Journeys: BLC


Date: March 5, 2009
Email: None

You mean I'm not really better than everyone else? And, not only am I not better, I'm a total idiot based on my idiotic ideas and concepts? Oh right, we're not supposed to have concepts . Concepts are baaa-ad.

I consider myself a non-practicing premie, going on thirty years, rather than an ex-premie. I don't feel worthy enough for the title "ex-premie," seriously, and certainly do feel worthy of contempt that I could still be sitting on the fence about M and K after all I've read here and been through in my personal life. Certainly, my heart goes out to Abi, Susan and all of the children that have suffered abuse at the hands of their parents placing their "devotion" for M above the welfare of their children. It sickens me the journey story of the daughter of a premie left with her brother and ten dollars in food stamps while their premie mother took off for a festival. I don't mean to blame the abuse all on the premies. Of course they were victims as well, placing their misguided trust in M and his minions. Am I upset that M can just have someone else lift a rug and try to hide this all under it? Hell yes. Something should be done about it. I'm sad and confronted that I don't have what it takes to get that something done, except to write this .

And I have to say at the top, before you get overly bored with my ramblings, that it totally disgusts me the current propaganda that M was "invited" to speak at the UN or Harvard (or the fucking Vatican for all I know) when in fact in each instance a room had been rented there or a premie got a foot in the door to arrange a room for a program. It is so disgusting that he now has to stoop so low to impress the impressionable. Can't he make it on his own true merits, without deceit, or better question: could he ever?

I've always been a half empty type of gal. Lately I've been thinking of pouring my half empty cup of poison out on those around me and just go for 100% empty. It's so easy to blame them - you - all for my frustrated life. Kind of like it's so easy to blame M instead of just taking responsibility for what I've done, or, more pointedly, haven't done, up to this point.

One of my issues, I believe, is just plain ole money. It seems like everyone else just seems to have an infinite fount of it. The lack of it has always terrified me, probably why I don't have any. How the heck can you go back to school at 50 if you're working full time with kids to support and you just go deeper into debt every month because the paycheck just isn't cutting it? You don't. You're trapped and you stay trapped. If anyone knows how to get out of this trap without death or potential jail time being involved, please, I want to hear from you.

I read M. Moore's journey and am I shocked by her portrayal of M? Hell, no! I'm shocked that uneducated, she was able to make 150K a year! Here I am with my degrees working for idiots for less than a third of that. WTF is the matter with me? It's because I was never good enough to be an ashram premie, isn't it? Oh my - where the heck did that come from after all these years!!!

I don't consider myself an ex-premie. I do consider myself a bad-premie because I grew out of being a baaaa-premie. I liken me to being an atheist who clings to being an agnostic, just in case.


Okay, I'm getting to it - my Journey:

I received knowledge on December 21, 1977, the darkest day of the year, after a ten-month rocky aspiranthood. I was nineteen at the time and it's amazing how 10 months back then would seem like ten years now to my older self. I was special and was the only person in my knowledge session - pretty unheard of at the time. And guess what? For all my love, devotion and surrender, I just freaking fried in that knowledge session! Sitting there hour after hour just sucked. I experienced doo-doo. For the next four years I had a down-right roller coaster ride premiehood - the highest highs, the lowest lows - to ashram or not to ashram, that was the question.

I didn't originally come to knowledge because of a spiritual yearning or to make the world a better place - surprise! I came because my new premie boyfriend, at the time, was hot. This was back in the fall of 1976. He lived in a premie house and I was going to college in the area, and well, I was eighteen and he was hot. It pretty much came down to if I didn't get into knowledge, he wouldn't get into me (double entendre duly noted). He flat out told me that.

Anyone else been threatened into receiving knowledge? Funny enough, I'm sure there are. Anyway, that's how it started for me. There is absolutely no way my half empty cup, cynical, pessimistic, shallow, aren't-I-pretty?, but strong-minded self would have gotten into this insipid dewy dew drops, flower opening, not a leaf falls, pussy vegetarian shit if it wasn't for the hot premie boyfriend's ultimatum. Whatever it takes, I suppose. It must have been grace.

