Nearly a decade had passed since I had met Kuda Bux. I had finished college and over the subsequent several years had worked my way up the executive ladder to a position as National Manager of Field Engineering for a prestigious New York City based leasing company. Our company was rapidly expanding and needed field engineers. It was 1966 and the labor market was very tight. To attract applicants I ran a display ad in the New York Times. Within a week I received about a dozen resumes.

One resume stood out. It was unique in style and also in content. It was from Mr. Rakesh Pandey (fictitious name used.) At first glance Mr. Pandey’s unique range of credentials humored me. His resume included: pilot, electrical engineer, Manipuri dancer, inventor, three-times honored recipient of India's General Knowledge Award, champion long-distance runner, and former owner-manager of a manufacturing plant. Most unusual was the last entry on his resume claiming extrasensory perception. I was not sure how his background could work into a field engineering position. Nevertheless, I thought he deserved a chance to make his pitch. I also wanted to query him about his claimed extrasensory perception. So, I arranged for an interview with Mr. Pandey.

When he came to my office I was impressed. Before me stood a well-dressed gentleman, distinctly East Indian, radiating enthusiasm. He was short, just over five feet tall, yet he had an executive presence that more than compensated for his size. He greeted me with a firm handshake and a friendly smile. There was an obvious freshness and alertness about him. He was poised, confident, and well-mannered.

I settled down behind my desk taking a few more seconds to look him over again. There was a refreshing glow about his face, and his dark brown eyes shone like beacons beneath firm brows. He appeared to be in his early forties, but his resume indicated that he had just passed his sixty-first birthday. There was something magnetic about him which made me want to know him. Perhaps I was drawn to his deep serenity.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

He took his cue and spoke eloquently of his background. I listened with avid interest, interrupting once in awhile to ask questions. He told me of how he immigrated from India a year earlier and had since been working as a field engineer for a competitor of ours. He was seeking to enhance his career through a job transfer into a management level position with our firm.

I was frank with Mr. Pandey and explained that our company policy was to promote from within the organization whenever possible; therefore we only had entry-level field engineering positions available. At that impasse Mr. Pandey started to get up, but I was too fascinated with him to let him walk out. I still had not inquired about his claimed extrasensory perception.

"Do you have some time to talk further?" I asked, hoping to stop his exit.

"Yes," some, he replied, and he obligingly sat back down. I told him of my interest in extrasensory perception. Without further encouragement Mr. Pandey responded, "As my resume indicates, I have over the years developed certain ESP abilities. I will be happy to give you a demonstration in ESP, if you like."

I was flabbergasted that Mr. Pandey seemed sincerely interested in accommodating me. He was not boasting, nor did he appear impressed with himself.

"What kind of demonstration?" I asked.

Mr. Pandey replied, "0h, just something simple, maybe some mental telepathy and precognition." He added, "I must go to another appointment now, but I can return in a couple of days, on Thursday, to give you the ESP demonstration." We arranged for a meeting time.

That following Thursday, at 5:30 p.m., Rakesh Pandey walked into my office as briskly as he had done two days earlier. Smiling, he greeted me with a friendly, "Good evening," along with his virile handshake. "Are you ready for some ESP?” he said in a casual manner like it was no big deal.

"Yes, I have been looking forward to this," I responded, determined to remain objective, with a prove-it-to-me attitude. All of the office staff had left and we were alone. I locked the front door and led Mr. Pandey into a small office with two desks I selected for this occasion. Not certain what he was up to, I slid one of the desks so its end was up against the door. At the time my thinking was to barricade the door so if I were hypnotized he would have to interrupt me to leave. In retrospect this maneuver was ridiculous since were I hypnotized I could have easily been instructed to move the desk and not to remember moving it. Rakesh Pandey smiled at my unnecessary action. I took a seat behind the desk and he took a seat behind the other desk near me. With the two of us secured in the room I was confident to let Mr. Pandey proceed with the ESP demonstration.

