|
'Where it is a duty
to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime
to
examine the laws of heat.' - Novalis
Greetings to premies and ex-premies,
Over recent years, as one of Maharaji's
organisers, and an occasional PAM, I've seen many
disturbing things in the world of Knowledge.
Additionally, in conversation with other premies,
numbers of equally disturbing things have been told
to me. One, two, I could walk over, but gradually a
picture has emerged that causes me concern for the
welfare of people under Maharaji's aegis.
I have come to the conclusion that it is time to
say something about all of this. For a number of
reasons that I do not wish to debate, I am choosing
to remain anonymous.
For myself, it is now clear, I am no longer a
part of Maharaji's world, and though I do not wish
to become a regular member of the ex premie forum,
I would like to thank all involved for their
insights and information, and for providing this
forum for those people who are looking for
answers.
I started some time back putting down in writing
all the things that are disturbing me. I've decided
the best idea is to 'publish' appropriate extracts
of this document here.
Information is a powerful tool, though very
little of it has been furnished to us by Maharaji's
organisation, or by Maharaji himself. Indeed if I
had to name the one pervasive theme of my
experience with M - from the very early 1970s till
2001 - it would be secrecy. I am sure there are
intelligence organisations that have less secrets
than EV, and international spies who have less
secrets than PAMs. For three decades, I have been
one of the worst offenders.
Information, of the type which has been provided
at EPO and on the Forum - and below, I hope -
allows premies, aspirants and interested outsiders
to make informed decisions about joining or not
joining, staying or leaving.
In a way, all the opinions about M are
secondary. The fact that Maharaji killed the
cyclist in Delhi, and shifted the blame to a
premie; that he drinks heavily; that he has
selected premie women as sexual playthings; that he
is worth 50 million US dollars; that for 25 years
he has covered up, and declined to act on, a close
lieutenant's sexual abuse of children...all this
speaks volumes to those who want to make an
informed decision. Our commentary and analysis is
close to redundant.
So, here is some more of that information -
plus, admittedly, a bit of commentary. Another
little corner of the M/K/DLM/EV jigsaw which grew
so large for us over the last 30 years. A jigsaw
which, till the ex-premie organisation started
changing so many lives, we were only shown one or
two pieces of at a time.
The below is 18 pages - at least on my PC - so
you may want to download it to your machine.
Warm regards,
Pam
****************************************xxxxxx
'How do you find a lion that has swallowed you?'
- C.G. Jung
It's been a long trek from the belly of the
beast, up the esophagus, out the mouth and into the
daylight. I hardly recognize the landscape, I've
been in that belly so long.
Quite recently, I've been in the strange positon
of doing service for M while in my heart having
left him. It was weird - but I got by. I made the
final leap when I was ready. In the meantime I
attended programs, did my work/service, and went
through darshan, without feeling anything. It's
bizarre to be in the cult environment and
simultaneously deprogram yourself - but it can be
done.
What caused the shift? I think simply growing up
was part of it. Believing in Santa Claus in
advanced middle age just seemed too silly for
words. Believing that Maharaji was the Living
Master, to say nothing of the incarnation of God,
was truly beyond the pale - especially when you'd
learned enough of what he is like behind the stage
act. (See below for all that.)
But surely Maharaji hasn't taught that he's the
incarnation of God since the 1970s?
Yep. Sampuranand declared M to be Lord Krishna
(the supreme God of Hinduism) onstage before 80,000
people in Delhi, in the late 1990s. M got up
onstage straight after, to support the statement.
The Indians loved it of course, though many of us
Westerners were a little startled. What about the
PR trainings we've had, where we're taught to tell
media people that M has never claimed to be God?
Maybe it doesn't apply if his statement is not made
on American soil??
But in the end - in a strange quirk of fate - it
was something little that did it for me. It was a
conversation M had with a few of us about
computers. Basically he was raving about Macs - how
superior they were. I like Macs - though I don't
own one - but frankly they are no better than PCs.
They just come with a different set of pluses and
minuses. M's brand chauvanism seemed really petty
to me, and it made me wonder for the first time if
he was such a wise figure after all. Funny how a
trivial thing like that can trigger all your
subterrainian doubts.
Once those doubts began, they were like a
torrent. Years of drips, then the Amazon in full
flood. Once the 'doubtmaker' - i.e. your mind -
begins to awaken, there's no stopping it. I could
no more regard M as a special person now than fly
to the moon. Even being in a room with him, toward
the end, I just saw the screen on which I projected
all my love, divinity, fear, and a whole bunch of
Freudian father stuff. He's so ordinary once you
see all that in yourself.