I think the indoctrination of guilt into the practice of knowledge was really heavy back in my late-70s hey-day of practice. Always strong minded, I just wasn't buying into the 1980 shit that if you didn't live in an ashram, you were a second-rate premie and that M had said so in some super-secret, hush hush, for-ashram-only satsung. Not to mention, my new premie boyfriend/future husband was the first decent lover I'd ever had so the ashram did not stand a chance. Back in '81 I had the choice of moving to LA to finally live in an ashram or staying where I was and having great sex. Given the choices, in retrospect, it was a no brainer.

My big drip of doubt was the video distributed in '80 or '81 with M basically saying Ashram premies were more devoted than non-ashram. I really had problems with this because (1) my concept of M (my imaginary friend, I guess) would never say this; (2) this was utter nonsense which confronted me with the fact that M could be wrong; (3) it sickened me the way so many ramers took this to heart and lorded it over us supposedly less devoted non-ramers; (4)I felt (hell, I KNEW) I was at least as devoted as any fucking ramer; and last but probably most important, (5) it was M directly doing the dumb deed - no question at all that it started with him and trickled down. HE STARTED IT. I COULDN'T JUSTIFY IT ANYMORE THAT IT WAS HIS ORGANIZATION AND NOT HIM FUCKING UP. Hell, I could do more SS&M than the best of them! I was a freaking surrendered guiding light! M was fucking stupid and wrong! And then to shut the Rams down just 2 years later? WTF? Where would I have been had I pulled up all my roots and gone to LA? I probably would have been really, really pissed off and in search of the nearest McDonald's! Instead, I got to have a good laugh and got drunk off my sour grapes turned to wine.

Anyway, by '80-'81, I'd spaced into said new premie boyfriend, future husband and we pretty much spaced out of knowledge and into each other for the next 30 years with a handful of programs and four kids in between. We'd actually gone to the same high school, graduated the same year and didn't meet till years later in satsung. LOL!, our oldest daughter is a West Point graduate. She says getting through that school was easy compared to living with us. But that's a whole nother story and I've barely gotten around to telling this one - probably because there's not much to tell.

I used to feel guilty not bringing my kids up to know M. Now I thank my lucky stars. I recall feeling bad and even scared when my son was born when I realized that I loved him more than M. I worried that I or my kid would pay for this misplaced, lack of devotion. I could actually say he has, I suppose, if I really bought into this superstitious rot and really believed M to be more than the poorly educated, alcoholic opportunist that he is. Now I look back and thank god I was a lousy devotee and put my children first. Life is so full of irony, isn't it?

When I eventually heard the ashrams had closed down, I was vindictively delighted. I guess we were all now second-rate premies. Hahaha, luv them sour grapes! I remember interviewing at one point in 1978 to move into a big city ashram and being told "I wasn't strong enough." Yet somehow, I was strong enough to continue to live in the darkness and practice knowledge and give at least 10%, I cleaning the ashram for service while living on the fringe of the fringe? What a backwards logic that somehow makes sense (I think I just succinctly defined f**ked up!)!!! At the time, I was making good money as a waitress. In retrospect, I guess I should have mentioned that in my interview.

It's not lost on me that I'm here sharing my angst about not being good enough for the ashram - I didn't even know I had this issue until I started writing - with so many who were formally the worthy. So is it logical now you should be more messed up then me and I should not be bitter about that? No, I got more f**ked up, No I did, I DID!!!!


Residuals and random wanderings -

Yes, nothing abrupt, just a drifting off into other things. But residuals are subtle, like low self esteem and surrender. Surrendering to an overbearing boyfriend, surrendering to a low paying job to gurulike bosses. Putting up with humiliating situations in the workplace that no other unpremiefied person would put up with. All because, I believe, my training under M and K. This was really confronting to realize - almost 30 years after dashing out of the barn - that I'm still fucked up because of M and K.

And that's another thing - accepting that it's not totally my fault instead of my usual hard core line 'Take responsibility for your own actions' - it is your own fault.

