Ex-Premie.Org

Forum III Archive # 38

From: Feb 12, 1999

To: Feb 21, 1999

Page: 5 Of: 5



AE -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 15:49:54 (EST)
__SHP -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 16:23:32 (EST)
____SMITH archives 1 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 19:58:24 (EST)
______SMITH archives 2 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:02:38 (EST)
________SMITH archives 3! -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:03:40 (EST)
__________Ashram forum quotes 1 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:14:52 (EST)
____________Ashram forum quotes 2 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:18:29 (EST)
______________Ashram forum quotes 3 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:21:00 (EST)
________________Ashram forum quotes 4 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:23:20 (EST)
__________________Ashram forum quotes 5 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:25:39 (EST)
____________________Ashram forum quotes 6 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:27:48 (EST)
______________________Ashram forum quotes 7 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:31:27 (EST)
________________________Ashram forum quotes 8 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:33:26 (EST)
__________________________Ashram forum quotes 9 -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:34:40 (EST)
____________________________ex-mug -:- gave all royalties -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 04:50:38 (EST)
__________________________Rick -:- JW -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:23:00 (EST)
____________________________JW -:- Gay Premies -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:12:05 (EST)
____________AE -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:28:53 (EST)
__________barney -:- David Smith at Gates of Amaroo -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 15:34:22 (EST)
______SHP -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:38:43 (EST)
________JW -:- Smith and Agya -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:19:08 (EST)
____AE -:- It's all HERE now -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:16:53 (EST)
______bravo! and thank you AE. -:- AE flys the flag of truth -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:09:53 (EST)
________AE -:- AE flys the flag of truth -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 14:35:31 (EST)
__________AE -:- AE flys the flag of truth 2 -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 14:40:51 (EST)
______Zac -:- Thanks AE -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:01:19 (EST)
______JW -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:24:06 (EST)
________Jethro -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 03:20:30 (EST)
__________Minnesota Housewife -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 08:13:22 (EST)
__________JW -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:04:37 (EST)
____________easy enough to guess -:- Smith was the J Edgar Hoover -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 11:59:31 (EST)
____________Jethro -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 16:48:49 (EST)
______________ham -:- taking the 'p' -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 17:26:11 (EST)
______________JW -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 22:18:59 (EST)
________________Jethro -:- Dense Americans(joking) -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 02:42:33 (EST)
__________________JW -:- Dense Americans(joking) -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:18:38 (EST)
____________________Jethro -:- Dense Americans(NOT joking) -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 12:50:13 (EST)
______________________JW -:- Was the American a blonde? -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 19:29:15 (EST)
________________________Jethro -:- Was the American a blonde? -:- Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 03:06:42 (EST)
________cp -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 03:44:09 (EST)
__________Helen -:- Addiction sucks -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 08:25:22 (EST)
__________JW -:- Smith -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:50:40 (EST)
____________Tami -:- you guys are crewl -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 16:05:49 (EST)
______________Tammy Faye Baker -:- you guys are crewl -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 17:15:20 (EST)

AE -:- Ashrams & Maharaji's abuse -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 15:39:12 (EST)

Jean-Michel -:- Meditation without M, finally! -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 06:25:15 (EST)
__chr -:- Meditation without M, finally! -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 16:58:07 (EST)
____Jean-Michel -:- Yogananda & others -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 18:16:22 (EST)
______bill -:- Yogananda & others -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:22:11 (EST)
________Jean-Michel -:- The BM's mood -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 05:53:01 (EST)
__________Sir Dave -:- The BM's mood -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:56:33 (EST)
____________Zac -:- The BM's mood -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 23:04:50 (EST)
__________JW -:- The BM's mood -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:32:32 (EST)
____________Jean-Michel -:- Not so sure -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 11:28:20 (EST)

Brian -:- Tom's post -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 19:45:39 (EST)
__Rick -:- Tom's post -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 21:08:55 (EST)
____Runamok -:- Tom's post -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 23:46:22 (EST)
______Rick -:- right on-nt -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 00:16:36 (EST)
________JW -:- Spiritual Ego -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 00:45:08 (EST)
__________Jerry -:- Spiritual Ego -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 07:58:53 (EST)
______x -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 01:16:53 (EST)
________Runamok -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 02:48:17 (EST)
__________Helen -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 09:03:15 (EST)
________chr -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:08:21 (EST)
__________chr -:- oops,sorry x, -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:11:49 (EST)
____________nimrod -:- oops,sorry x, -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:52:34 (EST)
________Nimrod -:- M's acts of charity...hm... -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 00:35:27 (EST)
________Jethro -:- Prem's Acts of charity -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 01:00:51 (EST)
______Helen -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 09:00:36 (EST)
______Richard -:- Tom's post -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:08:25 (EST)
____Stevei -:- BOOK OF MIND -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 12:36:29 (EST)
______Rick -:- BOOK OF MIND -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 14:04:06 (EST)
______chr -:- BOOK OF MIND -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:34:35 (EST)
______a chance for steven -:- to tell some truth -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 01:03:37 (EST)
__SHP -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 10:15:22 (EST)
____Runamok -:- Tom's post -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 21:15:15 (EST)
____Tom -:- My post -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 23:01:21 (EST)
______Rick -:- My post -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 00:39:00 (EST)
______ham -:- Up your own .....Tom -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 18:35:18 (EST)

JELLY -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:15:44 (EST)
__VP -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:27:00 (EST)
__Orlando -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:27:55 (EST)
____bb -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:25:30 (EST)
______Happy -:- Warn your friend -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:55:55 (EST)
________Orlando -:- Warning -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:45:02 (EST)
__________bill -:- Warning -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:52:14 (EST)
____________Orlando -:- Warning -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:22:25 (EST)
______________bill -:- Warning -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:01:49 (EST)
__________JELLY -:- Warning -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 12:29:26 (EST)
____Jerry -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:50:38 (EST)
______Orlando -:- about critical thinking -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:58:16 (EST)
________VP -:- Love versus In Love -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 13:37:26 (EST)
__________Orlando -:- Love versus In Love -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 13:57:57 (EST)
____________Brian -:- Lord versus Ex-Lord -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 19:27:37 (EST)
______________Guess who -:- Brian, you'd make a great law- -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 05:36:21 (EST)
__________John -:- Love ya vp! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:18:56 (EST)
____________VP -:- Love ya vp! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:26:31 (EST)
__________Selene -:- Love versus In Love -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 16:44:27 (EST)
____________VP -:- Love versus In Love -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 22:14:06 (EST)
______________Helen -:- Love versus In Love -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 23:06:15 (EST)
________________VP -:- Forbidden -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:50:50 (EST)
__________________Helen -:- Forbidden -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:23:39 (EST)
__________Diz -:- Hi VEEP -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:30:53 (EST)
____________VP -:- Hi DIZ -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 22:03:46 (EST)
________Jerry -:- about critical thinking -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:51:11 (EST)
__________Orlando -:- about critical thinking -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:33:24 (EST)
________nigel -:- Dumb argument, Orlando -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:11:16 (EST)
__________Nigel -:- Dumb argument, Orlando -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:26:53 (EST)
____________Orlando -:- not nigel (nt) -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:29:29 (EST)
____________nigel -:- Dumb argument, Orlando -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:43:27 (EST)
______________Orlando -:- Dumb argument, Orlando -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:18:43 (EST)
________________nigel -:- I didn't read it.I'm inferring -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 02:16:48 (EST)
__________________nigel -:- Orlando: a challenge! -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 06:54:17 (EST)
____________________Zac -:- Lasting Peace and Happiness -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:27:44 (EST)
____________________nigel -:- Orlando: a challenge! -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 11:46:32 (EST)
______________________JHB -:- Orlando: a challenge! -:- Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 00:55:08 (EST)
______JELLY -:- critical thinking -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 10:45:03 (EST)
________Orlando -:- to jelly and nigel -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:43:59 (EST)
__________nigel -:- excuse me, pal..! -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:10:35 (EST)
__CD -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 20:25:10 (EST)
__Nil -:- KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 20:28:01 (EST)
____ham -:- Fears -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 05:37:01 (EST)
______Nil -:- Fears -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 21:47:15 (EST)
________ham -:- Fears -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 18:58:49 (EST)
__________Nil -:- Fears -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 20:57:36 (EST)

nigel -:- altered states and compliance -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 08:56:49 (EST)
__nigel -:- part ii -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:02:06 (EST)
____Diz -:- faking it? -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:02:06 (EST)
______chr -:- faking it? -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 21:06:04 (EST)
________Diz -:- faking it? -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 18:41:33 (EST)
__________chr -:- faking it? -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 02:32:20 (EST)
______Nigel -:- not necessarily faking it... -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 03:05:02 (EST)
____bill -:- part ii -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:14:39 (EST)
______nigel -:- gorassini - repost -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:41:38 (EST)
________nigel -:- gorassini - repost (2) -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:44:29 (EST)
____peter howie -:- part ii -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 19:05:04 (EST)
__Robyn -:- altered states and compliance -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:38:45 (EST)
____nigel -:- trance would be fine thing -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:29:50 (EST)
______Robyn -:- trance would be fine thing -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 08:11:16 (EST)
__Jerry -:- altered states and compliance -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:46:11 (EST)
__Happy and living in Paris -:- altered states and compliance -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 18:56:22 (EST)
____nigel -:- Jerry, Happy... -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 03:16:18 (EST)
______Happy and living in Paris -:- Two entites and hypnotism... -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 09:58:23 (EST)
________nigel -:- So much happiness... -:- Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:50:24 (EST)
__________Robyn -:- So much happiness... -:- Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 11:49:55 (EST)

Jean-Michel -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 04:31:16 (EST)
__AJW -:- Feet of Clay -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 07:36:42 (EST)
__Diz -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 08:28:49 (EST)
____sol -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 18:07:40 (EST)
______MJ -:- Oh sol a mia! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 18:53:17 (EST)
______Diz -:- premie patronage -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 18:55:25 (EST)
__Happy -:- Techniques in books -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 08:55:49 (EST)
____Jean-Michel -:- Techniques in books/Happy -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:12:18 (EST)
______JHB -:- Techniques -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:35:38 (EST)
________Happy -:- Techniques -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:29:18 (EST)
__________Jean-Michel -:- Excellent point! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 16:56:31 (EST)
__________JHB -:- Techniques -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 20:44:02 (EST)
__Sam -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:10:16 (EST)
____Jean-Michel -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 16:52:44 (EST)
______Sam -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 19:36:57 (EST)
__Roger Drek -:- More help welcome! -:- Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:49:55 (EST)
__Happy and living in Paris -:- More help welcome! -:- Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 16:42:42 (EST)


Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 15:49:54 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Looks like my old Netscape can't post HTML properly so here is the link to The truth about Maharaji

Thanks to all contributors.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 16:23:32 (EST)
From: SHP
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Dear AE:

Could you please either direct me to, or summarize the thing about David Smith's job of 'cleaning up' the ashrams? I have a particular intrest in this, as he was my 'initiator/instructor'.
My memory banks hold never-expressed feelings about many things, including my experience with him. So I'd appreciate the information, at your convenience.