But the last thing I want to do now is to make
him into a monster. That's giving him an equal
amount of power. In truth Maharaji is a pleasant
enough guy much of the time. He is relaxed and
relaxing to be with, and likes to make jokes and
keep it light. He certainly relaxes in the company
of men better than that of women - but he can get
along with women too.
He's just got the equation round the wrong way.
M's 'doubtmaker' is actually your self. Your
discrimination. Your identity. His 'Knowledge' is
actually the illusion.
What else could it be? You can't assess it or
comprehend it. In practise (not in theory) it comes
and goes all the time. 90% of those who practice it
divorce their spouses. The organisation comprised
of those who practice it is chronically
dysfunctional - with leaders few people have liked,
going back 30 years.
Shattering stuff to realise after three decades
- virtually the whole of one's adult life. A little
like spending 30 years in Heaven, and at the end
seeing that the angels were just guys with 5
o'clock shadow and acne who were paid $5 an hour to
dress up; that all the singing was taped; and that
the Almighty and his throne were just a pretty
hologram.
Bitterly disillusioning for a bit. But
liberating thereafter - because finally you have
some choices.
************************************************xxxx
'Repetition and forced attention are very
conducive to the induction of a
trance.' - Steve Hassan
'Because your mind troubles you, give it to me.
It won't trouble me.' - Maharaji
With some exceptions, premies as a group are low
achievers. The reason, of course, is that premies'
ideas about Maharaji and Knowledge depreciate the
value of all other endeavour. Whether it's stated
or not - and it isn't, thesedays - doing 'other
things' just doesn't cut the ice that 'achieving
the purpose of this life' does.
So people who could be flying jets or creating
successful businesses end up spending a lot of time
sitting under blankets with their fingers in their
ears.
And one person who spends very little time with
his fingers in his ears ends up flying jets.
If you speak to any long-term PAMs - e.g. John
Miller (captain of M's old yacht) or Randy Prouty -
they'll tell you than M cannot not do events. He
adores being adored.
There's only one Major Achiever in the world of
Knowledge - not 10,000. And there's only one person
at a major event who is completely comfortable in
the knowledge of who he is. Everybody else is
shooting for the false moon he has installed in a
false sky, and can never know rest.
********************************************xx
'Whatever deceives seems to produce a magical
enchantment.' -Plato
I know others have said there were no financial
improprieties in EV. I can only speak from my own
experience - which is that EV was substantially a
cash organisation until the 1990s.
Money raised from the membership for Maharaji's
personal use - e.g. a new quarters at the
'Windmill' area of Amaroo, costing several hundred
thousand dollars - is still kept off the books.
Assuming one could keep Raja Ji's drink-sodden
hands off them, the cash proceeds from darshan
lines were commonly flown around the world in the
suitcases of x-rated premies, till they found their
'home' in M's coffers. I'm talking two, three, four
hundred thousand US dollars at a time. These poor
couriers would freak out if hunger forced them to
take out $10 to buy a meal. They also suffered
serious anxiety as they neared their destinations,
customs and immigration regulations being what they
are.
Raja Ji still pursues his traditional role of
schmoozing, wining, dining and flattering rich
premies to extract $$$ from them for the family
coffers. This is not always successful, as some of
these people have class, and Raja Ji is a rather
gauche character.
Having seen things from the inside, I'm still
kind of shattered that thousands of innocent
premies around the West think this thing is about
Knowledge, love and the rest. It's a family
business, and it's about money. Every recent Indian
guru is the same: Sai Baba, Mukhtananda and Osho
all trade(d) their spiritual credentials (which,
like Maharaji's, are mostly faked anyway), and a
convincing stage act, for cash payments from
westerners who see themselves as spiritually
impoverished.
Money is the main game, but these people also
get side-benefits from devotees, such as sex: Sai
Baba gives oral sex to adolescent boys in the guise
of some ceremony; Mukhtananda was well-known for
raping adolescent girls in the guise of
transferring 'shakti'; and Osho (a.k.a. Shri
Rajneesh) would bonk anything that moved - telling
his credulous followers that sex and enlightenment
were more or less the same thing.
Most of the above tolerate(d) abusive sexual
behaviour by their lieutenants - most frequently
child sexual abuse. Sound familiar?
