With each passing minute,
I found myself growing more curious, more impatient, and more excited.
Fifteen minutes after the talk was scheduled to begin, the women
in saris stopped talking and looked up.
I looked up too and saw a tall man with a projecting nose and
lush locks. His long strides seemed synchronized with his arms,
which swung like perfectly conflicting pendulums; this motion
seemed to propel him into the room. He sat on the table facing
the audience, folded his legs in the pretzel-like posture seen
in Buddha statues, and introduced himself as Dr. Frederick Lenz.
He explained that he had another name: Atmananda. Then he lit
the candles and asked us to drop our preconceived notions because,
"meditation is beyond thought."
"Thought is like a car," he said in a smooth, charming voice.
"You can drive it to California. But if you want to cross the ocean,
you will need an alternate means of transportation. If you want
to cross the sea of consciousness, you will need meditation."
Though his metaphors were new to me, they seemed to point
the way beyond the surface world of reason. He used words
like guru, avatar, warrior, power, power spots, personal power,
moments of power, spiritual power, psychic power, ecstasy, enlightenment,
cosmic love, transcendental, supreme, Nirvana, and the Infinite.
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