The following week, I ventured with my brother to another of Atmananda's lectures. We also returned to meditate with Chinmoy. When we arrived at Columbia, disciples were arranging flowers, lighting incense, and otherwise darting about in preparation for their master's presence. Chinmoy apparently was on his way. Several minutes later a short, stocky Indian entered the chapel. He had a shiny head, a hooked nose, and high cheek bones. He was draped in a light-blue dhoti, the male version of a sari. He walked slowly toward the front. He sat in a big blue chair, opened his eyes wide, and blinked a couple of times. Disciples in the audience sat with their hands folded, as if they were praying to him. "Are they praying to him?" I asked my brother. "No," he whispered. "They are aspiring to the Infinite in him." The Guru sipped from a glass which he held with his pinky pointing out. "Well," I thought. "As long as they aren't praying to him." Suddenly Chinmoy belted out, "Aummm. Auuummmmmm. Auuummmmmmmmmmmm." After five minutes of meditation, the Guru folded his hands and bowed to the audience. My brother whispered, "He is offering his meditation to the Infinite in us." "That about evens the score," I thought, feeling better about the whole business of guru worship. Chinmoy signaled a disciple who placed a box of oranges before him. He stood behind it and nodded to the audience, which began forming a line. At first I thought he was just giving out oranges. But by filling the fruits with spiritual light, my brother explained, the Guru was really giving darshan. One by one, the disciples looked into Chinmoy's eyes with out-stretched hands. When they received the darshan they touched the orange to their heart chakra, bowed, and walked reverentially back to the benches. When it came my turn, I approached slowly so that people would think I was spiritual. "When Guru flickers his eyes," I recalled my brother telling me, "he is entering the perfect awareness of Nirvakalpa Samadhi." I looked up. Chinmoy smiled, flickered his eyes, and pulled from the box...nothing! He had run out of oranges. "An omen!" I thought. I was unsure, though, what the delay exactly meant. Nonetheless, I decided to take advantage of the situation. I focused my gaze on Chinmoy. Soon everything in the chapel, except for his shiny face, seemed to disappear. Then, borrowing a technique from the Castaneda books, I squinted and crossed my eyes until Chinmoy transformed into swirls of shimmering light. "Wow!" I thought. For a moment, the distorted image before me reminded me of the Transcendental.