Sometimes a person can be in a high experience or just have a stick up their ass, and the observer can't tell the difference.
So I just want to compare your archives with mine.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 19:58:24 (EST)
From: SMITH archives 1
Email: None
To: SHP
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
David Smith is one of the few premies MJ trusts to carry out his wishes. He stayed with us when he was on tour in North America a few years ago. He had one video he showed in every city...over and over again and he said that is all he had watched for weeks. He was completely blissed out as he described how you can't hear this any where else and that no matter how many times he watched it it was new. Kinda a cute way to control the mind of an instructor eh. That is why blissed out (altered states ) doesn't turn me on anymore. I love clarity and feeling alive without that drug-like silly smirk type intoxication. But hey, that's my opinion. Bye the way, I was thoroughly blissed out by his stay with us...it was wonderful to have someone I could really relate to. He and I got along great. Needless to say that now I doubt he'd return my calls as promptly as he used to.
-Deena

He was truly one of the most mentally sick puppies I ever met in DLM. I hope he got professional help for that. F. Adams?
-JW

David Smith was in Boston last weekend fund raising
-B

While we're on the subject of Mr David Smith. I first encountered him in 1975 in Hollywood.
He was by then already showing signs (as goodie-goodie-sexless-gangly-nerd but-all-American-lovable-quaintly jokey-drippingly-sincere- nevertheless-frighteningly -tow-the-line and capable of heavy satsang person) of being ideally suited for the job of recruiting unwitting and wide-eyed premies for Maharaji's more hard-line, and sinisterly misguided 'Pied-piper' aspirations.
Later (1977-78?) I was personally and privately interviewed by him (after his promotion to Chief Officer for Ashram recruitment) in order to qualify for becoming a Kosher Ashram premie.
Thus the guy has some part in my history of incarceration in various of the 'residencies for the forlorn' that Maharaji had established across many towns and nations.
Smith may now be living in S.America under an assumed name but when the War Crimes Commission catch up with him and the rest of 'em (me included I'm afraid) he is certain to be given the Maximum sentence for having been one of Maharaji's most successful and enduring henchmen.
-Anne

Anne, thank you, I know it was not just me. In addition to the 'henchmen' label, which fits, it appeared to many of us that Smith had a strong sadistic streak in him that could show itself on the especially vulnerable ( i.e. those under his control, the most vulnerable of the ashram premies, especially during his great ashram inquisition in 1981 when Maharaj Ji apparently told him to 'clean up the ashrams.')
This was troubling to me, especially when he told me that he truly believed that he was completely controlled by Guru Maharaj Ji and that anything that came into his head he should just do because it was divinely inspired (YIKES!). Even the other initiators used to comment that he needed professional psychiatric help.
I saw in him what appeared to me to be a true delight in hurting people (at least psychologically). He also wreaked of uptightness, fear and paranoia, while at the same time talking about how beautiful the experience was. I told him that once too, and also that he needed psychiatric help for a sadistic streak. Incredibly, he just looked at me with those doe eyes and looked hurt.
He just couldn't understand why I had a problem with his behaviour when he was just an empty vessel of the lord of the universe. I guess I should credit him in some way. His gross inhumanity in the name of Maharaj Ji was probably the last straw that got me out of the cult for good. What is weird though, is that when he wasn't in a position of power, I kind of liked the guy, who came across as this sort of 'gee-whiz' all-american ordinary premie who just wanted to play tennis all the time and hadn't a clue what was going on. I do hope he got some psychiatric help.
-JW

David Smith is dangerously mentally ill and should be immediately institutionalized for the protection of himself and the world
-JW

As for 'pressured to leave your family' Anon - this is what really does set me off. Pressured by WHOM?
- OP
David Smith for one! He had MJ's blessings didn't he??
-Anon

One more postscript: The brother I lived in the ashram with, the one who stayed until the end and then got AIDs and died, he was a very sweet and trusting guy and he was someone that David Smith absolutely terrorised during his ashram inquisition. Just thought I would trow that in while we're on the subject. David Smith, you are a real asshole, and GMJ you are a real asshole for putting psychotic people charge of innocent, trusting devotees who had the big misfortune of loving you more than you ever deserved! I just need to say that. Now I feel better and I'm ready for that second cup of coffee.
-JW

When David Smith was here he let me know MJ was looking for a steward (for the plane) and suggested I write him. My son was 12 at the time and David said that my husband could look after him. I was keen but...as other times I nearly went (once when my son was 9 too ) I didn't but I wanted to.
-Deena

He may be stupid and he is definitely a premie, but I very much doubt many premies, stupid or smart, would have been able to do what he has done in the service of Guru Maharaj Ji. That is because, despite years of indoctrination and programming, in my experience, most premies actually retained a certain level of human values and decency.
What I saw David Smith do to some ashram premies indicated to me that he was capable of ignoring all human decency and of inflicting a level of psychological abuse at a level I doubt many others premies would have been able to reach, even in the service of the Lord.
-JW
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:02:38 (EST)
From: SMITH archives 2
Email: None
To: SMITH archives 1
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Regarding David Smith. I know I have said some negative things about him and I haven't even seen him in 13 years so I have no idea what he is like now. I'm sure he has gray hair now and maybe he has mellowed. I hope he has gotten some counselling. As I have also said before, when he didn't have control over other peoples'lives, I really kind of liked the guy. I recall in one community where I was community coordinator and he came for a few weeks as an initiator, all he did was want me to find him tennis partners so he could play tennis. His satsang was also often self-deprecating, which I appreciated. But that changed when GMJ gave him power.
I would just say that I never met anyone who was so fanatic and rigid about his service to god which I'm sure he still considers Guru Maharaj Ji to be. The other factor that makes him dangerous is a sadistic streak that I and others personally saw and I actually at one time confronted him about it.
Anyway, at least at one time he also believed, and stated, that god (Guru Maharaj Ji) was controlling his every action such that anything that came into his head he was supposed to do. That, along with the fanatic rigidity and sadistic streak, was a dangerous combination for people who were vulnerable to his control.
Anyway, in 1981, Mr. Smith was in charge of the western region of the U.S. for GMJ, including all the initiators, ashrams, businesses and communities. In one of his meetings with Guru Maharaj Ji, apparently GMJ was really pisssed off about the ashrams and gave the order to clean up the ashrams. I don't know if Maharaj Ji ever said what that was supposed to entail, and in other regions it happened quite differently, but Mr. Smith, because he believed that whatever came into his head was god talking, decided to use the community I was living in as his first target and went on a rampage that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame. To him, his orders meant scaring and terrorizing and ashram premies with a lot of psychological abuse, getting ashram premies to rat on each other about who might or might not have a special friend (not allowed), who might be doing terrible things like reading books (not allowed), have a job in the world that he or she was too into (not allowed) having too many possessions (he actually went through the ashram premies' closets and threw away clothes if he thought somebody had too many), didn't behave correctly (he told one premie who had some psychological problems that he was a robot and had to change while at the same time terrifying him into being more of a robot than he ever was before). He had these interrogation meetings with individuals and groups that were terribly disrespectful and abusive. He gave satsang to the ashrams in which he used fuck and other abusive language that I had never heard in satsang before. It was unbelievable heavy and devoid of anything but fear. It was also clear that there was no correct way to be.
Whatever you did made you open to his attack, his actions and statements could be completely contradictory, because, apparently, attacking was his purpose. It was also clear to me and others that David really ENJOYED the pain he was causing. He really ENJOYED abusing people. That was the terrifying part to me. It was abusive because he always held over the premies head that he would throw them out of the ashram, or send them to some remote community if they didn't conform to some idea he had in his head about the way you were supposed to be. Superimpose this on the many ashram satsangs we had attended with GMJ in which he said that moving out of the ashram was the absolutely worst thing you could do and basically that it was more or less required for total dedication, which was also required. I think the premies also mostly believed and had faith in GMJ's hierarchy that the GMJ was in control and would protect them. Also, by and large, these were not spaced out ashram premies. They lived by the schedule, did S,S & M (funny sound to that) every day and did what they were told. Maharaj Ji was absolutely everything to them.
Even some of the initiators said Smith needed professional psychiatric help. He also, when confronted, admitted to me that he had one beaten up some girl when he was younger, almost admitting the abusive streak in him. Anyway, I saw some of the people I had lived with for a long time completely change from being fairly open, happy people to being sullen and depressed. A few of them opened up to me somewhat and talked about how terrible they felt, and the terrible fear that they didn't measure up again, blaming themselves for being worthless slugs because obviously this was all part of GMJ's plan. I think it was the feeling of wanting to get out of the concentration camp Mr. Smith was running, while at the same time your devotion to GMJ kept you there. It was a terrible, claustrophobic, imprisoned feeling. And it shook my faith in GMJ to the core. There was absolutely no love in what he did. There was absolutely no human compassion for people as individuals. All he saw was the marching orders from GMJ and his interpretation of them. It smelled of paranoia and fear. And he was basically a big jerk.
You also have to also understand that the ashram premies were especially vulnerable to this type of abuse. They were mostly pretty simple types, without a lot going for them, and they literally had NOTHING besides their dedication to GMJ and trying to be more surrendered. So, here comes Mr David Smith with the sensitivity of a Mack Truck to clean up whatever it was they were doing. I don't think I ever saw anything quite like it in DLM, even among the more insane Mahatmas.
I think the reaction was so negative to what he did, however, that I don't think he tried it anywhere else on a grand scale. Although I've heard stories about how he attacked individuals. I, at least, made sure what he did was well known outside the region, and I know others confronted him about it. Anyway, about a year later Mr. Smith came back to our fair community and sort of apologized to the ashram residents for what he did, but, when confronted, he used the old premie line that it was what was necessary and all perfect and it needed to happen. So, he basically spoke out of both sides of his mouth. I could never stand the sight of the guy after that.
-JW

Christ yes I remember him (David Smith) that way . I also remember Anne Johnson and even Guru Charananad (that great Saint who was also by the way hypocritically around at the time) basically spreading Maharaji's heavy sentences to all and sundry. The stupid fuckers. You know who was behind it all don't you.
-x

I think the Guru Charanand stuff was pretty common knowledge in the early 80s. I actually talked to someone who had sex with him. Can you give me David Smith's phone number? Maybe he'll answer my calls, but I'm sure he's busy.
-JW

I've been trying to phone David Smith fro a few weeks now and all I get's his machine. When Maharaji finally answers my letter, one of the first things I'm going ask him is if he can arrange an interview for me with David Smith.
-J Heller

Did you read my post responding to your request regarding David Smith under your what you are looking for thread? Does any of it resonate at all? Frankly, I still hold GMJ responsible for setting up the system where that kind of abuse was possible by sick people and also because GMJ kept such a hands off approach to his devotees, such that he would rather not know anything about them.
-Deena

W- I just read your post about S.S. oh I mean D.S. My god you must have wondered why I never responded. If you hadn't told me it was there I wouldn't have known 'cause somehow I missed it???? It literally made me feel ill. I mean I had him in my home, I washed his underwear for god's sake!
I felt livid realizing I was just like Hitler's secretary in being naive to what he'd done in his past. This morning I asked Jim to give me back David's phone number ( I had destroyed it) 'cause I thought I'd call and get PR answers to some of our questions. Now I don't know if I can.
I understand your hatred for the man. God! I'm floored once more. And to think MJ handpicked him to be one of the few instructors left to represent him? I destroyed a photo of David I had of his visit here ( cuddling with one of my cats) I felt I didn't want it around but I certainly didn't have the aversion I would have had if I knew what he had done.
Obviously MJ raked him good over the coals and the new smiley face version was not heavy at all. Stiff and fairly self-righteous but I only saw his devotion at the time.
-Deena
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:03:40 (EST)
From: SMITH archives 3!
Email: None
To: SMITH archives 2
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
I didn't mean to scare you about Smith, but I would be careful if you have any dealings with him. Also, I believe people do change, so maybe he has; at least I hope so. I guess I have some of the same questions for him that I have for GMJ. What does he think about what he did back then? Since he doesn't appear to have any direct control over people's lives anymore, he might be harmless, but boy, I would sure be wary. And there are one or two things I would enjoy saying to his face, to tell you the truth.
I also remember something else. David actually carried around a little black book in which he kept notes about the ashram premies. I secretly got it once and read some of it when he wasn't looking. God, was that scary. I think he really considered me a subversive individual because I talked back to him and he said so in his little book. He also kept notes on who might be deviating a little from the straight and narrow, like who had a special friend or not, who failed to pick up the sword of service (actual quote that I still remember), who, like me, was a little too worldly; what was also weird is that he got premies to talk about other premies and a lot of people really identified with him and actually kissed his ass, basically. I think it was that phenomenon in which hostages and prisoners begin to identify with and emulate their captors. I think that was what was going on there. What was also weird was that it was only about two years later that the ashrams were shut down completely.
One thing I have to thank David Smith for, however. His gross inhumanity and abusive behavior was kind of the last straw that got me out of the cult. I hung around for about 2 more years, but that really destroyed my faith for good.
-JW

Does Smith get a salary from GMJ? I can't help but think that the lot of the reason GMJ got rid of initiators was financial. If they had to be supported it would leave less money for planes and expensive cars. Are any of the initiators married? Are they supposed to be celibate?
I also know one guy who I lived in the ashram with that I talked to a few years ago. He told me that both he and his wife were instructors but that David Smith fired him but not his wife and that his marriage was on the rocks because his wife (whom I also knew) was more into the instructor inner circle and cared more about that than about him or their marriage. He was really upset about it. Ironically, he was one of the guys in the ashram that Smith had terrorized years before. All I could say was how could he continue to be a part of all that and continue to take shit from David Smith, whom he hates, and didn't he have ANY self respect? And do you know what he said? He said he still trusted that GMJ was in control of his life and knew what was best for him and hence he had to take what was dished out. Can you believe the drivel? That was just a few years ago.
-JW

