Ex-Premie Forum 7 Archive
From: Jan 28, 2002 To: Feb 01, 2002 Page: 2 of: 5


Friendly Z -:- Really Helping Ourselves Practically -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:06:39 (EST)
__ Good intentions... -:- ...pave the road to hell. -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:51:50 (EST)
__ __ a fly on the wall -:- Why must the alternative to Rawatism -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:20:28 (EST)
__ Bai Ji -:- Welcome Friendly Z (nt) -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:00:20 (EST)
__ Francesca -:- The ups and downs of chatroom -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:00:57 (EST)
__ PatC -:- Well said, Z -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:54:48 (EST)
__ __ salsa -:- OT-PATC read this -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:42:39 (EST)
__ __ __ PatC -:- Here it is, Silvia -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:57:49 (EST)

Joe -:- Light Reading/The 1976 Renaissance -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:14:31 (EST)
__ Brian Smith -:- I remember this brief era -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:49:47 (EST)
__ Peg -:- Gopi's Sharing and Relationships -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:46:15 (EST)
__ __ Joe -:- Gay Open Premies? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:36:12 (EST)
__ __ __ Richard -:- True confessions -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:33:02 (EST)
__ __ __ janet -:- Re: Gay Open Premies?hell yes -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:59:48 (EST)
__ __ __ PatC -:- Re: Gay Open Premies? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:33:08 (EST)
__ __ Joe -:- Differences Between Countries -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:13:57 (EST)
__ __ __ McDuck -:- Re: Differences Between Countries -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:37:30 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- That's Surprising -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:53:54 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ McDuck -:- Re: That's Surprising -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:00:12 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- National Coordinators -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:37:09 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Quiet -:- Re: National Coordinators -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:58:00 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Padarthanand -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:35:25 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Quiet -:- Re: Padarthanand -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:09:44 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Tami Sunshine Rainbow -:- Re: Padarthanand -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:23:59 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Quiet -:- Re: Padarthanand -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:38:19 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ McDuck -:- Re: National Coordinators -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:02:55 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ North Shore Babe -:- Re: National Coordinators -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:20:21 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- What a scaredy cat! -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:50:27 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Thanks, McDuck -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:37:05 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Quiet -:- Joe have you got all the old stuff? -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:01:45 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Sorry, Quiet -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:22:26 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Quiet -:- Re: Sorry, Quiet -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:36:47 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Quiet, correct spelling............. -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:12:28 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Lots of lawyers can't write or spell........ -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:43:14 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Re: Lots of lawyers can't write or spell........ -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:53:44 (EST)
__ __ __ Gail -:- Canadian Ashrams were administered by -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:42:31 (EST)
__ __ __ __ ChrisP -:- Re: Canadian Ashrams were administered by -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 13:39:32 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Bai nary Code Ji -:- Chris Pee -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 09:38:36 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Gail -:- Nothing stopped the train we were on! -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 13:57:11 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Steve Mueller to Gail: about -:- Jennifer, Debbie Mac, Stuart McDougal -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 01:43:43 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- I can answer some of those -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 10:26:29 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Steve Mueller -:- Response to Jim's question -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 14:16:41 (EST)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- UK 1976 -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:37:41 (EST)
__ Richard -:- re: The 1976 Renaissance -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:17:37 (EST)
__ __ Joe -:- Damn -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:21:00 (EST)
__ __ __ Disculta -:- Re: Damn -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:56:26 (EST)
__ __ housemum -:- another quote -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:41:35 (EST)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- Mitchkoffs, Andersens, Weasles et al -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:19:55 (EST)
__ __ __ Richard -:- Love you, mum -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:52:38 (EST)
__ __ __ __ housemum -:- Love you, too -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:12:02 (EST)

Deputy Dog -:- Please define an 'ex' (nt) -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 10:33:42 (EST)
__ Keith -:- undefined territory -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:34:31 (EST)
__ __ Jim -:- Is it just a coincidence? -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:34:26 (EST)
__ __ cq -:- Just a small clarification, Keith -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:19:58 (EST)
__ __ Deborah -:- Very respectful post Keith -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:50:27 (EST)
__ __ Paranoid-EX -:- Re: undefined territory -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:31:24 (EST)
__ __ __ gerry -:- I share your 'paranoia' actually -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 10:51:12 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: I share your 'paranoia' actually -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:44:29 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- PS ...especially -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:57:48 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ paranoid ex -:- Very well expressed -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:58:27 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ gerry -:- Hey fellas, how 'bout this line: -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:17:01 (EST)
__ __ Gail -:- Easy for you to say, Keith, but... -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:30:49 (EST)
__ __ Pullaver -:- Re: undefined territory -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:29:18 (EST)
__ __ Marianne -:- Dear Keith -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:56:53 (EST)
__ __ __ Richard -:- Thanks Keith -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:47:39 (EST)
__ __ gerry -:- Re: undefined territory indeed -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:26:35 (EST)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- Agreed Ggerry, 'clever' scam [nt] -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:42:00 (EST)
__ __ Loaf -:- I agree keith.. thankyou -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:13:05 (EST)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Yes, you're so right, Loaf -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:35:50 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Loaf -:- and you are so right jim -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:28:28 (EST)
__ AJW -:- I once was lost... -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:35:02 (EST)
__ Sulla -:- Today is my B-day. Happy new year!!!!!!!! -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:29:42 (EST)
__ __ PatC -:- Happy birthday, Sulla -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:43:26 (EST)
__ __ __ Sulla -:- Thanks! You made my day... -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:43:02 (EST)
__ PatC -:- Please define an 'ex' - okay -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:11:17 (EST)
__ Jim -:- First you had to have been a premie -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:42:19 (EST)
__ __ Depuity Dog -:- Very glib, but seriously Jim -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:58:59 (EST)
__ __ __ janet -:- Re: seriously -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:50:17 (EST)
__ __ __ Suedoula -:- Re: Very glib, but seriously Jim -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:32:23 (EST)
__ __ __ Gail -:- Re: Very glib, but seriously Jim -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:43:06 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Deputy Dog -:- Good point Gail -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:41:51 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- How did you survive 1977-1985??? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:57:01 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Gail -:- Remember the Dog Story? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:17:58 (EST)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Real question: what is a premie? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:07:25 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Deputy Dog -:- Re: Real question: what is a premie? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:33:51 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Pullaver -:- Re: Real question: what is a premie?? -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:40:22 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Disculta -:- Gotta jump in here! -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:18:41 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ housemum -:- Love this, Disculta ! (nt) -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:46:25 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- ****BEST OF FORUM***** -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:46:55 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Deborah who agrees -:- ****BEST OF FORUM***** [nt] -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:29:44 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Here's what you never got, Dog -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:04:15 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Deputy Dog -:- Re: Here's what you never got, Dog -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 15:45:03 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Thanks but no thanks -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 16:40:10 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ OTS -:- You stepped in your own stuff, Dog -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 16:01:18 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Deputy Dog -:- Re: You stepped in your own stuff, Dog -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 18:09:33 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- You are insufferably trite -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:31:59 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Deputy Dog -:- Jim, that's Dale Carnegie [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 09:13:21 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Even worse! :) [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 11:42:36 (EST)
__ Jerry -:- Elementary -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:37:16 (EST)
__ cq -:- Indefinable. Definitely. (nt) -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:29:42 (EST)
__ __ cq -:- but seriously - -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:02:18 (EST)

Silvia -:- The mental bond with MAHARAJI -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 08:43:22 (EST)
__ James BOND -:- Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:32:47 (EST)
__ __ Livia -:- Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:44:20 (EST)
__ __ wolfie -:- Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 06:16:32 (EST)
__ __ Cynthia -:- WRONG, Wrong, and Wrong... -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:19:30 (EST)
__ cq -:- Lot of clarity in your insights, Silvia -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:15:45 (EST)
__ wolfie -:- bad affairs -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 11:56:19 (EST)
__ __ Richard -:- Too sincere -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:13:07 (EST)
__ __ __ wolfie -:- Re: Too sincere -:- Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:14:50 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Richard -:- Re: Too sincere - LOL -:- Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 16:10:26 (EST)
__ wolfie -:- -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 11:54:21 (EST)

Bai Ji -:- Jargon -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 03:10:48 (EST)
__ Cynthia -:- Re: Jargon -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:38:24 (EST)
__ __ Bai Ji -:- Thanks Cynth (nt) -:- Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:26:20 (EST)


Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:06:39 (EST)
From: Friendly Z
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Really Helping Ourselves Practically
Message:
Hello, and thank you all for the great input.

Thank you also to Steve M. who has been a real source of support and information for me as I have recently realized the man I've loved for a while is a premie. He's a wonderful person with tremendous light and love (when it's not being shrouded by the cloak of M and which I only get glimpses of BECAUSE of the cloak) and though I don't know how our story will unfold, I do know I'm very, very interested in learning more from observing the Forum and EPO.

Steve M. is a true source of light in this world and I know his intentions to make this Forum as positive as possible are also echoed by each of you.

Yes, I may get the media involved at some point because I do have good connections. I'll do that with the best intentions of trying to help those who post, those who observe who are thinking of ex-ing and even though who are thinking of starting their involvement with M & K - with the big-picture intent of stopping M and his unclear heart.

I want to express how much I am literally moved by the thread above talking about the de-progamming issues/thoughts/feelings and how much good is being done by not only journaling out the feelings - but to have instant feedback and support. Therapists can be VERY useful - how many of them, though, can respond so quickly! Wow, my heart is so touched by how much this has affected each of you, in similar - yet differing ways. I know that my dear friend is also soooooo affected, that truly makes my heart break. And, to then think about how hard it may be for him to leave, if he ever chooses to..... break, break, break....

So, you see, even though I saw this as 'only a chat room' 24 hours ago (while the Barry discussions were going on) - I also find it to be a great source of not only support for each of you - but for myself also. From my point of view and my needs base - I'd of course like to not have to read the 'barry threads' - though I realize they are a reality of this kind of medium.

Please know I'll be observing and gathering as much info from each of your thoughtful insights/postings - as well as the great stuff I've already found on EPO.

Watching with thoughtful eyes.....

Friendly Z

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:51:50 (EST)
From: Good intentions...
Email: None
To: Friendly Z
Subject: ...pave the road to hell.
Message:
And ignorance is the compass that gives that road its direction.

If your friend is happy then be quiet enough to listen to him, and you will understand what makes him tick.

On the other hand, you know nothing of the state of being of the people whose advice you come here to seek. If the echo of your own fear is the message you hear from them, you will not be able to hear your friend. Then not only will you lose your friend, but you will have given license to the fear you embraced to determine the direction of your own life.

Lamentably, reality one day seeps through the fortress built by fear.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:20:28 (EST)
From: a fly on the wall
Email: None
To: Good intentions...
Subject: Why must the alternative to Rawatism
Message:
... always be portrayed by premies like 'good intentions' as fear?

Au contraire, I believe it is the fear of the premies that there is nothing good in the world except Rawat's bhakti juju that makes them paint every option that is not Rawat and K as 'fear' 'hate' and anything else negatori.