On the home front, the thing that concerns me
most - as both a very-recently-ex-EV international
organizer and as a human being - is the sexual
antics of the instructors.
The sexual frustration of the instructors is not
something (thank God) I've experienced firsthand -
but it is a kind of epidemic. Numerous premie women
I know are molested, propositioned, pursued and
worse by instructors, in many countries.
Because these guys - many of whom I've known
since the early 1970s - have never grown within a
normal relationship, their approach to women now is
highly dysfunctional and dishonest. I can't bring
myself to name individuals - doing so would tarnish
some of EV's brightest lights, of longest-standing.
And they're mostly still my friends.
We all got each other into the M cult - and now
we're forming networks and giving support as, one
by one, each individual is plucked out of it. So
even the sexually abusive instructors - and that's
the majority of those I know - are people I'd like
to help out the door, rather than simply attack and
discredit them.
Having said that, this policy will change and
names will be named, and incidents described in all
their shameful, gory detail, if these practices
continue. (And believe me, I know so many of the
heartbroken women involved that I will definitely
find out.)
Too many women have been damaged by these serial
womanisers/gropers/molesters (who lie to their
current woman about their affairs with women in
other 'ports') to allow this 'epidemic' to
continue. This is not abuse a la Jagdeo - but it is
playing with people's feelings in a callous,
chronic way.
I hope it's really clear that I'm going to blow
the whistle on these people if this doesn't change.
I don't want to hurt anyone - but at the same time
unless these guys start to grow a bit, they'll
continue hurting innocent, vulnerable girls all
over the planet. And there's none so vulnerable as
a woman who believes in the myth of 'Maharaji's
instructors'.
I should make it equally clear that I'm not
talking about equal, consensual, honest
relationships - e.g. Sampuranand and Bai Ji. And
I'm not talking about some occasional on-the-road
flings - we've all had those. I'm talking about
using women as sexual playthings, and serial
dishonesty, Maharaji-style.
People around Maharaji (PAMs) get into power
trips and bullying - the well-known 'mini-Maharaji'
syndrome. Many PAMs drink a lot (or are
alcoholics), just like the Master: throwing up on
the way back to your tent after a night drinking
with M around the campfire is not exactly
unknown.
Similarly, just like Maharaji, some instructors
have misused their status for sexual gain.
At the very least these instructors need to get
counselling on how to form normal relationships.
Ideally this counselling will take place post-K -
because the inherently dysfunctional master-student
relationship is the fertile soil from which
dysfunctional approaches to women grow.
A post-Knowledge setting for this kind of change
is important, not only because Knowledge tends to
replace/reduce normal growth, but because EV will
never act against this sort of behaviour. The
system thus encourages it.
When reports are made (which is rare), EV takes
no action. The only exception was when an
instructor had to be spirited out of Australia some
years ago following a sexual incident: otherwise
EV's record is of no response, no action, no
attempt to assist the women involved, and no
attempt to change the climate which gives rise to
the incidents.
(In recent years policies have been written on
sexual harassment. Believe me, they don't apply to
M or the instructors.)
M's attitudes to women don't help much either.
He once told a group of us at Amaroo that he wanted
to gather all the girls with 'good tits' at one end
of the property, and all the girls with 'bad tits'
at the other end. In his public satsangs he
frequently uses the example of when 'you come home
from a hard day's work and your wife doesn't have
dinner on the table in time' and the like. I'm not
wild about PC myself, but this sort of thinking
surely belongs in the 1950s.
I've learned recently from a PAM friend that the
closest inner circle of PAMs - e.g. the permanent
personal staff, those in the personal (now known as
the 'executive') area at Amaroo, the airliner staff
- have been trained to deceive Maharaji's wife in
the Monica matter.
For example if Marolyn enquires as to whether
Monica is present in Maharaji's campground with him
- and she is indeed there - these staff have been
instructed to tell Marolyn that she is not. If
Maharaji and Monica are staying in a hotel
together, Marolyn is to be given the same line. I
was surprised by this at first, as Marolyn has
obviously known about Monica for some years. I can
only presume that the depth and extent of
Maharaji's relationship with Monica is what is
being kept secret from his wife, via these
institutionalised deceptions.
It doesn't paint a pretty picture of Maharaji -
but it makes the inner sanctum staff look even
worse, IMO. It's a stark illustration of how one's
values can deteriorate when one is focussed on the
'greater good' of keeping the Living Master.