So David Smith called me today.
I was back for a pit stop between court appearances and there he was. As I remembered him quiet, flat, polite, quiet, ...did I say flat? All right. I told him that I d called because I wanted to know how I we could get some sort of audience with Maharaji. I explained that a number of ex-premies have started talking about Maharaji on this page and that I, for one, would love to finally get some answers from Maharaji. He told me that he d heard of the page.
Someone had faxed him a few pages. No he didnt t know that he was mentioned here. No, he's not really interested in checking it out. He doesn't t have the facility to in any event. (I invited him to my place one day and we can surf together!) I told him that I felt Maharaji was accountable for all the God in human form, saviour of mankind, Lord stuff, not to mention his declaration to bring peace to the world. He told me that that wasn't t how he related to Maharaji. I asked him if it ever was. He admitted that he used to. I asked him when he stopped. He had no answer. I asked him if he thought Maharaji should answer for various statements. I told him, about people like my friend Dave Wiener (the guy who hung himself in 74). I reminded him about all the rest of us who simply trusted Maharaji and took him at face value. He told me he didnt t relate to Maharaji like that. I asked him if, on a basic human level, he thought Maharaji owed us an explanation. He wouldn't t say.
He suggested I try to reach Maharaji. I asked how. He said write. I said I did. What s more, I knew a bunch of people who wrote long, respectful registered letters who never got answers. He suggested that if that happened there was more I could do. I asked what. He said I could write another letter. I asked him what I should do if Maharaji didnt t answer any of them. He said there was more I could do. I asked what.He said I could write another letter. I asked him what one plus one equalled. I asked him if he remembered me. He didnt t. I asked him if he remembered Deena, the former contact person in Regina. He didnt t at first but then did a bit. She and her husband Doug I told him that a bunch of people had recently vilified him personally on the web site and that he should check it out. He declined.
I told him he had a responsibility in my opinion to act as a two-way, not just one-way, communication channel for Maharaji. He didnt t agree. I asked him if he could give me Maharaji s phone number. He said he didnt t have it. I asked him if he d like to talk with me again. He said yes, sometime after he gets back from overseas somewhere, sometime in July. I said goodbye. So did he.
-J Heller

OP asked me to elaborate on my discussion with David Smith. First, he did NOT sound like he'd had a lobotomy. His diction was okay and ...well, how does someone sound when they've been lobotomized? I mean he was flat, impervious to reason and unexcitable. But I didn't hear any hospital sounds and don't they always institutionalize those guys? Hell, I don't know.
Anyway, did I say he was flat? Yes, but how flat, you ask. Oh my god! Two hands on temples (perhaps unconsciously protecting my own frontal lobes). Oh my god!
He had the curiosity of a bic pen. No, I want to be fair. Make that a cordless phone. I told him he was being villified for all the world to see right on this web site. That didn't phase him. He had no interest in checking this mess out. Such is the grace.
He told me he couldn't pass along a message to M. It wasn't his place. He knew his place and that wasn't it. He kept telling me to write him. I kept asking what if M didn't answer. He kept saying write another letter. (At one point I remember feeling grateful that I wasn't paying for this call). His interest in my end goal -- of establishing some communication with M -- was 'well-controlled' to say the least. To that end, did I say he was flat?
Mr. Smtih, unlike Deena, told no funnies. After all, what could be funny? Funnies are when M tells a joke. Those are funnies. I felt he was saving himself.
Mr. Smith was as warm as roadkill and NOT the furry kind. He was as cordial as a rotten mango. (Know what a mango tastes like? Don't answer -- that's the first question they use to get you into cults. Stay away from all Mango talk!)
Mr. Smith reminded me of ...... I felt that he was already screwing up his barogon as we got off the phone. I can't wait for his fiftieth birthday party. We're all invited and I hear it's going to be something else. Cake, cookies (right, OP?) and you name it. Songs. Soda water. You can wear a tie, you can NOT wear a tie. Your call. We're talking PARTY!!
-J Heller

I got in trouble with David Smith for having this non-premie as a friend that I actually did non-cult things with, which was not allowed.
-JW

M wouldn't want to own my old car, nor would he want to wear David Smith's torn underwear, (trust me, I washed them, and he was in dire need of a new wardrobe)
-Deena

In 1974, after three years in the ashram, I was transferred to the Boston ashram.I believe David Smith was the 'general secretary' at the time. I couldn't believe how rigid and uptight he was, and as a result, everyone else. It was like a prison. Perhaps I should be grateful, it motivated me to move out.
-PS

It's also truly amazing that Smith has been a DLM/Elan Vital stalwart since 1974 or before and that's 23 years. When was the last time he had a real job in the real world? When was the last time he had an intimate relationship with another human being? When was the last time he had an independent thought? Given his level of emersion in the cult as well as the long time periods involved, I'm surprised he has even the flat personality left that Jim described.
-JW
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:14:52 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 1
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
My best ever experience of the knowledge was when I was far away from ashrams, premies, satsang or 'video events' as I believe they're now called. I was working in a hotel by the seaside and had long periods just sitting around waiting for someone to order tea and sandwiches and would sit in my little porters room, spacing out into the word. I got deeper and deeper into it as the days went on and was amazed by the sheer pleasure of it.
Eventually I left my seaside haven and moved back to London and started attending satsang again to be told how I had to devote my life to Maharaji and live in an ashram.
In the years I lived in the ashram I found it more and more difficult to meditate, with the heavy work load, lack of sleep and constant badgering from other premies. After two years I left the ashram, a total wreck and to this day, I've never had the same depth or duration of meditation as I'd had in my seaside haven.
This left me with a question. If Maharaji was the Lord then why did he persuade me to go and live in an ashram and therefore lose my experience of the knowledge?
- David Simpkiss

As a teenager I was very affected by all this 'join the Ashram' pressure. I was certainly very intimidated on numerous occasions of 'heavy Satsangs' often from Maharaji himself, mainly in closed 'Ashram premies only' meetings.
- Anon

I'm an ex-English ex-premie and I experienced living in a WPC ashram in the early days. The low spot of my life, for sure. I've posted longish post inviting discussion among ex-premies under the title 'MAHARAJI, a way to avoid feelings and facts.'
I had lots of good times too, but as I mention in my post, there is a sort of sweet insidiousness about the whole thing that bothers me. It was a cult, it was mind-control, Maharaji was (is?) clearly a manipulator. I know lots of inner circle people, including a close friend who lived with him for many years and was devastated by his abuse and is just recovering after 12 years away from him.
- Unlimited

A man walked into a bar with a pile of dog shit in his hand and said 'look what I almost stepped in.' It seems to apply to the individuals who thrive on negativity about Maharaji.I don't understand the negativity.I received knowledge in 1971. It was free. At that time many people chose to'give up their material things' and move into an Ashram. I didn't want to, and didn't.'

- L Tane
Okay, so you were a greased pig. Lucky you. Some of us, on the other hand, trusted Maharaji about as much as he wanted. He said 'jump', we asked how high. He said move into the ashram, we did. We trusted him b/c he asked us to and we were told by EVERYONE -- from the top down -- that he was the Lord. You clung to the edge of the bowl, but it was still a toilet.
- J Heller

I left when I got ripped apart internally, which threatened my health on many levels. It was when MJ reinstated the ashrams which I had gladly escaped after 6 years, and clearly implied that complete devotion (meaning enlightenment, making it, etc.) depended on moving back into the shram. I was happily married and finally getting some rest after the frantic pace of ashram life and day and night service, satsang and meditation I had been in for 6 years. I attended some of the inner circle meetings with MJ in the years from 77-83, and I heard him yell and threaten and belittle anything less than total, total, dedication. He told friends of mine who were instructors that they 'should never think one sexual thought, or they would be cast out,' and that the ideal was to be burned up like a match, that their needs didn't matter, etc. etc.
Since we were a rich couple, it was tacitly implied that we were okay being married (the pipeline would have dried up if we moved back into the ashram) but at the same time, we would never be able to do the 'real' thing, which was to be an initiator and really devoted, etc. Anyway, all this tore me apart inside. Having entered the cult at age 19, I was, by age 30, a seriously confused wreck.
- Unlimited

I found myself praying to the one true God from the bottom of my heart to make sense of what had befallen me. I was taking a breather in between a seemingly endless barrage of Maharaji films at an all weekend Ashram Premie Satsang meeting. I could physically feel 'Holy Name' or 'Practice technique No.3' (as it is now called) pumping through my body. But it actually was of no comfort. I remembered the innocence of my childhood., my aspirations to serve the True God, my sincerity and the bliss and lightness of my world at that time. Now it was all heavy. Heavy indoctrination. Yes, maybe an inner world of peaceful meditation sometimes, but somehow not quite reality, not enough.
The peaceful moments were somehow undermined by the Heaviness, the relentlessness of Maharaji demanding my respect and commitment.The severity of his ashram regime at that time. The pummelling down of my world and the inescapable monotone pleasurelessness of this new world, like the cave to which the Pied Piper led the enchanted children and in which he subsequently entombed them forever. I remained out of a sense of hope and loyalty until the bitter end.
- Anon

Sure I promised certain things to Maharaji. I promised to never leave the ashram either. We all did. All of us in the 'shram took that vow. We became renunciates for the Lord. It wasn't supposed to be a temporary thing. So what? He changes the cosmic rules of the game? Those promises mean nothing? I don't know. I'd like to hear Maharaji really deal with that one. How is it he could make such a big deal about our ashram commitment, only to close the party a few years later?
I don't care about some makeshift premie's answer to this question. Truth is, none of us know. Only Maharaji and, as we see, he ain't talking. Not yet, in any event.
- J Heller

The fact is there was pressure on every single, unencumbered premie who who wanted to REALLY follow Maharaji to give it all up and move into the ashram. Maharaji himself gave a lot of satsang about how bad it was to sit on the sidelines. Add to him all the mahatmas who went so far as to break up married couples if they thought they could. Not always, not everywhere but often enough.
To truly understand the pressure though you had to experience what it was like to try to LEAVE the ashram. Maharaji himself set the tone with his 'closed' ashram satsangs. Like the one he gave at Kissimee in 1979 or 80. Heavy shit. Much like the 'secret' initiator satsang he gave in those days (ever see the initiator's 'confidential' manual with its complete hellfire-and-damnation-if-you-ever-get-into-your-mind trip? I'm not lying. Ask around if you don't believe me). Leaving the ashram was so tough then that premies who did split went through incredible turmoil more often than not. Maybe you didn't have this experience. Maybe, quite frankly, you just never trusted Maharaji enough to really follow him as he wanted.
My last word on the ashram is this: Maharaji did indeed talk out of both sides of his mouth. I perfectly remember all the time he said you don't have to do this, don't have to do that, that Knowledge wasn't a religion, etc. etc. Tell me then why he tried to scare the hell out of anyone trying to leave the ashram then? Fact is, he gave a simple, non-threatening line to people who could only handle that level of involvement. For those who really had the bug, however, his vice clamped down much harder. Don't forget: this was supposedly a path of complete surrender. We surrendered the reigns of our life to him, no? Surrendered our minds and promised to never doubt or question, well, more specifically to leave no room for doubt. Please don't minimise the historical record. This was a VERY consuming trip for those who trusted him. That's all it took, trust in Maharaji. And why not? He was, after all, the Lord.
- J Heller

'Or about how NOW is the time to give up all and move into the ashrams as soon it WILL BE TOO LATE to do any service for him, that time is now!?
I answered his siren call as best I could. WE weren't to train for any careers b/c a) that's the ego's terrain and b) Maharaji was going to so quickly overrun the current world order as we knew it the only real effort worth expending was just telling people he'd arrived. I wasted about eight years doing that. As far as 'soon too late' well, he does seem to have backed off his mission a bit. It's not quite the same is it? (Again, please check out my other post to tane).
- J Heller

I haven't suffered from Mr. Ji myself (apart from watching a video out of politeness at the home of one of his adorers in London, which was quite pointless and very boring - just like a Methodist sermon), but my wife and her brother suffered for several years. Her brother joined an 'ashram' in Johannesburg, his father lent to house to the Ji organisation, when they were closed down, they arranged to sell it and pocketed the cash. Her brother learned no useful skills as a result and lives a pretty pathetic existence now supported by his mother.
- Peter

It seems that us premies who gave our lives to MJ in the ashram are the only ones who are charged up with a real sense of injustice enough to speak out about it.
- Anon

So I stared intently at Maharaji's picture, asking him the question: 'Can I really trust you?' I put everything I had into that question, and I really wanted a positive answer.
Suddenly there was a sharp 'crack' which startled the audience. The glass covering Maharaji's portrait had split from top to bottom. What did I make of it? I completely ignored the sign I had asked for and went on to waste three years living the ashram life.
- Douche
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:18:29 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 2
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 1
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
When I believed in Maharaji I still wanted to leave the ashram sometimes. Know why I didn't? Because, in my faith, I believed that Maharaji, being omnipresent, was actually there with me even as I had those thoughts and that I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I remember feeling that maybe he was hurt by those premies who did take back their bodies which was kind of how I saw it all. I lived to merge with him, to surrender 'jim' and be just a pure devotee. Then, as time went by further and I started feeling more comfortable with my thoughts and feelings again, I started slowly seizing back a bit of my own mental space. I kept a part of me quite selfishly. I reinstated a bit of Jim's private mentality. As I did I started feeling more and more at home with myself again. Lance, do you know what it was like to BE an intense ashramie? We were supposed to want no identity of our own, we were lambs offering ourselves up for slaughter, the sooner the better. Did you ever feel that way? Do you now? How about the premie sitting next to you at the next program, the one who's only heard Maharaji's 'lite' satsang and knows nothing of his earlier apocalyptic, messianic all-or-nothing years?
I dunno.......are there words for the kind of disgust this engenders?
Cheers, nonetheless
- J Heller