Sorry cult member. There's a lot of fresh air, love, peace, joy, happiness, freedom, truth and light outside your little compound. If you find some inside there, more power to you, but the sun shines on all -- it doesn't pick favorites. But your guru does, and convinces you that every soul that doesn't have HIM as a master is lost.

Wake up and walk.

bzzzz......

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:00:20 (EST)
From: Bai Ji
Email: None
To: Friendly Z
Subject: Welcome Friendly Z (nt)
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:00:57 (EST)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Friendly Z
Subject: The ups and downs of chatroom
Message:
Dear Friendly Z,

Yes Z, there are many times when the threads seem more like a kitty litter box and I say what the heck are you wasting your time here for! And then, before my feelings on it can even settle, some newly departed ex, or someone like you who has lurked and finally posted, comes aboard. Or a regular user posts a little nugget and the responses are just great.

This is a chatroom, and will take on the use of the majority of the persons posting at any given time. Virtual and ephemeral, and yet very visceral and also helpful.

Remember that the real meat for the media is thoughtfully collected in EPO. However, there are many individual posts that can be harvested from here as well. I save my favorites to my hard drive. (Go into printer friendly mode, copy and paste.)

Welcome aboard,

Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:54:48 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Friendly Z
Subject: Well said, Z
Message:
While the Barry brouhaha was happening the forum did seem like a chatroom that deserved no respect. That happens occassionally when people who have not seen the gravitas of the forum (as Jim put it when explaining to Barry that he would never fit in here) post here.

But really it is a bit more than a chatroom. It is like a community or even group therapy as you put it and, as you are involved with a premie, I'm sure you'll find quite a lot in common with us. Welcome aboard.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:42:39 (EST)
From: salsa
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: OT-PATC read this
Message:
Please,
can I have your e-mail address? very important.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:57:49 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: pdconlon@hotmail.com
To: salsa
Subject: Here it is, Silvia
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:14:31 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: kevjo@mindspring.com
To: All
Subject: Light Reading/The 1976 Renaissance
Message:
Being out of hearing distance of Maharaji's directive to destroy all the older cult materials, it appears Housemum has a treasure trove of cult artifacts, unlike me, who threw everything in the trash years ago.

Anyhow, Housemum mentioned the publication Light Reading, and that brought up some memories.

If I remember correctly, in the Renaissance of 1976, when at least some premies got out from under the repression of the cult somewhat, moved out of the ashrams in droves, got married, etc., there were a number of creative things that premies instigated.

One was the whole 'workshop' movement, when it was actually sort of okay to think and have opinions, (and I remember at COLL we even had 'classes' in various things that premies taught each other, and I think Marc Lerner had a lot to do with that) and another was a few creative endeavors like that Denver publication. All of this was very short-lived, however, and Maharaji condemned it all repeatedly for years to come as just 'mind.'

My recollection is that some premies in Denver, including cool guy and PLEASE CONSIDER THIS contributor, Mitch Ditkoff, put together Light Reading and it actually covered some things that weren't 'satsang.'

I remember living in Chicago at the time, and having friends send me copies of Light Reading when it came out in Denver. There were interviews with premies, even restaurant and movie reviews. Really. I recall interviews with people about controversial subjects, like abortion, and even some vaguely political issues were discussed.

Unfortunately, 1976 came to an end, and Maharaji declared all that as 'mind' in no uncertain terms in Atlantic City in December, 1976. (Cynthia is transcribing the Coordinators Conference when Maharaji said that stuff.) Mishler tells us why he did this, because he felt if he didn't control that stuff and if premies didn't continue to see him as God, his money, and the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed, would go away.

Then, as 1977 progressed, the dark, Catholic, repressive period began in the Maharaji cult and there was no such thing as workshops, Light Reading, or anything other than satsang, service (ONLY TO MAHARAJI) and Meditation, even those to be superceded by DEVOTION and SURRENDER as the dark ages began for the rest of that decade well into the 80s.

Anyhow, just recalling what a talented, creative group premies were and what a waste of talents, not to mention love and devotion, the cult has been. It seems Maharaji has done his best to stamp out any form of self-expression, creativity and spontaneous endeavors from then on, always demanding that people surrender their opinions and self-esteem to him and his stunted ideology.

Anyone else remember that?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:49:47 (EST)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: I remember this brief era
Message:
The infamous workshop period, sort of a minute foray into the why's and wherefores of ones relationship to the cult and m. My guess is that these workshops may have been a shortlived attempt by the cult to address the rising tide of the me generation phycobabble stemming from the EST, lifespring movements gaining popularity at that time.

We all sat around in a group and told each other what we thought of each other, that lasted about one session, the animosity and general lack of skilled faciliation was appalling.

I remember another time as a group we all had to write out our reasons for being there on a oversized name card and pin it on our lapels and walk around and read each others reasons.

Most people had the usual cult speak spelled out like, I am here to dedicate my life to GMJ, I am here to know God, I am here to be a better premie etc. The one that stands out most in my mind because this was an aspirant that I had brought and he said, "I have absolutely no idea why or what I am doing here?"

The was probably the most genuine thing that I heard in those entire sessions, by the way he never did receive knowledge. He was turned down because he asked too many questions. He finally rejected the whole thing himself and walked away in disgust, Today I wish that I had followed his lead.

Just another chapter in the annuals of the cult chronicles, thanks Joe, for the reminder of this brief period of freshness and unpredictability in an otherwise stoic and ritualized experience.

BTW the reason that I wrote on my card was "I am here to be blasted into cosmic consciousness" I am laughing my ass off as I vividly remember this little incident, it was quite fun really.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:46:15 (EST)
From: Peg
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Gopi's Sharing and Relationships
Message:
I don't really recall the changes being so definite as I left the ashram in '75 so things loosened up for me anyway. However I remember Judy(?) the midwife comingover to the Palace of Peace and talking about 'sharing' and being honest and using the word 'relationship' which i don't recall hearing before this.

Also there was, in London, GOPIs Gay Open Premies, which seemed pretty revolutionary at the time.

The fact that, in the 70's, this was even noticeable says a lot about how things were in the premie world I guess.

Peg

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:36:12 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Peg
Subject: Gay Open Premies?
Message:
I recall the cult as being pretty homophobic, although there were some 'out' premies I knew. I was a total closet-case, in fact I didn't even realize I was gay, although there certainly were indications in retrospect.

I know of one guy at COLL, this sweet brother who looked a bit of a nerd, who, upon leaving the ashram in 1976 (and I think the cult too), became a body builder and some kind of 'leather gay icon.' Can't recall the guy's name at the moment, but I thought that was pretty cool at the time.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:33:02 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: True confessions
Message:
True confessions of a non-renunciate ashram resident

I mentioned in the thread below with the Denver ashram photo that there were openly gay couples in that ashram (not people in the photo that I'm aware of). Once GMJ married MJ, it was seen as permission to be open about any relationship. And IHQ ashram resident couples were seen everwhere. The 1263 Josephine Street ashram had a big locker room style group shower for the brothers. Once it became obvious that there were openly gay men in the house, there was a waiting line for the one single shower. Being unused to gay men, I was shy to be so exposed as it were. Now Joe Anctil did take me for coffee once and told me verbatim 'If you ever find yourself in bed with a gay man, don't miss out on the experience of a lifetime.' Sage advice from M's ashram-bound press secretary at the time.

Not to ignore the ladies, there was at least one lesbian at 1263 whose 'friend' would come to visit. Over at 1124 Vine Street, where I lived in 1976 before moving to COLL, there were several late night liasons including a notable one involving a lesbian couple who conveniently shared a room. Being intimately involved with someone myself, I was more tolerant than some. Come to think of it, my less-than-celibate lifestyle may precisely be why I was sent to COLL. Of course, it continued there unabated (as it were).

I've been mulling this topic over ever since Joe posted the sad tale of his ashram mate trying to castrate himself to stop his 'impure thoughts'. I had considered posting this as a new thread but this thread provided the right opportunity.

As I've said elsewhere, having a healthy sense of humor, following my mind (basic human urges) and essentially taking care of myself, saved me from deeper enmeshment.

Richard

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:59:48 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Gay Open Premies?hell yes
Message:
I clearly remember being invited to lesbian's satsang right up the street from the shelter, and seeing a number of out sisters that night and elsewhere. not everyone there was gay, some were friends of friends. i had the odd fortune to feel like dressing in surplus store navy whites that day, so i showed up looking like i was in dyke drag unintentionally--middy blouse and bells and sailor cap. instant acceptance with the ladies.
Trudy Sippola was there, so was Sophia Collier/Schmitz and whatever she called herself. She once sidled up to me in the Shelter laundry room and smiled, all lazy and cute, and came on to me. To this day, I wish I had taken her up on it, to see where it led. But noooo, I had to be all celibate and pure and demure....

i dont recall the gay premies going back in the closet after they came out. for years afterward i knew who was who in that crowd.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:33:08 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Gay Open Premies?
Message:
Started by another Patrick (an Irish guy who was my lover for a while) and his boyfriend, a young mixed-race West Indian guy. The GOPIs were the living nightmare for all the PoP honchos.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:13:57 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: Kevjo@mindspring.com
To: Peg
Subject: Differences Between Countries
Message:
Peg,

It might also be that there was some variation among the countries as to how the 'renaissance' manifested. Denver seemed to be the focal point of the removal of the heaviness. But elsewhere in the States there were reverberations, but the ashrams remained open in quite a number of cities, for example.

I understand that in Australia things really fell apart. For example, I've been told that in 1976 all the ashrams in Australia closed.

Maybe in the UK things didn't change as much? I think Canada might have been a bit more straight-laced than the US as well.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:37:30 (EST)
From: McDuck
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Differences Between Countries
Message:
Derek Harper was the Australian national cordinator in 1976 and deliberately closed the ashrams down. This pissed off Mr Rawat at the time, I believe. It was not a a falling-apart, but a premeditated effort to re-invent the movement. Brave move, but no-one expected the reinvention of Old Style Devotion, not by those crazed Indian mahatmas but by the man himself.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 22:53:54 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: McDuck
Subject: That's Surprising
Message:
What, was Derek Harper the King of Australia or something? Why did people do what he said? I suppose he said he was doing it because he had direction from the Goo, right? What did the other King of Australia, Padarthanad, have to say about that?

There seemed to be a hardcore group in the States who, under no circumstances would have left the ashram or let them be closed unless the Cult Leader himself, said so.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:00:12 (EST)
From: McDuck
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: That's Surprising
Message:
I'll have to have a talk with Derek to rediscover the details, but it would be unlikely for him to claim he had direction. I'd say he felt it was a good idea at the time. And he is a Leo, after all.

John Macgregor might have a bit more background, as I was overseas when it happened.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:37:09 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: McDuck
Subject: National Coordinators
Message:
It seems that in some countries National Coordinators had more power and were listened to more than in others. It was my recollection that in the states they were questioned a lot more, I think probably because Maharaji was around more, and Maharaji as always making fun of them. But it seems that in some countries, maybe Australia and others, National Coordinators, and maybe Mahatmas too, were more revered.

