"Yowwwww!" I heard them yell moments later.

I opened the door to my room and saw them hopping around the kitchen.

For a moment I felt nostalgic. Drinking hot sauce and hopping around with Atmananda had been one of my favorite experiences in the Centre.

Returning to my room, I quietly closed the door and tried to ignore them.

I imagined that I was living on Palomar Mountain by a clearing in the forest. I imagined the brilliant California sun as it pierced the thick morning fog below. I imagined the solitary red-tailed hawk as it soared through the clear, blue, mountain sky on a course of its...

The door flew open and in strode Atmananda. He took giant steps.

He was followed by Sal.

"Heyyy, Sal!" Atmananda blasted. "Da baby, he'sa thinkin'-a leavin'!"

"Baby," queried Sal, "you thinkin'-a leavin'?"

"Ges.p.a.cho," cried Atmananda, not waiting for my reply, "where have-a you been?"

"With-a Guacamole!" shouted Sal.

I was stunned. "How...how did they find out?" I thought.

They danced about the room singing about Guacamole, a young maiden who blushed bright green.

I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I was doing a little of both when, a minute or so later, Atmananda asked Sal to wait outside.

"You've got to admit, kid," Atmananda said to me. "We have a good time here."

I glanced in the direction of my backpack.

Atmananda made a fist and shut his eyes.

"Watch out!" cried my rational side. But he seemed sincere and vulnerable, and I found myself gazing at him.

"Contemplate mountains--not him!" I thought. But in him I saw a man who could see; who read people's inner thoughts and feelings; who predicted the future; who glowed after I stared at him intensely for several minutes; who spent hundreds of hours teaching me about worlds of enchantment, excitement, and n.o.bility; and who banked on a career of making millions happy.

"Sure he's got a lot to offer," I thought, "but he's got that other side-- I need to get away!" But in him I saw the community I had helped build, a community which included all my current friends.

"Help build another community! Find new friends!" But in him I saw my aspiration to be a seeker of Truth--as well as my desire to wield power over others.

"He's playing a power game--run!"

Atmananda opened his eyes. He seemed displeased and hurt.

He appeared as both a mother and father figure. He towered over me.

He exuded self-confidence.

I grimaced. Over the past few years, I had occa.s.sionally questioned Chinmoy's authenticity in the back of my mind.

Over the past few months, I had occasionally questioned Atmananda's authenticity in the back of my sleepy mind. Over the past few days, I had continuously questioned Atmananda's authenticity in the forefront of my rested mind. But now, the conflict, which pitted my rational nature against my mystical nature, became too much to endure.

He opened his fist and demanded, "What do you see?"

I saw memories of him telling me to act like a warrior before the Forces destroyed what we had worked so hard to achieve.

I saw him telling me with a concerned look on his face that he had spent more time with me than with any other student.

"I..."

I had developed over the years a deep trust in him, as if he were family.

I had allowed him to access and to control an important part of me, my imagination, and now I feared that without him, the window to worlds of dreams and fantasy would never open up again.

There were other fears: of death, of G.o.d, of the absence of G.o.d, of being lost without a world, without a friend...

"I..."

I could not admit that I had trod what had in part become a bogus path.

I wanted so much for there to be a simple solution.

"I...I see sparks flying from your hand, Atmananda," I said, allowing myself to imagine--and therefore to see--the sparks.

Atmananda left the room. I lay in bed, listening to the macaws.

"I won't let the Negative Forces take me over," I determined. "I am going to be a true spiritual warrior." When thoughts about Atmananda's other side resurfaced, I refused to confront them. Instead, I silently repeated Atmananda's recommended doubt-combating mantra: "NO!"

"NO!" I thought, after reading in a Castaneda book Don Juan's a.s.sertion that under no circ.u.mstance should you stay on a given path if your feelings tell you to leave.

"NO!" I thought, whenever I found myself questioning the process by which I censored my own thoughts.

I was still thinking, "NO," on the day Atmananda noticed the hole in the roof.

"GRAAAAAUUUUHHHHG!" squawked one of the colorful, captive birds.

"BAM! BAM! BAM!" echoed Atmananda's hammer as he blocked off the escape route with some two-by-fours.

13. Breakdown

In the months after I tried to run away, Atmananda kept me busy expanding his postering routes north to Los Angeles and to the Bay area.

Once he had me plan and coordinate a campaign in which one hundred disciples distributed four thousand posters and one hundred thousand promotional newsletters across the entire state of California.

He did not seem concerned that I was only twenty-one. He seemed to have faith in me. But after the work was complete, his faith regressed into stinging verbal attacks on my level of consciousness, loyalty, and sanity.

"You are mentally ill," he said. "You can hardly deal with the real world."

He explained that I was a prime target for the mind-ravaging Forces because I was spiritually advanced, because I held a key position in his Light-spreading organization, and, most importantly, because I still doubted him.

"But stick with it, kid," he added. "We haven't given up on you yet."

Atmananda failed to appreciate that my doubt-blocking efforts were largely successful, except for the time that I spent with him.

It was then that I saw him not as a divine incarnation with a bright golden aura, but rather as an opportunistic Ph.D. with smooth social skills. It was then that knots of tension mounted in my stomach, pangs of guilt haunted my conscience, and, only after several emotionally exhausting hours of telling myself, "NO!", the surfacing conflict appeared to short-circuit. It was then that my mind drew a blank.

One evening, in a movie theatre with Atmananda and the inner circle, the conflict had already run its course. I felt detached, numb, dumb.

I gazed listlessly at the screen. Atmananda said something.