There was something about the open road and the blue Colorado
sky that absolved us of our guilt from having decimated a city,
because Alexander and I were anything but upset. The Beatles'
White Album was playing Sexy Sadie, a song satirizing an Indian guru.
I asked him if I could turn up the volume. "Sure." Soon he asked me
the same. Before long, the music was blasting, and we were singing
Helter Skelter at the top of our lungs: "WHEN I GET TO THE BOTTOM
I GO BACK TO THE TOP OF THE SLIDE, AND I STOP AND I TURN AND I GO
FOR A..."
Several nights later, near Tucson, Arizona, the disciples looked
out from a hill at the lights of the city below. "This is a real
moment of power," said Rama. "It is essential that each of you
speak with power and with respect for the spirit of the land."
I typically spoke very briefly at such a gathering unless I knew
in advance what Rama wanted to hear. But now I went on and on about
how in Tucson there was a healthy balance between people and nature,
and about how if we moved here, we would heal. When I was done,
Rama took me aside and said, "Kid--you're going to be all right."
But Tucson was not the right city, he later announced, so we continued
the drive west.
In a motel just east of San Diego, Rama left us one evening
to conduct a Centre meeting in Beverly Hills.
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