I also felt that the closer you got to where Maharaji actually was, the less premies were impressed by coordinators, mahatmas and initiators. In Miami, they were a dime a dozen and people hardly paid attention to them, whereas in the provinces they had more influence.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:58:00 (EST)
From: Quiet
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: National Coordinators
Message:
Not realy Joe. Im australia the National co-ordinator and the other High guys were usuall treated the same as others. I can remember on of the Hi Guys geing called a prick at a satsang in my community...... I think it was Dick Cooper or Derick Harper and quite a few premies agreed. Funny thin though I can remember the Highguy agreeing. Well may be its our aussie houmour.Q
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:35:25 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Quiet
Subject: Padarthanand
Message:
Thanks Quiet, interesting. What about Padarthanand, though. I remember he used to tour in the states and basically claim credit for all the wonderful things happening in the Pacific, under his rule. We, of course, made fun of him and called it 'Pacific-sang.' BTW -- Padarthanad was a terrible racist in the 70s. I don't know if he still is.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:09:44 (EST)
From: Quiet
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Padarthanand
Message:
Oh Paddy.........yes well he was a nice guy.......a psycologist before he became a Mahatma (sorry im a bad spella) Well ther were some wonderful things that did happen down here.......it was when people came together and basically had fun and got to know each other. I cant knock that....but harnising that basic human condition and directing it for the Perpous of making mr Rawit a God like creature im my opinion was rong (wrong spellin again?) I dont know weather he was a racist I want a Hi guy.....just one of the lowly bragon benders. Q
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:23:59 (EST)
From: Tami Sunshine Rainbow
Email: None
To: Quiet
Subject: Re: Padarthanand
Message:
Yu ar about az reel az I am. HAHAHAHAHAHA
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:38:19 (EST)
From: Quiet
Email: None
To: Tami Sunshine Rainbow
Subject: Re: Padarthanand
Message:
WOW!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:02:55 (EST)
From: McDuck
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: National Coordinators
Message:
I can't recall either David Lovejoy or Derek Harper being revered in Australia. I was the acting national cordinator for a while, and I missed out on being revered, too. Padarthanand was definitely revered.

I'll try to find out more about the 76 putsch, Joe.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:20:21 (EST)
From: North Shore Babe
Email: None
To: McDuck
Subject: Re: National Coordinators
Message:
We all thought you were a pompous prick..
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:50:27 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: North Shore Babe
Subject: What a scaredy cat!
Message:
Can't even insult someone without hiding behind double anonymity!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:37:05 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: McDuck
Subject: Thanks, McDuck
Message:
I watched part of the Passages video last night and it's clear that the cult has no interest whatsoever in historical accuracy, or in recording anything that isn't completely favorable to Maharaji. So, I guess it's up to the ex-premies to keep the historical record. It will be interesting to hear what people remember about "the Derek Directives."

I just wonder why people did what he said if he didn't say it was M's directions, and he wasn't "revered" as the coordinator. Why would they do something as drastic as closing the ashrams after M had brow-beat us into staying there, if they didn't think Derek knew something they didn't?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:01:45 (EST)
From: Quiet
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe have you got all the old stuff?
Message:
Hi Joe, let me introduce myself im Q.......bad spella , wouldbe lawyer and a favourate target of some of the older regs on this site. oh i have also bee acused of being a TROLL by the uninformed. Ho did i mention some of my posts were deleated by the site Janitor.

Well enough about me. Im trying to get all the back grown info on Mr Rawlt`s (did i spell that right?) cult. I am trying to get all the broken promises and his modus opperandie ( i bet i spelt that one rong too) over the years and basically any CREDIBLE EVIDENCE of any wrong doing bye him or his kohorts (ops an other one)that may be presented to a court (or is it kort, geesus wheres me dicshonary...that would be no use i cant read any way) . I wish to remain anon..........hopefully you dont have to figure out why. Can you help?
Q
Ps if im deleated sorry

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:22:26 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Quiet
Subject: Sorry, Quiet
Message:
I thought you might have something of significance to say, but it's clear you are just fucking around. That's too bad. You know, trying to take on a new persona requires some ability to do that, which you obviously don't have. See, Quiet, if people misspell something they usually don't know they are doing it. So your little parentheticals kind of give you away, kiddo. Your name isn't Rob by any chance, is it?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 19:36:47 (EST)
From: Quiet
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Sorry, Quiet
Message:
sorry you feel that way joe. Im having a shot at people who think that correct spelling is the measurement of a person. and No my name ist Rob
Q
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:12:28 (EST)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Quiet
Subject: Quiet, correct spelling.............
Message:
.........is a courtesy extended to other adults in a civilized society. Why should anyone bother to read subliterate rubbish let alone take it seriously and respond to it? Please take some classes in English and then you may people will react to you more respectfully.

How you ever think you will be a lawyer with your shallow grasp of the language is beyond me. Or do you intend to praqctice law in Melanesia where there is no written language?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:43:14 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Lots of lawyers can't write or spell........
Message:
So that might not be the best example. It isn't incorrect language that's the concern. It's the obvious facade this 'Quiet' is putting on. The fact that it's obvious means he doesn't do it well, which I guess is good for us.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 05:53:44 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Lots of lawyers can't write or spell........
Message:
Those aren't lawyers. They're shysters.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:42:31 (EST)
From: Gail
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Canadian Ashrams were administered by
Message:
people with cucumbers stuck up their #$%^&*. I lived at the side of 90 Albert Street in London, Ontario. I was told not to sunbathe because it was disturbing to the 'brothers.'

The ashram women wore white blouses and skirts to the ground. They sure looked ridiculous walking down the street the regular folks in micro skirts. I remember going to the market with Phylis Brown. She was dressed like a woman of the 90s--the 1890s that is. Meanwhile, I wore short shorts. We must have looked very strange. There was no hanky panky going on around here.

Anne Johnston told the married premies to stop having sex for heaven's sake (indeed). Yep, we were well controlled here in Canada, for sure.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 13:39:32 (EST)
From: ChrisP
Email: None
To: Gail
Subject: Re: Canadian Ashrams were administered by
Message:
I'm differentiating myself from the other Chris (cq) - whata ya think? ChrisP : describes how the cult toasted me :)

Yea, I still have a few memory cells left from those ashram years. We sure made quite the fashion statements, eh! Right down to the cool accessories - Who is Guru Maharaji buttons. Like a good 'lil premie spreading the Word, I even wore it to work one day. There was a provincial election campaign on that week when the boss (a university head) passed me in the hallway and with a bubbly, friendly cheer asked 'And who might you be campaigning for?' as he looked at my pin. When he finished reading 'Who is GMJ' his face went purple, then white as he backed away. Can't remember what we both were stuttering to each other in desperate attempt to ease the embarrassment as we continued in our separate directions. I wonder if that hasn't left me with some kind of complex to this day?!

Then there were the mahatma visits; one joyously had us all attempt an all-night meditation session. Every time I'd glance out the corner of my eye, there'd be one more person sitting against the wall with mouth hanging open and head tilted. After about 2 hours, we all got a jolt when we heard the mahatma fall out of bed with a big kerplunk on the floor above us. I eventually slid into place at the end of line against the wall, but can't remember waking there in the morning to start Arti. I guess we must have all eventually called it a night....

Chris, those were the days

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 09:38:36 (EST)
From: Bai nary Code Ji
Email: None
To: ChrisP
Subject: Chris Pee
Message:
Hello, It is good to hear from you.
Welcome
Bai Ji XXX
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 13:57:11 (EST)
From: Gail
Email: None
To: ChrisP
Subject: Nothing stopped the train we were on!
Message:
Circa 1979, MJ had a birthday party bash with formal waiters, etc. I packed up my two-year-old and went on a bus with the rest of the London, Ontario gang. Jennifer Boire headed this mission to Miami. En route, my daughter aspirated all over me, but we could stop? NO! There wasn't time. Even the bus drivers were fed up. Neither of them got to sleep a wink due to the 24-hour, nonstop singsong of arti, Please Teach Me Devotion and so on.

Years later, a local yokel got a job with that same charter company and they told him of this famous trip--their worst ever and no tip. I guess their tip went to the Lard in Jennifer's wisdom.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 01:43:43 (EST)
From: Steve Mueller to Gail: about
Email: mistyqm@mn.mediaone.net
To: Gail
Subject: Jennifer, Debbie Mac, Stuart McDougal
Message:
Gail: Hi. I seem to remember a Gail in Toronto after I returned there in Sept, '79. Do you remember me - Steve Mueller? Also, I knew Jennifer Boire from way back in Nov, 1973. She hailed from Ottawa where I received K in March, 1973. I always liked her and respected her a lot. Very cheerful person. Do you know where she is now? Has she exed yet? Just wondering. Also, Gail, did you know Debbie Mac (short for McIntyre)? Does she still 'practice' or has she exed? Lastly, Gail, do you know if instructor Stuart McDougal has exed? Thanks, Gail. (So as not to bore others any more than I already have, go ahead and email me if you like. Thanks.)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 10:26:29 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Steve Mueller to Gail: about
Subject: I can answer some of those
Message:
Steve,

I'm a Canadian ex, vintage 4/73. I know all those people, some quite well.

Jennifer and I lived in several ashrams and communities together in the seventies. We sang together at times and were pretty close at times. She's still in, living somewhere in Quebec, perhaps Montreal, married with kids, I believe. She's the contact person or at least was not so long ago. I got her email from some Canadian EV contact roster and said hi. Sadly, she was curt and dismissive. Indeed, so was her sister, Sue, who I was also close with. I contacted her a couple of years ago when she was living in Calgary (she since moved to Enlgand to study art for a while, might be back, don't know). Sue and I were also close. She just told me to 'get a life' and that was that.

Debbie Mac was still in Toronto last time I heard but that was years ago already. I think I heard that she'd grown quite successful doing set designs, but you can't quote me on that. She did get her start doing all that festival prep, remember?

Stuart is living in Vancouver. Ever faithful, he's a video 'event' stalwart. I think he's working as a security guard. Laruie and I met Steve Quint, a Vancouver ex, once and joined him at one of these video thingamajiggers last year. I jsut wanted to see who'd show up as I lived in Van years ago. I sat beside Stuart and whispered 'hi'. He smiled but that was that. I'd told Steve earlier that I wanted to talk with him at some point but he wasn't interested. Stuart and I were sent to Ottawa together in '74. He was a nice guy then and I'm sure he's a nice guy now. Boring as hell as an instructor but then the whole shtick was such bullshit.

Where'd you return from in '79? Do you know me?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 14:16:41 (EST)
From: Steve Mueller
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Response to Jim's question
Message:
Hi, Jim, I think I remember seeing you but I don't think we ever spoke to each other. I was in Toronto from May '73 to May '74 and again from June '75 to Feb '76. I may be wrong but I thought I remember you from the hall we used on Avenue Road in Toronto. I went back and forth between the states and Canada a lot. I lived in the Mpls area from March '77 til Sept '79 when I moved back to T.O. to resume my computer programming career. Worked at Toronto Star and then CNCP Telecommunications before moving my family (permanently) back to Mpls in May '84. I did visit Vancouver for a couple months just prior to the Nov '74 Toronto program. Absolutely loved Vancouver. Totally charming place. Loved BC - ESPECIALLY the Okanagan Valley where we had a totally enchanting mini festival (remember?) in Sept '74 (attended by RajaJi and Claudia). Anyway, I hope to bump into you some day. Thanks for your answers.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:37:41 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: UK 1976
Message:
1976 was the incredibly loose and 'spacey' (as we used to say)period. I'd left the ashram by then but I think it was very loose there too. As for the 'premie centres' (these weren't official ashrams but kinda recognised as centres.....well dope and acid abounded, at least in Leicester and other parts of the Midlands.