Such training also furthers the climate of
deceit about this relationship. Even until the
mid-1990s, Monica was telling me, when she entered
an area where M was, that she was joining him to
'show him the latest videos' from Visions. As if
everyone didn't know.
The deceit - sorry, 'confidentiality' - is
pervasive: the Monica thing is just the most
visible example.
The Indian premies, for instance, don't know
that Maharaji eats meat, drinks and smokes - let
alone that he has selected premie women from the
audience for his sexual use. It would be a huge
cultural leap for them to accept him if they found
this out. Most would leave.
For this reason Maharaji's lifestyle is kept top
secret in India. Even in the West, no Indian
premies (other than x-rated ones like Sampur) are
allowed to do service in the personal area or
Maharaji's kitchen, specifically because of the
effect that learning of Maharaji's lifestyle would
have on them.
****************************************xxxxxx
'Today's cults know how to effectively implant
vivid negative images deep
within members' unconscious minds, making it
impossible for the member to
even conceive of ever being happy and successful
outside of the group. When
the unconscious is programmed to accept the
negative images, it behaves as
though they were true. The unconscious mind is made
to contain a substantial
image-bank of all the bad things that will occur if
anyone should ever
betray the group.' - Steven Hassan
By the late 1990s, EPO was starting to crack
through the dynamic described by Hassan - showing
just how powerful the Internet is. Premies were
reading posts and journeys from people they'd once
known and trusted - people who had left Maharaji,
and left knowledge, but - unaccountably - had not
turned into rotten vegetables. People started to
leave. One of these was the woman assigned by the
PR team to monitor the Forum, amusingly enough.
To counter the rising problem of EPO, M had
spent a log time trashing the Web - calling it, for
example, 'the world wide parking lot'. This didn't
work: premies got wired as much and as
enthusiastically as everyone else.
So the decision was made by Maharaji in July '98
to inaugurate an EV website. Mark Winter in the UK
was given the task. The publicly stated reason for
Enjoying Life was to propagate K and give premies a
chance to express gratitude. Maharaji confided to
the group responsible for it that the site's real
purpose was to counter the anti-M sites - EPO
basically.
Latitude was given to Mark W in creating the
site - i.e. premies were allowed/encouraged to
diverge from the party-line devotional blather and
mention problems they might have had getting their
minds around Knowledge, and even a few jokes passed
by the censors. That was to give the Enjoying Life
site a bit of the 'realism' or rawness that
traditional EV propaganda has usually lacked - and
which EPO has in abundance.
The Enjoying Life site was basically established
as EPO's online competitor. In October 98, M told
me he was extremely pleased with the result: I saw
his Net-phobia evaporate overnight.
********************************************
'The most curious part of the thing was, that
the trees and the other things round them never
changed their places at all: however fast they
went, they never seemed to pass anything. 'I wonder
if all the things move along with us?' thought poor
puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her
thoughts, for she cried, 'Faster! Don't try to
talk!''
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
EV has nearly come to a halt at the present.
Less people have received Knowledge in the West in
the past year than in any year since 1971 - a
30-year low.
Currently there is a participation drought
throughout the West. People are pulling back, and
getting on with their real lives. EV is being run
by some of the old stalwarts, but the future of
both the organisation's structure and the personnel
who run it is uncertain. For once this is not
because of mass burn-outs or M's habit of firing
personnel left, right and center - it's because of
a withdrawal of groundtroops.
In Australia, the jewel in M's crown, Amaroo is
apparently laying off staff, and activty is very
low due to lack of funds. It's not clear who's
going to be running the country's organisation
overall. This follows a recent move by Derek Harper
(instructor), Lee Marges and Catherine Gavigan
(organisers) to oust Kay McKinnon (Pacific
contact). It was generally believed that her
$50,000+ annual salary could be better spent
elsewhere.
Kay McKinnon has survived for now, but that
status is far from certain for even the
middle-term. (A lot of people have been bucking for
her to be booted for years.) Thus no-one down under
really knows how to begin planning for the
organisation's future.
Ironically, all this happens against a backdrop
of Maharaji's statement to the rich guys at the
Arizona conference last month that he 'wants the
politics to stop'.
The politics in EV can never stop, as it's
created by imprisoning people's democratic
instincts within a top-down theocratic heirarchy:
Maharaji, his family, PAMs, instructors,
organisers, groundtroops and church ladies. Thus
there will always be tension between instinct,
conscience and common sense on the one side, and
the uncomfortable, ultimately inhuman imperatives
of the master-student relationship on the
other.