I personally find it shocking that you feel Maharaji owes you something for your years of 'whatever you did' in the ashram. Or it could be that you are just pursuing a bit of ambulance chasing. I hope that you had at least a few memorable experiences....
- C Dickey

Look, you say you've been following this discussion and, for your sake,I hope you're exaggerating. I hope you've just recently tuned in and haven't had a lot of time to give it all much thought before you spoke.Do you know what the ashrams were? Were you really around then? Do you know what moving into an ashram was about and why people did it? Did YOU? I'll tell you in a nutshell.
The ashram was the place you went if you were serious about following Maharaji. It was the place you went to truly surrender your mind for which, as he frankly explained, the Knowledge was like poison. The ashram was Maharaji's trip, 1 million per cent.He wanted to suck as many of us as he could into it and, when people wanted to leave, he gave us threatening satsang as to the consequences.Don't believe me? Ask him for a transcript of some of the 'ashram'satsangs he gave in the late '70's before he realised it was hopeless,people were going to leave no matter how much he tried to scare them, so better get with the program and pretend that closing the 'shrams was his idea.
- J Heller

So, what'd we do in the ashram? NOTHING! That was the whole point! If we spun our wheels there forever, dusting the kitchen like some archetypal humble Indian premie, we might have been on the right track.No careers (ego), no relationships (what do you think?), no nothing.Just slavish dedication to one goal: surrendering further and further to Maharaji. See, the reason I mentioned the letter we got from him is that he made it very clear that if we were serious about following him and 'realising' the Knowledge, we couldn't trust ourselves? How could we? The 'higher' we'd get, the more desperate and hence tricker the mind would get. Don't you know what I'm talking about? Don't you recall the whole question of who had truly surrendered the reigns of their life and who had tried to get them back? Maybe you weren't there,maybe you were. But one thing I'm telling you -- I'm telling you the truth. Plain, simple truth. The path was one of complete devotion.There was no other path, all the rest was the mind and thus bullshit.
Why did we love the mahatmas so much? Because they were supposedly where we wanted to go? Absolute devotion, the ultimate bond with the Lord. Maharaji used to inspire us with the story of the 'good' premie who served his Maharaji so selflessly that, when his life was finally exhausted like a burnt match, could honestly say that he barely recalled living that little life at all. The point was that it wasn't the devotee's life to begin with. It was Maharaji's all along and now, by surrendering the life back to Maharaji, the devotee had given the only gift the lowly mortal could ever return to his Lord. That's what the ashram was.
- J Heller

'I hope that you had at least a few memorable experiences.'
So, yes friend, I had a lot of 'memorable moments' including one of my best friends in the ashram hanging himself because he felt that his mind was too full of doubt [see commandments above] to ever love Maharaji properly. Okay, there was a lot of 'fun' too. I sang, played guitar,was very social in a way, loved to give satsang, etc. On the good ship Maharaji, we all enjoyed ourselves to some extent. But there was only one reason we were there and not living our own lives however which way we might: he promised he was taking us somewhere. It was all premised on that. So what of it? Did he change his mind?
- J Heller

Before you start calling ME an asshole consider what I'm reacting to. I'm disgusted, make that DISGUSTED, with premies who feel it's their service to Maharaji to protect him at all costs even if it means twisting the truth as necessary. I lived in the ashram for eight years of my life man! That's no small amount of time to be completely dependent on a guru's vision only to have him years later deny he ever said all that funnelled me into his little fun house to begin with. Who the fuck are you to smirk away that reality?
- J Heller

Care to speculate on how many couples Maharaji broke up? How many people he pressured to give up their vain, ego loves and just serve him? We're talking families with kids too sometimes. Oh, I know, he'd say one thing sometimes and sometimes the opposite. Sometimes he WOULD say that raising a family could be service, but the implication was that it was service only if you couldn't get out of it somehow. He sure didn't encourage unencumbered premies to hook up with each other and ESPECIALLY hated it when ashram premies did the human thing.
- J Heller

There are those who received Knowledge before Maharaji stopped having Ashrams etc. They did not 'surrender the reigns of their lives' in the manner proposed as the 'ideal' by Maharaji at the time. Instead they 'fitted Knowledge into their lives' as he put it , meditating occasionally, not making a total sacrifice, turning up occasionally for inspiration, to see their friends etc. They may have had family responsibilities etc. This would have been reason enough to avoid having to seriously consider becoming an Ashram Premie, which was stated clearly by Maharaji as being the path for the truly committed.
These 'undisillusioned' premies form the' hard core' of premies today as I see it. They have few doubts about Maharaji as they have never been disillusioned as a result of making a huge sacrifice only to find that the Ashrams were closed and they were left high and dry, on the street again. Their individual commitment was not so full time. They feel no loss.They don't need to undergo any further soul searching as the lifestyle suits them socially and they are along with many others, happy with things as they are.
- Anon

Maharaji, on his very own with no family to blame, revived all the religious bullshit for a few years in the late '70's. How do you explain that? He went for truth, then scrambled to deceive again, then back to truth? We were already well on the road to where things are now in 1976 before Maharaji himself scared us all into what I have call the really sick, pathetic religiosity of 1977 through '80, 81. All the marathon 'woe-is-me-I'm-a-real-sinner-'cause-I-thought-of-leaving-the-ashram-and-you-and-getting-a-life-of-my-own-for-a-bit-there' satsang he forced us to repeat hour after hour, day after day. What do you think was happening in the ashram retreats then or, worse, the initiator 'training sessions'? It was all weepy 'we-almost-left-you-and-started-thinking-for-ourselves-but-thankfully-you-saved-us-again' shit. Later, of course, he changed his mind again and ENCOURAGED us to chill a bit and get our little lives happening. The question is, who're you going to scapegoat for that little tour? Joan Apter?
- J Heller
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:21:00 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 3
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 2
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Now think back. 1976. The ashrams are closing, people are untethering themselves from the early DLM traditions and views. Wherever they came from, whoever was responsible for them, we were sick of them. 'Let's get real', we said. Satsang became less party line about how great and good Maharaji and Knowledge was and more about our experiences -- good and bad. Now, I'm not saying that was good. I'm not saying one way or the other. But that is what was happening. Until....
Until Essen. That was the DUO directors meeting, remember? Maharaji called all the guys together for a little 'refocusing' session. We'd given up devotion, he warned us. It was time to pray. And pray we did. Thus commenced the second run of religiosity in DLM. Endless marathon satsangs, day in and day out in some communities, where we benumbed ourselves with two themes One was the incredible mercy of our Lord, our living Perfect Master, our Satguru Maharaji. The other was our sneeky, deeky minds that had almost cost us our lives of surrender and devotion.
Brother, it was more religious than ever before and brother, it was all his. And thee ain't no one else to pin it on. It was all Maharaji's trip.
Oh sure, I don't doubt that some premie somewhere spread some sensational rumour about Maharaji manifesting in some Baskin and Robbins somewhere. But that was small change compared to the rumours he encouraged about himself. If you don't remember, I'd be happy to go over the old satsangs with you chapter and verse. And yes, we could fight about every passage. But you know, you know.
Put another way: what religious bullshit are your referring to that he was not responsible for? Arti? His. The divine succession trip (x, y, Shri Hans, Maharaji, z, ...)? His. The 'one perfect master in the world at a time' trip? His. Face it, James, this self-satisfied stuff of yours doesn't cut it:
Well, big surprise! It wasn't a religion.It was not dependent on ashrams, beliefs, philosophies, lifestyles, or anything else. We took our expectations and our ideas and tried to mold Knowledge to fit. Another big surprise! It doesn't fit. From what I have seen over the years, the things that don't have anything to do with Knowledge, Maharaji has gotten rid of.
Maharaji only got rid of the ashrams cause everyone was splitting. I mean these were religious, right? Chastity, poverty, obedience. Looks like it. Remember, Maharaji STOKED the ashrams back up in late '76. Why? Who can you blame for that, James. And let me tell you, as recently as 1980 Maharaji was trying to scare the living hell out of anyone even thinking of leaving his holy order. I know, I was there. So who you gonna put that one on? Me? Did I do that? Well, I beg your pardon. And all along I thought I was just trying to follow the truth and the Lord who'd shown it to me. Now, thanks to your rich insight, I realise that I was creating a religion! Holy cow!!
- J Heller

Look, did you ever have any 'special' service of any kind? It could have been anything from doing some 'direct' service for Maharaji himself at the res or at a program or maybe even just playing tennis with Gurucharanand. 'Special' in this context simply means relatively rare and coveted by the group at large. In other words, when Raja Ji came to Ottawa, and we had his holiness and his princess over for dinner at the ashram, the fact that WE ashramies could be there but the regular community could not, well that's special. Just common pecking order stuff. Universal and obvious. Nonetheless we were all completely caught up in it. It was unavoidable.
- J Heller

The DLM once had 45 ashrams, and information centres in 110 cities in the US. Income from these sources allowed Maharaji to buy an US$80,000 building in Denver, land worth US$400,000 in Malibu (Los Angeles), limousines, racing-cars, and helicopters, while his devotees led simple lives. Incorporated as a nonprofit tax-exempt church in Colorado, it became a a multi-million dollar operation
-Los Angeles Times, 12/1/1979

I'd like to get one thing straight about the comments I saw that certain people expressing their views here are just angry because MJ closed the ashrams and they were more into the ashrams than into MJ. Also, I heard some incredible revisionist historical statements that MJ closed the ashrams because they got in the way, and he was never really into them anyway.
1. First, MJ made it clear in the ashram meetings, and throughout the mahatmas and initiators, that the ashrams were essential to his mission and it was absolutely the worst thing you could do to move out. So, there you were if you wanted to devote your life, which he also required. He also said the ashram premies were closer to him than the non-ashram premies. I was there, I heard it. Quote from Bill Patterson to me circa 1975: 'If you want to dedicate and surrender to Guru Mararaj Ji, that means ashram, there is no other way.' Patterson was also armed with other quotes directly from MJ on the same issue.
2. The above position of MJ was not popular with me, because I personally hated living in the ashrams because, among other things,
1.) You couldn't have sex (actually this is reasons 1-10);
2.) You couldn't own anything and had no freedom to do anything you like;
3.) You had no privacy;
4.) You were cut off from your family;
5.) You couldn't have a career, no matter how much you were interested in having one,
6.) You had to be vulnerable to the whims of several mentally deranged and sadistic Mahatmas and Initiators who came through on a regular basis (Fakiranand (bang bang), Parlokanand (who sexually molested little boys while giving divine knowledge on the side), and others I won't mention except to say they were some of the most miserable and freaked-out people I have ever met, and
7.) You had to live with at least a few generally annoying people. Although I hated living there, I stayed because I wanted to follow his directions and devote myself to him, on every level, not because I was devoted to the ashram.
3. If Maharaj Ji closed the ashrams because they 'got in the way' that implies they were a mistake. And they were a 'mistake' that had profound effects on the lives of many people. Does the Lord of the Universe make mistakes? Has he ever admitted that? Taken in context with what he said at the ashram meetings, it's hard to take it any other way. Or where the ashrams just a phase MJ was going through and a few thousand pesky human beings just happened to get in the way, turning over all their money, damaging any career potential they ever had and damaging their relations with their families? Gee whiz, I guess we just screwed up his plans and he had to close them. Oh, I forgot, MJ is only responsible for the good stuff and everything else is our fault! Right. He can't have it both ways and we shouldn't let him. At least for the record.
- JW
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:23:20 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 4
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 3
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
I am writing because I moved into in the Ashram in 1978 and stayed until they closed. I really thought it was what Maharaji wanted me to do. I believed Maharaji was my Lord and I followed his instructions completely sincerely and closely.
I am still coming to terms with the painful realisation that it was a TRAGIC waste of my youth. I still feel so let down and disillusioned.
I hoped for years that Maharaji would meet with those who had given their lives to him and offer some conciliatory words at least. I attended programs, watched endless videos, practiced, practiced, practiced.... clung on , always giving Maharaji the benefit of the doubt, hoping that I would feel clearer about things.
Instead of helping me and others to reconcile these problems he has brushed ASIDE the whole matter, along with his so-called LOVE & concern for our LIVES.
His flippant attitude towards my past (along with many other things he has said and done that I can no longer condone ), has made me fundamentally mistrust him and his teaching. He has only got time for sycophants.
I feel that he stole part of my youth that I can never retrieve. I am now making up for lost time and feel essentially much happier for it. However I still carry a huge resentment towards him for persuading me in my innocence to devote my life for years to him in his ashrams. He IMPOSED ON ME a lifestyle which promised much but in reality was EXTREMELY psychologically unhealthy for me.
I am not going to waste my time arguing with blinkered premies who feel differently. I know now that I need to express MY WRATH about this and I agree that an effort should be made to get Maharaji to face it. It was too devastating an experience to move on from without feeling any sense that there should be some retribution. I feel that Maharaji is getting away without having to take responsibility for those words and actions of his that directly caused so much suffering. That 's what this site is all about. If it means offending him or being disrespectful. Well that's tough. He led me a-stray and I will never have those years back.
But does he care? Why should he? HE THINKS HE'S GOT A DIVINE RIGHT TO WRECK A FEW LIVES. Got to break a few eggs to make an omelette, right ?
WRONG. NOT IF IT MEANS PLAYING WITH MY LIFE. I am damned if I am going to sit back and let him be as flippant as he has been about people like me without speaking up. Why are Maharaji and premies incapable of any human sympathy for those who have suffered at Maharaji's hands ? Because they have an unspoken agreement to perpetuate the myth, in their own minds, that any casualties along the way were self-inflicted. Maharaji can do no harm. It must be doubting-Thomas-like premies 'Turning away from Knowledge' and suffering 'The consequences of their actions'.
They believe in the dualism of the Mind versus the Heart. A convenient myth that accords them a simplistic and blinkered view of human existence.
- Another Anonymous

