Take Me For A Ride | Page 9

a short, stocky Indian entered the chapel. He had a shiny
head, a hooked nose, and high cheek bones. He was draped in a
light-blue dhoti, the male version of a sari. He walked slowly toward
the front. He sat in a big blue chair, opened his eyes wide, and blinked
a couple of times.
Disciples in the audience sat with their hands folded, as if they were
praying to him.
"Are they praying to him?" I asked my brother.
"No," he whispered. "They are aspiring to the Infinite in him."
The Guru sipped from a glass which he held with his pinky pointing
out.
"Well," I thought. "As long as they aren't praying to him."
Suddenly Chinmoy belted out, "Aummm. Auuummmmmm.
Auuummmmmmmmmmmm." After five minutes of meditation, the
Guru folded his hands and bowed to the audience.
My brother whispered, "He is offering his meditation to the Infinite in
us."

"That about evens the score," I thought, feeling better about the whole
business of guru worship.
Chinmoy signaled a disciple who placed a box of oranges before him.
He stood behind it and nodded to the audience, which began forming a
line.
At first I thought he was just giving out oranges. But by filling the
fruits with spiritual light, my brother explained, the Guru was really
giving darshan.
One by one, the disciples looked into Chinmoy's eyes with
out-stretched hands. When they received the darshan they touched the
orange to their heart chakra, bowed, and walked reverentially back to
the benches.
When it came my turn, I approached slowly so that people would think
I was spiritual. "When Guru flickers his eyes," I recalled my brother
telling me, "he is entering the perfect awareness of Nirvakalpa
Samadhi." I looked up. Chinmoy smiled, flickered his eyes, and pulled
from the box...nothing! He had run out of oranges.
"An omen!" I thought. I was unsure, though, what the delay exactly
meant. Nonetheless, I decided to take advantage of the situation. I
focused my gaze on Chinmoy. Soon everything in the chapel, except
for his shiny face, seemed to disappear. Then, borrowing a technique
from the Castaneda books, I squinted and crossed my eyes until
Chinmoy transformed into swirls of shimmering light. "Wow!" I
thought. For a moment, the distorted image before me reminded me of
the Transcendental.
When Chinmoy came back into focus, he shot a glance at the side of
the chapel. A disciple brought him a fresh crate. After the second
flickering, I took the orange with both hands, touched it to my heart
chakra, and bowed. I walked away feeling grateful. A wave of joy
washed over me. I saw the disciples, including my brother and
Atmananda, gazing lovingly at Chinmoy. I felt touched by a power
which seemed greater and more romantic than that of the world of
reason. "How many people get a gift from a *fully* enlightened guru?"
I wondered.
"Don't just stare at it," my brother reproved, explaining that oranges
were poor retainers of Spiritual Light. "Eat it!"
Moments later, the Guru announced in a lilting voice, "Atmananda,

pleeeez bring."
Atmananda led the five or six potential initiates to the front of the
chapel. He had found, inspired, and persuaded them through his
lectures. While Atmananda watched the Guru initiate them, he did not
return to his seat. Instead, he remained in front, several feet away.
Chinmoy rapidly oscillated his eyes at the new recruits. His eyes were
still flickering when he placed his hand on each of their foreheads.
When his eyes returned to normal, he flashed a smile at Atmananda, at
the new disciples, and at the rest of the audience. Then he left the
chapel in a flurry of whites and saris.
As I watched him leave, I felt secure that he and Atmananda knew a lot
about the unknown. I glanced across the room at the disciples. I
realized that I wanted to be part of their fellowship.
My brother and I found Atmananda outside, addressing a group of
Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples.
"Do you want to go with us to Au Natural?" he asked us.
At that moment I would have gone with him anywhere, partly because I
was not keen on going home, and partly because he was so compelling.
There was something about him that felt nurturing yet electric, casual
yet happening.
"Yes!" we chimed.
Atmananda organized rides, gave directions, warned us about potholes
and drunk drivers, and suggested that we maintain a meditative
consciousness, lest we lose the Guru's light. Then he led us away from
the other Chinmoy disciples, from the chapel, from the campus, and
onto the streets.
I watched the blur of city lights from the back of Atmananda's Saab,
which hurtled through the streets at a velocity close to that of a New