer people; we are Buddhist monks, and the glow comes from an inner connection to an eternal network of light.

Click! The train jolts again, slows, and screeches to a stop. I look up, wondering whether we're in New York already. No, we're just stuck between stations somewhere in The Bronx, probably waiting for a northbound train to clear the track in front of us. I decide to ignore the delay and jot down the final major heading on my notepad: Moments When I Catch a Glimpse of Rama's Art.

Click! Los Angeles. It's a few months since I began studying with Rama, and the resulting improvement in my level of meditation has enhanced my life tremendously, but it sure didn't help today. I've just arrived home after one of those days -- car trouble, horror politics at the office, the beginnings of a cold. I stop at the mailbox, scoop up the pile of letters there, and stagger into my bedroom.

I drop my briefcase on the floor, loosen my tie, and then look through my mail. It's the usual jumble of bills, brochures, and ads, and I'm about to toss the whole pile on the table and drag my aching body into a shower when I come across a small card-sized envelope. Hmmmm! What's this? I turn it over, and notice that it's from Lakshmi. With the exception of the letter informing me that I had been accepted as a student, I don't think I've received anything from Rama's organization before.

Curious, I tear open the envelope. It's a small greeting card, with a very tasteful drawing of a Japanese flower arrangement on the front. I open the card and find a simple, handwritten message: "Happy Birthday, Barry. Love, Rama."

I am so utterly shocked that I stagger backwards and sit down hard on the bed. The room fills with light, as if it had somehow been compressed inside the envelope and has now been released. It's not the only thing released. The worries of the day and my aching body had made me completely forget that today is my birthday. But now all that is gone, replaced by joy and a sense of awe at my teacher's Art.

The pragmatic side of me thinks it through quickly, and realizes that Rama has probably automated the process somewhat, and has simply asked his staff to notify him of students' birthdays, so he can send a card. But the details of how he sent the card are not important. The important part is that he thought of it. I've still never even talked with Rama, other than to ask a question or two at meetings, but he cared enough to remember my birthday. Such a simple gesture, yet it says so much. It is indicative of the attitude of caring that pervades all of his teaching.

Click! Washington, D.C. As two o'clock approaches, the students begin to arrive at the Jefferson Memorial. Some pull up in cars, some stroll up from the area of the Smithsonian to the east, others walk around the tidal basin from the Lincoln Memorial to the west. We all arrive within about ten minutes, singly or in groups, but we don't greet each other. The idea is to be inaccessible, and not to look like a group. The whole scene has a vaguely Spy vs. Spy overtone, as if we should be wearing trench coats and fedora hats. When I pass a couple of friends, I feel like whispering "the password" to them. But this is Washington -- Paranoia Central -- so the inaccessibility is probably a good idea. After all, we are here today to change history.

In recent months, Rama has spoken to us about the changes he sees happening in America. There is little doubt that there is a growing trend towards political conservatism, with ominous overtones of intolerance and oppression. Normally a completely apolitical being, Rama has become more and more concerned over the upcoming Presidential election. He feels that if the wrong person is elected, it could have severe repercussions for the nation, but especially for those who follow the path of self discovery. So he's decided to do something about it.

For the last several months, we have had our Seminars here in the nation's capital. It is part of an experiment to see if we can have an effect on the political process. Just what effect is not particularly important. The basic idea is that by meditating here, we can add whatever power results from our meditations to the energy circuits that emanate from this place. This will hopefully enliven the minds of the politicians who tune into these circuits -- whoever they may be -- enabling them to make better decisions. Today's journey is the last step in this experiment. According to Rama, the whole District of Columbia is a power spot -- why else would the nation's founders choose it for the capital? But within this large power center, the strongest and most intense nexus of energy is the Jefferson Memorial. So today, on an astrologically favorable date and time, Rama and his students are going to spend some time meditating their brains out on this spot, to pump some positive energy back into an eroding system, just to see what happens.

At exactly 2:00, Rama arrives. He strolls around the circular path surrounding the Memorial, then walks up the steps. For the next hour, Rama and his students wander in and out of the building, gazing up at the immense bronze statue of Jefferson, reading the inscriptions on the walls, buying souvenirs. On the surface, our actions are little different than any other group of tourists. Inwardly, however, each of us is meditating the entire time, and to our heightened senses, the entire area is bathed in light and abuzz with energy. I am surprised that the "straights" who picked this time to visit the Memorial don't notice certain subtle phenomena, such as the bronze statue of Jefferson developing a distinctive golden aura, or the fact that beams of light are emanating from Olde Tom's eyes and bombarding the White House in the distance!

