er company and a spiritual organization. Given three phone
numbers, I think you should be able to contact Tom by *yourself*." I
sat down, stunned. I had spoken honestly to Rama. It was invigorating.

"That's going to be a tough act to follow," admitted Rama. Then he
began to speak. Within minutes he transported me with a tranquilizing
voice and abstract language inside a fuzzy, familiar bubble where words
were not questioned and consciousness seemed high. I found myself
being drawn into his world. It was comforting being back. Earlier, he
had given me some play. That made me feel important. I let my
thoughts drift aimlessly about. I found myself gazing, without
blinking, into his eyes. I found myself mesmerized by the sound and
the rhythm of his words. Somewhere far away, I found myself
floating... my vision blurred... things went fuzzy...

"Hey!" I thought, bursting the mental bubble. "He's formatting us
again--only this time without the LSD!"

I stood back up. I was ready for action. I did not know what to do.

Rama stopped talking, squinted his eyes, and aimed his index finger at
me.

I recalled a scene from The Last Wave, a movie Rama once took me to
see, in which a sorcerer kills a man by pointing a "death bone" at him.

I now saw Rama as both friend and foe, mentor and tormentor, Christ and
anti-Christ. I was frightened and confused. Estranged, yet held by his
seductively androgynous, authoritative face, I lapsed into a meditative
stupor...

A glint of light caught my eye and snapped me out of the trance.

Rama was chanting something in a low, monotonous tone.

I seized the string with the bicycle lock key. I pictured bright
purple sparks and blue lightning bolts radiating in all directions from
the key. The light shielded me from attack and lit the path to the
door.

"Gotta go," I said and slowly walked away.

"I've got your number," Rama replied, still pointing his crooked finger.

"You're full of it," I returned and stepped outside. Here the light
was soft and grey. A morning dove cooed. The bicycle was there for
me. It was 1985, and I was twenty-five.

In the months that followed, I occasionally bicycled to Walden Pond,
where I read about Thoreau's experiment with self-reliance. Distracted
by haunting memories, I gazed at the water in search of calm, but the
wind spawned new waves and the surface swelled with complexity.
"There's plenty of time to sort it out," I reassure