Journeys: Kerry Gray


Date: March 29, 2002
Email: evolve{at}netspace.net.au

I am retelling my Journey story with my real name. I've just been through a couple of months thinking, questioning and pulling apart my past mindset about being a premie.

My exit away from Maharaji, knowledge and EV was a gradual process. It's only recently, finally, that am I processing the transition. I thank those longer-term premies who seem to have taken the ex-press route out.

I received knowledge in 1975, a teenager. I was a service, satsang and meditation (SSM) twice a day type of premie until 1979, then I was a party hard and experience life type premie until 1983, then basically I bailed out of SSM (accept for emergency doses of meditation) but still went to see M. when he came to Australia. By 1997 I well and truly had to ask myself who I was kidding - I couldn't really call myself a premie. It was over.

Ironically it was a rare business encounter with a staunch premie where I learned of "the anti Maharaj ji website". He seemed upset. Who cares I thought, it's past history. Funny how the brain works – that wonderful human curiosity. A few months ago I found EPO.

Well I've really gone through a wide range of emotions, feelings and thoughts - that surprised me at first. I've had quite a few years to be philosophical about my involvement, so it's easy to say I don't have any real regrets about my time spent as a premie. It was fun, educational. I made friends and idols. Knowledge had been my catalyst to looking inward.

I was nearly going to say Knowledge helped me keep an open mind and heart, as well as an ability to reflect and learn from reflection, but that just isn't true. It was walking away from Knowledge that opened my mind and heart, all I had in the end was my ability to reflect and learn from reflection. Thinking has been good for me. Creative inspiration is better than meditation. I began to grow when I stopped practising Knowledge.

What does it all mean” What about all those moments of deep profundity – was it all an illusion? Some things seemed real. I saw light, the boing-buzz sound inside my head, drifted off on my breath, and tasted nectar. I don't really know what that was all about. I wanted it to be life changing, enlightening. It was I suppose, but not according to M's plan.

EPO's article describing the process of 'coming to Knowledge' fits me well. I wanted the privelege of being initiated into the mystery. I moved into an AMP house! I did service. I was so sincere. After about 6 months I went to a 'Kn.session' and yes it was 'amazing' but in hindsight perhaps I was so keyed up that even a fart would have been nectar. I remember though, that first night when I sat down to meditate all by myself, I was thinking, 'this is subtle, oh boy I'm in big trouble'. It was scary but the long months of aspirant preparation for the 'mind' backlash saw me through. Even if I wasn't good at meditation there was devotion, so I moved into the Ashram.

The innocent new premie phase ended. Virginity gone.

Many things don't sit comfortably with me, didn't back then. I saw and experienced mounds of bullshit in DLM/EV. To be honest a part of me doesn't want to look at it. Why? Because I imbibed and regurgitated that same shite. While living in the ashram I did full-time service in DLM's national headquarters. Nice people maybe, but ... it was a trip - pretty hard not to have a 'smug' mind and ego some of the time. Toward the end of this period 'bad' Bob M. jumped ship. It had a strange impact in Australia. The ashrams closed down. All the 'closet' behaviour came out in the open. Wow! I felt thrilled that maybe some 'real' honesty would occur.

This somewhat chaotic, experimental period eventually resettled in the previous course with ashrams, an even more impenetrable organisational and/or devotional sophistication, and a fresh regrouping of honchos and plebs. I was disappointed. It just occurs to me now that it must have looked as though I was displaying sour grapes syndrome when I disappeared into the fringes.

It's hard to admit that I operated from 'believing that I knew', because I credited any of my insights to Kn. Now realise how I short-changed myself and all the other wonderful non-premies that shared their innate sense of wisdom, love and compassion with me.

The following list represents my confusion that resulted from my involvement in DLM/EV. This includes aspects of Maharaji's oganisation and his methods of indoctrination that I could not reconcile either as a young premie or now.

- the DLM heirarchy, judgements, hypocrisy
- the contradictory statements that M. gave in various speeches
- M's obvious materialistic extravagance/greed
- M's lack of real concern for the world, it's environment and people
- the behaviours and incidences I witnessed around influential premies serving Maharaji.
- Wolfgangs suicide was covered up, he died peacefully in meditation
- a premie blissfully watched Maharaji repeatedly slam another premie who had fucked up against the iron gates at the residence while he wished it was him being graced with this new method for getting rid of the mind, then came back to Australia to share this amazing Darshan story.
- darshan stories.
- it was wrong to compare experience
- people speaking from their heart was banned because they were speaking from their mind and honchos were elevated for speaking from their heart because they were speaking from their mind
- all the old publications and pictures were banned and burnt
- the devotional songs that M. loved to hear about himself - lord of the universe
- arti, arti trays, krishna outfits, prasad, suits, briefcases...
- nobody else really 'knew'
- airs and graces (smugness and complacency)
- the manipulation of my sincerity which was damaging.
- the shredding of my self esteem in the process of being an aspirant.
- praising the notion of humiliation in begging for the 'gift' of knowledge.
- the feeling of being a failure or a fake in meditation.
- meditating on Kn. made me happy (not), then ignoring the fact
- guilt by association, by unfair privelege weighing in confusion with my feelings of integrity, sense of loyalty, and the conviction that I must need the Master to dispel my ignorance.
- the guilt of leaving, my heart was at once heavy and light.
- the part I played, the length I would go to prop up by belief, pride, power, confusion, doubt and humiliation

Lastly these things are true for me. The ‘veges' did NOT rot. I have been working on my self-worth for a long time. I am doing more than OK.

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