At the end of the hour, the students begin to slip away, as quietly as we arrived. Rama walks out of the Memorial, down the long steps, and out to the edge of the water. He stands there, talking quietly with one of his female students, gazing out across the tidal basin at the White House. The moment seems silent, frozen in time, eternal. Just then, I hear the roar of an approaching helicopter. When it appears, the 'chopper is no more than a couple of hundred feet overhead -- it comes in low over the Memorial, flies directly over Rama's head, and then heads out over the water towards the White House. There is little doubt about who is riding in the helicopter, and I smile to think that he has chosen this particular time to fly through our moment of silence. Rama watches the disappearing aircraft, following it with his gaze as it flies on over the water and lands at the White House. Then he gazes at the cloud formations one last time, says goodbye to the woman he was talking to, turns, and walks off.

I walk back up the steps to the Memorial and take one last look around before leaving. I gaze at the face of the statue, and then at the words inscribed on the wall: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility to any form of tyranny over the mind of man." I can't help but think that old Tom must be pleased by the day's events.

Click! I awaken within a dream. I am standing in the ornate, glistening salon of some astral hotel. The room is panelled in the finest woods and lit by crystal chandeliers that resemble the mother ship in Close Encounters. Rama is sitting on a sofa, laughing and joking with a small group of students. I am standing behind the sofa, and slowly become aware that Rama is holding my hand, cradling it palm upward in both of his hands, as if he were a Gypsy telling my fortune. This is very strange, because even though I am aware that this is all taking place in dreamtime, I am also aware that, back in normal waking time, Rama has asked me to leave the Center. I am no longer one of his students.

Nevertheless, here he is, in this dream, holding my hand. He raises his eyes to meet mine, and then speaks the words of a koan. When he speaks, the words have a power unlike anything I have previously felt from him. I can feel the life and power of the words, can feel them probing my being, seeking some kind of resonance. He has to try several times before they find it.

When they do, I feel the koan surge around inside of me, playing a kind of spiritual reveille. Whatever the power behind the words is, its effect is clear. They rage through my system like a crazed electrician, flipping switches to activate circuits which have never been used before. We are talking mega-kundalini -- I feel like a man on fire! When I come back to an awareness of the dream, I am still standing behind the couch, my hand cradled in Rama's. The epiphany caused by Rama's koan has been so intense that it only now occurs to me that I am once again standing in front of my teacher, and that he still is my teacher. My heart chakra goes into meltdown.

Rama continues to smile and gaze into my eyes for a moment longer, and then he does one last thing for me. Slowly, with infinite tenderness, Rama shifts my hand in his and gently begins to close it. As my fingers close, I watch as the entire scene -- the dream, the hotel, Rama's koan, my reaction to it, everything -- collapses inward into itself and folds into a tiny jewel, resting in my outstretched hand. I can see it clearly, shining there. Rama closes my hand over the jewel with utter tenderness and grace, as if he wants to make sure I don't lose it.

When he releases my hand, I awaken in my own bed, crying over the exquisite beauty of this one small gesture. Everything Rama ever stood for or taught me was captured in the simple motion of his hand gently closing my hand over a precious crystal of knowledge, visible and meaningful only to me. The gesture meant, "This is important -- remember it and treasure it."

Click! I'm back on Metro-North, but my eyes are still filled with tears. Rama's gesture has reached out into the present and touched me yet again. But I can't have my fellow commuters thinking I'm a wimp, can I? So I stretch and rub my eyes as if they were still tired from sleep. I'm really wiping away the tears before closing them again.

Click! I look down at my hand again through my tears, expecting to see the dream-jewel, and instead, find that I am holding someone else's hand. I am in the intensive care ward of a Florida hospital, standing next to a hospital bed, and as I squeeze the short, pudgy fingers in mine, they do not respond. The woman in the bed is in her mid-sixties, with short grey hair, and is terribly overweight. She has the kind of eyes you suspect would light up a room when she smiles, but she's not smiling right now, and her eyes, even though they are open, don't see me standing there. The woman is my mother, and she's had a stroke.

I don't know how many of you have ever dealt with a stroke victim. It's very frustrating. The lights are on, but you can't tell if anyone's home. Given the severity of the stroke, the doctors are convinced that my mother is brain-dead, and that there is nothing going on behind those staring eyes. Even though I have seen nothing to contradict them, I'm convinced they're wrong -- she's in there somewhere, and if I find a way to make contact, I can get her to respond.

So I remain by her bedside all day, trying whatever I can think of to get a response from my mother. I talk to her, tell her stories, read to her from spiritual books and from newspapers. I slip earphones over her head and play her music -- classical pieces, pop songs, New Age stuff from Vangelis and Zazen. I dance and gesticulate wildly, hoping that my movements will trigger some recognition. Since my mother meditates, I verbally walk her through the process of stopping thought and then sit meditating with her, hoping she'll remember how. This goes on for hours. It's a tiring and frustrating process, but I've decided that I'm not going home until she responds.

