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Laxer, Mark Eliot

"Take Me for a Ride: coming of age in a destructive cult"


My heart pounded. I felt like a bomb had exploded in my face.
I saw Kara gazing at Atmananda. It was only months before that
Atmananda had asked me to deceive the disciples into buying him
a "surprise gift"--the new car. I scanned the crowded room.
People seemed disoriented. Three disciples visiting from the Santa
Barbara Chinmoy Centre kept glancing at the door. They looked ready
to bolt.
"Many of you have been having difficulty meditating recently,"
said Atmananda in his familiar, soothing voice. "You have been
blaming yourselves. But you should understand that it is not you.
"For years I have meditated on the Transcendental and the room has
filled with a beautiful, white light. But lately, the light has simply
not been there. At first I thought that the level of my meditation
had dropped. Intuitively, though, I knew that that was not the case."
I could not believe what was happening. I had never heard Atmananda
criticize his--our--beloved Guru. Still, I had to admit that his
intuition was usually correct.
"When I tried meditating without the Transcendental," he continued,
"my consciousness suddenly jumped to a much higher level--
as if the Guru had been holding me down. And yet my logical
mind still refused to accept that the Guru had fallen.


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