would do me no good if he started thinking he was on par with Jesus Christ or the Buddha.

"Are you Rama?" someone asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I am Rama, the last incarnation of Vishnu.

You people think that I am a person, but I am not. Over the years I watched my various selves fade away. I fought the process tooth and nail--like each of you are doing now. But it was in vain.

I could not stop the process of dissolution. I had to admit that I was no longer a person. This morning I suddenly knew who I was.

I have been cycling...I am beginning to remember...Eternity has named me Rama...Rama most clearly reflects my strand of luminosity...We're at the end of a cycle...At this time, Vishnu takes incarnation as a person...Vishnu is that aspect of G.o.d that preserves and protects life...Rama...the last incarnation of Vishnu..."

Jolted by the speed and the angle at which his jet now climbed-- he *was* putting himself on par with Jesus Christ and the Buddha-- I suppressed a reaction and awaited instructions from the pilot's latest persona. But the instructions, it turned out, had been issued months before. Each follower was supposed to write and submit stories-- typed, double-s.p.a.ced--about his or her experiences with him.

Our prose, he had been telling us, was indicative of our mediocre level of consciousness, so we wrote and rewrote and we tried to revise, guided by his comments in the margin.

Stories about Rama--a figure from Hindu mythology--can be found in the cla.s.sic Indian text, The Ramayana. Stories about "Rama"

(Atmananda [Fred])--a guy from Connecticut--can be found in The Last Incarnation.

The words, "THE LAST INCARNATION" flash from the cover in letters of gold, above a backlit photo of "Rama," the book's editor, publisher, and focus.

The stories portray Rama as a warm, intelligent servant of Truth-- with enough mystical power to light up a city. A few of my stories, which also depict him as a down-to-earth demiG.o.d, appear in the 403-page collection. But there were other stories I could have written.

I could have written, for instance, the story of "Rama and the Puppets of Bliss and Profit." In 1980, Rama got a cuddly, white hand puppet which had purple feet and a purple, toucan-shaped beak.

Rama called it "Bliss," and often played with it as though it were alive. He appeared to make it talk, yawn, sleep, and soar.

"Bliss is soaring through the other worlds," he explained. In 1982, I asked Rama what he wanted for his birthday.

"Another Bliss," he replied with a boyish grin. So I set out on a quest with Paul to buy a Bliss for our benefactor. Together we combed the toy stores of southern California, but the search was to no avail.

Weeks later, I spoke with a puppet designer in northern California.

"Sounds to me like you have a 'Take Me To Your Leader,'" she said.

"Does it have antennas?"

"No."

"Then you must have an 'Uncle Lucius.'"

"Actually," I said, "we call it 'Bliss.'"

Over the next few years, Rama ordered thousands of yellow, red, green, pink, and blue Blisses.

"Oh, how adorable," said the flight attendants when they saw the grown man in first cla.s.s playing with the colorful puppets.

"We donate them to children's hospitals," Rama claimed.

He failed to mention that he brought the Blisses to Centre meetings, where he infused their beaks with a "special force" and where he sold them at a handsome profit.

I could have written the story of "Rama and the Token Underdog."

"A large part of what motivates me," Rama once confided, "is my concern for the underdog." He displayed his concern one desert trip by accompanying a handicapped student who was unable to keep pace with the group. I recalled one of Rama's lessons: "You can tell a person's level of spiritual evolution by how they treat those around them." I felt proud of my teacher.

But shortly thereafter, Rama's att.i.tude changed. He began four-wheeling the desert sands while the rest of us walked.

He also banned from all desert trips those who were unable to keep up.

I could have written the story of "Rama and the Menorah Incident."

I once placed in the window of my room a menorah, a traditional candle holder used by Jews during the celebration of Hanukkah.

But when my housemate and mentor noticed, he looked at me askance.

"What, are you crazy?" he said. "Take it down right away!"

It was inconceivable to me that behind a mask of intellectual and religious tolerance could lie so powerful a bent to control.

I removed the menorah from my window.

I could have written the story of "Rama and the Satanic Billboard."

In 1982 and 1983, Rama occasionally said that he'd like to place a billboard of his face above the busy intersection of freeways 10 and 405 in Los Angeles. He seemed excited about including this message: "666--We're Back".

And I could have written the story of "Rama and the Blade Runner Day."