I try being funny. I do impressions, I talk in funny voices, I tell her puns so bad they would raise the dead, but they don't reach her. Finally, I try an old joke I haven't thought of in years. Mickey Mouse has hired a private detective to follow Minnie. The detective is delivering a report on her activities to Mickey: "Well, Mr. Mouse, I've been following your wife for a week or so, but I can't find any evidence that she's crazy."

"Crazy?!" shouts Mickey, "Who told you she was crazy?" The detective says, "You did, Mr. Mouse, when you hired me." Mickey says, "I didn't say she was crazy -- I said she was fucking Goofy!"

My mother loses it completely! She laughs and laughs, her huge, overweight body shaking like the proverbial bowlful of jello. I lean over the bed and look into her eyes and there is life there. She still can't talk, but she definitely recognizes me. My mother squeezes my hand briefly, and gazes into my eyes, but then slowly fades back into whatever Bardo the stroke has trapped her in. It's OK -- that one brief moment of recognition made the whole day's efforts worthwhile.

When I tell this story to the doctors, they change their minds about her mental state, and decide to begin a more aggressive program of therapies. I am exhausted, however, and head back to my parents' house to rest. After a shower, I sit to meditate, but as I gaze at the candle flame, I find my mind full of thoughts of the day. Something is nagging at me, tugging as it were on the back of my mind, telling me that there is something strangely familiar about the day's events.

Then, suddenly, I recognize what feels familiar. The process of working with my mother -- trying literally anything to get her to remember who she is -- reminds me of Rama. To a limited extent, this must be what it's like for him to work with us. When he looks at his students, he must see multi-life beings, and remember who and what they have been in many shared incarnations. We students, however, are sitting there brain-dead, remembering nothing, barely aware of the world around us, much less the brighter worlds within. So Rama talks to us, tells us stories, reads to us and plays us music. He is absolutely shameless -- he does silly comedy routines, cavorts and clowns and embarrasses himself thoroughly. He will do anything to solicit a response, try anything to get us to wake up, and remember who we are.

Sitting in my parents' house, I am so moved by this glimpse of my teacher's Art that I feel compelled to bow before I meditate. As I close my eyes and begin to still my thoughts, I remember the feeling of satisfaction I had when my mother woke up and remembered for an instant who and what she was. I hope that Rama, too, has occasional moments like that, and that they help make all of his work worthwhile.

Click! When I open my eyes, I am sitting in an auditorium on the SUNY campus. Rama is on the stage in front of me, meditating. The room is filled with light, brighter and more intense than I have ever seen before -- it's like sitting inside a gigantic, brilliant jewel. It must have something to do with the subject he was discussing earlier tonight. Rama laid out a new structure for the Seminars -- more emphasis on meditation, a 50% increase in tuition, mandatory martial arts, and, after a period of public inaccessibility, an opportunity to bring guests to the Seminars.

As he laid out this new program, I could feel the resistance building in the other students and in myself. I thought, "How am I going to pull this off -- I barely have the time and money to meet today's requirements." But then he explained, and I began to feel the simple secret behind these changes. The people we are today really can't pull it off! We simply don't have the personal power to make 50% more money, or to schedule two martial arts classes a week in addition to everything we're already doing. In order to meet these requirements, we'll have to change, access more power, become new people who are capable of such things. As this simple logic sinks in, I become more and more excited, and begin to believe that I can do it, and that this structural change will in fact be the one that enables me to shake off the weirdness, spaciness, and lack of enthusiasm that have been plaguing me.

A few minutes later, during the meditation, I am still so jazzed I cannot help opening my eyes to sneak a peek at Rama. That's when I notice the level of light in the room. As I sit there open-mouthed, amazed by the multi-colored planes of light dancing and spinning overhead, Rama opens his eyes and looks around. He, too seems amazed by the spiritual pyrotechnics. He holds his hands up in front of his face and stares at them, as if noticing for the first time that all of this light is coming from him. He moves his hands to the music, and watches as the planes of light filling the room move also. He "conducts" both music and light for a few seconds, waving his hands as if they held a baton. Then he shrugs, closes his eyes, and continues to meditate.

Click! It's later the same evening, about 2:00 a.m. Driving home through the chilly New York night, I glance up into the sky and gasp -- the sky is full of light! It takes me a couple of moments to figure out that what I am seeing is the Aurora Borealis, the northern lights. So when I pull into the parking lot of my condo complex, I don't go straight in. I walk out onto the broad lawn behind my building and gaze up at the sky. It is filled with shimmering curtains of white light, which shift and dance in the most spectacular way.

It's funny -- I've longed to see the northern lights for thirty-odd years, since the day my second-grade teacher first told me about them. And even though this is the first time I've actually caught a glimpse of what is supposedly the planet's finest light show, I am a little underwhelmed. After all, I'm on my way home from a far better show. Still, the sky is beautiful, and I am too jazzed by tonight's talk to sleep, so I do the only logical thing I can think of -- I begin to dance.

