on was only weeks away. I assumed
that Atmananda would help me solve the mystery, and I counted the days
until his next public lecture.

I did not tell my friends much about Atmananda. They seemed content,
even after reading the Castaneda books, to view the world through a
rational framework. In contrast, I grew excited about the possibility
of transcending the world of reason altogether. They were proud of
their letters of acceptance from the Harvards and the Princetons. I
was proud of my letter of acceptance from The School Of Mysticism. My
letter arrived in the form of brilliant white specks which swirled
about me like snow.

Nor did I tell my parents, who represented discord, anxiety, and
manipulation--the opposite of what Atmananda seemed to stand for.

Instead, I spoke with my brother. He and I were close. I wanted to be
just like him. He used words such as disciples, selfless-service,
humanity, humility, purity, soul, soul-mate, past-lives, karma, fast
track, and cosmic evolution. He got excited when he talked about
Atmananda. He told me that he too had experienced perceptual
distortion during Atmananda's talks. We returned to "Yoga Life
Perfection."

About thirty minutes after the talk was scheduled to begin, Atmananda
strode through the door. He wore a light brown suit.

"Anne," he said, "did you bring the Transcendental?"

The sari-clad woman who had sold incense at the last lecture placed a
frame on the table beside Atmananda. The Transcendental was a
photograph of Atmananda's Indian guru, Chinmoy. But it was so
underexposed that it seemed not a picture of a guru, but rather a
mug-shot of a ghost with high cheekbones. It reminded me of one of the
experimental images which had emerged from my father's darkroom.

"The Transcendental portrays Guru in his highest transcendental
consciousness," my brother told me.

Atmananda scanned the audience, mostly women in their sixties. Then he
began to lecture, not on meditation, but on reincarnation, which he had
done many times before.

"Maya, or illusion, eclipses the original perfection of the soul," he
said. "The soul reincarnates over thousands of lessons known as
lifetimes."

I could not recall learning about reincarnation at Hebrew school.

"As the soul evolves, it transcends desire and attachment, which is the
root of all suffering. Finally, enlightenment occurs."

Unaware that he was borrowing Hindu and Buddhist doctrine, and
in