Take Me For A Ride | Page 5

feet above Onyx, one of the tallest cows. Farm-crew members sometimes walked out to the hay fields to get high. One night, after smoking marijuana, I fell asleep and later saw, above where I lay, a cow, its head swaying gently to and fro. Though I thought I was awake it was but a dream, for when I woke from "waking," the cow had disappeared. This experience led me to believe that like Mr. Castaneda's mentor, I could consciously direct my actions within the context of a dream.
Back in New York, I became editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper. I soon learned that I had a knack for inspiring and for managing a team. I was well regarded by my teachers and by my peers, and I had many friends. I could have continued my studies at a prestigious university, but I longed for a mystical quest. I dreamt that I walked silently across a vast desert plain. I longed to experience that which lay beyond the surface world of reason. I dreamt that I flew over desert chaparral into an infinite orange horizon. I longed for a wisdom that was secret, magical, ancient. I decided to hitchhike, alone, to the Sonoran Desert in Mexico to find a mystical teacher, a *brujo*, who was just like Don Juan. I planned to leave on the day after high school graduation.
Meanwhile, I continued to read the Castaneda books and to experiment with consciousness. One time I attempted to raise my right arm without consciously lifting it. I wanted it to levitate on its own. I soon felt a tingling in the arm, but it did not rise. Finally, I lifted it on purpose. Then, as part of the experiment, I suggested to myself that the arm remain lifted. As long as I repeated the suggestion, the arm remained where it was. Afterwards, I could not recall how long the state of mind had lasted.
My brother shared with me an interest in rising above the limitations of home, school, religion, society, and reality. By the time I turned him on to the Castaneda books, he had already studied Einstein's special theory of relativity and The Tao Of Physics. In the spring of 1978, when he was studying physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he told me that he had met an English professor who was an expert on the Castaneda books. He knew that my quest for a teacher would begin in roughly two months, when I would graduate from high school. He wanted to help me. He suggested that I attend the Castaneda expert's free lecture series on meditation in Manhattan.
I wondered why a Castaneda expert would live on Long Island rather than in a remote desert in Mexico, but my brother's enthusiasm was sincere. "Besides," I thought as we rode the train into the city, "anything I learn now will only help me on the journey."
We arrived at a building on 33rd Street. A rickety elevator took us to the third floor, where the sweet and spicy aroma of incense wafted through the air. I saw a row of sneakers by the elevator door and wondered if they had been responsible for the incense. After placing our sneakers in line with the others, we walked past a sign which read "Yoga Life Perfection." A young woman with long, black hair and a playful, impish grin sold books and incense in the hallway. She recognized my brother and smiled at us. She wore a sari.
We entered a medium-sized room where a smoldering stick of incense and two unlit candles rested on a table up front. Two young women stood together near the back of the room. One had long brown hair and dreamy eyes. The other had a face and figure like a model. Their faces were flushed and aglow. They also wore saris.
"Too bad I'm not gonna be sticking around New York," I thought, gazing at them.
In the audience sat two women in their sixties, dressed entirely in black. They sat near a man in his thirties, with the frame of a metal pyramid resting squarely on his head.
We sat by the two sari-clad women. They were clearly excited about something. They used words like inspiration, aspiration, concentration, visualization, meditation, reincarnation, and perfection. My brother, too, seemed excited, as if something extraordinary and wonderful were about to occur. With each passing minute, I found myself growing more curious, more impatient, and more excited. Fifteen minutes after the talk was scheduled to begin, the women in saris stopped talking and looked up.
I looked up too and saw a tall man with a projecting nose and lush locks. His long strides seemed synchronized with his arms, which swung like perfectly conflicting pendulums; this motion seemed to propel him