The Cross Country Adventures

[Note: The names in the following have been changed to prevent anyone from having their auto insurance rates raised.]

Rama's last event ever in California, except for a few book signings, was his Winter Solstice 1993 desert trip. Because this was to be his last event in California, a number of his California students made plans to move to New York following this event. I decided to carpool to New York with a friend of mine, Tanya. Because of the fact that Rama was also planning a Christmas event in New York, we had only a limited amount of time to make it to New York, and we therefore could not afford the luxury of stopping for any length of time.

We took turns driving for about four hours at a stretch and then sleeping. This seemed to work fairly well, although I noticed that I was not feeling too well rested despite all the sleep I was getting. We didn't really get a chance to see too much of the countryside, but we were making good progress until we reached the El Paso, Texas area. This area, quite close to the Mexican border, was then surprisingly hit by a fierce snowstorm. One thing about attending any event with Rama, or doing anything on the path, is that there can be unexpected opposition come up which can sometimes be quite strong. One has to power through the opposition in order to succeed.

So powering through the snowstorm is just what we decided to do. I was driving, and going along at about fifty miles an hour in an area where it was just not safe to do so. At a certain point I lost control of the car and skidded right in front of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, and at just this moment Tanya awoke and screamed. Fortunately we just kept right on skidding and skidded over to the side of the road, out of the path of the truck, just in time. We had been saved only by the grace of Rama.

We were, however, not to be dissuaded, and we continued on at a rather unsafe speed. Perhaps an hour or so later Tanya was driving, and at a certain point I happened to notice that we had run off the road and were skidding to a halt in a big snowdrift about twenty feet off the road. Again, we could have been killed, but we just broke out laughing like it was all a big joke. We soon discovered that neither the car nor us was damaged, and we were pulled out of the drift by a towtruck.

At this point, we thought we were safe, because if we had had two such close calls, surely nothing further would happen to us. And, indeed, the trip was uneventful until just a few miles before our final destination. At this point the weather was fine, and I was driving around a turn on a raised freeway ramp with another eighteen wheeler in the next lane. Suddenly I noticed that the lane I was in was going to end before the turn ended, and the truck did not appear to see us. I hit the accelerator and just barely managed to pass the truck before we were run into the side of the road. We then managed to complete the last few miles successfully, and we made it to our event with Rama in New York in time.

Were we driving recklessly? I'm sure some people would say that not showing the proper respect for dangerous road conditions is reckless. And yet, we were showing respect for a deeper principle, the pathway to enlightenment. That required us to take chances we would otherwise not have taken, and in doing so we were protected from anything damaging happening to us, although things were certainly scary. As long as one's actions are "on the path", one is protected by the aura of Enlightenment.

One final point which is worth making: if the enlightened teacher specifically tells you to drive carefully, then you must do so in order to remain protected by their aura.