"
"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.
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