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Propagation Seminar
in Atlanta, 2000
Maharaji addresses an audience of about 80 to
100 people in a hotel ballroom. The Pewks are
seated around the edges of three sides and Rev
Rawat occupies the fourth side surrounded by an
array of corporate CEO-type sales-hype toys: a
white drawing board, desk with laptop PC, lectern
etc.
He walks around all through the sermon with a
felt-tip pen in his hand acting very dotcommy, with
one hand in his pocket and (I kid you not) his
tongue often in his cheek. He sticks his tongue in
the left cheek pouch between his bottom teeth and
bottom lip whenever he tells a joke or says
something which he thinks is profound or clever.
While doing this fifth technique he is pulling a
face which I think is meant to be a kooool
California smile or perhaps a Bush-lite smirk.
The sermon is about the who, what, how of
propagating Knowledge. Examples:
''Should everybody have Knowledge?'' He asks and
puts his tongue in his cheek.
Then he looks at audience mischievously smirks
and says: ''I see some of you nodding and others
shaking their heads.''
He then does not answer the question (as he
never does answer any questions) but non-sequiturs
into another topic.
He blames the mahatmas for introducing Hinduism
and says that it is not fair to blame him for this
as some people do because he has said from the
beginning that it is not a religion. He speaks as
if the audience knows of the criticisms being
levelled at him. The audience is after all quite
exclusive, mostly rich Pewks and industrial
strength church ladies.
He tells them that the most dangerous time to
talk about Knowledge is when they are ''feeling
that fuzzy feeling, you know the warm fuzzy
feeling.'' He then says that it is dangerous
because they will introduce concepts about who
Maharaji is and that they should have NO concepts
about the Master neither about what he is or isn't.
And that they do not have to exaggerate his
accomplishments or importance even if they are
tempted too.
With his last pronouncement he puffs himself up
and grins as the audience applauds. All those
self-conscious flirtatious attention-getting
tactics used to work when he was a chubby pretty
little boy but he is now a dumpy, jowly, pompous
old fool. The whole act comes off as a spin-control
to the share-holders. These Pewks are after all the
financial back-bone of the industry in the west. He
looks like a huckster trying to impress pyramid
scheme suckers that their ''investment'' will pay
off big eventually.
Every five minutes or so he walks over to the
desk and pushes just one key on the laptop then
turns and swivels the pen in the air and says
things like: ''Somewhere in Canada there is one guy
who has shown the most impressive figures so far. I
mean he is bringing more people to Maharaji than
anybody else. How does he do it? Well, let me show
you.''
He goes to the drawing board. It already has a
wobbly circle drawn on it. He draw a small wedge in
the circle with his felt-tip pen and says, ''This
is how small a part actual propagation, introducing
someone to Knowledge for the first time, is. The
rest is keeping them there.''
He then wipes the small wedge out and turns to
the audience with a flourish. They applaud and he
grins from ear to ear having just demonstrated what
a wonderful CEO he really is in that he was able to
draw a wedge inside a pre-drawn circle and then
erase it.
''So how does this guy do it?'' he asks; ''What
is he doing right that make his figures the most
impressive? Well, apparently this guy has studied
every video in the local library and knows them all
so well that he knows just exactly the right video
to give to the right person to introduce them to
Maharaji. That is the way to propagate
Knowledge.''
Enough already. I have simply written what I saw
not what I was thinking when I saw it. Let it speak
for itself. He is truly an embarassment to
civilized, intelligent people. It is hard to
believe that people like John Horton were in the
audience. Well, actually maybe not. I've known
plenty of other dumb doctors in my 30 years in that
business.
When it is over you come away not having learned
anything. He has not answered any specific
questions. He has told them that everybody should
have Knowledge but that not everybody will be
interested. He has said that they should tell
people about Knowledge but that they should not
talk about it. He has basically again said nothing
as usual - hot air.
But the Pewks got the vibe I guess and that got
them high and they felt so inspired and then they
just wanted to tell everybody the good news when
they got home but of course no one really wanted to
here about a greedy selfish guru and they couldn't
talk about it anyway so it's back to straightening
out white table cloths at the video event held
every week for the one aspirant who does not always
show up.
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