The prg at Granby Halls was noticeable in that (a) at the very back of the hall , people were skinning up joints and (b) we only kissed a cushion, not those Holy Lotus tootsies.

At the time I was living with a premie girl just a few yards from the hall. A day or so before I had some acid(first time since becoming an aspirant spring 73.

Of course, the LORD returned in 77 and SSM became the focus. I think he had the Q'A sessions/meetings in Montreal etc etc etc ....then 78/79 Kissimee etc were the space out of 76 was well and truly buried. Intense, totally focussed devotion to him and SSM was the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:17:37 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: re: The 1976 Renaissance
Message:
I recall the time quite well. There was a feeling in the air that we'd weathered the Satguru phase and were moving into a more humanitarian phase. The past was fun but what a relief that the entire trip, M included, would be more relateable to outsiders. I recall Mitch's Light Reading quite fondly. A witty and talented guy.

We were encouraged to 'move on' by leaving the ashram to make room for the new devotees who really needed the focus of the ashram lifestyle. IHQ was being pared down and I was given a choice of being an 'uncle' in the married folks ashram (I would have been the babysitter so the couples could go to satsang) or moving to City of Love and Light (COLL) in San Antonio.

I chose COLL and it was both a shock and a wakeup call. Working a real job was daunting after the relative Ivory Tower atmosphere of IHQ. COLL was supposedly the Renunciate Training Program but it was quite the opposite. The renunciate part was a laugh. I found myself taking care of myself for a change. I'm not particularly proud of it but I kept aside some of my waiter's tips for the inevitable rainy day which came soon enough. Late summer 1976 COLL, along with most of the ashrams, was dismantled and we were all given one way transportation to the community of choice. This was more than most 'shrammies recieved. I caught the schoolbus heading for Denver.

Sexual liasons had been part of life at COLL and even the closing party, held at the retreat house, was clothing optional. After I got back to Denver, it wasn't long before people were getting overwrought about having left the ashram and were begging to move back in. For myself, it was never an issue to move back or not. I had experienced a taste of reality and the good life (money in my pocket and public nudity) so I chose to be a 'householder'.

The folks who went back into the ashram seemed to do so under much M-induced guilt for having left. This after they were made to feel like so much baggage if they wanted to stay in the ashram. I ended up with the best of both worlds at the time. After a stint as a waiter at The Magic Pan in Larimer Square, I was asked to come back to design And It Is Divine and Divine Times with pay (not much). Soon I was living in a DLM subsidized apartment with my girlfriend (we've been married since1984). The nice folks in personel even taught me how to get uneployment benefits and food stamps. Plus I got to go to all the programs, even Rome, on the DLM dole. (Thanks to all the hardworking premies in the provinces that helped support me.) Ah, the relative good life. Especially when compared to what the ashram residents endured, ending up being kicked onto the street and made to pay the ashram debts.

Richard

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:21:00 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Damn
Message:
I missed the money and nudity period at COLL, I guess. I was transferred to the Boston ashram, I think, in June, 1976. I know COLL went on for some months after that.

I recall when I lived there that it was fairly disciplined, but free from a lot of the politics and direction from 'Denver.' And there certainly wasn't any money. I think we got $5 a week, and you were supposed to buy clothes you needed with that as well. In fact, a lot of ashram premies were sent there as a kind of punishment/reform school. If I remember right, that included Erika Andersen and Suzie Bai Whitten. They were forced to clean cars in the cult car wash business.

THere were a lot of great people there. I always had jobs when I lived there. First, I hauled furniture in a furniture warehouse, then delivered funiture to rich people on the North Side of San Antonio with a guy who spoke about 10 words of English. Then I got a job as a bird-keeper in the San Antonio Zoo. I loved that job, except for the San Antonio ungodly heat working outdoors. I also got to have housemum as a housemum for a period at that "retreat house" with the swimming pool.

As soon as word got out about what Maharaji said at Atlantic City in 12/76, the Initiators began pounding on the people who left about their evil ways, and there was this guilty move back to the ashrams. People who had gotten married got it particularly bad. Yuck.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:56:26 (EST)
From: Disculta
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Damn
Message:
'People who had gotten married got it particularly bad. Yuck.'

Yes, yuck! This was a real mind-yuck for me, since I had been on staff at IHQ, encouraged to leave, gotten married, and then guilt=tripped for years.

Mind-yuck!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:41:35 (EST)
From: housemum
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: another quote
Message:
Dear Richard, We must know each other. When I'm braver I will write you and we can remember when.

Before I put this box away, here's another quote from the same Divine Light, page 92. It is a series of Q and A's with GMJ and premies, 1971. For those who think he never claimed divinity.

Q. Where should we go?
GMJ. Where should you go? You know, it is recommended for you to apply for devotion. Why? Because you live in the physical form, so enjoy nature with the physical Lord. What else do you want? To be with the Lord and enjoy nature too! Beautiful. Far out.

Q. Isn't the Lord within all physical forms?
GMJ. But the Lord Himself has got a physical form. The Lord is within everybody. He's omnipresent. But He himself, for this world, has got a particular physical form. And He came by Himself into the world to spread this Holy Word.

Q. There can be more than one perfect devotee, right?
GMJ. There can be more than one perfect devotee, but there cannot be more than one Perfect Master. O.K? Anything else?

There are some amazing nuggets here. He calls himself Satguru, says we should merge with the lotus feet. And he was such a smart ass. Such an arrogant little putz.

I'm gonna give it a rest and let my psyche catch up with itself.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:19:55 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: housemum
Subject: Mitchkoffs, Andersens, Weasles et al
Message:
Always point point out out what a chic, cool,great friend/great guy he is....Just a regular ole HUMAN BEING who never claimed otherwise. Not only that , Prem pal Rawat himself points out that WE laid all that trip on HIM!!!!!

This is what really pisses me off.....apologist LIES mean nothing to them. They forget we were there TOO and people like you, housemum, have kept all the evidence to prove that Rawat is just a LIAR and a FRAUD.

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:52:38 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: Richard@rogers-graphics.com
To: housemum
Subject: Love you, mum
Message:
Just had to say that. I just read your amazing emotional honesty in the thread below. Please, please, please don't let this stuff put you in psychic flashback. We saw a lot of water go over the dam and it takes awhile to begin to reconcile. You've made a huge splash here and I know I'm not alone in saying you are much appreciated. I lurked here for a couple of years before ever posting so you don't need to rush it.

Email when you feel up to it. We might have known one another but we certainly know some of the other characters in the play.

Group hug for mum,
Richard

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:12:02 (EST)
From: housemum
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Love you, too
Message:
From you description above, I am pretty certain we knew each other. Altho I can't put a face to your name. But our trajectories were parallel, at least some of the time.

I was embarrassed by online display of emotions, but after all your wonderfully reassuring posts, I feel more at home with you all, and more at home with myself. I am grateful.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 10:33:42 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Please define an 'ex' (nt)
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:34:31 (EST)
From: Keith
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: undefined territory
Message:
Hello!

My son was a longtime premie, then an ex-premie.

It seems to me that he was first caught in the attractive superstitious,supernatural trap of a young messianic Guru Maharaji, but on the positive spin. Then many years later, after learning of myriad deceptions (on the ex-premie website), he reacted and approached the guru from the other side - negative energy. Of course, he probably doesn't agree. Nevertheless, it seems that some people are still trapped; they are defining themselves in reactive and negative terms, within the anti definitions and limitations of the anti-guru theology. In this predicament, a person is still being dictated by the guru, but rather in a negative, reactive, and potentially unhealthy role, clinically speaking.

Now,I am just a retired counsellor who does not know very much about cults. (Although, my wife and I were quite concerned after the Jonestown incident in the 1970s.) So, please forgive my ignorance. Naturally, we were both shocked to see the information at that other website (where I found this link), some of which we suspected, anyway, as regards the money.

At any rate, I have discussed this subject in the past with other mental health care-givers (and all of us at length, in our family).

My own conclusions: the ex-premie website and this forum page may provide a helpful, and even necessary, way-station for those requiring some cult deprogramming. However, except for those persons who administer these sites or serve as deprogrammers, it might actually be harmful for others to regard these sites as some kind of final destination. (Again, I may well be mistaken; this might be a club, perhaps, too?)

Yet, from the analyses of my colleagues, I must conclude that if one's goal is to be free of the guru's monkey trap, then after realizing the facts, a sensible person must gradually wean oneself from the psychological clutches apparent in a reverse mode of animosity, too (however clearly understandable, and for which I sympathize). To do otherwise, however, logically places an individual in a dualistic and perhaps destructive mentality. Persons leaving other cults have experienced these same difficulties, incidentally.

If the alleged goal is to actually be free of the guru and his ideology, and to rid oneself of dysfunctional codependency or consuming hatred, then at some point a comprehending person will decide to move forward healthily in life, leaving behind the remaining vestiges of the cult conditioning, in a new-found and full awareness and freedom.

Certainly, it appears that while some have benefitted from meditation itself, many persons were greatly harmed by the guru and his church. For what it's worth, I would hope that ex-premies and premies alike move forward and fulfill the remainder of their lives, consciously shedding and ridding themselves of group conditioning and conformity. As long as one is trapped in either a pro or anti Guru Maharaji mindset, though, there is no genuine freedom from the guru or his cult's abuses (or from the gradual effects of a similar anti doctrine). There is so much more to life, anyway.

I hope these observations don't offend anyone's sensitivities.

Thank you to those responsible for providing a website where my son was able to deprogram and then move on, leaving the guru behind.

Also, we strongly recommend professional counselling for anyone leaving a cult, or having difficulties dealing with this situation.

Good luck!

Sincerely,

Keith

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:34:26 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Is it just a coincidence?
Message:
Keith,

Is it just a happy coincidence that your advice is exactly the same as Maharaji's: 'if you don't like it, shut up about it and leave him alone'? Funny, huh?

First, I don't buy any of that 'codependency', 'reactive' or 'dualism' psychobabble. It doesn't really mean anything although it gives people who use it a false sense that they're really saying something. They're not. You say you're a retired counsellor? I'm sure this kind of jargon is a wonderful lubricant for counselling but so much of counselling is smoke and mirrors anyway. Well, this is part of the smoke, in my opinion.

Beyond that, though, you have no idea what we all do in life, how full or empty our lives are or why. Also, you don't know what each of us individually gets out of our involvement here. Surely it's different for different people and changes even for each one of us, perhaps, over time. You know nothing about any of that.

Also, you say nothing at all about how your prescription affects the cult itself. Why?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:19:58 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Just a small clarification, Keith
Message:
When you speak of your son 'learning of myriad deceptions (on the ex-premie website)' - I hope! you don't mean to imply that the ex-premie website was the source of the deception.

