MAHARAJ JI DEVOTEE
WASHINGTON - Rennie Davis, often characterized as the most articulate and politically astute of the younger antiwar activists, is back on the speaking circuit. But this time the 32-year old movement veteran has a new message.
He has become a devotee of Guru Maharaj Ji, the 15-year-old Indian spiritual figure whose presence on earth, Davis says with disarming lack of equivocation, is "the most important event in the history of the world."
Elaborating in a long conversation with me earlier this week, he said, "Jesus is back, but this time he's brought his father, and it's revelations time."
As he tells his story, Davis had little awareness that he was on a spiritual pilgrimage when he set out for India last January to check out the claims made on behalf of the guru by his followers. He was merely making the most of a free airplane ticket given him by a wealthy, "spacey" acquaintance who is one of Maharaj Ji's devotees.
Davis went to India generally hostile to what he calls "God-oriented religions," although he had become increasingly interested last year in simple eating, meditation and yoga. He said his experience at Guru Maharaj Ji's ashram in northern Indian resulted in his conversion.
It was evident here last Sunday that Davis' conversion has stirred furious anger among many of his former friends in the movement, particularly in its lefter regions. Many cried "traitor" as he spoke here.
But so far as Davis is concerned the invective was as nothing to him. "You feel you're invincible, you feel like you've got a Gardol shield all around. I didn't have to meditate on the word that night. The word meditated me."