ich drinks.

"What do you *see*?" he asked.

I looked and saw our reflection superimposed on the image of the crowd.

"The people," I said. "They don't seem real."

"Yes," he agreed. "Theirs is a world of illusion."

9. Off The Map

"Something heavy has been going down in the inner worlds," Atmananda
announced at a Centre meeting in late December, 1980. "Can anyone
*see* what it is?"

"Is Guru coming to visit us soon?" asked one disciple.

"No."

"Is the earth's psychic energy field getting progressively worse?"
tried another.

"Yes, but that's not it. Anyone else?"

"This is going to sound crazy," said Kara, a UCSD student who seemed
entranced by her own melodious voice. "But has Guru fallen?"

"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