It just sounded that way, when I read through your post the first time.

Regards

Chris

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:50:27 (EST)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Very respectful post Keith
Message:
THank you for sharing your insights. This forum is dynamic and seems to find it's own equilibrium. And that point of equilbrium constantly shifts to accomodate new people, the latest spin by M's PR or himself, and the longer we are here. It is not driven by administration.

The club- look is because we have all crossed paths and speak the same language. We were all in the same cult, maybe the same festival, sometimes the same ashram or non-ashram residence.

I'm glad you're son straightened his head out. And the premies or exes or returning drifters come here and spend as much time as they need.

Some of the original posters are still here and influence the board to a certain degree. However the agenda is always the same. And the agenda is really quite simple. To use this environment to discuss, reveal, review, process, anything and/or everything about our involvement through the years. Do not forget that the cult environment was intentionally isolationistic. Also not to mention that our vocabulary was teeming with loaded language. Giving us convenient double meanings of words. We could talk to the world with our old body but had created a new body (a double) that could justify our perceived experience.

You had some very considerate things to say and I respect your input.

Be well and thank you for sharing your concern,

deborah

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:31:24 (EST)
From: Paranoid-EX
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Re: undefined territory
Message:
Keith,

i am a paranoid ex.
You sound like a premie trying to get your foot in here.

Prove me wrong and give us you real name. If you are that person who is a repected retired coucellor, I am sure you won't mind.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 10:51:12 (EST)
From: gerry
Email: gkl1@techline.com
To: Paranoid-EX
Subject: I share your 'paranoia' actually
Message:
My 'bullshit detector' was screaming when I first read Keith's post. Upon reading it again today I share your suspicions that this may well be a premie trying another tact.

The post is 'reasonable' and 'authoritative' at first blush, but a second reading makes it obvious that the writer has an agenda.

First, if this person really had a son who was a cult member for years and escaped with the help of EPO, this dad would be jumping up and down with true joy and graditude and would be thanking us profusely, not damning us with faint praise. That's only human nature.

His agenda is to 'warn us away' from the 'anti-cult.' How many times have we heard this bullshit before? He and his colleagues all agree. So yeah, tell us your credentials and those of your buddies before we are encouraged to accept your premise, Keith.

If you are real Keith, email me at the above address. I keep confidences very well, ask anyone here. Or get someone here to vouch for you. Otherwise you are history, my friend.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:44:29 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: Re: I share your 'paranoia' actually
Message:
Like I said Gerry, seems like a 'clever' scam to me. The whole point of'Keiths' post is to influence the ever increasing number of people using EPO and the FORUM to STOP doing so!!

Comes across as fake baloney to me, as soon as I read it. I'd bet it's a premie. Maybe even a premie with instructions from you-know-who.

Could be wrong of course but with his 'son' involved and with the help of EPO etc mentioned AND with his line of work, you'd think he'd provide some real contact and proof. The post is coated with sugar but contains arsenic.

No, as far as I can see at this point, 'Keith' wants to diminish the activity( active/lurking) of the forum. Well that's what my bullshit detector tells me. It's not ALWAYS right but......

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:57:48 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: PS ...especially
Message:
You have to remember, only recently at the anniversary event in Nottingham, M said 'He doesn't mind losing a few battles but he WILL win the war' and he was referring to his detractors.

Now, only a little while after Nottingham, M is streamlining the outer, physical vestiges of the cult to almost nothing (content with the psychological hold he has, providing also a good revenue can be worked out). Therefore his 'nothing' website and all his other external stuff show no sign of ANYTHING offensive to the outside world (French authorities and everywhere actually).

Now if only M can silence us here (a bit of a problem because it just gets more popular).....he's tried (or his fanatic followers have) the bad cop routine (CAC, hacking etc) and that didn't work ,so what's left? The good cop routine. Remember, lies and revisionism mean nothing to him, so anything goes.

Yes we have to be open to people and not get TOO hung up on infiltration but it also helps to be vigilant and wary of more lies and revisionism, however it's used !

Dermot the paranoid :)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:58:27 (EST)
From: paranoid ex
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Very well expressed
Message:
I wish I had your writing skills.

Paranoid Jethro

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 12:17:01 (EST)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: paranoid ex
Subject: Hey fellas, how 'bout this line:
Message:
Yet, from the analyses of my colleagues, I must conclude that if one's goal is to be free of the guru's monkey trap, then after realizing the facts, a sensible person must gradually wean oneself from the psychological clutches apparent in a reverse mode of animosity, too (however clearly understandable, and for which I sympathize).

Here our boy uses some of our own 'jargon' (monkey trap) which we all subconsciously (or otherwise) recognize and feel 'kinship.' Yes, nicely done. Rapport established by this point.

Then in the same breath, Keith says after 'realizing the facts' (what facts Keith baby?) 'a sensible person must gradually wean oneself from the psychological clutches apparent in a reverse mode of animosity...'

Yes y'all you are in the dreaded 'psychological clutches' of the evil 'animosity' reverse mode of the cult of the anti-guru theology. Now be sensible folks and wean your silly asses offa this stuff.

What crap. If we saved his boy any time out of the cult this dude should be hallaluia'ing bigtime and sendin' both me and John big fat Paypal donations.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:30:49 (EST)
From: Gail
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Easy for you to say, Keith, but...
Message:
The fact is that you and your wife may have had more to do with your son's decision to join the cult in the first place than you are willing to admit. The things he was running from at that time will now be snapping at his heels. Ask a holocaust victim to get over it. We enlisted in Concentration Camp 101.

Some cult members who post here actually suffered long-term ill effects from malnutrition at the hands of the cult. The niggardly meals in the ashram were dangerously low in protein.

At the very least, avid premies (PWKs nowadays) display Stockholm syndrome during their time in the cult and concentration-camp victim fallout afterwards.

You are deluded to think that your son is over it, if, in fact, your story is true at all. We tried to erase ourselves. A person doesn't just snap back after 25 plus years of this external and self-inflicted abuse.

Of course, on the other hand, you do sound somewhat like the shrink I met shortly after exiting the Lard's Whirled of Knowledge!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 21:29:18 (EST)
From: Pullaver
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Re: undefined territory
Message:
Thank you very much Keith for stopping by and offering your well considered observations! What might not be apparent to the casual or occasional viewer is just how freeing the act of engaging in (selective)discussions on this Board is. In the short time that I have been posting here I have had many of my pre-conceived notions regarding 'spirituality' meditation, and most certainly Maharaji, challenged and I have found profound encouragement in the company of fellow travellers. There is a board for 'recent ex-ers' which is more sensitive and supportive apparently, but your advice for professional help and guidance is welcome and encouraged (by me at least) - with the caveat that the professional help have some kind of experience dealing with cults, conditioning, and the like.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:56:53 (EST)
From: Marianne
Email: MarianneDB@aol.com
To: Keith
Subject: Dear Keith
Message:
Dear Keith,

Thank you for your thoughtful and caring post. I agree with most all of what you've said. Before reading the rest of what I have to say to you, you might want to read my journey, which is posted under my real name -- Marianne Bachers. Having that information will give you some context for my comments.

For regular readers -- I am about to restate information about my past which you've read before...

I was involved in the cult from 1972 - 1976, when I was 16 to 20. I lived in the ashram for a year. I went to Millennium. I was a committed devotee of M both in and out of the ashram. When I left in 1976, I thought I left the whole thing behind after counselling and going to law school. The first case I was involved in after passing the California bar was as defense co-counsel in the Larry Layton trial -- the only criminal case in the US which dealt with the mass suicide in Jonestown and the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan. I got hired to work on the case because of my experience with DLM/EV. I was alarmed to see the similarities between the way Peoples Temple was run and how DLM was run, as well as the similarities between Jim Jones and Maharaji.

For the last 15 years, my legal practice has been devoted to representing people on death row in California in the last stages of review of their cases. My life is devoted to saving people from execution. I struggle with life, death, compassion, revenge, love, hate, mental illness, resilience, on a daily basis. If anything, compassion is the compass which guides my life.

In 1999, I found EPO. I have been an active and vocal participant ever since. Keith, if you only read the forum for a short while, or check in once in a blue moon, depending on what's happening, you might think that there's a vein a nastiness here. Every once in a while, there is. The forum is a fluid place with many different voices, and people in many different places emotionally and intellectually. When someone seems to be really out there in their posts, someone or two or three will typically pipe up and encourage that person to get help, either on the forum or privately in email. No one who posts here sees the forum as a substitute for therapy.

When seething anger or fury erupt at M, it's usually a healthy response to the feelings we were forced to bottle up as good devotees. Violence or the incitment to violence is not tolerated. It is the antithesis of what we stand for. But sharing intense feelings is fine.

Sometimes premies come here and disrupt the forum. We get mad about that and fight back. Did you know that premies created a web site called Citizens Against Cyberstalking and named many of us as cyberstalkers because we spoke out against M and the cult? I was one of the people who was falsely accused of criminal activity on this anonymous site.

I continue to participate here to support people who just find the site and are leaving or are dealing with issues left unresolved by their involvement. Also, I participate because the cult has not compensated Abi Bray, who as a child was sexually abused by one of the cult's 'saints'. I am here to support others and to speak out about decades old wrongs that need to be righted.

I hope this gives you some insight into why some of us choose to remain and participate long after we've left the cult behind.

Regards, Marianne Bachers

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:47:39 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: Thanks Keith
Message:
Thank you for your respectful and caring post. I feel you are sincere in your assesments and, because of that, I will reread your post and glean what may be useful. There are many reasons that people post here. Foremost for myself is a need to put into clear perspective exactly what those many years of involvement with a guru were all about.

Richard

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:26:35 (EST)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: Re: undefined territory indeed
Message:
it seems that some people are still trapped; they are defining themselves in reactive and negative terms, within the anti definitions and limitations of the anti-guru theology

Melting this down a little we get: people are defining themselves in terms of 'anti guru theology.'

One first must accept there is anything 'theological' about deconstructing cult beliefs about gurus. Then you have to stretch to the point that people (presumably the posters here) are 'identifying' with this 'theology.' This is very shaky grounds and I was not surprised when this led to that tired old saw 'move on, get on with your life.' Ho hum.

You almost sound like a cult apologist and not someone whose son might well still be in a cult if not for us people who can't move on.

Sorry just my thoughts at the moment...

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:42:00 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: Agreed Ggerry, 'clever' scam [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:13:05 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Keith
Subject: I agree keith.. thankyou
Message:
the culture of ex-premiedom can be a deceptive trap.. I am not full of the desire for revenge.. but that I have shared this journey, from P to Ex with some remarkable people is something I shall always be grateful for.

There are some wonderful thinkers here - and extreme and dominant points of view tend to polarise things into FOR and AGAINST - when life is so much subtle than that.

Thankyou for posting.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:35:50 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: Yes, you're so right, Loaf
Message:
It IS a bit extreme to think Maharaji was a callow fraud. Don't you remember that smile of his? ...sigh
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:28:28 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: and you are so right jim
Message:
always
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:35:02 (EST)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: I once was lost...
Message:
I once was lost,
but now I'm found,
was blind,
but now I see.

