Circa March 31, 2000

In the Dream Plane I found myself standing behind a gathering of around a dozen of Rama's new students. They all were in their early 20's, inquisitive, and, as Rama would say, "perky". The location was a hillside in a farm-like setting (that had a New York Hudson Valley "feel" to it), a little past dusk. The air was moist, but not damp - a very rich and fertile spring evening, amid rolling hills and woodlands.

All the students were sitting upright on the ground on top of a small hill facing South. A dark-haired male student, by question or comment, expressed some doubt about Rama and his abilities. Rama (whose face I did not see, but who was standing in the shadows to the left of the group in a grove of tall trees) calmly and distinctly answered the student with the words, "Just look up in the sky . . .

I had turned my back on the group until I heard Rama's voice, and then I immediately looked up into the dark blue sky to see the spectacular finale of Rama's "answer"; a big burst of circular white-hot light (larger than a full moon), which suddenly appeared in the lower right corner of the sky. Then this brilliant light audibly "burst" with a muffled "pop" and dissolved into the sky, like celestial fireworks.

Rama then requested that I get something out of his barn/storage area, which was about 10 yards away to my right. At that moment I thought I had understood his request. So, I walked over to this building, which was larger than a shed, but smaller than a barn. It had loose, damp soil for flooring, and because it was dusk, it was very hard for me to see its exact contents.

There were some metal containers (which looked like a type of pail or watering can) in wooden wheelbarrows. I could not figure out what these metal containers were used for, and as I stood there, I knew that I had totally forgotten what Rama had just told me to get.

Then, most surprisingly of all, I immediately realized that I wasn't embarrassed or particularly upset with myself. I just accepted my inability to remember Rama's exact request.

However, instead of returning to his gathering for clarification of my task, I then looked up and wandered off into the dusk, towards Rama's "farmhouse", which was located past the shed, again to the right. I found myself in his kitchen, facing West, with a window to my left, over a sink which looked out into darkness. There was also an overhead light above the countertop and wooden kitchen cabinets.

I was standing near the right corner of the room, and I opened the cabinet door directly in front of me. Among other boxed food and baking items was a very large unopened bottle of olive oil, rich golden in color, with a green label.

As I stared at the olive oil, I immediately "knew", even though this was Rama's house and Rama's food, that it was "all right with Rama" for me to be "wandering off" around his property. And I also instinctively "knew" that anything I found in Rama's cabinets was "all right" for me to use to eat or to have, even though I had forgotten what he had sent me to get in the first place. Rama and his new students never did get what I was supposed to bring back, because at this point my Dream ended.

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EPILOGUE: On May 1st I found a greeting card at Barnes & Noble Booksellers that had a similar metal container on it, and this card prompted my remembering this Dream. At this point, I decided to be "on the lookout" for the appearance of the exact bottle of olive oil.

In late June, in a visit to my family, I found this exact bottle of olive oil with the green label in a supermarket aisle. And, upon finding it, I stopped in front of the display to give Rama a resounding round of applause.

I then decided that one purpose of this Dream was to "alert" me to the significance of this particular family visit. As it turned out to be the final visit with my mother before her sudden passing two weeks later, I was thankful to be given this highly specific, "Dream Plane Advance Notice", courtesy of our always gracious, generous, and most magical Rama.

Michael