me, Mark," he said. "Does Rama pressure the disciples to be a
certain way?"

"Well, technically we're not really disciples. We're students. Think
of the organization as being like a university. Sure, there's some
pressure, if that's what you want to call it. But it doesn't come from
Rama. It comes from each of us wanting to do well."

I did not mention that Rama often threatened to spend less time with
his disciples because we maintained an abysmal level of consciousness
and because we bombarded him with Negative Occult Energy. "You should
understand that I will still love you no matter what you do," Rama
lectured. "But when you ignore my suggestions, when you succumb to the
Forces, when you don't keep up with your tuition payments, you are
setting yourselves up for a multi-lifetime pattern that will be
extremely difficult to break. You are also letting down those we were
sent here to help. Many of you don't seem to realize that you can
easily be replaced. Believe me, there are plenty of seekers out there
who would genuinely appreciate the opportunity that the Infinite is
providing here."

Nor did I mention to Mr. Kohl that Rama followed through with his
threats of replacement. In 1984, for instance, he kicked out four
hundred followers after looking at their photos and reading their
recently submitted essays. The purge gave him greater control over the
remaining four or five hundred, who now lived in constant fear of
getting kicked out. As for the outcasts, many had developed
psychological dependencies on Rama. They continued to write him
letters, to appear regularly at public lectures, and to send him money.
Because he maintained their names and addresses in a database, he could
always swap them back in when the current batch burned out.

Nor did I mention that, in response to the intensifying pressure, I had
dropped out of UCSD a year before Donald, a sensitive, bright UCLA
undergraduate, committed suicide.

The longer I spoke with Mr. Kohl, the more I became aware of--and
uneasy about--the discrepancy between what I knew and what I was
willing to admit about my teacher and my organization. I felt
particularly uneasy knowing that at one Centre meeting, Rama had
promised to take closer devotees for a ride through the death worlds in
a Porsche. After I hung up the phone, the uneasiness did not
disappear. Though I did not openly entertain doubts about Rama, my
ability to separate myself from his