The premies in the ashram were told to remain celibate while M partook in the very pleasures they were to deny themselves.They lived in poverty while he lived in the wealth they provided for him.
- secret name

Hi bill. I just wanted to mention that if it wasn't for the commitment of ashram premies and today the people that do service, that the rest of the premies who love MJ, and meditate, couldn't fuel his plane (let alone pay for one) there wouldn't be any aspirants for him to give knowledge to, and the wonderful events that premies attend to enjoy the music and being with him just wouldn't happen. It's the zealous full time devotion of a very few that makes it possible. And when those people have something to say about that time in their life, maybe people should listen. And if there is anger maybe there's a reason!
- Deena

' You should not expect any response to any of your questions unless you treat him with the respect he deserves.' -L.Goss
Mr Heller is evidently going through a lot of anger and has obviously lost his respect for the time being. Am I to understand that his disrespectful attitude invalidates his questions?
I gather that his lack of respect is partly because he feels that the sincere sacrifice he made (8 years in an ashram ) was in vain. Surely he deserves some respect himself for the time he committed to understanding 'The greatest gift' . How much respect is Maharaji due from people that feel that it hasn't necessarily been earned ?
- London UK

If you believe that he is your Lord, then you become his willing slave. You completely dedicate your life to him. In the course of serving him, of dedicating your life to him, you provide his means of support and income. That's really what's at the core of it. It's sad, because there's no provision being made for these people.
There are so many of them in his ashrams. That word is roughly equivalent to the English word 'monastery'. He has a number of people living in them in a state of poverty, chastity and obedience. These people give all of their fruit of their labour to him.
Some of them are probably under the impression that he is using it to spread his knowledge, to spread the practice of meditation and the means of inner peace to the people of the world. In fact, that's really not what happens. Most of the money just goes to support him in his lifestyle.
- Bob Mishler

This was also the period when GMJ said he was looking at land in Florida for a 'divine city' or something similar (at least he said that at an ashram meeting in 1980 at the Kissimee swamp). This set off alarms somewhere in my brain and I had images of the paranoia that could develop there, but I guess that never went anywhere; I think GMJ spent all the money on himself and there was never anything left to buy the land with, thank god.
- JW

Brian MacDermott is on the security roster. His wife is the head of ushering at large events. He is still nuttier than a fruitcake and incredibly funny. He is much in demand as a speaker at service meetings because he always lightens the mood.
On a different note, I ran into him last year when he was being torn down by an ex-ashram premie who was in the 'married ashram' at the time Brian was telling parents to give their children to the care of nannies and go out and do full time service. This woman had spent about two months without her infant in an attempt to follow Brian's directive at that time, and she finally gave up, got her child back, and stayed home with the baby.
Brian was a bundle of apologies about how stupid he'd been in those days. How uncaring and insensitive.
- OP

There were I don't know how many incarnations of Divine Light Mission that got formed, dissolved and re-formed. There was the ashram experiment and to my understanding, as soon as it proved to be uncomfortable or counter-productive for people, Maharaji himself disbanded it.
- Mili

I didn't know that the ashram was an 'experiment' (failed, by the way). Don't you think GMJ had an obligation to let people know that, prior to encouraging their (costly) involvement in something that was just an 'experiment'?
- JW

I also wondered if the caste system you describe: (GMJ/mahatma/initiator/residence premie/ashram/rich premie/single premie/married-with-children-premie)was also intentional on GMJ's part. Is that what he came here to give us, a little bit of the India caste system right here in America?
- JW

I did see Heaven's Gate news shots & videos. They reminded me so much of DLM ashram's that I went out to search the net for info. on my old cult,DLM. The inexplicable conviction of those folks was scary. I also related to the barracks style of housing. Ashrams had away of being so attractive on the outside but on the inside, after they schmoozed you in it was basic training tactics 24hrs. I was a renegade premie of sorts. and those brothers & sisters that I lived with were very close.
- Matt C

I kept practising Knowledge always looking on the bright side and giving Maharaji the benefit of the doubt .
Because, in the ashram , we were supposed to largely sever our family ties, I ,as an adult, never really got to know my dear, kind old dad. This I now resent.
- Anon

It still seems rather mean to prescribe a lifetime of celibacy and teetotalism to ones followers.( As Maharaji did in the case of Ashram premies.) and then to secretly live the kind of lifestyle that would not be out of place in a Jackie Collins novel.
- Anon
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:25:39 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 5
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 4
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
When I was living in the ashram in the mid-70s DLM sent an ashram premie, who was having some emotional problems, to where I was living and I was his roommate. [Believe it or not, I was considered a very stable, together ashram premie, and so I was often assigned to room with people who were particularly freaked out.] Anyway, this guy was very uptight and rigid. He meditated for about five hours a day, never missed arti or satsang, and did whatever service he was told to do.
He loved Guru Maharaj Ji immensely and wanted to dedicate his entire life to him. Anyway, after a while he began to open up to me a little and I learned something about him. He told me that he was really having trouble with sexual desires and he had to be very careful because he might slip up on his celibacy vows.
Anyway, one day I came into the bathroom and found that he was trying to castrate himself with a razor; he said he was doing it because he just couldn't deal with the sexual desires that his mind was throwing at him. I was able to stop him before he did much damage, and after some medical attention, he seemed okay.
I tried to argue that he needed professional psychiatric help, but the line I got from the powers that be and the mahatmas was that satsang, service and meditation were the solution to absolutely everything. [That may sound strange to you know, but that was definitely the prevailing view then, and that is what GMJ was saying.] Sometime after that, he slapped a sister in the ashram for talking and laughing in the satsang hall, which was not allowed. [I can't remember whose agya that was.] I don't think he hurt her, but everyone could see he was unravelling.
Anyway, after the slap incident, the powers that be in the ashram called the police and had him arrested, and he was committed to a local mental facility. I remember visiting him there. It was a true snake pit. He had soiled his clothes and he had been given drugs such that he wasn't sure who I was. Eventually, he was sent to go live with his father.
Once later I called his father who told me that a few years earlier, this guy had turned over his trust funds and all his other money and possessions to Guru Maharaj Ji and he was just a little incredulous that after the cult got what they wanted from this guy, and he became too much trouble, they just abandoned him.
It was really hard for me. I couldn't reconcile how someone who had devoted their entire life to the Lord of the Universe, even if we was a little strange, could be abandoned by the Lord of the Universe, especially when he was one of the most vulnerable. I guess that was one of the first indications to me that Guru Maharaj Ji did not know or care about what was happening to the people who were slaving away for him and who sincerely gave themselves to him. No matter how hard I meditated and did service, I never lost that feeling entirely. I wonder what they guy is doing now?
- JW

I didn't intend to blame Guru Maharaj Ji for all the insensitive and stupid things that his organization, his mahatmas and administrators did to this poor ashram brother or to other people who were in Divine Light Mission. That would be illogical and unfair. But Guru Maharaj Ji is responsible to the extent he set up the whole situation where he was asking for total devotion and surrender and where there were ashrams in the first place, making people vulnerable to the kind of stuff that went on in them.
Sure there was valuable stuff, but there was also destructive stuff, as I and others have mentioned here. If that brother was not trying to surrender and devote his life to Guru Maharaj Ji, which Guru Mahararj Ji had asked him to do, he never would have been there trying to stifle his sexual desires with a razor blade. Maybe he would have done something destructive elsewhere, who knows, but that doesn't change the fact that he was depending on GMJ to take care of him. Maybe that was a ridiculous thing to do, and in the end it turned out to be a ridiculous and stupid thing to do, but that doesn't mean that Guru Maharaj Ji does not share some ultimate responsibility for putting himself out there as this brother's lord and master.
True, it doesn't let his other mindless, heartless, devotees off the hook either, but he remains at least somewhat ultimately responsible nonetheless.
- JW

I just can't resent the fact that my clothes were sold off while I was in the ashram. I never minded sleeping on the floor (in the residence I used to sleep behind the couch so that I could jump up if I heard Maharaji walking down the stairs). I didn't resent living on white rice and leftover potato chips and baskin robbins, or brown rice and lentils - depending on where I was living at the time.
The experiences I had were always positive. Perhaps I am a carryover from another century, another place and time. Or maybe my years on the Lower East Side had already jaded my ideas of what a normal living situation should look like that having any semblance of middle class living would have seemed odd to me.
As usual, I've gone on too long, and gone off the subject. I just wanted to let you know that there are some of us who went through the whole trip and came out of it whole and even appreciating it.
- OP

I just can't resent the fact that my clothes were sold off while I was in the ashram. I never minded sleeping on the floor (in the residence I used to sleep behind the couch so that I could jump up if I heard Maharaji walking down the stairs). I didn't resent living on white rice and leftover potato chips and baskin robbins, or brown rice and lentils - depending on where I was living at the time. - OP
No, you big silly. Nor did I. Those sort of things pale into insignificance for me. My gripes are that I dedicated my entire time to an incredibly boring and delusive life to which I was really unsuited. I never saw my family (until my Dad's death) , I helped to peddle and promote Maharaji as the Master. Gave him all my earnings etc. etc.(that bothered me morally when I saw where the money went ) Basically I learned the hard way. If MJ hadn't come along I would have been spared the madness of his authoritarian regime and could have concentrated on some other enjoyable pursuits in life. I didn't enjoy the Ashram. But I felt pressured by him to be there. If it had just been Knowledge and meditation I would have definitely been grateful. I feel I am repeating myself. I have done what you asked and reread your posts. Do me a favour and read my story in the Journey's section entitled 'Viewpoint' if you haven't already. I think I have expressed myself better there.
The experiences I had were always positive. Perhaps I am a carryover from another century, another place and time. Or maybe my years on the Lower East Side had already jaded my ideas of what a normal living situation should look like that having any semblance of middle class living would have seemed odd to me. As usual, I've gone on too long, and gone off the subject. I just wanted to let you know that there are some of us who went through the whole trip and came out of it whole and even appreciating it. - OP
Well my experiences were honestly not all positive. Frankly I am baffled how any premie can honestly suggest that it has been an entirely positive experience. It sounds like wishful thinking to me. I know a number of really blatantly screwed up old premies who tiresomely insist that Knowledge and MJ keep them in great shape. They are clearly not telling the truth, believe me. Maybe you are like them. Maybe not.
- Anon

As for 'pressured to leave your family' Anon - this is what really does set me off. Pressured by WHOM? - OP
David Smith for one! He had MJ's blessings didn't he??I don't think that you can ever have been to any of MJ's latter day ashram premie satsangs... at least not the one's I went to. You might not get so 'set off' about my complaint if you had .
- Anon

Actually, the premise of my piece is that my relationships with my siblings, especially Erika, was very much harmed for a decade by her involvement with Maharaji--but that the post-1982 loosening/ devolution/ de-ashramification/ de-Hinduification of Mahraji's presentation and operation was a benign transformation. From my perspective, it allowed me to have my siblings (especially my sister) back in the land of the living. They stopped proselytising me. And for more than a dozen years now there has been NO tension over Maharaji. I don't know of any other 'cult' leader who willingly loosened the reins on his followers in this way--who, it can be argued, transformed his thing from a true cult to a more reasonable, sustainable, meditation-based religious community.
- Kurt Anderson (of the New Yorker)
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:27:48 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 6
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 5
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
When I transferred to the Boston ashram in 1976, X (real name deleted )was the community coordinator. He announced a couple of days after I got there that he was leaving the ashram and getting married. Turns out he got one of the community premies pregnant and since GMJ was adamantly opposed to abortion, he had a sort of shotgun situation on his hands. Of course, about a year or so later, when GMJ was demanding total surrender once again after the 1976 loosening, X abandoned his wife and kid and moved back into the ashram, ending up in Miami meeting with GMJ to be his steward. I hope he eventually went back to his wife and kid. But I digress.

