Take Me For A Ride | Page 5

school;
other subjects I took at the non-traditional school where, in a creative
writing class, I wrote:

Teachers force us to perceive, The surface world of reason: "A tree is
but a pole with leaves, Whose habits change each season."

I thrived within a self-designed, academically rigorous educational
program, but experienced no breakthroughs in my search for Hidden
Realms of Perception until the following summer. The experience came
when I was working ten-hour days and five-and-a-half day weeks on a
farm in southern New Hampshire. In my spare time, I was designing
and building an electricity-producing windmill, which ended up
towering some twenty 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