"Would you like to meet Harrison Ford?" Rama asked me over the phone in 1983. By then, many San Diego devotees had moved to the expanding Centre in L.A., based largely on Rama's advice.

Centre meetings in Los Angeles were first held in a small room in Hollywood, and then in a large room with a stage in Manhattan Beach.

By the time meetings were held in the ornate Beverly Theater on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Rama commuted each week from his ocean-view Malibu rental to the expanding Centre in San Francisco.

"You mean Hans Solo?" I asked. "You bet!" I drove west, then north, toward Zuma Beach. Twenty minutes later, I turned down a long driveway to Rama's house, which he claimed that he rented from Goldie Hawn. Hawn wanted to sell; Ford wanted to buy; and Rama, Anne, and I wanted to see, in real life, a favorite image from the magic screen.

Rama wore a colorful shirt patterned with scenes of the tropics, similar to one worn by Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) in The Mosquito Coast.

Obsessed with creating a world of his own, Fox bares a captive community to his innovative dreams, poisoned experiments, and diminishing sanity.

Rama suggested that we act busy, so I went outside and pushed a broom.

I smelled smoke. Nearby brush fires had been fanned out of control by increasingly strong winds. The thick, yellow sky reminded me of Blade Runner, a science fiction film starring Harrison Ford.

The recollection caused my mind to digress down a corridor of memories, smoke, and mirrors.

I pictured Rama in line at the movies, which is where he met disciples on Sat.u.r.day nights. He was easy to spot.

With arms folded, one foot forward, and head tilted back, he played the part of the self-possessed, insurgent general who had ordered his troops to carry on, despite the overwhelming odds.

His bush of hair made him seem taller than he was.

Rama incorporated into his teachings what he gleaned from the three, sometimes four films he saw in a typical week. He taught, for instance, that he was like Mike (Robert De Niro) from The Deerhunter. Mike risks a game of Russian roulette in war-torn Saigon to try to save Nicky (Christopher Walken), his friend.

"You are like Nicky," Rama told me frequently.

Drawing, too, from Mel Gibson's role in Road Warrior, Rama taught that it was okay for spiritual Warriors to temper their valor in order to survive.

Rama taught that it was spiritually correct to see such movies as The Texas Chain Saw Ma.s.sacre, Dawn Of The Dead, and The Shining, each of which he viewed repeatedly. Horror films, he claimed, were a clean way to alter our level of consciousness--"No drugs, no s.e.x"-- and were a graphic reminder that each lifetime was but a brief, fragile opportunity through which to evolve.

Citing Mick Jaggar in the concert film Let's Spend The Night Together, Rama further taught that it was perfectly natural for powerful men to develop their feminine side. "Part of the reason why people are so attracted to Mick," he said, "is because he puts out a very feminine energy." Rama later depicted himself in posters and newspaper ads as an androgynous figure.

Perhaps as part of a doubt-diffusing lesson, Rama once invited about twenty-five inner circle disciples to see Split Image, a movie portraying a cult in the late '70s. When the cult leader (Peter Fonda) blatantly manipulated his followers, Rama laughed out loud.

We laughed too. It was an odd moment; our laughter had a nervous edge to it. I laughed partly to fit in, and partly because I sensed, but refused to confront, the absurdity of the situation.

Another time, Rama took followers to see Conan The Barbarian.

When Conan (Arnold Schwartzeneggar) observes a cult leader raise his arms to silence throngs of "DOOM"-chanting disciples, Rama, who sat beside me in the theatre, turned to me and said, "He doesn't have such a bad set up." I figured Rama was only joking. I laughed, but laughed alone.

Rama's lessons about movies often turned my topsy-turvy world further upside down. He told me, for instance, that Star Wars creator George Lucas was wrong to have Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) prematurely leave a mystical apprenticeship, wrong to have evil unmasked by good, and wrong to portray Yoda as being gay.

"Yoda is gay?" I asked.

"Yes," Rama replied, "but don't worry--you are not gay. No way.

Of course you're not gay. Don't believe anyone who tells you that you are. Why even allow yourself to think that you are gay?"

Then, after laughing heartily, he hissed an imitation of the Emperor, Darth Vader's evil master.

Rama, who a.s.sumed broad powers to interpret reality and myth, seemed to believe that he was made of the stuff of legends.

He got touchy, however, when disciples looked to legends outside the realm of his control. One time, for instance, I excitedly told him that I had seen an autographed photo of Mark Hamill.