Anth the Ex.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:29:42 (EST)
From: Sulla
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Today is my B-day. Happy new year!!!!!!!!
Message:
Hi Dog,

I don't know. It hurt. But I can still feel happiness. A burden has been removed from my back, but love didn't leave my heart. I'm alive, I'm free.
Did you read 'The Teacher of Wisdom' from Oscar Wilde? Well, I think exes could be like the one in the story, who lost the perfect knowledge of God, to gain the perfect love of God. So beautiful!

A long time ago I was crying until I was exhausted after reading this poem, longing for whom I couldn't see, neither understand, whose place inside of me, nothing, nobody could fill. I was blind, but He found the way to easy my pain, fulfilling my dream, with a dream.

But now was my time to wake up and make the right choice. Can you hear me? Do you exist? Hey! I have my heart back! And you know what? It's filled! Thanks!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:43:26 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Sulla
Subject: Happy birthday, Sulla
Message:
and may you have many more. Of course they will be happier than before now that we are freeeeee. Wheeee!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:43:02 (EST)
From: Sulla
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Thanks! You made my day...
Message:
Thanks Pat, you made my day. Now I can leave and get a life outside this forum. At least for today.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:11:17 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Please define an 'ex' - okay
Message:
Hi Dog, I can only speak for myself but here goes. For my first ten years in the cult I was definitely a premie and never entertained any doubts about the purity of the master. By 1983, I had begun to entertain so many doubts that I should have have become an ex-premie. If I had left at that time, I am sure that I would be an extremely bitter ex-premie because of having fresh memories of the cult rubbish I had swallowed for ten years. I would definitely have blamed Rawat.

But, being the idiot that I am, I blamed the premies for creating a cult and I stifled my doubts about the oily little businessman from Hardwar and had nothing to do with any other premies but reinvented Rawat in my own mind to take into account his obvious shortcomings. And I lived in that twilight zone of making constant excuses for Rawat for the next 17 or 18 years. So, unfortunately I cannot blame Rawat. I can only blame my own lack of integrity and courage for continuing the charade with him.

I could easily have become just another one of the tens of thousands of former premies but I made a decision in 2000 that changed all that. I stopped being a spaced-out fringe premie. Since I had been a regular donor for 28 years, I was invited to participate in the local premie team. That year of seeing how this immoral and creepy cult operated up close turned me into an ex-premie.

Almost, but not quite. I decided that I would post on the forum as an ''un-premie.'' I could not bring myself to be so antagonistic to Rawat as the old-timers here because I could not blame Rawat only but had to accept my own complicity. Somewhere in the course of reading and posting here, I realized that my mind had really been filled with a lot of lies and nonsense by Rawat. My resentment of him grew with my growing realization of just how unethical he really is and the CAC attacks completely confirmed my status as an ex-premie.

An ex-premie is someone who realizes that Rawat is a really nasty piece of work, a greedy, shallow man concerned only with material goods and his own wealth and pleasure and is totally devoid of any sort of adult responsibility or concern for others.

An ex-premie want's Rawat to apologize for misleading premies, lying to them and amassing an enormous fortune at their expense. An ex-premie wants other premies to hear the other side of the story of the ugly, mentally-deformed little conman behind the curtain of carefully edited videos and schmaltzy stage appearances.

Right now, Dog, you are probably a former premie not an ex. But once you begin to doubt the purity of the master and walk away, the further you get from him the more obvious his deceitfulness and immorality become until it eventually dawns on you that the man is a dangerous lunatic. That's when you become an ex-premie.

As I've said before, it could really help a lot of fringe fence-sitters to go back into the cult and begin to see exactly how secretive, creepy and insane the cult is and to then realize that it is that way because of the person who created it.

No matter what you call yourself, Dog, I'm just pleased that at least you are beginning to walk your own walk because that walk will take you away from bondage to Mayaraji towards real freedom. I wish you the very best in untangling the mess that Rawat wove.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:42:19 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: First you had to have been a premie
Message:
Your problem, Dog, is that you live in this no-man's land where you never really trusted Maharaji, put up all sorts of filters to screen out whatever you weren't interested in and thus, in my respectful view, were never really a premie. If Maharaji said 'jump' you actually pretended he wasn't talking to you.

Now, what was your question again?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:58:59 (EST)
From: Depuity Dog
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Very glib, but seriously Jim
Message:
Jim,

Interesting point, but for the last 25 years or so most people with K would have considered me a premie. I certainly defined myself as one. However, is a premie simply a “lover of truth” (the inner experience of meditation) or is a premie someone who buys into whole cosmology, with for example, with Bal Bagwan Ji as an incarnation of Jesus, Bhole Ji as Shiva, and Marolyn as the Divine Mother of the entire Universe. True, I never bought into that stuff. Couldn’t bring myself to. Never clicked!

For me K was always a way to help me get in touch with my soul and make me a better person. You would probably think I failed miserably in that regard, but that’s what K was and always has been for me. A technology to help me get in touch with a deeper part of my being so I can cope. I never felt comfortable with all that “lotus feet” stuff but I have always valued the experience of meditation and I am still grateful to M that I have it.

So, is an “ex” someone who:
- thinks M is full of shit, hates K, and no longer practices
- thinks M is full of shit, but still loves K, and continues to practice
- is an atheist/humanist, who still practices, but no longer believes in a higher power
- has joined an established religion and continues to practice K in the context of that religion
- loves K, continues to practice, but keeps away from Elan Vital
- loves K, continues to practice, but continues to hang around and watch videos
- loves K, continues to practice, and still sees M as LOTU
- values K, continues to practice, but has reservations about M.

The reason I asked the question, “What is an ex,” is because if you define an ex as someone who “values K, continues to practice, but has reservations about M,” then I guess I’d be an ex. But if you define it loosely as simply a “lover of truth,” then I’d still be a premie.

Your thoughts on this Jim.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 23:50:17 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Depuity Dog
Subject: Re: seriously
Message:
You give these choices along a continuum:

is an 'ex' someone who:
- thinks M is full of shit, hates K, and no longer practices
I'd say >yes

- thinks M is full of shit, but still loves K, and continues to practice
I'd say yes

- is an atheist/humanist, who still practices, but no longer believes in a higher power
I'd say yes

- has joined an established religion and continues to practice K in the context of that religion
I'd say yes


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---
--
- loves K, continues to practice, but keeps away from Elan Vital
this is the beginning of the doubtful zone. if they still hold maharaji above reproach, no, they are not an ex yet.

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---
--
- loves K, continues to practice, but continues to hang around and watch videos
definitely not exed

- loves K, continues to practice, and still sees M as LOTU
definitely not ex

- values K, continues to practice, but has reservations about M.
depends on how deep the reservations about maharaji go.
if they can't leave him and still cling to the hope or fear that he is Somebody, no, definitely not an ex

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:32:23 (EST)
From: Suedoula
Email: None
To: Depuity Dog
Subject: Re: Very glib, but seriously Jim
Message:
Dog,

In my not so humble opinion, a person who 'values K, continues to practice, but has reservations about M' is not an 'ex' -- maybe on the verge of being an ex but not quite. I think your 'thinks M is full of shit, but still loves K, and continues to practice' might apply.

I thought your inclusion of 'is an atheist/humanist, who still practices, but no longer believes in a higher power' was interesting -- which 'higher power' do you mean?

I'd love to know where the definition of 'premie' truly came from -- is it one of those watered down Hindi words that M used to mean what he wanted it to mean, or would anyone well-versed in Hindi give the same definition or even know the origin and definition of the word. I tend to think that if you still have the need to use that term to define yourself -- then you are not yet an 'ex.'

My definition of 'ex' is someone who has 'been there, done that and bought the tee shirt' and is now ready to move on and stand on their own two feet, acknowledging that whatever peace there is in their lives has mostly to do with their own efforts and abilities.

Sorry, I'd go into this more but my kids just emerged dripping wet from the tub and I have to go catch them now.

Best to all,
Susan

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 15:43:06 (EST)
From: Gail
Email: None
To: Depuity Dog
Subject: Re: Very glib, but seriously Jim
Message:
... is a premie someone who buys into whole cosmology, with for example, with Bal Bagwan Ji as an incarnation of Jesus, Bhole Ji as Shiva, and Marolyn as the Divine Mother of the entire Universe. True, I never bought into that stuff. Couldn’t bring myself to. Never clicked!
You forgot to mention that you do believe Maharaji is the Lord of the Universe, though, didn't you? Otherwise, you would have grabbed the techniques and left. Why listen keep listening to the old Latin teacher with the same verb declentions year after year? (Maharaji does say, 'The message is the same--blah, bhah, blah!') hehehehehehehe
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:41:51 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: Gail
Subject: Good point Gail
Message:
... is a premie someone who buys into whole cosmology, with for example, with Bal Bagwan Ji as an incarnation of Jesus, Bhole Ji as Shiva, and Marolyn as the Divine Mother of the entire Universe. True, I never bought into that stuff. Couldn’t bring myself to. Never clicked!
You forgot to mention that you do believe Maharaji is the Lord of the Universe, though, didn't you? Otherwise, you would have grabbed the techniques and left. Why listen keep listening to the old Latin teacher with the same verb declentions year after year? (Maharaji does say, 'The message is the same--blah, bhah, blah!') hehehehehehehe


---

Once the Holy Family thing fell apart (maybe even before) I always had difficulty taking the LOTU thing seriously. Why do I keep going to videos and programs? M inspires me to go within and use the techniques. I'm not going to be inspired to go within by watching TV or films. On the contrary they tell me go 'out.'

Buy this and you will be happy. Oh really? Too jaded to buy that!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:57:01 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: How did you survive 1977-1985???
Message:
Did you just ignore what Maharaji said, over and over and over? Did you think he was just kidding when he said you have to devote to him and surrender to him and serve him? That wouldn't be inspiring to what you thought it was all about.

And if that was just lies, and you were fortunate not to believe his lies, why would you believe what he says now?

When I stopped believing he was God, he was no longer inspiring, that's for sure. I have a feeling you believe more about M than you say, or you are a bit revisionist in what you once believed. Like Gail said, if it was just the techniques, you would have split with them, because he wasn't telling you to just "go inside" for at least a decade there.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:17:58 (EST)
From: Gail
Email: gcmacdougall@yahoo.com
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Remember the Dog Story?
Message:
Remember when Maharaji talked about chaining an elephant (and his pet dog)? If you chain them when they're small, they will believe they are prisoners and won't try to escape later when they are bigger and stronger. Meanwhile, he was busy chaining us, Dawg. Surrender to the holy lotus feet. Surrender to goomraji, now (he would bellow). So, because we didn't think much of ourselves or our lives--we did, sort of! Remember when he pranced around and pretended to be the Lord. He did pretend that, didn't he, Dawg?

What sort of teacher pretends to be something he's not? Imagine learning brain surgery techniques from a manicurist masquerading as a brain surgeon! Do you get my point. The fact that he has revised his history should be enough for you to question MJ's veracity and real purpose, n'est pas?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 14:07:25 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Depuity Dog
Subject: Real question: what is a premie?
Message:
The best way to approach the question, Dog, is to determine what a premie is. Once you do, anyone who stops being one of those is an ex. Simple logic.