In kicking against this spirit-shrivelling
dynamic in themselves, EV people also kick against
each other - for they generally project the problem
outward. Thus other organisers - but not me - are
'petty', 'insensitive', 'manipulative' and
'power-hungry'.
In a normal organisation this could be ironed
out with psychological growth. In one where the
expansive behind of the Living Master of The Time
sits like a lava plug on the volcano of our
emotion, self-expression and individuality, it
wasn't possible. So EV has seen nearly three
decades of revolutions, changes in style and
terminology, trainings, team-building programs,
workshops, conferences, mutinies and purges - and
everything stays the same.
'Direction is essential for the continuing
existence of the crowd. Its
constant fear of disintegration means that it will
accept any goal. A crowd
exists so long as it has an unattained goal.' -
Elias Canetti
The politics M is trying to amputate has been
endemic to EV for 30 years. It's getting more petty
and vicious - not less - as the caliber of those
remaining dwindles, and EV's pool of available
managerial talent shrinks.
The secrecy is getting tighter too. Throughout
the West people are getting really sick of the
endless emphasis on 'confidentiality' - i.e.
secrecy. In some places people have to sign
confidentiality agreements before they can even do
service. Managers and local contacts are starting
to feel they're not able to share much with the
groundtroops and church ladies any more, and they
feel guilty when they do. (When you sin against the
government, a corporation or even your family it's
one thing: but sinning against The Living Master an
the Whole Purpose of Existence is another.)
I wonder how long the loyal Valerio will want to
keep cleaning up the psychological messes created
by the unreal relationships we premies have with M.
Having been to several of V's trainings, I can
vouch that he's a great trainer. But all the
trainings, and the 'emergencies' Valerio is
responsible for dealing with, will not do more than
deal with symptoms - keep the lid on short-term.
The basic dynamic needs to change. People need to
create proper lives for themselves in the real
world, and more importantly create proper inner
lives for themselves.
It's pretty obvious that most people who leave K
start 'moving' in their relationships, careers,
etc, better than before, when they were in the
golden cage. But maybe the biggest thing is
realising that the INNER life is better without
Knowledge, and without Maharaji. Cleaner, happier,
more even, more concrete.
I've been on the phone in recent weeks to old
friends who have done this. Sadly, I cut them off
when they did - but now contact has been
reestablished it's great. These guys have ended up
happy. Those who've stayed have just got more and
more stunted. I felt it in myself till I got
out.
Look around. EV is a psychic graveyard. And it's
not because people have not done enough
trainings.
****************************************xxxxx
'The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide
a medium of expression for
the world-view and mental habits proper to the
devotees of Ingsoc, but to
make all other modes of thought impossible. It was
intended that when
Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and
Oldspeak forgotten, a
heretical thought (that is, a thought diverging
from the principles of
Ingsoc) should be literally unthinkable.' - George
Orwell, 1984
One of the things I have found most surprising
since leaving is that so few people followed orders
to hand in the DLM magazines in the late 1970s.
Ex-premies everywhere still have piles of them. The
attempt to re-program us away from our early
history - when Maharaji was God, his brothers
divine incarnations, and we an elect group more or
less guaranteed salvation - was thus a failure.
Probably one of the worst aspects of the attempt
to re-write history is the claim by Maharaji and EV
that the Indian concepts of the 1970s were
promulgated by the mahatmas, and that M had no role
in this. In reality, one thing that M aways had
direct control over - even as a teenager - was the
activities of the mahatmas and instructors.
And of course this is relevant not just to the
'Indian concepts' debate. It's highly relevant to
the Jagdeo affair.
Even Glen Whittaker, who hasn't strayed from the
reservation in 30 years, believes Maharaji's
refusal to deal with the Jagdeo's sexual abuses
years ago - when he was given the opportunity - was
a grave miscalculation. Both he and Mark Winter are
very pissed at M for this, as they had to pick up
the PR mess years down the track - a mess M could
have prevented by exercising some responsibility
several years ago.
Running an 'apologise and explain' PR exercise
for a master who shelters a child molester is
hardly the kind of dream service for which these
extremely sincere guys joined up at the start of
the 1970s.
I've known Glen since the early 1970s, and he is
a decent, friendly guy. He'll probably be manning
the bridge on the good ship EV as it sinks beneath
the waves in about 2005, such is his loyalty to M.
