um, wiggling his toes and
fielding questions, a la Chinmoy.

"Rama?" a woman might begin.

"Yes."

"The men where I work are constantly sending me sexual energy. Each
day I come home completely drained."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a receptionist."

"Why don't you study programming?" he suggested. "Software
professionals tend to be less visible and, therefore, less prone to
psychic attack."

Rama often lectured on the nature of consciousness: "Consciousness,
like a complex system of software, has thousands of levels of nested,
self-accessing subroutines." He taught that the next step along the
path to self-knowledge was to debug those subroutines hidden in our
minds at an early age by our teachers and, in particular, by our
parents.

Rama lectured on the nature of words: "Words are inaccurate pointers
to reality and should by no means be trusted." Logic, he said, was
based on the shaky foundation of words and was of primary value to
those who could not access Truth directly. Since he had transcended
these limited tools, attempts to comprehend his actions on a rational
basis were meaningless. In fact, those doubting his behavior through a
framework of words and logic were merely reflecting their own mediocre
level of awareness. Those who concluded that he was greedy were,
therefore, guilty of greed themselves.

I felt confident as I listened to Rama's words that I was learning new,
valuable ways of understanding knowledge. Just as often, though, I
felt confused by the belief that words had no fixed, real meaning. It
was as if Rama were yanking the rug on which my descriptions of the
world were centered. But then I recalled that confusion was an
essential part of the process through which the Infinite dissolved our
countless selves in the clear light of the void. "If you think you
have it figured," Rama often pointed out, "you have what we refer to as
an inflated ego."

At one point during a typical Centre meeting, Rama frowned and said,
"Okay, what's up?"

No response.

"Hello, friends. What's going on out there?"

The silence and tension grew.

"Let's talk!"

It occurred to me that I did not like his tone. Suddenly, a hidden,
mental "subroutine" activated, reminding me that those who questioned
his methods were asked to leave the Centre.

"Fess up!" he snapped.

"Rama," started one disciple, "I don't know what it is, but... "

"Of course you know. Look--you're fooling