friend. It was to gaze down the highway of light where
the sun lit into the sea. There were as many ways to meditate, it
seemed, as there were facets on the jewel of the human condition.

It occurred to me that I had meditated on the first day of the bike
trip at Walden Pond. I had become immersed in watching waves rise and
fall and in listening to them lap the shore. Their pattern suggested a
rhythm unlike any I had followed. When a friend asked which route I
would take, I smiled. My plan was to follow the setting sun.

Now, stretched out on a sleeping bag in northern Colorado, I realized
that I had started and ended the bike trip in spontaneous meditation.
I recalled other times during the journey that I had meditated. I
gazed, for instance, at the bands of bright color which arched from
drenched cow fields to the luminous Wisconsin sky. I gazed at the blur
of the Minnesota pavement when the wind was strong and at my tail. I
pondered an encounter with a young, six-pack-carrying Native American
who, when I mentioned the spirit of South Dakota's land, told me he had
sold his for a bundle of cash. I contemplated an encounter with a
Vietnam veteran in Rapid City who said his death was near and whose
shirt read, "AGENT ORANGE KILLS." I meditated on the meaning of a
bumper sticker in Wyoming that read, "MY OTHER CAR IS A HORSE." I
reflected on Nuna's response when I encouraged her to help pull the
rig. The nearly full-grown husky had sat down and scratched her ear.

The primary focus of the bike trip meditations, though, had been on my
years with Rama. I had meditated, for instance, on the LSD trips.
During the intense rush of the drug, my acquired knowledge of myself
and of the world around me peeled away like layers of an onion. It was
as if I saw the world through the eyes of a child. Hours later, as the
effects of the acid began to wear off, it was as if I saw the world
through the eyes of a young man whose self-confidence had not yet been
shaken. Rama, who observed me during each trip, mostly let me re-form
the layers which made up "me" on my own. The next wave of subjects in
his chemical experiments would not be as fortunate (see Epilogue).

I meditated during the bike trip on how, over the years, Rama flipped
between "caretaker personalities" more frequently and how, starting in
1984, the flipping grew sudden and extreme. This unnerving phenomenon
could be seen in the stages of his LSD trip. Perh