says spirituality can't be fun?"

The following week, I wondered if Chinmoy would accept me as his disciple. I asked my brother what my odds were.

"If you are drawn to Guru," he said, "the chances are you have studied with him in past lives. But if he sees that he's not the right teacher for you, he'll guide you inwardly to the right one."

I wanted to believe what my brother and Atmananda had been telling me. I wanted to believe that the Guru installed disciple-specific, invisible channels through which peace, light, and bliss could, if the disciple were receptive, inwardly flow. Yet I was not sold on the theory of reincarnation. Nor was I convinced that Atmananda was fully accurate when he claimed that Chinmoy was the Cosmic Boatman, an avatar [incarnation of a Hindu deity], and the most advanced soul ever to have incarnated anywhere in the entire universe.

"Why would the messiah live in Jamaica, Queens?" I wondered. But then I felt bad. After all, the Buddha and Christ probably didn't live in such fancy neighborhoods either. I also realized that my doubts were based on the premise of rationality, the very nature of which Atmananda had taught me was limited, flawed, and often destructive. "I suppose Chinmoy *could* be the Cosmic Boatman," I told myself as part of a compromise.

Days later, after one of Atmananda's public lectures, I grew curious about my earlier vision of the snow. I asked Atmananda to explain.

"Your third eye chakra is opening up a bit," he explained matter-of-factly. "You are seeing into another world. It is not unusual to have this type of experience if you have meditated in past lives."

"Thanks, Atmananda!" I said.

"Sure, kid," he said, suggesting that I sit back and enjoy the process.

Except for occasional doubts, I had been enjoying the process. I enjoyed hanging out with the Stony Brook disciples. They were not only fellow seekers, but they seemed to have a good time. Atmananda, in particular, was fun to be around. He sometimes made me feel important and powerful. I enjoyed his lectures, during which he quoted The Bhagavad-Gita, The Bible, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Star Wars, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Thoreau, Roethke, and Carlos Castaneda. One time he even recited my favorite passage from the Castaneda books, the one about traveling on paths that have heart.

Now convinced that I had found a home in Atmananda's world, I decided to seek initiation from Chinmoy.

My mother knew that my involvement with the group was intensifying. She had been trying to get me to talk to the rabbi.

"Why should I talk to the rabbi?" I responded.

"Will you at least listen to what he has to say?"

But I had been listening to the rabbi since my bar mitzvah four years ago and, frankly, I was not impressed. A kind and sometimes humorous man with a keen intellect, the rabbi represented a religion which seemed less mystical than social. He struck me as being extremely reasonable, if not a little dull. In all the years I studied, sang, and prayed in his congregation, not once, as I recall, did he capture my imagination.

"I don't want to talk to the rabbi," I had replied.

Now I told my mother that I wanted to become a disciple.

She grew quiet and pale.

I told her that I had had mystical experiences while meditating with Chinmoy. I did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge, that the mystical experiences mostly occurred after I crossed or squinted my eyes, or after I gazed at Chinmoy for two minutes or more. I told her that Chinmoy was an enlightened guru, and that I respected him greatly. I did not tell her, nor did I acknowledge, that my respect—my reverence—was shaped largely by Atmananda and the other disciples.

I was convinced by these reasons. So was my brother. My parents were not.

"Mark, would you please talk to the rabbi?"

I finally agreed to go.

When my brother, my mother, and I entered the book-filled office, the rabbi's expression, accentuated by a bulbous nose and glasses, was anything but humorous.

"Hello, Mrs. Laxer," he said. "Hello, boys."

"Hello, rabbi."

He asked us if we were getting involved in another religion.

"No, rabbi," explained my brother. "We are studying spiritual mysticism."

"We're just learning to meditate," I added.

"I see," he said. He mentioned an obscure mystical sect within the Jewish religion known as Cabalism. But Judaism, he explained, slowly, as though measuring each word, was based upon laws—not direct mystical experience. As he spoke, I recalled that Jewish law had been passed down through the generations since the time of Abraham and Isaac. Chinmoy's teachings, I realized, also stemmed from a tradition dating back thousands of years. I found myself picturing Chinmoy and Atmananda. "They are such colorful characters," I thought.

I glanced at the rabbi. He was saying something about the dangers of mind control. "The rabbi is so... plain," I decided. I felt certain that he had never read the Castaneda books.

My mother said little during the meeting. She was hoping that the rabbi would build for my brother and me a framework through which we could view our mystical quest. When the meeting was over, I went home and stared at the underexposed Transcendental photo of Chinmoy.

The next day I tried to meditate, but my mind dwelt on familiar thoughts: "As soon as I graduate, I'm going to leave my tired, depressed father. I'm going to leave my manipulative, demanding mother. I'm going to follow a path with heart, and things are going to get better."

Meanwhile, my mother had asked if she could attend one of the meetings with the Guru.

"Sure," I replied. I felt I had nothing to hide, and I secretly hoped that she would wish me well on my journey.

Dressed in Western clothes, she went to St. Paul's Chapel that Wednesday night and sat near the front. She felt uncomfortable being surrounded by a sea of whites and saris. She saw disciples praying to a short, Indian man dressed in robes. Her stomach became tense when the man placed his hand on the forehead of her youngest son.

I stood in front of the chapel, before Chinmoy, squinting. In the flickering of the Guru's eyes, I was initiated. I bowed and turned, and in the audience I saw my mother. I quickly looked away. I saw myself less as the son of caring, creative, and slightly mixed-up New York Jews, and more a disciple of the man Atmananda said was perfect.

After initiation, I began to spend less time at home, where I often heard things like: "Artie, you talk to your son about what he is getting involved in."

"Leave me alone!" my father replied, irritably.

"It's a *rotten* family!" my mother declared.

I happily spent time instead with my brother, Atmananda, and the other Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples.

One time, while camping with my brother in a marsh near Stony Brook, my calves began to itch. I tried not to scratch what seemed to be poison ivy, but must have done so in my sleep because by morning, the rash had spread.

When I went home, my mother applied lotion to my skin. The next day, she asked if I was better.

"Yup," I said and left for school. Confident that my skin would heal on its own, I did not want to make a fuss over the red bumps which now covered most of my body. Yet later that day in writing class I had to sto...p reading a poem becau...se I could no...t get the words out, and my mother arrived and rushed me to the hospital. After a shot of adrenaline caused the puffy, quarter-sized blotches to shrink, the doctor pointed out that had I not been treated in time, I might have been suffocated by the growing bump in my throat.

"How odd to have a near-death experience so soon after my spiritual initiation," I thought. I asked the doctor what he thought had nearly killed me. "Perhaps you had an allergic reaction to something you ate," he said. But after various food groups were one by one reintroduced into my diet, the cause of the hives remained hidden.

I