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First and foremost, RAMA
was an Enlightened Buddhist and Siddha master whose life, and
whose ability to help his students, transcended the limits of
his earthly incarnation. RAMA was born Frederick Lenz III on
February 9, 1950 in San Diego, California, USA. RAMA had had
many high past lives as an Enlightened master in Tibet, India,
Europe, and dating all the way back to Atlantis. This was his
first incarnation in the modern Western world-RAMA has said
that he needed to incarnate in the West this time because the
Chinese invasion of Tibet made it impossible to do so in the
East this time.
RAMA was raised in an ordinary
American family, primarily on the East Coast where his family
moved (from San Diego) when he was about two years old. He was
very close to his mother-whom he was later to say was one of
the primary influences on his life-but she died tragically when
RAMA was fourteen years old. From that point onward, he was
raised by his uncle and father, both police officers in the
Stamford, Connecticut police department. RAMA's family was partly
Irish, and he was later to observe that at point in time, the
police force was one of the few career options to Irish-Americans.
(His father would later go on to become mayor of Stamford.)
Another option was the priesthood, and so the possibility of
a spiritual life-albeit in a much different form than what eventually
transpired-was imprinted early into RAMA's mind.
At the same time as RAMA
went through the usual rites of passage of a growing young man,
however, his Enlightenment from past lives began to reassert
itself. RAMA indicated that it was pretty much inevitable, given
that he had been Enlightened in so many past lives, that he
would become Enlightened again in this life. He began to experience
Samadhi-a high state of consciousness marked by the absence,
at least temporarily, of thought-at an early age. To put some
structure on his experiences, he began to seek out Eastern spiritual
teachers. By the age of twenty, RAMA was himself beginning to
teach meditation to others, and was studying formally with a
teacher based on Long Island.
RAMA enrolled in the University
of Connecticut, and performed sufficiently well to be awarded
the top graduate fellowship available in the entire State University
of New York system. He earned his Ph.D. in English from the
SUNY campus at Stony Brook in 1978, writing his dissertation
on the work of American poet Theodore Roethke. At the same time,
RAMA also wrote a book entitled Lifetimes: True Accounts of
Reincarnation. RAMA was thus on a path to become a teacher on
two different tracks: as a traditional university professor,
and as a teacher of Enlightenment and mysticism through his
books and his direct experience of Samadhi.
RAMA taught for a little
while at the New School in New York, but as he approached his
Saturn return, his past life Enlightenment began to kick in
much more powerfully, and the focus became ever stronger on
the esoteric aspects of his teachings. In 1979, RAMA moved,
along with a number of his closer meditation students, back
to San Diego. By this point, RAMA was known as 'Atmananda'-he
was no longer referred to primarily by his birth name, but had
not yet taken the name of RAMA. It was in San Diego that Atmananda/RAMA's
Enlightenment really began to kick in. Atmananda and several
of his closer students rented a house in San Diego, and they
also began to teach to others living in the areas. Those who
studied with Atmananda at the time recall sitting up with him
often most of the night, watching his body dissolve into Eternity
and dissolving with him. Atmananda was letting go of the structures
that had led him to that point in the incarnation, and his Enlightenment
was taking over. RAMA subsequently observed that this was not
necessarily an easy part of his life, because he had no one
really to guide him through the experience.
Atmananda also began leading
students on desert excursions in the surrounding deserts near
San Diego. Atmananda indicated that by meditating in the desert
one can find some of the highest energy to be found in the USA,
and one can make major transitions in one's life. It was on
one such trip that Atmananda saw that the Universe wanted him
to become known as RAMA, and this was the name he used-sometimes
in the longer form 'Zen Master RAMA'-for the rest of his incarnation.
RAMA indicated that this did not mean that he was the incarnation
of the historical Rama from the Ramayana, but rather both he
and the historical Rama were manifestations of the warrior aspect
of Enlightenment.
In the early 1980's, RAMA
moved his teachings primarily to Los Angeles-he also had a center
in San Francisco for awhile-and he began to teach, through an
organization called Lakshmi Seminars, to a larger number of
students. Most came because of the pure magic that RAMA was
able to impart-both the "Light shows" in the seminars
and on the desert excursions, but even more importantly through
the magical ways that they were able to make changes in their
own lives. RAMA rented a home owned by Goldie Hawn for a time,
and taught to over a thousand active, formal students including
movie stars and people from all walks of life. Through his public
lectures, RAMA probably taught introductory meditation to hundreds
of thousands of people during this period-he kept up a schedule
of public meditations that was quite grueling. During this time,
RAMA also put out his second major book-The Last Incarnation-about
his students' experiences studying with him--as well as a number
of other, shorter, books.
RAMA was demanding on himself,
and he was also, by his own admission, demanding on his students.