He began, "Ask me three questions mentally and I will verbally tell you what they are." He paused, then added, "I have already figured out the third question that you will ask me. It will be the one that I write on this piece of paper."

I thought to myself, I do not even know my questions yet, so how could he know?

Rakesh Pandey picked up a yellow tablet from his desk and wrote something. As he wrote I concentrated my thoughts on something ridiculous to fool him in case he was trying to read my mind. When he finished writing he tore the page from the pad, folded it over several times to conceal the writing, and brought it over to me. Cautiously, I watched his every move. I immediately signed my name to the outside of the folded paper, and placed it into an envelope, sealed it, and signed my name across the seal. Then, I ran a strip of cellophane tape over my name (a security procedure I learned from a 42nd Street diamond merchant) and slipped the envelope into my jacket pocket.

Mr. Pandey smiled, amused by my controls. He then instructed, "Write two questions down on a piece of paper."

I took a sheet of paper and tore off a small piece. Before writing anything I asked him to move to a further seat about ten feet from me. He did so without hesitation.

I then wrote down my two questions in very small script. Noticing that I had finished, he then said, "Now write down your third question."

To thwart the demonstration I tried to think of something that he most likely would not have thought of.

He said, "Don’t be so serious. Write just anything."

I looked around the room and composed a question to foil him. I wrote down my third question. As before, I shielded my writing with my left arm. I wrote very small so that he could not read my writing even if he saw it. I then folded the paper several times over and clenched it in my right fist. I was confident that he did not see my three written questions.

We continued with the experiment. "Now I want you to think of your three questions," he said. "But, before you think of your three questions, first think about something that aspires you."

Keeping my eyes opened I thought for awhile and then scenes of nature began to dominate my mind. I thought of the beautiful mountain trails I hiked in northern Idaho; the cool crisp morning air with its distinct pine fragrance, the thawing snowcaps, crystal streams and mirror lakes, and the cries of...

Rakesh interrupted, "Fine. Now tell me about what you have been thinking."

"Nature," I replied.

"Fine," he said. "Now, again think of nature."

Panoramic scenes from my travels across the United States raced through my mind: Bear Lake, Utah; the Grand Canyon; Yellowstone National Park...

Again, Mr. Pandey interrupted, "Good. Now think of your two questions."

I thought of my first question, which was immediately followed by my second question. Giving me ample time he said, "Again, think of that which aspires you. Think of nature." It seemed that he was using my thoughts of nature to establish a reference point, or to tune into how I was thinking. Appearing to have some trouble doing this, he then said, "Think as if to speak." We repeated this procedure several times. "Now, think of nature. Now, think of your first question. Now think of your second question," Pandey instructed.

I remained pokerfaced throughout, making sure not to give Mr. Pandey the slightest facial hints concerning my questions.

"Now," he said, "think of the third question. And the third question which you will think will be the question I have written down which you are tending to so cautiously." Rakesh Pandey joked, "Don't you believe me?"

"No," I replied. Rakesh Pandey paused for awhile, then proceeded confidently. He did not close his eyes or go into any trance-like state. He was at all times conversing with me as anyone would in the usual everyday manner. "I will now tell you about your first question," he said. "Your first question indicates that you are unsettled within."

I felt that he was probing and wanted to get a reaction from me, maybe some facial expression that would provide him with a hint, so I maintained a poker face to prevent giving the slightest hint. In response to my demeanor he said, "Oh, you think that I do not know? Your first question is your concern about when you will find happiness. To be more precise, the exact wording of your question is, "When will I be happy?"

"Yes. That is correct," I said, smiling at his accuracy. He then surprised me by answering my question.

He said, "You will come to find happiness soon, and it will come to you through the practice of meditation. However, you must first recover from confusion. You must make a dedication of yourself to a different life, and until you do this you will not find peace of mind."