Spinning and twirling across the lawn, I remember a story Rama told earlier in the evening. He was talking about what it was like to live as a teacher in Tibet, and what he used to do there for fun. He would climb up into the high mountain passes on a night like this, and dance in the moonlight for the sheer joy of seeing the refraction of light from his side of the aura of enlightenment. He laughed and said, "It must have been quite a sight for the yaks and the yeti -- this mad monk doing a pas de deux with light."

If my neighbors were to wake up right now and look out their windows, they would be equally startled. Another mad monk, dressed in a Giorgio Armani suit, power tie flapping in the breeze, spins and dances across the frosted lawn. The sky is filled with shimmering light, but the monk dances because for the first time in far too long, so is he.

Grinning from the sheer abundance of light, I spin and spin and spin…

Click! And I am Home.

Home is a circle in the desert. The circle is composed of beings of light. These beings are part of a tribe. We have incarnated as human beings this time around, but we have formed this circle before, on countless other worlds, in countless other forms. And here we are again, standing silently in a circle at the entrance to Carrizo Gorge, waiting for the dawn.

There is a center to the circle. Its name is Rama. He is telling a story about the myth which connects the beings in the circle and the circles themselves. "In another time, an entire tribe formed a circle like this. This was a tribe of mighty warriors, great mystics, and the circle stretched for miles. The time had come for the tribe to leave their world and jump as a band of warriors to the Next Place. This was the end of a cycle, and new adventures awaited the tribe on a new world.

"As the time for the Leaving grew near, however, a few beings from the tribe -- let us say twelve -- left the circle and gathered together on a hill nearby. They knew that within the circle there were a few individuals who would not be able to make the jump. The reasons were many -- some were too attached to this world, others lacked the personal power to make the jump, and a few Just Weren't Ready.

"The Twelve, realizing this, left the circle and remained behind. Although they had vastly different personalities, the Twelve shared one common trait -- compassion. They knew, possibly from experience in another Yuga, what it is to be separated from one's tribe in an infinite universe. So they vowed to return, over and over, and try to help the stragglers find their way to the Next Place."

Rama stops talking, and begins to turn slowly, gazing at each of the students in the circle in turn. Beams of light emanate from his eyes as he spins -- it's as if Rama had become the armature of some enormous cosmic motor, and is "charging us up" as he spins. As his gaze falls on me, I feel light flood my being and wash away all the fatigue I had been feeling after hiking all night. In fact, I feel so energized I'd be up for trying the jump to the Next Place right here and now! I imagine many of the other students feel the same way.

Rama must know something we don't about our readiness and our limitations, however, because as he completes his scan of the circle of students, he simply reminds us to stay alert on the way home and to drive carefully. With a final, "Try to remember," he says good night and walks back to his jeep. The journey is over, at least for tonight.

As we turn and walk the remaining few hundred yards out of the Gorge, the sun begins to rise, directly in front of us. So close to the horizon, it looks huge, but it's still not bright enough to hurt the eyes, so I gaze at the fiery ball as I walk. Perhaps it's the refraction of the light in the chilly morning air, or maybe it's Rama playing a few last visual tricks, but it almost seems as if the ball of the sun is emanating rays from its edges that stream out at us and surround us in a fiery tunnel of light. It reminds me of something, and for a moment I can't think of what, but then it Clicks!

As I walk through the tunnel of golden light towards the rising sun, I remember my childhood toy, and realize that I have finally made it inside the kaleidoscope. And sure enough, just as I suspected then, it does eventually lead to Another World. True, the journey may not be as short as I thought it would be when I was seven, but I don't mind. It's a nice walk. "Besides," I say to myself as I pick up the pace, "a neat tunnel like this is bound to lead to some interesting places."

Click! The brakes screech and the train slows as a voice comes over the tinny speakers and announces, "Grand Central Terminal. Last stop." I close my notebook and slip it into my briefcase, then stand up and make my way through the crowd to the exit. As I stand there, waiting for the train to stop, I realize how high I am. Compiling this list of experiences with Rama, going over them in my mind, has boosted me into an incredibly happy state of attention.

As the train doors open and I step out onto the platform, I can't help but notice that the platform doesn't seem as dark and dingy as usual. In fact, as I turn and walk towards the main waiting room, I notice that the tunnel is filled with the same golden light I have been remembering. And I could swear that I feel the cool caress of the desert wind on my face.

You know, that's what makes the study of Tantra really fascinating -- the incongruities. I mean, here I am, theoretically in one of the most crowded, least spiritual places on the planet, New York City, and yet here I am, walking along through a tunnel of golden light. I'd really love to stick around and explore this phenomenon further, but I have to get to work, so I keep going. It's a nice walk. And besides, a neat tunnel like this is bound to lead to some interesting places.