I was a happy, well-balanced, talented, educated, loving and sincere child who appreciated the gift of life that I had been given, and humbly aspired to fulfil my purpose through serving Maharaji who I truly believed would care for me as my Master.
Maharaji then proceeded to convince and coerce me, at a vulnerable time in my life, with the medieval religion that he preached. He then encarcerated me in his ashram for years and took everything I had to offer materially and spiritually. My life was, and remains, my most precious gift and I never needed Maharaji or anyone else to remind me. I knew that from my childhood without any third party claiming to be the source of my inspiration or preaching to me about what I gratitude I owed them.
I had so much to give in my life.Is it surprising that I felt disillusioned when at age 25 I found myself without a job or career,no family, my father dead, Maharaji laughing all the way to the bank, and feeling all the frustration of a having had my life's potential wasted? Yet there I was still polishing his brothers Lambourghini for the nth time.
Yes, I carried on practising Maharaji's prescription to the letter, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Yes I have seen him all over the world many many times. I have been a fully paid up member of the Maharaji travel club.
Since leaving the ashram I have been luckier than some. I have had the common sense and guts (apparently lacking in many premies) to be mercilessly conscientious and to look in the mirror to see what has truly become of my life. It has been enormously hard to face the reality, shake off the complacency and the anaesthetic denial and continue with hope and trust in Life. My suspicions and conclusions about the reality of Maharaji and the whole Guru, Master business have come gradually, over many years, as a result of using my common sense and discrimination whilst practising Maharaji's prescription to the letter with good faith.
Since leaving the ashram many premies have suffered terrible difficulties in trying to get going on their own. I have carved out for myself and my newly acquired family, what some would consider to be an enviable career and lifestyle. But I will always be acutely aware of how much more I could have achieved had I not been for so long sidetracked by the hypnotic delusions put upon me by Maharaji's world.
- Anon

I feel that because I married an ashram premie as soon as the ashram's were closed in '82 that in a sense we created our own ashram life of devotion and loving MJ not each other. I look forward to the day where the fallout will be over.
- Deena

'So all ashram residents, and it's working out that most of the community for the same reasons, has to ask for money from family and friends. So please, I would very much appreciate it if you can send me whatever you can. Well I've written a fairly long letter now and the typing's getting really scattered.
So much love to you both, Jim
P.S. You should pick up the most recent 'And it is Divine.' It's fantastic.
- J Heller (as a keen young premie)

To hell with people like me, anon, Jim and others who were involved in the ashram/initiator experiment (as Mili puts it) which he tried for awhile until it became clear he wouldn't be able to pull it off. He didn't give a shit how people like us might have gotten chewed up in the process.
He doesn't even feel the need to address that issue, and hasn't to my knowledge.
- JW

The end of the ashrams in the UK, for example, coincided with a change in perspective in many ways both - much had moved on around us from the early 70's. It was uncomfortable even hurtful, but timely and liberating, really, I thought. My main difficulty was and is, to a degree, in not saying goodbye - to the people and the beliefs .... the lack of closure that one of the previous correspondents talked of. I find this discussion helpful and welcome in that respect and am grateful to the others for their comments and views which are helping me, for one, to understand, accept and appreciate those times.
- Jon

The Crusades etc. may not have occurred,(at least not in the name of Christ )or any other religious leader. Followers of Applewhite read Christ's actually (so-called) spoken words ( not accounts from others.) only. They read these over and over. One could say they were devote Christians in the early years. But one man's power tore people from their families (not unlike ashram premies from theirs) controlled their lives and then led them to their death. They weren't forced. They were free to leave at any time. Their loyalty and devotion was the reason they stayed. They sincerely trusted Do to be the incarnation of a Great teacher and they would have seen Maharaji as a cult leader I'm sure.
So where do we draw the line? Families I know of ashram premies still suffer from those lost years. If a group commits suicide is it then ok to call it a cult? If only individuals commit suicide or have nervous breakdowns, then it's not? If harm and suffering occurs for some premies and not for others, then it isn't a cult?
- Deena
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:31:27 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 7
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 6
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Anyway, in 1981, Mr. Smith was in charge of the western region of the U.S. for GMJ, including all the initiators, ashrams, businesses and communities. In one of his meetings with Guru Maharaj Ji, apparently GMJ was really pisssed off about the ashrams and gave the order to clean up the ashrams. I don't know if Maharaj Ji ever said what that was supposed to entail, and in other regions it happened quite differently, but Mr. Smith, because he believed that whatever came into his head was god talking, decided to use the community I was living in as his first target and went on a rampage that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame. To him, his orders meant scaring and terrorizing and ashram premies with a lot of psychological abuse, getting ashram premies to rat on each other about who might or might not have a special friend (not allowed), who might be doing terrible things like reading books (not allowed), have a job in the world that he or she was too into (not allowed) having too many possessions (he actually went through the ashram premies' closets and threw away clothes if he thought somebody had too many), didn't behave correctly (he told one premie who had some psychological problems that he was a robot and had to change while at the same time terrifying him into being more of a robot than he ever was before). He had these interrogation meetings with individuals and groups that were terribly disrespectful and abusive. He gave satsang to the ashrams in which he used fuck and other abusive language that I had never heard in satsang before. It was unbelievable heavy and devoid of anything but fear. It was also clear that there was no correct way to be.
Whatever you did made you open to his attack, his actions and statements could be completely contradictory, because, apparently, attacking was his purpose. It was also clear to me and others that David really ENJOYED the pain he was causing. He really ENJOYED abusing people. That was the terrifying part to me. It was abusive because he always held over the premies head that he would throw them out of the ashram, or send them to some remote community if they didn't conform to some idea he had in his head about the way you were supposed to be. Superimpose this on the many ashram satsangs we had attended with GMJ in which he said that moving out of the ashram was the absolutely worst thing you could do and basically that it was more or less required for total dedication, which was also required. I think the premies also mostly believed and had faith in GMJ's hierarchy that the GMJ was in control and would protect them. Also, by and large, these were not spaced out ashram premies. They lived by the schedule, did S,S & M (funny sound to that) every day and did what they were told. Maharaj Ji was absolutely everything to them.
Even some of the initiators said Smith needed professional psychiatric help. He also, when confronted, admitted to me that he had one beaten up some girl when he was younger, almost admitting the abusive streak in him. Anyway, I saw some of the people I had lived with for a long time completely change from being fairly open, happy people to being sullen and depressed. A few of them opened up to me somewhat and talked about how terrible they felt, and the terrible fear that they didn't measure up again, blaming themselves for being worthless slugs because obviously this was all part of GMJ's plan. I think it was the feeling of wanting to get out of the concentration camp Mr. Smith was running, while at the same time your devotion to GMJ kept you there. It was a terrible, claustrophobic, imprisoned feeling. And it shook my faith in GMJ to the core. There was absolutely no love in what he did. There was absolutely no human compassion for people as individuals. All he saw was the marching orders from GMJ and his interpretation of them. It smelled of paranoia and fear. And he was basically a big jerk.
You also have to also understand that the ashram premies were especially vulnerable to this type of abuse. They were mostly pretty simple types, without a lot going for them, and they literally had NOTHING besides their dedication to GMJ and trying to be more surrendered. So, here comes Mr David Smith with the sensitivity of a Mack Truck to clean up whatever it was they were doing. I don't think I ever saw anything quite like it in DLM, even among the more insane Mahatmas.
I think the reaction was so negative to what he did, however, that I don't think he tried it anywhere else on a grand scale. Although I've heard stories about how he attacked individuals. I, at least, made sure what he did was well known outside the region, and I know others confronted him about it. Anyway, about a year later Mr. Smith came back to our fair community and sort of apologized to the ashram residents for what he did, but, when confronted, he used the old premie line that it was what was necessary and all perfect and it needed to happen. So, he basically spoke out of both sides of his mouth. I could never stand the sight of the guy after that.
- JW

I also remember something else. David actually carried around a little black book in which he kept notes about the ashram premies.
- JW

As has been documented on this site numerous times, I would suggest that the ashram premies, the initiators, and those who did service in places like DECA in building the Boeing 707, suffered the most in Guru Maharaj Ji's cult, probably because they gave up the most, in terms of personal freedom, material possessions, career and educational opportunities, family relationships, and years of their lives (and many, including myself, think those years were both precious and wasted). This does not include psychological damage and, many would argue, spiritual damage, which, while very real, are harder to measure and much more subjective.
There seems to be a widespread revisionist belief around among current cult members that people who were part of these institutions did so on a completely voluntary basis and that Guru Maharaj Ji really didn't care whether you lived in the ashram or became an initiator or not. But as those who were there can testify, that is utter bullshit.
As an example of how people were coerced into the ashram, take events in 1979 when I was community coordinator in Washington DC. Nearly the entire time I was there the resident initiator was Randy Prouty, and part of the time he was joined by Alan Imbarrato (god, was HE ever an idiot!). Randy continuously reported that it was GMJ's wish that everyone who could do so should fully dedicate by moving into the ashram. He, and I'm sorry to say with my assistance, embarked on a program to harass every available premie in the community to make that commitment.
DC was probably an unusual community in the sense that many of the premies were very together, with successful careers in government, business and the professions. [Dr. John Horton, for example was from DC.] The ashram premies were by and large the exact opposite -- a pretty untogether, but dedicated bunch. I think many of the together community premies could not relate to the weirdness of the ashrams. Anyhow, Randy set up meetings with all the premies in the community who weren't married, or who were married but didn't have kids and basically inspired (read, harrassed) them to make the commitment to the ashram. We also held pre-ashram meetings for these people as well. Randy related over and over things GMJ had said to him about the importance of total surrender through the ashram. As another incentive, anyone who began going to the pre-ashram meetings were allowed by GMJ to go to the ashram meetings he held at almost every festival. And we know the kinds of stuff GMJ said, now don't we? The pressure on these people was very intense and Randy said it was coming directly from GMJ.
Many of those people did move into the ashram and many of them ended up giving up their marriages and careers and going to Miami to work on the plane, into national headquarters and a number stayed in the community. I know several who feel pretty ripped off by that experience, and I must say I don't feel so great that I might have contributed to their problems. I know the ashrams only lasted about 5 years after that, but I just want the record to be clear about how much Maharaj Ji was into the ashrams being there, how much people were harassed into moving in to them by GMJ's henchmen, at his direction, and that to premies who really wanted to surrender in the way GMJ asked, there really was no choice when it came to that commitment. It is also important to remember how much people gave up to be there. Some people may say it was a great experience, but many people feel they were really ripped off. I would just like to say again, that unlike what Mili says,it wasn't just some choice people made to be there, there really was coercion both to move in and to stay there.
It is also infuriating to me, as I have also said before, that after the premie moved into the ashram, like most other premies, Maharaj Ji had virtually no interest in them, apparently didn't give a shit what happened to them, and then one day just ended the ashrams entirely, apparently without explanation, after people had given years of their lives to be there.
- JW
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:33:26 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 8
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 7
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
'Some people who received knowledge in the 70s were apparently asked to fill out a form listing their financial assets, and some weren't. Who here was and wasn't solicited thusly? '
- Kurt Andersen
Kurt, I think those forms were definitely in the 70s. I filled one out and I think most of the ashram residents were asked to do so, but I don't know how extensive it was. When I was working at national headquarters I saw the files of completed forms. I recall the form asked not only about your assets, but whether you expected an inheritance and some stuff about your parents' assets. I recall filling out the form and describing my father's net worth.
I don't think those questionnaires were given to just anyone who received knowledge...I think they were only given to the ashram residents, and I don't know how many of them actually got them. I filled out mine when I was in Miami, and that was 1979-1980 or so. By that time, I am not aware that anything was actually done with them. At that time, the focus was on immediate cash, mostly for plane project, rather than money coming in from inheritance down the road.
- JW

