At Au Natural, a yogurt shop, Atmananda introduced me to the Stony Brook disciples. There were Anne, Dana, and Suzanne, the sari-clad women from his lectures. There was Tom, a dark-haired young man who was as tall as Atmananda and who seemed easygoing. There was Sal, a balding young man who seemed intense. There were other Chinmoy disciples milling around, but the Stony Brook group stuck together. I expected the conversation would be spiritual, seeing as how we had just meditated with a fully enlightened guru. To my surprise, Atmananda and Tom recalled an episode from The Twilight Zone. "And he totally disappeared." "Into the fifth dimension." "Yeah, he really got zapped." That night, when I got home, I wondered if Atmananda should have been more meditative. But I recalled that Don Juan often acted absurd, funny, and irreverent. He did so to balance the utter seriousness of The Path, as well as to shake up Castaneda's pre-conceived notions of what it meant to be a seeker. "Besides," I thought, quoting Atmananda, "who says spirituality can't be fun?" The following week, I wondered if Chinmoy would accept me as his disciple. I asked my brother what my odds were. "If you are drawn to Guru," he said, "the chances are you have studied with him in past lives. But if he sees that he's not the right teacher for you, he'll guide you inwardly to the right one." I wanted to believe what my brother and Atmananda had been telling me. I wanted to believe that the Guru installed disciple-specific, invisible channels through which peace, light, and bliss could, if the disciple were receptive, inwardly flow. Yet I was not sold on the theory of reincarnation. Nor was I convinced that Atmananda was fully accurate when he claimed that Chinmoy was the Cosmic Boatman, an avatar [incarnation of a Hindu deity], and the most advanced soul ever to have incarnated anywhere in the entire universe. "Why would the messiah live in Jamaica, Queens?" I wondered. But then I felt bad. After all, the Buddha and Christ probably didn't live in such fancy neighborhoods either. I also realized that my doubts were based on the premise of rationality, the very nature of which Atmananda had taught me was limited, flawed, and often destructive. "I suppose Chinmoy *could* be the Cosmic Boatman," I told myself as part of a compromise. Days later, after one of Atmananda's public lectures, I grew curious about my earlier vision of the snow. I asked Atmananda to explain. "Your third eye chakra is opening up a bit," he explained matter-of-factly. "You are seeing into another world. It is not unusual to have this type of experience if you have meditated in past lives." "Thanks, Atmananda!" I said. "Sure, kid," he said, suggesting that I sit back and enjoy the process.