had been
co-inhabiting our bodies, were causing his hair to fall out and
affecting the health of Vayu, his advance-souled Scottish terrier;
then, flipping again to the other extreme, he encouraged us to move to
a new condominium just outside of Boulder where "we could all live
close to one another." No one reminded him that only weeks before, we
had left the city in psychic shambles.

The dream of living and working together--of community--lingered on,
and Rama had us fill out rental applications. When he found out that I
had signed up for a less expensive condo unit, he gently chided me.
"You just don't get it, Mark. That's your old self trying to reassert
itself. You need to have more space. You need to live in a clean,
healthy environment."

I tried to explain to him that I needed money for Centre expenses and
also for food.

"Don't worry, kid," he said. "I'll subsidize you. I want you to be
happy."

So I switched to the most expensive unit and I was happy, and the other
disciples seemed happy, and Rama seemed happy. Boulder, after all,
felt at least a mile high until a few days later, when Rama shouted at
us for having once again destroyed the dream, the Light, and the city.

"This is crazy," I thought. After the meeting, I went for a walk. I
thought about how, earlier in the trip, Cathy had approached me and
said, "This may sound funny, but is Rama... *okay*?"

"What do you mean?" I had replied.

"He's... well... it's just that something doesn't feel right."

"Rama is fine," I told her. "He just *sees* on a different level than
we do."

But now, as I strayed from the condo grounds, I wondered if Cathy had
been on to something. I thought about how the other disciples had
seemed pensive lately, as if they too shared her concern. I thought
about how, during the trip, Rama seemed to be flipping out of control.
"Maybe Rama is not okay," I thought.

Meanwhile, my readings and reflections on Kesey had located Rama within
a cultural context which, like the knowledge that the Wizard of Oz was
a man behind a curtain, largely deflated his projected images and
metaphors. This enabled me to question elements of his world without
fear of reprisal.

I questioned the Negative Forces. The Forces, I realized, had never
affected me before I met Rama. Furthermore, they seemed to disappear
as soon as I stopped thinking about them. "Maybe the Forces only exist
in my mind," I thought. "Maybe they are a pa