I'm still trapped by all this craziness is the bottom line. And yeah, I need help to get out. I have to face I can't do it on my own anymore. I have to face that I was in as well because how can you get out of something you feel you weren't really in?

I keep coming back to taking responsibility for my own life. How can I blame M for how my life turned out? I think I'm ultimately to blame or reward. Sometimes, tho, it feels so good, if indulgent, to blame someone else. Freeing. At least now that I'm "in my mind" I can take credit for the good and the bad instead of just the bad and somehow the good is by M's grace. How stupid can I be to fall for that hook, line and sinker? And thank you Mick, if you read this. I know I'm not an important defector but I do appreciate your book recommendations, particularly "Self Esteem" by McCay. I think one thing all premies, ex, bad, non-practicing, sanctimonious foot kissers, et al., have in common is low self esteem. Everyone should turn this book into their bible. A little healthy transference, if you ask me.

One thing I do strongly feel is the responsibility of M - the concept that this is all an illusion. Why? Because at the young age of 19 I was able to jump from this to the conclusion that nothing matters a damn since all roads lead to death. Hard to feel motivated with that as your main perspective.

Never underestimate the power of mind controlling a crowd. Hitler didn't and neither does M.

'Not a blade of grass moves without GMJ's permission.' HAHAHA. I just déjà vued on this from Seymour's Journey. It's so hard to believe that we took, at least I did, this so literally. And who wouldn't have it ingrained in them after singing Arti for the tenth gazzillionth time? I'm sure party line now would be GMJ in the general sense, not necessarily the person. And yet isn't that what we were expected to believe? Oh oops, we weren't expected to believe anything. Which brings up the other blast from the past saying - 'no chit-chat.' How con-ven-ient!

I remember buying into the 'not a leaf falls' concept as an aspirant. It was so freeing to not be responsible for anything, to be able to do whatever I wanted because obviously it was his agya as long as I was headed toward him. I didn't have to do shit! He'd do it all for me!! No more WASP guilt!!! I remember Jackie Murphy, PAM chef Dennis's sister, setting me straight after an aspirant sat sung with a stinging "You know, that's a jerky thing to think. You have to put out the effort." That's always stuck with me through all facets of my life. Jackie if you're still out there, thank you. It's still hits me as ironic that my jerky thing to think came right from the ultimate jerk's mouth. It's the ultimate dysfunctional family, isn't it? Except somehow, we're supposed to go beyond what he says to some unsayable sayable. What I bunch of shit.

Frankly, I don't care if you've been meditating nonstop since you first received knowledge and you've properly surrendered and continue to surrender everything you own to the already stinking rich prince of peace and if you consider the rape of your children at the hand of a mahatma as a blessed opportunity for surrender and recognizing maya, if you lived in the ashram until the day they closed and were then grateful for your newest opportunity for surrender, if you gave up all your idols and relics when requested and have since memorized every web cast. I'll bet your "experience" of knowledge has been, at it's very best, SHALLOW. How can I say this? Because if you'd really "seen the light, " if you'd really "gone with the flow," you wouldn't be here to tell about it. You would have really gone with the flow. If M had really experienced it, he'd be long gone too. How do I know? Because I went crazy surrendered at one point and sat down to meditate and in a split second of a split second I started to go and my buddy my mind had the sense to go we ain't going there yet and come back here, kid. And I sat there and fried with the knowledge of my shallow experience and everyone else's ever since.

When I think back on some premies getting up and blatantly lying about their experiences in satsung it is no surprise to me the M basically told us all to shut the fuck up. When he closed down the ashrams, I'd already drifted away and heard about it years later, I was sour grapes happy when I remember the shit I used to get about aren't I devoted enough to M, why don't I live in one? Um, because I like to fuck, get cravings for McDonald's and take vows seriously? Unlike most of the stronger, more devoted followers, I knew I wasn't good enough. And as it turns out, I wasn't deluded or hypocritical enough either. I laughed my head off when I found out the ashrams closed down!!! I was drunk on my sour grapes! I actually went to another program and took up practicing for a while after I heard that! Of course it was all the asshole premie hierarchy at fault, it couldn't be my beloved M!!!!

I guess I still have issues, huh?


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