to be good friends with Atmananda. And there was
Paul. He and I were becoming friends.

Then there were the women. According to Guru, I was not even supposed
to look them in the eye. I tried to protect them from my wayward
sexual thoughts but sometimes, in my imagination, I did more than just
look. Then I felt bad. I was told that they would now have to
meditate extra hard to cleanse themselves of such "lower energy." I
wished that we could be friends. They seemed so nice.

Rachel, with light brown hair and perceptive eyes, was closer in age to
Atmananda than the rest of us. She had completed medical school in
three years and become a disciple in 1978, two months after attending
Atmananda's lectures at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.

Dana, a one-time fashion model, had been an occupational therapy major
at Canada's McGill University. She first met Atmananda while
interviewing him for the campus radio station. After the interview,
which touched on Atmananda's book Lifetimes: True Accounts of
Reincarnation, he invited her to visit him in Stony Brook. Shortly
thereafter she left her boyfriend, family, school, and country. She
moved to Stony Brook, just around the block from the charismatic young
meditation teacher and author.

Connie was a waitress with long dark braids, a Midwesterner's
friendliness, and a cheeky smile.

Suzanne had long brown hair and dreamy eyes. She studied art at the
Parson's School of Design in Manhattan.

And Anne, with long, black hair and that playful, impish grin, was
studying to be a nurse.

I turned back to watch Atmananda. "Don't think that spirituality is
divorced from the physical world," he was saying as he reached for a
chip. "After you meditate a few years, you begin to see that Annam
Brahma--food is God." He then set the chips-and-cheese-laden tray in
the oven.

Sal observed intently, as though witnessing a ritual.

Soon Atmananda and Sal were delivering trays of crunchy nachos. I
garnished mine with sour cream to alleviate the delicious,
consciousness-altering burn of the hot sauce. As we ate, I felt proud
that I had managed to stop thinking about the women. Then I had to
tell myself to be careful, lest my ego swell instead. Finally, I told
myself to relax. Which I did. The food, the crackling fireplace, and
the medieval trumpet and recorder music reminded me of something
distant, intangible, and noble. My spirit soared.

"The kid a