In the early years, DLM got tax exempt status as a religion such that people who donated could deduct it from their taxes. [In fact, in relation to some of the jobs I had while living in the ashram, I recall we were instructed to fill out our withholding (W-4) forms to have NOTHING withheld for federal income taxes, because we were considered monastics with no income. When I moved out of the ashram briefly in 1976, I had to actually had to pay taxes for a period of time while I was in the ashram and after the tax exempt status was lost.] Around 1976 or 77, the IRS eliminated the tax exempt status of DLM. Of course, donations to GMJ directly were never tax deductible.
Premies were also encouraged to send money directly to Guru Maharaj Ji. There was a p.o. box in Malibu to send the money to. Since there was no longer any tax advantage to contribute to DLM and since a lot of the premies sort of disliked DLM anyway, and were being told to devote entirely to GMJ, I suspect more and more money went directly to GMJ. I know that was the case with me. When I was ashram housefather and handled the finances, we made the 10% donations to DLM, but we sent more money directly to the GMJ post office box. The rest of the money went to basic food/living and going to festivals, which was a MAJOR expense and often put us heavily in debt. The heavy debt of the ashrams was sort of an ongoing joke in DLM. DLM was also usually short of funds.
- JW

At least after 1976, if you had a debt you were NOT allowed to move into the ashram -- Just ask David Smith if you don't believe me. You HAD to be at least at break-even. It's true that there was an attempt to keep DLM and Maharaj Ji finances separate, but it's not true that that happened. For example, in fundraising for the plane, millions of dollars of it went through DLM, illegally and we are talking 1980 and not 1971. The main reason DLM was abolished was because the IRS was hot on GMJ's tail.
- JW

Just like a lot of seminaries, the brothers ashrams were full of repressed gay men. I won't go into the details, but it is sad that a number of them, when the ashrams closed, were really unprepared to deal with negotiating gay safe-sex life in the era of AIDs and a couple of them I had lived with died from AIDS within a couple of years after the ashrams were closed.
- JW

One time right after a festival, where there was darshan, I walked into the satsang hall and saw the community coordinator getting a blow job from one of the ashram sisters. And do you know what? That sister got sent away to a remote reform-school ashram (San Antonio) because she was confused whereas the supposedly-celibate community coordinator$stayed right where was.
- JW

I remember getting the letter after the guy shot up the girls in the Tallahassee ashram (no more inner agya!). And I remember the one after Mata Ji and Bal Bhagwan Ji split (no more holy family agya!)
- J Heller

I saw how other premies in the ashram were being abused by some of the people Guru Maharaj Ji had put in charge of them and that made me doubt that GMJ was really protecting his premies as I believed he was. It seems I could see their suffering, at least to some extent, even while I was at the same time unable to see my own.
- JW

My husband was carried out of the ashram physically in the 70's because he burnt out so badly. He went to a non premie's farm for a few weeks to recover. He discovered life was empty without the realm of knowledge and the master. He rationalized all the abuse he experienced and witnessed as having nothing to do with MJ, and went back to live in the ashram until it closed in '82. When faced with Mishler's interview, he remarked to it as only rumour. When confronted with the possibility of who he once called,' Lord of the Universe' being drunk, he replied it only made it more real for him...Maharaji's humanity.
- Deena

At one of those huge, huge, ashrams, with no furniture that I lived in Anne Johnston also hosted an event. This was a formal dinner and the ashram brothers were the waiters. We wore white shirts and ties and crisp white aprons that the ashram sisters had ironed. We served cheese pie (glorified macaroni and cheese), salad and herbal tea, and healthy cookies that tasted like hockey pucks for desert. A premie sister sang a sweet devotional song. Then we had introductory satsang for our parents and co-workers. Even introductory satsang back then mentioned, in front of a big altar with GMJ's huge (2'x3') picture on it framed in gold, that he was the perfect master of our time and that he was the equivalent of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna. We said this with big smiles on our faces. Stupid? yes. Condescending? yes. But it made us feel like we could bend the rules and sit in chairs and act cordial and not treat our parents like the evil attachments we had all been taught they were.
- JW

Do any of you premies remember the private satsang that he gave to ashram premies at a program held in Kissamee florida where he clearly said (I created you!), it seemed like the sermon on the mount that day!
- Kuokoa

Yeah I was there. No I don't remember it verbatim. I just recall that he made it far too clear that there was no turning back in Maharaji's world. Leaving the ashram was particularly treacherous particularly treacherous. There was nothing else 'out there' for us but maya. Besides, we shouldn't feel that bad, soon the whole world would be an ashram (i.e. they'd all be suffering alongside us).
The 'turn you all blue and make you float' bit was from the satsang he gave from the main stage. That's when he threatened to have Raja Ji and his WPC tour the future festival site ( the permanent one we'd all live on, but NOT in Guyana) and rassal up stragglers who were 'delaying attending satsang.' That was the festival everyone started splitting and we had do to a major talk-down at the gate to keep them there. After all, what were we going to do with all the yogurt?
- J Heller

The ashram satsang at Kissimmee. I actually remember attending two of them. But the one you are referring to was the same one where he not only said he created us, but he also said we didn't have the right to even look at him, that moving out of the ashram was the worst thing you could do; he said it was moving into a cesspool, and that he was going to take us out of the world entirely by buying land in Florida where we would all live. Fortunately for all of us, that didn't happen, hence we did not end up like Jonestown.
- JW

I thought you were my Lord. I gave up University so I could spend time at the palace of peace in London to get knowledge, and played the famous Mahatma game of come to coventry or go to leicester. I was a sad and naiive soul . I believed you. I told my fiance that once I got knowledge I'd have to move into an ashram and effectively ended that relationship. I was broke and followed you around the world.. I made a place in my heart for you .
- Bill Cooper

That reminds me, do you recall at one point that GMJ changed the rules for formal meditation and said we should begin meditating TWO hours in the morning and TWO hours in the evening instead of just one hour each time, in addition to trying to meditate the other 20 hours of the day? That was also the period when we were always doing all-night meditations. In the ashrams, we used to do all-day Sunday meditations all the time. Christ, talk about turning meditation into drudgery. What was THAT about, and why did GMJ get on that kick? Did he have any idea what he was doing? According to Mishler, he never did meditation himself, so he probably didn't know what he was talking about anyway.
- JW

When I was in Maharaji s ashram I was one of the few people there who didn't t have aspirations or ambitions to be an instructor. I thought that if I was really sincere then such Service would automatically manifest at the right time. I was subsequently more and more surprised to notice that, without any doubt whatsoever, the effective principle to escape the drudgery of ashram life and to be elevated into the blessed ranks of Instructors, seemed to be quite the opposite. ie. Those who most loudly advertised their desire to serve MJ and put themselves forward the most brazenly were the ones who caught the attention of MJ. Grace was an imaginary factor and my ideas of being known to MJ whilst remaining silent and humbly insignificant only served to increase the speed at which I sunk into the darkest and most dismal and isolated depths of obscurity and anonymity .Thus, year in and year out, I rotted away in various Ashrams which Maharaji neither knew of or gave two hoots about.
- Anon
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:34:40 (EST)
From: Ashram forum quotes 9
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 8
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
What if M had kept his trip together a bit better and the dream hadn't died so quickly? What if we still believed in M and did so til the end? What if the ashrams hadn't fallen apart and we got old there? What if you died thinking that M was God? Dedicated your whole life, gave up the world -- so, so literally -- for him? Would it matter?
I guess what I'm asking is if it mattered that it was all fake, so long as you were 'happy'? Interesting question, don't you think?
Are there such things as 'meaningful' lives in North Korea?
- J Heller

If you ignored most of what Maharaj Ji said over the years, if you didn't try to keep from questioning him and his teachings and instead followed your own better judgment, if you didn't try to surrender your life to him as he demanded, and if you just took what you felt like taking and ignored the rest, well, if you did that, then the Maharaj Ji cult probably didn't cost you very much. But I also have a hard time seeing how you could have been his devotee is you just ignored what he was asking of you.
I also have no doubt that he doesn't say most of that stuff anymore because he can't get away with it. But what was all that surrender ashram don't doubt stuff about them, Hmmm? Was it just a phase he was going through and we were just too stupid to see it as just that? I also think it's offensive to people who sincerely tried to follow Maharaj Ji when current premies say we were just too stupid in listening to and believing what GMJ told us to do, and that we were defective in not, as you say, exercising [our] powers of diligence and questioning and that we abdicated our common sense. That's both offensive and condescending, and, if you ask me, evidence that perhaps someone besides some ex-premies are a little deficient in the common sense area.
- JW

Guru Maharaj Ji screwed up big time when he demanded total commitment and surrender (OP please do not conveniently forget surrender) which he demanded both in and outside of his ashram satsangs, such that only some of his followers made it through. Either it was a BIG mistake, or he was intentionally setting up some kind of spiritual obstacle course of his own making. God, who needs that?
The spiritual path is hard enough without your own master and guide either screwing up or intentionally making it so large numbers of his followers will split and feel highly ripped off when he changes his tune entirely and dismisses both his own teachings of surrender and devotion, and with it the personal experiences and efforts of a large number of his devotees to do what he told them to do. If it was a mistake (and it certainly was in hindsight), why don't you and he just admit it? It certainly would clear the air for a lot of people including, I would imagine, people who continue to consider themselves his devotees but still wonder about that as well.
You see, OP, the fact that he doesn't demand total commitment and surrender anymore is feeble solace and a tacit admission of a big booboo that had profound effects on the lives of many people. He really should take at least SOME responsibility, shouldn't he?
- JW

Yes, I remember when Guru Maharaj Ji used to say that receiving knowledge would not change your religion. (laugh) He then proceeded to denigrate religions as the empty traditions of dead perfect masters. Can you imagine the ashram premie after arti and meditation heading off to the local catholic church for mass?
- JW

In 1974, after three years in the ashram, I was transferred to the Boston ashram.I believe David Smith was the 'general secretary' at the time. I couldn't believe how rigid and uptight he was, and as a result, everyone else. It was like a prison. Perhaps I should be grateful, it motivated me to move out.
- PS

I have been thinking about exactly what my gripe is. It is not that MJ drinks , smokes, or copulates with Yaks. That is not my problem. It is not that he should be run out of town for evading tax or having 500 aeroplanes. It is not, essentially, his behaviour.
My gripe is that by doing what he said and following him extremely carefully, I was led into particularly unpleasant circumstances and influences. Namely the Ashram. It really was for me the most insufferably boring, heartless and disappointing way to have 'mis-spent' my youth; and my loyalty to him, which was unquestionable, was not reciprocated or appreciated by him at all,as far as I know. I lost out. Even my meditation suffered in the ashram - We were so pushed to raise money etc. that I lived a pleasureless existence as, effectively, an unpaid servant. My trust in him then started to gradually dwindle until now I find myself quite shocked that he feels no human sympathy or understanding of my plight. Obviously I am not alone in that sadness and anger. Those years I dedicated to him are gone forever.
What I am trying to say is that I feel that I made a huge sacrifice, personally, to follow Maharaji and that that was in vain and was misguided.While those around him now naughtily sip their ciders at his parties and feel blessed to be a part of his ongoing celebrations, I am elsewhere. I am not going to see him because his influence certainly suppressed my intelligence, and my growth. I was in danger of becoming a middle-aged fake. By daring to question the unquestionable, by daring to seek the truth again with a brave heart, I am finally moving on. Will he move on too?
If you are there Maharaji, spare a kind thought for us, who certainly have been your real followers. That is why we speak out here..hoping indeed that you will hear of our pain and will maybe have some respect for our experiences and concern for the effect that you have had on us. Oh yes. We are still here. We will not go away.
-Anon
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 04:50:38 (EST)
From: ex-mug
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 9
Subject: gave all royalties
Message:
I really believed that GM was the Lord incarnate, and around the time of Millenium received my first big royalty pay cheques from EMI records (album sales from my rock band)after moving into the ashram.
It was with great joy that I handed the money over to the DLM finance office, thinking that it would help the Lord spread his message to a needy world.
My dear parents could have really used that money, and I, in my
blind state gave it to the fat fraud - I regret this very much.
Oh, well, at least hopefully the fat bastard will be exposed for what he is -
just something I needed to share
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:23:00 (EST)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: JW
Message:
Just like a lot of seminaries, the brothers ashrams were full of repressed gay men. I won't go into the details, but it is sad that a number of them, when the ashrams closed, were really unprepared to deal with negotiating gay safe-sex life in the era of AIDs and a couple of them I had lived with died from AIDS within a couple of years after the ashrams were closed.
- JW


Hi JW,
I was surprised to read this. Do you think there was a higher percentage of gay men in the ashrams than in the regular premie population and/or in the regular civilian population?
Rick
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:12:05 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Gay Premies
Message:
Do you think there was a higher percentage of gay men in the ashrams than in the regular premie population and/or in the regular civilian population?

