"Auuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm," he chanted after a twenty-five minute meditation at the start of one party. He slowly bowed and touched his forehead to the floor which is where he sat, along with the rest of us. Then the Stony Brook disciples stoked the fireplace, set the tablecloth on the floor, grated cheese, and emptied bags of tortilla chips. I watched the disciples work. Only months had passed since the exploding stove episode, and yet I felt close to them. There was Atmananda. He was orchestrating the festivities. He had brought us all together. There was my brother. He looked happy. He did not seem to mind me tagging along. There was Sal. His intense nature seemed balanced by a fabulous sense of humor. There was Tom, the tall, easygoing bass guitar player. He would soon receive a degree in history from Stony Brook. He seemed to be good friends with Atmananda. And there was Paul. He and I were becoming friends. Then there were the women. According to Guru, I was not even supposed to look them in the eye. I tried to protect them from my wayward sexual thoughts but sometimes, in my imagination, I did more than just look. Then I felt bad. I was told that they would now have to meditate extra hard to cleanse themselves of such "lower energy." I wished that we could be friends. They seemed so nice. Rachel, with light brown hair and perceptive eyes, was closer in age to Atmananda than the rest of us. She had completed medical school in three years and become a disciple in 1978, two months after attending Atmananda's lectures at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Dana, a one-time fashion model, had been an occupational therapy major at Canada's McGill University. She first met Atmananda while interviewing him for the campus radio station. After the interview, which touched on Atmananda's book Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation, he invited her to visit him in Stony Brook. Shortly thereafter she left her boyfriend, family, school, and country. She moved to Stony Brook, just around the block from the charismatic young meditation teacher and author. Connie was a waitress with long dark braids, a Midwesterner's friendliness, and a cheeky smile. Suzanne had long brown hair and dreamy eyes. She studied art at the Parson's School of Design in Manhattan. And Anne, with long, black hair and that playful, impish grin, was studying to be a nurse. I turned back to watch Atmananda. "Don't think that spirituality is divorced from the physical world," he was saying as he reached for a chip. "After you meditate a few years, you begin to see that Annam Brahma-- food is God." He then set the chips-and-cheese-laden tray in the oven. Sal observed intently, as though witnessing a ritual.