But he is nevertheless disappointed with M over
this affair. And if Glen's disappointed, you can
imagine how others feel.
Glen believes that Jagdeo did commit the sexual
abuse he is accused of - though he personally
didn't know about it before the revelations of the
last two years.
Others did, however. Jagdeo's crimes have been
known about within EV, and by Maharaji, for more
than 20 years. For instance there was a high-level
meeting about Jagdeo's sexual abuse of children in
1980. Jagdeo appeared to have abused the child of a
premie (a woman) then living in Florida. The woman
was extremely wound up about it, and the instructor
Maria Isabella - among others - was brought in to
try and deal with her.
Then as now, Maharaji had a very direct control,
and a very thorough knowledge, of the activities of
his instructors. In fact he controlled this aspect
of his organisation more closely than any other.
It's inconceivable that Maharaji was not aware of
Jagdeo's activities then. But he chose not to act,
beyond having the matter hushed up.
The seachange finally took place when the
revelations on EPO became too hard to ignore -
especially in the UK. On January 22, 2000, Glen
Whittaker wrote an official EV UK communication to
Deepak (DUO India chief), informing him of the
basic facts, and inquiring as to Jagdeo's
whereabouts. It was realised that the Jagdeo
'problem' had the potential for unraveling things
badly in the UK, because Maharaji's fingerprints
were all over the cover-up.
The revelations on EPO and the forum re Jagdeo's
sexual abuse were the PR emergency of the decade
for EV. I think what's happened since then is
fairly well-known by people here. I'm fairly sure
the civil action in India was devised as a 'blind'
- to pacify critics with the appearance of action,
and to reduce the chances of Jagdeo ever having to
appear in a British courtroom.
Glen wasn't involved in having the Jagdeo story
suppressed in the Express - though he wasn't
exactly on the side of the angels either. (When
others found out about what Maharaji had permitted
to happen, they left the cult - they didn't stay on
to defend the indefensible.)
EV's current read on the evil exes is that a
kind of impasse has been reached: damage has been
done, but there's not much more they can do, with
Jagdeo in India. He'll never be allowed to set foot
in the West again of course.
The rules of the recent trainings are:
10 second rule
conscious
respect
confidentiality
honesty
participate
unanimous
no brain farts
no dark thoughts
But the rule underlying all of these - at least
the trainings I went to - was RESPONSIBILITY.
People who didn't take responsibility for their
actions were absolutely stomped on by M. I saw
hard-boiled businessmen stumbling around in the
Delhi dust in shock, and non-smokers take up
smoking, after some of his temper explosions around
the question of responsibilty. People were
terrified: it is no exaggeration to say that some
shook from head to foot. Many probably thought the
sky was about to fall in.
How does that all square with sitting on his
hands since the late 1970s, when he was first
informed of Jagdeo's criminal activities? Maybe
Perfect Masters are somehow exempt from preventing
child sexual abuse, because they have their eye on
some larger karmic scene which is invisible to the
rest of us? Believe that and you may as well
believe in the tooth fairy.
On a recent Delhi trip, I chatted with Jagdeo in
the IOC, in the centre of the ashram - where we
were both staying. He is not a 'sick old man'
living in retirement in an Indian village. He is
sprightly, reasonably fit-looking, and till
recently at least had access to the centre of
things in DUO India - maybe still does. He also
still has access to children - was indeed spotted
fondly patting one in the IOC in the last year or
two - though I have no evidence that he is sexually
abusing same, and hopefully this is unlikely after
all the bad publicity.
The Jagdeo affair is a towering example of the
corruption that's set into the heart of what I
believe to have, once, been a genuine attempt to
help the world. That M is so central to Jagdeo's
crimes continuing is, alone, reason enough for me
to leave. There isn't a rationalization in the
world that excuses complicity in raping children.
That my friends continue to defend M in this
respect seriously stretches my respect for
them.
****************************************xxxx
'The disciple is unworthy; modestly he sits at
the Master's feet and guards
against having ideas of his own. Mental laziness
becomes a virtue; one can
at least bask in the sun of a semi-divine being. He
can enjoy the archaism
and infantilism of his unconscious fantasies
without loss to himself, for
all responsibility is laid at the Master's door.' -
C.G. Jung
'Guru does not deal with us as father or as
friend, but as children. As children.' -
Maharaji
The first seed of doubt was sown in my mind in
1997. In LA toward the end of that year, Maharaji
was depressed for two or three months - right
through till Christmas. I was quite shocked by
this.