So what's a premie to you? To me it was someone who accepted Maharaji as their guru which meant trusting him. You, Dog, don't ever have to worry about becoming an ex. That'd be impossible. It'd be like divorcing someone you never married.

So what does that make you anyway? Well, a 'Kinda Premie' of course! Thus, the road is open to you to become a Kinda Ex'

Does that help?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 16:33:51 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Real question: what is a premie?
Message:
Very funny Jim!

Been meditating for 27 years and I’m a 'kinda premie.' Rather than attacking me why not answer my question. Perhaps there are different kinds of premies, all the way from church-ladies to the fringe types who received K and ran.

I trusted M when it came to meditation related issues. I did not take to heart his advice on what to eat, how to exercise, how to dress, where to live, who to hang out with, what to do for a living. As an ashram premie you were subjected to different kinds of pressures and 'satsang' than I was. We had a different experience of the 70s.

I might have not have trusted M implicitly as you did but I do trust the inner experience of meditation or Spirit. I’ve always decided what is right for me and my family. That’s probably why I’m not as pissed off about M as you are.

And why should I follow your definition of premie? IMO I am a premie when it comes to being a “lover of truth.” Instead of a 'kinda premie' how about defining me as a general, non-specific, generic, standard, nonexclusive, or universal premie?

Seriously, if it is any consolation to you I have definitely changed my opinion of M after reading EPO and the Forum. I just don’t want ex’es to throw out the baby (i.e. their experience of meditation) with the bath water (i.e. everything else). IMO you are an ex only when you turn against the experience of meditation.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 20:40:22 (EST)
From: Pullaver
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Re: Real question: what is a premie??
Message:
I trusted M when it came to meditation related issues. I did not take to heart his advice on what to eat, how to exercise, how to dress, where to live, who to hang out with, what to do for a living. As an ashram premie you were subjected to different kinds of pressures and 'satsang' than I was. We had a different experience of the 70s.

If you were a (real) premie in the '70s and 80s (and now into the '90s and the 21st century in a different fashion), there was no escaping what Maharaji was saying about how it is one has the experience of Knowledge. It's about devotion. About surrender. About grace. Maharaji was going to establish peace in this world and those who were able were to move into the ashram. If you couldn't or wouldn't then you lived in a 'premie-house' aspiring to be an ashramite or you lived a dedicated life as a 'householder'. If this trip was real for you then you took it seriously. If Maharaji was Lord or Master or Satguru and you valued the 'inner' experience it wasn't simply a matter of sitting back on your sofa and deciding which of his agyas made sense to you. It just didn't work that way.

Jim and I have the advantage of actually knowing who you are in real life. We know that over a twenty five year period you never went to any programs outside your hometown environment, with perhaps one exception. You never donated any money. You didn't do any service. As a premie you toyed with a succession of new-agey philosophies like TM, Psychocybernetics, est, the Forum (what est became), Silva Mind Control, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Dick Sutphen (subliminal tapes) and whatever it was you were describing to Jim a while ago on the Forum where everthing turned all shimmery. Anyways, there is the temptation to deduce that knowledge and maharaji is really just another one of a long line of new age trips that you've dallied in. Even though you have the skinny on the goo-meister you still have been going regularly to video events and finding him inspiring.

Further down the page, Joy made a comment to Zoloft (who I think is Auguste/Roger - you know) which was as follows:

Why don't you just come right out and say it - that you were the one that got it all along and we were the sad deluded fools for falling for all the devotion in the first place? Get real, Zoloft

That kinda says it for me. The difference is the actual degree to which you took it seriously - not the degree of self-congratulatory discrimination that you feel that you exercised over us punters. In essence I feel that you are engaging in a bit of revisionism regarding yourself.

Ex-premie? Like Jim says you had to be a premie (and all that entailed) before you can become an ex. At least as far as EPO and the forum is concerned. If you only had a Master that you selectively listened to, there just isn't that much to ex from. Which is also why I was incensed at you calling posters whiners. You have to walk a mile in someone's shoes before you start dispensing advice - at least in this corner of cyberville. Time to hang up yer holster, Deputy.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:18:41 (EST)
From: Disculta
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Gotta jump in here!
Message:
Hi DD,

You said: 'IMO you are an ex only when you turn against the experience of meditation.'

I don't get this. You can't turn against the actual experience of meditation, because it is you, if it's anything worthwhile. And it is undeniable, as Jim says right below this post, that Maharaji-as-god-in-a-bod WAS the meditation in the particular cult we were in, despite lip service to something called 'Knowledge.'

I have found various types of meditation quite powerful, before, during, and particularly AFTER my cult involvement with MJ. The particular Radha Soami techniques that MJ happened to package for the West as the ultimate knowledge were just that - a random piece of a technology.This is detailed in the many articles and links about Radha Soami on EPO. I guess if MJ's 'Knowledge' initiation was the first (or last) meditation you experienced, then it might become imprinted, gosling style, as the 'truth coming from him.' But you must know that breath meditation is practiced worldwide, and didn't come from him. Don't you? This is really basic, but if you gloss over this one, then all kinds of absurdities take shape (as many of us have experienced).

What we mean by being exes is that we are not only people who used to be 'premies' in the sense meant by the cult and its leader (i.e. devoted followers of a teacher who said and advised specific things), BUT ALSO people who have thought through that involvement in the light of our experience or later information, and deliberately walked away from it. From a cultic involvement with a leader we now know to be dishonest. Not from some experience inside ourselves.

So, being an ex is different from just being a 'former' premie, in that it implies that we have taken a stand. For me, it's not a stand about resisting and fighting MJ, and certainly not 'meditation,' but about supporting and offering my energy to the process of freedom and self-empowerment. However, for many of us who 'gave our lives,' the process did and does involve saying 'no' to something, and to somebody, more specifically.

I totally get that, since you didn't go the whole hog like some of us, it's a whole different kettle of fish for you.

And one more thing: it seems to me that by mixing in the generic meaning of the word 'premie,' (i.e. lover of truth) with the context in which we use it here, you are being a bit disingenuous. What we mean when we say we are ex-premies is that we are ex-members of a cult that uses(d) that name for its members, and we definitely feel we love truth.

All love to you in your process,

Disculta

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 11:46:25 (EST)
From: housemum
Email: None
To: Disculta
Subject: Love this, Disculta ! (nt)
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:46:55 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Disculta
Subject: ****BEST OF FORUM*****
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 00:29:44 (EST)
From: Deborah who agrees
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: ****BEST OF FORUM***** [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 17:04:15 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Here's what you never got, Dog
Message:
Maharaji WAS the meditation.

Think arti ....

Meditation begins in the form of our master....

The whole point, if you swollowed it, was that Maharaji was the 'Holy Name'. He was your breath, your soul, your everything. So, the sincere devotee had no choice but to follow his ever word and wish as if it was his own.

Frankly, Dog, you were so damn far from that game it's hard to know if you really even understand what I'm talking about. Yes, you went to satsang, programs, lived with premies, all that, but you never bought in.

So, you like the guru's meditation techniques? Fine. But don't say you were a premie because ....

hey why not Maharaji himself define the term? You know what he would have said about your being a premie back when he was touting his full love /devotion / surrender trip? He did talk about people like you and he would say that -- get this -- you weren't a premie. Hell I bet you were even at some of THOSE satsangs but, obviously, didn't 'get it'.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 15:45:03 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Here's what you never got, Dog
Message:
Maybe you are right Jim. I guess I preferred to look for G-d in Spirit instead of a concept in Malibu. I write here to defend K, and I have no right to tell you how to feel. We just see things differently, thats all.

Have you ever wondered why I continue to post here? My posting here is out of a genuine desire to help. I see a lot of people on EPO suffering and it bothers me. I see many ex’s 'stuck in their story' who could still benefit from meditation.

I see a lot of superstitious claptrap about Maharaji being the source of the experience of K. I say put that 'magical' thinking away and use K to wipe the slate clean. Use the techniques to empower yourself and better the world. The techniques are yours, and if you want to use them without M, believe me, they will still work.

I want to say, meditate and empty your self.
I want to say, take what you like and leave the rest.
I want to say, live and let live.
Everything happens for a reason and a purpose and it serves us.
Whatever happens, take responsibility.
Live in Spirit and put the past into the past.
The only thing getting in your way is you.

As you said once, 'The best revenge is to live well and be happy.'

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 16:40:10 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Thanks but no thanks
Message:
Dog,

K is fake.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 16:01:18 (EST)
From: OTS
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: You stepped in your own stuff, Dog
Message:
Dog, you say: 'My posting here is out of a genuine desire to help. I see a lot of people on EPO suffering and it bothers me. I see many ex’s 'stuck in their story' who could still benefit from meditation.'

Man, are you full of it. Or what? How the hell do you know who would benefit from what? Hun? Are you a miniguru? I guess if you were to consider suicide it would be by jumping off your ego onto your I.Q., the distant between the two being enough to kill anyone.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 18:09:33 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: OTS
Subject: Re: You stepped in your own stuff, Dog
Message:
OTS,

The Spirit is mentioned in all religions. By focussing on the breath one can quiet the mind. You know, peace? Duh! We are always breathing and it's a good centering device that can bring calm.

Remember the old Eagles lyric 'Take it easy, take it easy, don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.' Breath and mindfullness can help with that. You know the expression, 'Take a breather?' You should try it some time.

So you think I'm full of it. Just giving what I consider to be helpful advice to people who I see who are hurting. If you don't like my advice then don't take it.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 22:31:59 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: You are insufferably trite
Message:
Dog,

You're cutting the cake with a very dull knife. 'Take a breather'? What's next, 'Have a nice day'?

You take such comfort in 'all religions' but don't you think that all those religions could have been wrong about some things? How many understood the world was round? Any?

Aw, forget it. You always were unable to see through the banality and hokiness of shit. Like the time you got your whole household into Norman Vincent Peale's 'How to Win Friends and Influnce People' workshops.

CORNY!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 09:13:21 (EST)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim, that's Dale Carnegie [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 11:42:36 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Even worse! :) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:37:16 (EST)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Elementary
Message:
An ex is someone who thinks Maharaji's full of shit. At least, that's what defines this ex.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:29:42 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Deputy Dog
Subject: Indefinable. Definitely. (nt)
Message:
Indefinable. Definitely. (nt)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:02:18 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: but seriously -
Message:
Dep, I'll work on my definition of what it means to me to be an ex, if you'll work on yours.

You are an ex by now, aren't you?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 08:43:22 (EST)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: All
Subject: The mental bond with MAHARAJI
Message:
Why was I for so long, 26 years tied up to Maharaji? I just found myself asking why, once more. I see that my relationship with Maharaji was one of such a dependency and as it has been said many times before here, he entraps you along the road to “enlightenment” to create a dependency of him, and he does it in such a way that you don’t notice how he does it. Nevertheless, even that he tries hard to tell people that it's an individual experience, 'about you', for you, etc. the truth is that in all his videos/programs he emphasizes that without the master you cannot get “there”, so, it is not really an individual experience if a person needs him to have it, is it? Freedom?

