dark, curly hair and a sardonic smile, Jack had
applied to be a student shortly after Rama's 1982 Berkeley lecture
series. He had allowed the Bay Area postering crew to use his house as
a base of operation, and seemed willing to help his new spiritual
teacher in any way that he could. When Rama closed the San Francisco
Centre, Jack sold his house and moved to southern California, where he
continued to run an Oakland-based fruit distribution company.

Each week I stopped by Jack's Malibu apartment to pick up a crate of
fruit for Rama, who lived down the block near Point Dume. Before I
left, Jack slipped me a small, brown, paper bag.

"That's for you," he said.

"Thanks," I replied and I pulled out a plum.

One time I asked him how he could run a company that was hundreds of
miles away.

"By making a lot of phone calls."

Another time I invited him to see a movie.

"Can't make it," he told me. "I need to take a client out to dinner."

I nodded. "Big deal coming up?"

"Yeah."

Rama began spending time with Jack. In 1986, they went on a trip to
Japan where, Rama told him, they had spent past lives together.
Meanwhile, Jack had donated to Rama not only numerous crates of fruit,
but well over one hundred thousand dollars. In fact, Rama announced at
fund-raising dinners that the disciples were "off the hook" because
Jack had donated yet another hundred thousand.

On August 2nd, 1986, forty-year-old Jack Kukulan was found in his
apartment, partially decomposed before the shrine. According to the
police report, white powder was found on a nearby piece of paper and on
the blade of a knife from the kitchen. According to the autopsy
report, Jack died of "heroin/morphine intoxication."

In August, 1986, Rama left Seattle. Four months later, he returned to
Boston, where he reunited dozens of former followers. "You should
forgive each other and start anew," he told them. Four months after
that, he instructed them to call and invite other former followers to a
"very important" meeting in Boston.

Hundreds responded by flocking east from Los Angeles and from other
areas of the country.

At the meeting, Rama divided the congregation into the "NO," "YES," and
"MAYBE" groups as a way to determine who could come back into his new,
nameless Centre. He put the women who had been with him the longest in
the "MAYBE" group.

"They are the worst," Rama declared, explaining that they would be
required to "pay off"