Things had upset M at the end of the 1997 Amaroo
event - like a cow getting into his private
campground and shitting in front of his doorway.
Everybody certainly heard about that: 'I almost
stood in it!'
(Not a cow shits without...)
Also he was stopped by some security person on a
road for not having a pass. Finally, the
schizophrenic son of two premies dropped some acid,
then wandered into his campground for a chat at the
doorstep to the divine pent. M's radio calls to the
security personnel were misunderstood, and people
raced all over the property - except to where the
problem was. His final radio call was pretty
testy.
But the thing that made him the most pissed was
an article that appeared in an Aussie newspaper. I
think it said that he was a rich guru who did
rather well financially out of his devotees, or
words to that effect. Not something you could
actually argue with. He was really angry at the PR
team for not somehow stopping that article from
appearing.
And I remember thinking - before I could censor
myself in the time-honored premie way: 'Why doesn't
he alter his own behavior if he wants to stop
articles like that from appearing?' The article
just described the luxury homes, the jet, etc, as
far as I can recall. All of these things are M's
lifestyle choices - not things invented by a
malicious journalist.
Naturally the PR team accepted the spears in the
chest, and various post-mortems were done to ensure
they performed better next time.
NB: After this episode of divine depression in
1997, I logged onto the forum, and it definitely
caused some drips. But there was so much invective
here that I decided it was safer and saner in EV.
(Which is really saying something.) The forum is
still too abusive and unsafe for many people to
belong. Several have left the forum for the same
reason. There is a frequent tendency for angry and
abusive people to dominate the debate, to shout
down those who disagree with them, and to spray the
forum with dozens of posts.
On balance, the forum is a great boon to the ex
world. But unless the above problem is somehow
redressed, it will never attract a wide variety or
large number of exes.
****************************************xxxxx
'Who is Guru? The highest manifestation of God
is Guru... Remember, Guru is God. Bigger than God.
Bigger and bigger than God... So, see that if you
want to give devotion, give it to Guru. You will
find that Guru is the Supremest of all. It is said
that 'In a day I should bow many thousands,
thousands, thousands, thousands, millions, millions
and millions of times to Satguru.' Such a high
thing, such a high power, has come. I was seeking
for God, but God has come in body! What can be
higher and holier than that?' - Maharaji
'Who says I am not under the special protection
of God?' - Adolph Hitler
It's fairly well-known that the people around
Maharaji tend to be heavy-drinking and competitive,
and to engage in internicine warfare. (They even
joke about it themselves.) They're also frequently
ill physically. Indeed most of the half-dozen
people closest to M are physical wrecks. I think a
lot of this comes from the chronic fear in which
PAMs live - fear of displeasing the superior power
in person.
The majority of people who have been in
Maharaji's company for prolonged periods no longer
acknowledge him as their master. The 'loyal'
exceptions - e.g. Marolyn, Monica, Sampur -
generally have an economic or power benefits to
keep them in the fold longer-term.
****************************************xxxxx
'When you meet the friendliest people you have
ever known, who introduce you to the most loving
group of people you've ever encountered, and you
find the leader to be the most inspired, caring,
compassionate and understanding person you've
ever met, and then you learn that the cause of the
group is something you
never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of
this sounds too good to
be true, it probably is too good to be true! Don't
give up your education,
your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow.' -
Jeanne Mills, former member of the People's
Temple.
At the recent event down at Amaroo, there were
serious financial losses from a malfunctioning
credit card system - people's purchases didn't
register. In the months before the event there was
a premie revolt over the huge registration fees.
Not long before the event only a few hundred had
registered. Panic set in, and Padarthanand was sent
on the road to explain how the fee wasn't mandatory
after all(!) Thereafter, a large number of people
were admitted for free.
The upshot is that the Amaroo finances are not
in good shape. Some of the premies whose loans and
mortgages support its existence are getting a bit
sweaty-palmed.
The official story on the 2001 event is that it
was all sweetness and light. But the usual brawls
went on. Most of the tent-erecting team mutinied
before the event, because of a 'fascist' manager.
(It could have been 1974.) The manual workers,
without whom the event wouldn't have happened, were
kicked off the site at event time, as usual, which
caused lots of bad feeling. Probably they'll all
swallow it, and come back next year for more. Then
complain again when the predictable happens.
