170 DATE WITH THE GODS
"As soon as you wish."
"How long will it take? How often am I going to come
here?"
"You will come when you have the time. We can cover a
great deal in one session. It depends on how much we get
off the subject and how eager you are to complete it."
"When am I going to be returning to the United States?
Can you give me an exact date?"
"Not an exact date, no. I told you I wouldn't interfere
with your life. You just come here on weekends, or when
you have the time, and we11 take it from there."
At this point in the conversation, it was our turn to go
into the bathhouses. We went in, never interrupting our
conversation. She told me it would be easy to forecast
when I would be returning to the United States, also that
she could tell me the story of my life for the next few
years, but that she would be destroying my incentive and,
therefore, the joy of living. She said it would be kind of
dull to know everything that was going to happen in the
future, so I dropped the subject of the exact date I would
be returning to the United States.
Even though I hadn't seen Rama for a month, we were
at ease with each other. My distrust of her and her
motives had vanished. Instead I felt a warmth and
enthusiasm toward our relationship, because now we
had one common goal: I was going to learn all she had to
teach me, and she was ready and willing to start. I had
stopped resisting, and discontinued my obnoxious be
havior whenever she said something that frightened me.
After our mineral bath, we decided to drive to a nearby
town. It was early afternoon, kind of chilly and a little
too cold to be out riding on a motorcycle. We took my
car, and as we drove, we had a mind to mind conversa
tion. Rama told me earlier that these mind to mind
conversations meant that we didn't have to go through
long explanations to understand simple concepts. From