As a video librarian I had to learn the content of each video to help in the propagation process. If a person had questions I had to know which video would have answered them. I heard so, so much and what I remember from that? I remember well the main point and that is that if a person doesn’t feel some type of attachment, devotion toward the master “knowledge is not working”. Could I have just walked away on my own, or was my mind bonded, trapped? Can a person simply awake one day and leave the cult ? I doubt it. One of maharaji’s teachings is that you need to stay in touch with him after receiving the meditation techniques, and that without the Grace of the master you cannot experience Knowledge, so, can you leave easily? A person needs to stay because “You need to be reminded” by HIM, you cannot do it alone, and if you are a sincere student you listen to him as much as you can, perpetuating the need of him by listening from him how much you need him, bla,bla,bla….

I take responsabilty to a point but if the teacher who sets the rules of the “game”; I had no saying.

So, there was a mental bond and I depended on him to take me “there”. Blind faith? My mind was absorbed with being a “good premie”. I was wondering what you experience as a premie in a daily basis was with respect to that bond. Did you think about Maharaji during the day a lot? Didn’t you get to the point (in your devotion) that thinking about anything else but him/K seemed a lost of time? How bad was your mind affected while you where in the cult? Did you have mental conflicts understanding at times that being a premie didn’t make any sense? Did you wonder about Maharaji’s contradictions in his speeches and if you did, what did you think of them?

MAHARAJI IS THE LEADER OF A CULT

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 18:32:47 (EST)
From: James BOND
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI
Message:
That's just where your problem lies. You try to have a 'bond' with
Mahraji. that's not the point. You have a bond with yourself, only.
Maharaji asks you to stay in touch with him just like any teacher,
if you want to learn something.
It's not because you put on your skis that you glide down the slopes
smoothly. You need the ski teacher, even if you have the slope, the
snow and the skis. What's wrong with that. How stupid to say that
you have to 'think' about your ski teacher to progress in skiing.
That's not what is being asked. Mahraji has never asked you to think
of him. On the contrary. thinking about Mahraji won't bring you
anything. But Maharaji showed you something inside of you and when
you stay in touch with that, than you clearly understand the value
of what you have been connected with one day, it's very simple.
When you experience that experience, you automatically are thankful.
That's not dependency, it's natural. what's wrong with being thankful.
It's a sweet experience. It's a dignifying experience. It's a human
experience to be thankful. You're just afraid of admitting that you
feel something you would like to thank somebody for, but your pride
forbids you to thank, because you think that thanking is degrading.
One day, you'll learn.

till then

byby

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:44:20 (EST)
From: Livia
Email: None
To: James BOND
Subject: Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI
Message:
Dear Mr Bond

I think you must have missed something. If only it were that simple! When did you receive the Knowledge? Because if you received it more than a few years ago, you are being extremely disingenuous. Have you ever heard of the word 'revisionism'? Many, many of us here remember Maharaji as asking us to do quite a bit more than 'stay in touch'. Did you not know this?

All the best, Livia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 06:16:32 (EST)
From: wolfie
Email: None
To: James BOND
Subject: Re: The mental bond with MAHARAJI
Message:
Hi 007,

maybe you still have the license to kill, but life is better without this license. And maybe one time you will be ashamed about believing your own words.

Every generation of premies have their own new version of Maharaji and what they are sopposed to think about the right way.
One time maybe you are out of time and it was your way to act and speak that Satgurus mission failed. False teachers will always fail.

There are too many people who practised his teachings over more than 25 years, the power is on the side of those who are couraged enough to see that there are too many lies envolved and that this is against basic human behaviour. Oh I forgot Maharaji is not bound to that he can to whatever he wants to do, he can act like a arrogant rich person and ha never has to give anyrational explenation.

have a nice time 007..............ciao wolfie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:19:30 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: James BOND
Subject: WRONG, Wrong, and Wrong...
Message:
That's just where your problem lies. You try to have a 'bond' with
Mahraji. that's not the point. You have a bond with yourself, only.
Maharaji asks you to stay in touch with him just like any teacher,
if you want to learn something.
It's not because you put on your skis that you glide down the slopes
smoothly. You need the ski teacher, even if you have the slope, the
snow and the skis. What's wrong with that. How stupid to say that
you have to 'think' about your ski teacher to progress in skiing.
That's not what is being asked. Mahraji has never asked you to think
of him. On the contrary. thinking about Mahraji won't bring you
anything. But Maharaji showed you something inside of you and when
you stay in touch with that, than you clearly understand the value
of what you have been connected with one day, it's very simple.
When you experience that experience, you automatically are thankful.
That's not dependency, it's natural. what's wrong with being thankful.
It's a sweet experience. It's a dignifying experience. It's a human
experience to be thankful. You're just afraid of admitting that you
feel something you would like to thank somebody for, but your pride
forbids you to thank, because you think that thanking is degrading.
One day, you'll learn.

till then

byby


---

********

The bond that Maharaji asks for is total devotion to him:

a. physically (you must keep in touch--go to see him and watch his videos);

b. follow his direction explicitly (formerly known as agya and euphemistically has been called 'give knowledge a fair chance');

c. give him money (it used to be called tithing, now it's gratitude and particpation); and

d. kiss his feet it you so desire.

There is much much more to following maharaji than to take a ski lession. Take it from me, I live in one of Vermont's finest ski resort areas.

Don't give ''satsang'' here. You're wrong.

Cynthia J. Gracie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:15:45 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Lot of clarity in your insights, Silvia
Message:
Maybe dependency is (perhaps on a sub-conscious level) what a lot of premies really WANT!

No matter how long it takes each of us to wake up and to extract ourselves from the Goo's sticky little hold, the important point is that we're out NOW! I've found that 'though resentment about the past is to some extent a natural reaction, it eventually passes - if you can let it go. And it sounds to me that you're managing to come out of that 26 years of brainwashing remarkably well. It's an experience that, in its early stages, can't be easy.

You owe yourself a pat on the back.

(no, not you, Conlon);)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 11:56:19 (EST)
From: wolfie
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: bad affairs
Message:
Hi,

like your report. Sometimes I think we just were too sincere. Maybe I'm still too sincere. We tried to be good premies. It's easier to manipulate too sincere people, than the ones who take it a little bit more easy. It is so funny and not only funny, I can get angry too about this whole Mahaaffair. I hope for my friends who are still completly in 'his service' will find the way out like you and me. EPO is a big help to draw the whole picture. Every voice who left the cult is a sign of hope.

28 years 26 years ......but slowly we will realize it's about his Ego.............ciao wolfie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:13:07 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: wolfie
Subject: Too sincere
Message:
We tried to be good premies. It's easier to manipulate too sincere people, than the ones who take it a little bit more easy.

Well said wolfie. I think that having a good sense of humor, general irreverance and healthy cynicism saved me from being trapped further. Of course I was sincere and felt my devotion deeply and earnestly. However, I think I must have understood early on that it was all a play and we were actors in it. The road company of SatGuru Goes West was fun but the script was written in disappearing ink.

Sure, I beat myself up from time to time for not being totally committed like some of the more devout. But as I later saw, their devotion was rewarded with neglect and abuse. On first viewing of the forum, I couldn't sort out what all the upset was about. But as I read about ashram closings, suicides and more, I could see that others had been affected more than I.

One criticism of EPO and the forum is that we never gave K a chance so it didn't work for us. Not true. In fact, many here gave it too much of a chance, took it very literally and seriously and were damaged as a result. We were encouraged and harangued to be sincere but I'm glad I was able to retain my sense of humor through it all.

Richard

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:14:50 (EST)
From: wolfie
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Re: Too sincere
Message:
Hi Richard,

the ashram closing was the first time, I tried to explain it to myself, and for me it was more a proof that Maharaji was not into money, why he should close down his own finacial basis. To read on EPO that it was the opposite made sense to me. Things are mostely more complex as we think. The fact is none gave a satisfying answer about the ashram closing. Because there was no good answer. Funny thing is, a befriended couple got divorced 8 weeks before the ahsram were closed because they decided to serve their Lord in the ashram. I think they lived in the ashram for 4 weeks and then it was over.

I for myself tried to live my life devoted to the Lord. For a short time I was in an ashram (73), but I realized it's too much against my nature, maybe I was too much a snop. Too much bad food and too much work all the time and too hard beds and cold meditation rooms.

Yeah the road company of Satguru Goes West was fun too but the pressure was so high that we created the fun for us otherwise we would have had a too hard time on that road. The standard was high and expencive.
I never understood this, only in that aspect that Maha is ths king of kings, so please my Lord let me work in your garden this is honour enough for a simple soul like me. Only one look in the face of satguru can bring you salvation.

Maha has changed his image so many times and this created a lot confusione. There stillwill be those you drive with him drunk on a winding road. But not me and you. I prefer now to walk on my own feet instead driving in a luxury car with a meditation teacher on the stirring wheel memorizing the time when he was God driving a car without petrol and functional breaks. Yeah premies Maharaji can do things like that cause he is not bound tothe material laws.

ciao Rich ....need a break.....sometimes it's funny but somtimes I can get angry and frustrated how stupid and sincere I was. Too much sincerity is a part of being weak, that was a saying of my grandmother.

ciao .....wolfie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 16:10:26 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: wolfie
Subject: Re: Too sincere - LOL
Message:
Too much sincerity is a part of being weak, that was a saying of my grandmother.

Very well said by your grandmother and by you, too.

Take care,
R

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 11:54:21 (EST)
From: wolfie
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject:
Message:
Hi,

like your report. Sometimes I think we just were too sincere. Maybe I'm still too sincere. We tried to be good premies. It's easier to manipulate too sincere people, than the ones who take it a little bit more easy. It is so funny and not only funny, I can get angry too about this whole Mahaaffair. I hope for my friends who are still completly in 'his service' will find the way out like you and me. EPO is a big help to draw the whole picture. Every voice who left the cult is a sign of hope.

28 years 26 years ......but slowly we will realize it's about his Ego.............ciao wolfie
[ Page Link ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 03:10:48 (EST)
From: Bai Ji
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Jargon
Message:
Dear New Friends,
May I suggest that a 'Legend' be posted somewhere.

Where by all could navigate their way through explanations such as

OT = Off the central Topic = Maharaji
Hindu Terminology thet we 'Lifers' use.

Could someone with more energy and comprehension complete this?

You know what I mean.
Just a General walk through guide and translation of terms.

I Know that when i first came here, basic navigational skills seemed daunting.

Nevertheless, i seemed to have figured it out.

But maybe, it could be too much for someone experiecing way too much already.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 13:38:24 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Bai Ji
Subject: Re: Jargon
Message:
Hi Bai Ji,

I've provided a link to the EPO glossary. As far as instructions about how to use the board, we used to have one, but we've moved a lot in the past year...Forum 5, 6, and 7.

So, I hope at least the glossary helps.

http://www.ex-premie.org/pages/glossary.htm
[ EPO Glossary of Terms ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 19:26:20 (EST)
From: Bai Ji
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Thanks Cynth (nt)
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index