Take Me for a Ride Part 32

I was scared. I meditated a few minutes. I asked the Infinite for protection. I drove around awhile. I had no destination.

I recalled something Rama used to say about reflections.

"I am like a perfect mirror. If you ever perceive me in a negative light, you are seeing nothing more than a reflection."

I pulled into a parking lot of a motel. I found myself looking for cars from Rama's tour group. I found myself wondering where the disciples--my friends--were and what they were doing. For years we had been close, like a tribe. Suddenly I had an inspiration: set out across America and rejoin my tribe! And how my spirit soared!

And through the sleepless days and nights, I searched Howard Johnson's, Best Western, and Denny's parking lots across America for a black Turbo Carerra.

I had not forgotten the problems with Rama. But I remembered him telling me that through the good times and bad, we would always be family. "And what family doesn't have problems?"

I asked myself.

I drove south to Stony Brook but did not find the group, so in New York City I paid a surprise visit to Tom. When I told him about my quest to find my tribe, he seemed to understand what I was going through.

But he had left the Centre roughly nine months before and had no interest in returning. That night I saw for the second time The Razor's Edge.

"Maybe I can rejoin the group and be independent at the same time,"

I told myself as I began the drive west.

Days later, in San Diego, I was showering at the UCSD gym, when I asked a guy if I could use some of his shampoo.

"Sure, Mark, take as much as you want," was the reply.

Wiping the soap from my eyes, I recognized Gary, a disciple who had left Rama years ago. I was glad to see him. We decided to go for a hike on Palomar Mountain. I told him during the ride that I had lost my tribe.

He gave me an understanding smile. "I hear they have moved to Laguna Beach."

"No kidding!" I said. "Would you like to go there instead of to Palomar?"

In less than two hours we sat eating cheesecake in Laguna Beach.

Suddenly I saw Paul drive by.

"They're here!" I exclaimed and chased the car down Pacific Coast Highway.

But I soon lost sight of my old friend from Stony Brook. I walked back, polished off the cheesecake, and drove Gary back to San Diego.

The next day I returned to Laguna Beach. I decided to wait by a twenty-four hour banking machine, an appropriate place it seemed to stalk members of Rama's tribe.

Alexander and Marty soon appeared searching for cash. I was jubilant to see them. They were wary of me. After a few minutes, though, they seemed to forget that I was taboo (Rama had put me down at one of the Centre meetings). They told me when and where the meetings were being held.

They did not tell me what had happened after I left them in Boulder.

The twenty-eight had continued their journey east to Lincoln, Nebraska, where Rama declared that they should move to whichever cities they as individuals *saw*. But when it looked like the group was going to splinter, Rama changed his mind and instructed them all to move to Laguna Beach, California.

The next week I drove to the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills.

I asked Al, who was now in charge of security, to ask Rama if I could rejoin the Centre.

I shuffled about nervously. "It may not be perfect," I told myself.

"But at least it's where I belong."

Al returned after a few minutes. "Rama said 'okay.'"

"Did he say anything else?" I asked, greatly relieved.

"Yes," Al replied. "Rama said that it's a tough world out there."

19. I'm Okay

When I rejoined the Centre, I was determined to be a good disciple.

I got a programming job in Newport Beach. I studied advanced topics in computer science at UC Irvine. I rented a condo for seven-hundred-twenty-five dollars per month, based on Rama's suggestion in Boulder. I worked hard, meditated deeply, and stole three eggs from a supermarket after Rama hiked the tuition again.

Rama treated me with kindness. Perhaps he believed that this time I was really with him. He invited me to his house. He invited me to the desert. He invited me to partake in his chemical experiments.

Roughly one hundred fifty miles southeast of the beaches of Orange County, in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, was a peak called Split Mountain.

More than thirty miles away, by the edge of the park, was Casa Del Zorro, a cottage-renting resort catering to the upper middle cla.s.s.

Here, Rama divined, was a good place to drop acid in a group.

During the drive to Casa Del Zorro, a fast-food restaurant triggered a flashback of Rama giving Sal and me LSD and taking us to MacDonald's.

"Whatever you do," Rama had said, "don't order a strawberry shake!"

Rama and Sal proceeded to repeat the warning as if it were a mantra.

Perhaps the drug magnified my sensitivity to the way Sal parroted Rama. Perhaps it magnified my sense of independence.

Perhaps I was not in the mood for chocolate or vanilla. I stumbled to the counter and ordered a strawberry shake. It was delicious.

Rama and Sal looked at me disapprovingly. I couldn't have cared less.

The memory of the MacDonald's trip made me smile. Later, as I approached Casa Del Zorro, I had a flashback of Rama giving me acid at his home in Malibu. I had been sitting on a rug in the living room.

A Beatles record played. ("You never give me your money...") Rama entered the room.

"How are you doing, kid?" he asked.

"Not so good." I had been thinking about money. The world of my finances had appeared as menacing walls of debt that were surrounding and closing in on me. I felt miserable. Tears formed.

I told Rama what I was going through.

"Listen to the words of the song," he said. ("Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go...") "See, kid? Nowhere to go."

I gazed at the floor.

"You need to take time and rethink your life," he went on.

"Somehow you got entrenched in the dark side. But life does not have to be that way. Life can be wonderful."

Typically, I would have felt elated by the attention he was giving me.

It had been years since we were close. But through hallucinating eyes he seemed distant and small, and his attempt to cheer me up made me feel worse.

"Why don't you go jump in the pool," he finally said.

Years before, in La Jolla, he had often suggested "Pool Therapy"

as a way to douse the flames of a conflict burning within. In Malibu, as in La Jolla, my woes soon diffused among ripples from the impact of one hand slapping.

I played in the shallow end during that LSD trip until Rama asked Sal, who was not tripping, to drive me home. When we arrived at my apartment I felt lucid, creative, fearless. I started to say whatever popped into my mind. Sal looked surprised.

He looked at me as if I were someone else.

Sal offered to take me for a walk. With my arms dangling and torso bent, I moved like an injured ape. But gradually I slouched with Sal's support down the hill to the beach.

"Look, Mark," said Sal. "There's the ocean."

I looked to the frozen snapshot of the sea. I blinked and the waves rolled closer--then they froze again. Then I saw whales diving and breaching in slow motion. I found myself among them. We swam together.

We spoke a silent language I thought I never knew. I felt complete.