I was not expecting him to predict my future. But I was pleased with his response since I was caught up in a stressful job, and I was burned out. However, I was not yet sold on his abilities. He continued, "Your second question concerns company politics." Again, I made sure not to make any expression which might signal that he was on the right track.

He said, "The exact wording of your question is, 'Will Frank succeed in stealing my job from me?'" He was right again. He then added, "Do not concern yourself with this man's antics. Your boss knows very well what is going on. Soon he will transfer this man out of harm's way."

I was intrigued by Pandey's ability to track my thoughts, but our ESP experiment was not over yet. There was still the third question of which Mr. Pandey was claiming prior knowledge.

"Now the third question," he said, and without hesitating he continued. "I think that there are five!" He pointed in succession to each chair in the room and said, "Let's count them; one, two, three, four, five." I began to smile. He said, "Your third question is, 'How many chairs in this room?'"

I complimented him on his verbatim accuracy as I opened the piece of paper in my right hand and read it aloud, "How many chairs in this room?"

There was one final verification to be made in this experiment. I retrieved the envelope in my pocket. It was still sealed and my signature was still on the outside. I opened it. Mr. Pandey's paper also had the same question.

Mr. Pandey's extrasensory perception was impressive. I had to concede that he had ESP abilities which transcended the usual human range.

Mr. Pandey said, "This is nothing compared with what my teacher can do." Rakesh Pandey then surprised me, "Is there a place we could have some tea and talk some more?"

"Yes, just down the street," I replied.

We spent nearly an hour more together. He said he was a vegetarian and that he had practiced meditation for many years. I appreciated this one-on-one opportunity to chat. He told me of an ancient scripture called the Vedas which delineates what we can achieve as a human beings. He said, "Feats such as levitation, foretelling the future and invisibility, which westerners look at as shrouded in mysticism, has been an understood reality by our culture. Such abilities are just natural by-products of unfolding one's mental potential." He spoke in length of these natural human abilities and offered to teach me to develop them. I declined, however, when he said it would require doing concentration exercises for two hours a day.

Our time together passed all too quickly. As we shook hands goodbye I wished our company had been able to offer this remarkable man the management job he sought. Mr. Pandey left me that evening with plenty to think about.

When I got home I spent most of my time that evening reviewing the details of my experiment. I could accept Rakesh Pandey tuning into my first two questions. It was the third question that bothered me. How could he know what I was going to think? I took out the sheets of paper which I kept from the experiment. I compared his written question with mine, "How many chairs in this room?" Then it dawned on me. That was not my question. I would never have written, "How many chairs in this room?" I would have written, "How many chairs are there in this room?" The third question was not an example of precognition but of mind control. Mr. Pandey had planted that thought into my mind at the time he asked me to think of my third question. "How many chairs in this room?" is how someone not fluent in the English language might phrase the question. I was hypnotized!

I repeatedly reviewed the details of when Mr. Pandey asked me to write down my third question. While I was thinking of what to write, I recall him saying, "Don’t be so serious. Write just anything." At that precise point of interruption, there was that moment when my mind was blank and I was open to choosing any question. That is when Pandey must have slipped the question into my mind. However, I did not recall feeling or noticing anything unusual either mentally or physically at the time.

The implications of such powers were staggering. I imagined people using this power in contract negotiations, political negotiations, military operations, assassination plots, etc. I found this disconcerting. But I knew that it would be the consciousness of the person that would determine whether this tool would be used for the detriment or for the good of mankind. I also believed that the cosmic law, "As you sow, so shall you reap," would maintain the balance.

If everyone had the abilities that Mr. Pandey exhibited, if everyone knew what everyone else was thinking, there could not be any deceit. It would force everyone to be honest. If there were any dishonest intentions, they would be immediately known. The situation would be diffused immediately. Everyone would be playing the game of life with all their cards fully exposed.

Incidentally, shortly after my meeting with Rakesh Pandey, my boss transferred Frank to Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. And, two years later, I found happiness and inner peace through meditation. I also changed my career path.