Serious intra-managerial disputes lingered on
from the Sept 2000 fundraising event, where several
relationships melted down amid that event's howling
dust-storms, especially in the front-of-house area
- which has always been a major source of potential
revenue, thus the importance of cohesion there.
Attending the Sept '00 fundraiser, the thing I
enjoyed most was the bar at night - watching Yoram
work the room (that guy should work for the GOP)
and catching up with old friends.
Valerio didn't get the respect during the day
(the training) that he gets from poorer, community
premies: these guys are rich, and aren't used to
being patronized and belittled. He got put in his
place a couple of times - though the training as a
whole was fun and educational.
Now, a year later, the defections of
higher-level managers - some of them from K and M
altogether - have left thinned-out upper EV
echelons, and people are doing senior jobs who
would not have been considered five years ago.
There have been worried discussions about the
quality of the folks who are now in quite senior
managerial positions.
********************************************x
'A striking expression, with the aid of a small
amount of truth, can
surprise us into accepting a falsehood.' -
Vauvenargues
I'd guess that the disgraceful CAC site was
M-approved, simply because every major venture of
premies without exception is M-approved.
(Not a penny drops...)
A PR friend told me that the American premie
writer Scott Ritter (he's currently hanging out
down under I think) was deputized by the
international team, earlier this year, to help come
up with an online antidote to EPO that used
'radical new thinking'.
Scott, I gather, was stymied by this. How could
you shoot down so many well-attested facts? I woud
surmise that CAC was born out of this
frustration.
Personally I think Scott is too nice to have
created CAC, but the fact that he was put on the
case this year suggests that an offical concern
about EPO had reached sufficient heights for
radical action to be taken - by someone. And taken
it was.
One reason CAC was pulled, I would guess, was
that it was causing so much disgust even among the
senior EV managers. Giving away exes' family's
addresses, and tarring exes as pedophiles, is about
as low as it gets: even the brainwashed have
standards.
The big-eating Frenchman would have kept this
operation under the tightest of wraps, were it an
officially sanctioned one. Even most of the PR team
probably wouldn't have been told it was sanctioned
by M - let alone anyone else.
All the above re CAC is speculation - though not
unreasonable speculation. It certainly fits with
EV's pro-active pattern on the Internet since EPO
began, of countering it. First came the large
technical task of 'influencing' search engines so
that search words like 'Maharaji' and 'Elan Vital'
brought up the official sites first and the anti
ones last. That job was done by an Australian
techie in the late 1990s, and took him many months.
Then Enjoying Life. Then Life's Great - which
reversed the original policy of censoring premies.
CAC kind of fits with a developing pattern.
****************************************xxxxx
'A morality based solely upon the tenuous thread
of religious mythology
is only effective for a comparatively primitive
mind, through which God is
invested with magical parental powers of punishment
and reward. As people in
general become emotionally healthier, more able to
individuate from their
parents, the gods become divested of their power to
control.' - Robert Godwin
As we grow away from this old, unhealthy
parental relationship, I hope we exes can also get
away from an adversarial relationship with premies.
Their sins were till recently ours, and their
blindness was ours too.
A master-student dynamic distorts everything
below it, but you don't see that when you're in it.
An exhausted housemother falls asleep in the
meditation room, and someone yells at her. A rich
boy from Hardwar who got very lucky with the
Western zeitgeist wants another Maserati, so
premies forego things they and their children need
to buy it for him. Someone commits suicide in the
ashram, and the premie doctor fakes the death
certificate.
Not things people would normally do - but a cult
provokes deep, strange loyalties, and 'abnormal'
becomes normal. That's what a cult is, pretty much.
We lived within this strange paradigm too. And
accepted it, and propagated it to others.
I think our task is to support each other in
getting out, just as we supported each other on the
way in, and for the duration. I strongly feel that
we're all in it together: some have manned the
lifeboats, and some have even rowed well clear of
the sinking ship. But others are still in the
ballroom listening to the band; and others still
are fast asleep in their staterooms. But everybody
is leaving, one way or another.
It's a co-operative venture. We owe it to the
church ladies, and even to the Glens and Valerios,
to make it that way. If circumstances had been
slightly different, they might be 'out' - building
EPO, securing the safe ground for us to step on -
and we might still be the front row with the arti
trays, like those guys at Amaroo this year -
pledging undying love to the womanizing, alcoholic
Californian multi-millionaire whom we'd persuaded
ourselves was the most important person on Earth -
in blissful ignorance of the impending revival of
the self we'd been taught to despise.
|