Remembering Rama - Dr Frederick Lenz

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Mudras
by Juan Lobos Rameriz

It was in late 1983 when I went to see Rama at a public talk at Stanford University. I and many other students had been following him on his lecture circuit. I had recently been purged from the program. "Purged" was the term that Rama had coined to describe all of the students that he had dropped from the program just a few months earlier. There must have been a thousand of us "purged" students. I know that I was completely stunned by it. I really didn't see it coming. In hindsight I see that the shock forced me to change and become more serious about the path.

Studying with Rama had meant so very much to me and I was devastated by the blue "Dear Student" letter. It said in very gracious terms that our time together was through and he said that we all should move on. He didn't say how.

This was a pain that was impossible to resolve. Yes, I had a girlfriend break up with me once and that left me sobbing for weeks but I eventually found another. This was a different kind of pain. There was a different quality to it. It never left me, not even for a minute. This was something deeper that squeezed my heart as well as the pit of my stomach. There was no other girlfriend to run to. No rebound. I just had to sit and meditate very deeply and hope he would take me back some day.

I sat about five rows back and I was excited to see him. I was showered shaved and had on new clothes. I may have even brought flowers. Maybe he would let, us who were loyal, come back. I was praying for the announcement.

He began his talk with no reference to the many former students who were in the audience. The talk was laced with laughter and as he diverted our attention with his playful histrionics, he was moving us to a place that lay beyond the limitations of our perceptions.

By the third meditation I saw his true form revealed. I was no longer feeling my own self-indulgences. I was higher than I had ever been and it was bliss.

I watched the stage transform. I saw Rama seated on a golden throne. It shined and was decorated with precious jewels. He sat upon the throne with a golden-jeweled crown and a golden robe. He displayed his multi-arm form and performed mudras, sending streams of light out in all directions.

My eyes teared as I watched what was the incarnation of a Hindu God.

When it was over I must have been walking above the ground because I didn't feel my feet. Most of all, I didn't feel the pain and the aloneness but the yearning remained.