By this time period he began to notice that a lot of his students
were not strong in the "first attention" or the "tonal"-that
is, they were focused on trying to achieve Enlightenment at
the expense of their material success. RAMA saw that a student's
ability to achieve Enlightenment depended, in part, on their
ability to have their physical life together. (It doesn't necessarily
work the other way: someone who is rich isn't necessarily going
to be especially spiritual. But someone who is homeless doesn't
have an environment in which they can meditate effectively).
RAMA saw, therefore, that he was going to have to be a bit more
selective about whom he would admit as students. He demanded
more of his students, and he conducted what were affectionately
called "purges" where he asked large numbers of students
to leave the program. Needless to say, those who were "purged"
were first given an empowerment to help them with their lives
outside the program.
RAMA moved his "intermediate"
students to Palo Alto in the fall of 1987, and at that point
he began a new cycle in his teaching. For the next few years,
he pretty much eliminated his public lectures and focused on
intensively teaching a smaller number of students. He was, by
most accounts, pretty tough with these students, really expecting
them to get their lives and especially their careers in shape.
RAMA was criticized at the time for rising tuitions-his seminars,
which at one point had been offered for free or at nominal cost,
were definitely becoming more costly. Yet he also got results,
as his students were making amazing progress in their careers,
moving from minimum wage jobs to high paying positions as consultants
or corporate leaders. During the late 1980's, RAMA moved this
group of students around a fair bit as business conditions changed,
settling in Washington DC, Boston, and finally New York. Not
every student necessarily made every move that RAMA recommended,
but most of them did end up in New York by the early 1990's.
By this point, RAMA saw
two things: one, that the energies of the world were changing
with the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union,
and two, that his students had reached a point where they were
ready to begin teaching themselves. Indeed, he felt that sometimes
the only way you learn something is by teaching it yourself,
and he thought that his students had better start teaching themselves
if they were ever to really learn anything. So in late 1991,
RAMA sent his students out to teach meditation to new students
in six cities throughout the USA-New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. His older students,
who had been with RAMA for years, were dubbed "ST1s"-"Star
Trek Ones". The new students, who were mentored by the
ST1s and had to be 29 or under, were called "ST2s".
At this point, the focus changed back somewhat to the direct
study of Enlightenment and meditation-during the late 1980's
career had very much been the dominant theme. Magic was definitely
back in style around RAMA-he conducted new desert excursions,
and the ST1s helped the ST2s to make the same transitions in
their personal and spiritual lives that they themselves had
made over the years. The group moved once again, in 1993, with
the ST1s moving to Chicago and the ST2s moving to New York.
During this period, RAMA also wrote two new books: Snowboarding
to Nirvana and Surfing the Himalayas which were aimed especially
at the ST2s. RAMA also had a number of very high vibe rave parties
at upscale locations in Manhattan. These parties were not simply
parties-they were opportunities for people to permanently shift
their assemblage points and make significant changes in their
lives.
At this point, RAMA decided
that he wanted to start a number of software companies with
his students, to work more closely with them and to help everyone
to move forward in the growing software industry. He founded
a number of software companies in 1994 and began to put more
and more of his energies into the software industry.
On a somewhat different
track, for most of this whole time period, RAMA had worked closely
with a band called Zazen, composed of three of his students.
RAMA worked very closely with Zazen to help them create music
that his students could meditate to and go into higher states
of consciousness. It was often said that the members of Zazen
were RAMA's closest students. Meditation to music is not strictly
necessary, but it can go a long way, especially for a beginning
student, to blocking out negative energies of the world and
assisting in meditation. Some of the albums produced during
this period included Enlightenment, Canyons of Light, Samadhi,
Samurai, Retrograde Planet, Cayman Blue and Zen Master. All
were impeccable-RAMA used to say that the two ways to find him
were either in his music or in the desert.
Shortly after founding his
software companies, however, RAMA's health began to fail. It
is said that an Enlightened teacher only has so long to teach
before their cell structures begin to break down-they do not
really belong in the physical anymore, so can retain their physical
form for only so long. RAMA worked very hard on his companies-in
fact, probably he worked harder than on anything else he'd ever
worked, and this likely contributed to his physical decline-and
he achieved some significant successes, as well as the inevitable
setbacks any entrepreneur faces. By early 1997, RAMA realized
that his time in the physical was ending-the death of his favorite
Scottie dog Vayu had been a setback for him too. He continued
to push himself very hard on his work, but he also called his
students together for a number of farewell parties in the Caribbean,
culminating in the Kalachakra empowerment in late 1997, to which
all of his former students were invited. RAMA passed away around
April 12, 1998, and he has said that he will not be incarnating
again on this earth.
RAMA's teachings are continued
to this day through the efforts of his students. Each of RAMA's
students represents their own unique strand of RAMA's luminosity,
so while they each teach in a unique manner, together they keep
Enlightenment alive on the Earth. Many of his students are themselves
going into Samadhi and reaching the earlier stages of Enlightenment
at this point, and they are empowering growing numbers of people
to do the same.
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