Rick, I obviously don't have any statistics, but I would say that the number of gay men in the ashrams was higher than gay men in the general population, and also in the premie population, which I think probably wasn't any different from the general population. If you accept the sketchy statistics that gays are 6 - 10% of the population, I think the ashram percentage was higher.

The ashram was a convenient place to avoid having to deal with your sexuality because celibacy was the norm and sexuality was basically seen as an evil desire that blocked the path of surrender to Maharaji. Seminaries do much the same thing, and that's why, for example, that it's estiimated that 40% of Catholic priests are gay, usually very repressed, men.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:28:53 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: Ashram forum quotes 1
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
Thanks for those quotes from ex-ashram premies. I'll be putting it up on my web site, for sure.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 15:34:22 (EST)
From: barney
Email: None
To: SMITH archives 3!
Subject: David Smith at Gates of Amaroo
Message:
I was at a program with David Smith speaking and he told of a recent Amaroo event where it was the first evening and Maharaji was speaking, but they needed someone at the entrance to quiz late arrivals to ensure that they were really premies.

Well, the ever-surrendered David Smith volunteered for the duty and, of course, it was blissful service.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:38:43 (EST)
From: SHP
Email: None
To: SMITH archives 1
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
To Whom It May Concern:

With reference to the the following excerpt from SMITH archives I
below from JW:

'This was troubling to me, especially when he told me that he truly believed that he was completely controlled by Guru Maharaj Ji and that anything that came into his head he should just do because it was divinely inspired (YIKES!). Even the other initiators used to comment that he needed professional psychiatric help.'

The particular wierdness of this archive is that one of the most vivid things I remember about my Knowledge session with him is that he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, back very straight against the wall, and he stated in no uncertain terms that agya from Guru Maharaji's comes from only one place in the universe, and then he extended one gangly arm straight above him and extended one gangly finger straight up from one gangly hand, and that finger landed on a picture of Maharaji hanging right above him and that gangly finger was pointing straight to Maharaji's mouth...and David emphasized that this was the only place that agya came from. (Shit, he must have rehearsed this thing with the finger hitting the mouth in the picture...!!)

That was in February 1978. Can you tell me when he said that thing about his personal divine connection in the above post? That would mean alot to me, since he is still around and doing (his own) and Maharaji's thing as far as I know. And it would also explain that strange vibe I got from him I figured was the ineffable, untappable instructor vibe. How you say..drip, drip?!
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:19:08 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: SHP
Subject: Smith and Agya
Message:
My memory of this is around 1980 and 1981. This was the period of the great Smith ashram inquisition.

I my experience Smith as fine as long as he wasn't in a position of power. Actually as a run of the mill initiator, he could be a nice guy. But when he got in power, especially when he thought Guru Maharaj Ji was directing him from inside his brain, well, let's just say it got very, very weird. For me, all of the worst atrocities of the cult kind of manifested in the actions of that guy and the way he terrorized people, and how much he appeared to enjoy it and how absolutely sure it was that it was the will and grace of Guru Maharaj Ji.

Yes, the vibe was definitely strange.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:16:53 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: SHP
Subject: It's all HERE now
Message:
I'm still wading through the archives at the moment but I know there's stuff about David Smith there. However, The truth about Maharaji site is mainly concerned with Maharaji and not the premies so I won't be dishing too much dirt up on the premies unless it specifically calls Maharaji into question. An example of that would be the hammer wielding, murderous mahatma Fakiranand.

I had just a few run-ins with David Smith and I found him to be ill mannered, rude and objectionable. Others here have had closer dealings with him and have had more to say about him. In the end though, I'd consider David Smith to be a victim of Maharaji's little dehumanising game. Maharaji does have the knack of dehumanising people.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:09:53 (EST)
From: bravo! and thank you AE.
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: AE flys the flag of truth
Message:
You picked such good comments.

How about if you solicit some legal ok from all of us
that provides you with the private backup of our addresses
so that if push ever comes to shove, you can say in court,
yes, bill is ..... and he backs up this as his experience and
it is not just 'x said this' or 'jw said that' and a future
book will have our ok for... well, you know more than I
perhaps, the benefit of having some privately held
statement from us saying 'I posted as so and so and I ....'
Is there a future legal reason for doing this?
Rather than letting anyone claim 'heresay and unknown sources'
we can come forward in some legal way.
Waiting your direction.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 14:35:31 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: bravo! and thank you AE.
Subject: AE flys the flag of truth
Message:
You made some good points there and I'm glad people appreciate the site. I already know many of the contributors email addresses and identities and one or two make no attempt to hide themselves. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to work out who I am, either.

If I was sued then that would be interesting. There would be several people who would jump in at the chance to defend the statements made on the site. I can think of three now, just off the top of my head.

Of course, what is written on the site can be dismissed as hearsay and rumour. That down't bother me. Most people who have been around the Maharaji scene in the past will know that there's more than a grain of truth in it all. I have no interest in convincing people who choose not to believe what is written.

There are Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 14:40:51 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: AE flys the flag of truth 2
Message:
There are so many ex-premies saying the same things about Maharaji that it is obvious to most people that it must all be true. If none of it was true then that would indicate a vast conspiracy by ex-premies with an organisation on a par with the CIA. No, people are just telling it like it is, from their own experience.

It looks like Netscape has a problem with this forum, by the way.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:01:19 (EST)
From: Zac
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: Thanks AE
Message:
I am blown away by those pages. Thank you.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:24:06 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: AE
Subject: Smith
Message:
AE:

Hi guy -- hope all is well.

Just some historical notes. I agree about focusing on Maharaji and not on the premies. It's impossible to tell how much each premie was a victim, but Maharaji can't claim that.

Just some notes on David Smith:

It appeared to me that Smith wasn't all that bad until he got power and when he did, he became a royal jerk. But I especially noticed that he soared on the jerk scale after he returned to the states from England in 1980. It was almost like he had a nervous breakdown from whatever happened over there. Was he freaked out most of the time there, that you saw? Just wondered.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 03:20:30 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Smith
Message:
Hi JW
'It was almost like he had a nervous breakdown from whatever happened over there. Was he freaked out most of the time there, that you saw? Just wondered.'

My memory of David Smith was that he was really boring, spoke with the right words but clearly no inspiration. Most people herein the UK took the piss out him...BUT he was prem's representative so we had to obey.(you know just like Anne Johnson who said that M said to her that sex was mind and that was enough for her or that we shouldn't have friends. )
He sent me from London(ashram) to live in Leeds.
Also I found out that wrote lies on my initiatior-application form.

I have to go and vomit now.....I can't believe I have been so stupid.

I hope you had a good Valentine's day. Amongst other things I went to a Pendragon dance with my girlfriend and had an experience premies could only dream of.

Jethro
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 08:13:22 (EST)
From: Minnesota Housewife
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Smith
Message:
So 'sex is mind' eh? Then I'd say Maharaji is in his mind a lot there, dont ya know
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:04:37 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Smith
Message:
Most people herein the UK took the piss out him...

Jethro, can you translate? Really though, Smith seemed both mentally and physically broken, and also had some medical problems, when he returned from the UK. He came to Miami where I was community coordinator, and stayed in the ashram I was living in. All he did was sleep and play tennis. When I asked him about what the UK was like, he mumbled something about there being 'a lot of problems there' or something like that.

Speaking of writing things about premies like on initiator applications, during his ashram inquisition, Smith kept a black book, in which he wrote down notes on all the ashram premies. I took it from him once when he wasn't around and read some of it. It was amazing. Something like an FBI file or a dossier from the KGB. He wrote down all kinds of things, like if an ashram premie had 'friends' read books, was too worldly, etc., (these were all black marks) and he got most of this information by getting the premies to rat on the other premies. He talked about how Maharaji saw the ashram as a life-long commitment. [ Of course, to the extent he was successful in his inquisition, Maharaji just dumped the ashram premies on the street about 18 months later.]

I would speak to the other initiators about all this and they would roll their eyes and say he was nuts, but since he was in charge of the Western US, they didn't dare cross him. Plus, they were deathly afraid that something negative about them would get back to Maharaji and displeasing Maharaji was the ultimate fear.

JW
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 11:59:31 (EST)
From: easy enough to guess
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Smith was the J Edgar Hoover
Message:
of the DLM! Now wouldn't it have been great material if someone could have started blackmailing Rawat with all he knew, like J Edgar blackmailed his bosses. Hmmm....for all we know someone has, give me money, keep me safe, or I am going to the news with all of this, like you see on tv, if anything happens to me its all in this safe deposit box...
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 16:48:49 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Smith
Message:
JW,

'To take the piss' out of someone means to make fun of them. I didn't realize it was only English slang.
The guy smith is a real parasite.

Regards jethro
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 17:26:11 (EST)
From: ham
Email: None
To: jw
Subject: taking the 'p'
Message:
''To take the piss' out of someone means to make fun of them.'- I would add, a bit cruelly. A little twist of the knife, puncturing pretensions, to the point they would realize that they were a dickhead, but maybe that's my twisted east london take on the phrase.

Key part of the culture here, nearly 100% 'working class', mostly with plenty of 'dosh' (money). If you can't take the 'p' out of yourself you're seen as a bit of a sad case. Lots of raised eyebrows and raucous (unspoken) laughter.

piss is slang for urine, to take the p is to puncture a bladder that's bloated.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 22:18:59 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Smith
Message:
To take the piss' out of someone means to make fun of them.

If the premies were laughing at him all the while, that kind of explains it. I think many of us over here had that dense American quality of taking people seriously.
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 02:42:33 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Dense Americans(joking)
Message:
'I think many of us over here had that dense American quality of taking people seriously.'

I perfectly understand what you mean :>)))
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:18:38 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Dense Americans(joking)
Message:
I perfectly understand what you mean :>)))

Yes that American 'Forrest Gump' quality can be a real pisser, especially when confronted by someone like David Smith. And Smith, being fairly dense himself, probably only realized late in the game that he was the laughing stock of the UK while he was trying to be a robot for the Lord. Now I can't help thinking that Smith took out his hurt ego on the ashram premies in the USA upon his return. Then again, I think he's just derranged.

[Let me know if you need translation re pisser.]
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 12:50:13 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Dense Americans(NOT joking)
Message:
A true story:

An englishman was driving around and American vistor. When they came to a pedestrian crossing and stopped a noise was emmitted whenit was safe to cross. The Engishman said 'Oh that's for the blind', to which the American replied 'Oh, in the USA we don't allow blind people to drive!'
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 19:29:15 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Was the American a blonde?
Message:
That's great, sounds like a 'dumb blonde' joke. But it isn't all that dumb. If you let people drive on the wrong side of the road, what other dangerous things might you allow, like letting the blind drive? We let Chinese old ladies drive in San Francisco, and some of them have glasses the width of the bottoms of Coke bottles. They are 4 feet tall and drive Cadillacs, and can't see over the sterring wheel. From the way they drive, I'd swear they are blind.

Yeah, naive denseness is a national trait, but then our teeth are a lot better than the Brits -- are all the bad teeth due to the national health service, or lack of flossing? Or is it all the candy?:) Also we have much larger cars and refrigerators. :::)))

Berkeley and Oakland have those pedestrian crossing sounds for the blind -- they sound like birds chirping. I think San Francisco believes it is too sophisticated and that it would destroy the ambience to have them. Better the blind be run over. Also, since each of us has the Constitutional right to own an automatic weapon over here, it's more likely you will be shot than be in an auto accident anyway.
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Date: Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 03:06:42 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Was the American a blonde?
Message:
'......but then our teeth are a lot better than the Brits -- are all the bad teeth due to the national health service, or lack of flossing? Or is it all the candy?:)'
Well in my case it's a bit of everything. I was addicted to chocolate biscuits(McVitie & Price fingers) by the age of 4 and was having a box or 2 a day. Also we Brits have a special protective coating over our skins so that we hardly have to wash(this is in response to rumours that we smell and inly bath once a year).

I wonder how cavepeople survived without floss.

'Also we have much larger cars and refrigerators. :::)))'
Ye, I couldn't help noticing the size of meals given in American restaraunts. I think America would also win the prize for having a much larger number of obes people(SP?). I found a breakfast sufficient for the whole day.

'Berkeley and Oakland have those pedestrian crossing sounds for the blind -- they sound like birds chirping. I think San Francisco believes it is too sophisticated and that it would destroy the ambience to have them.'
Tell the SF authorites to try some ambient trance music. That'll do the trick. :>)

'Better the blind be run over. Also, since each of us has the Constitutional right to own an automatic weapon over here, it's more likely you will be shot than be in an auto accident anyway.'

This makes me feel really safe about visiting the New World.

(BTW I got shot at about 3 years ago when I was going out to get some milk. The shot missed me by inches. The I thought, I wonder if this is what America is like')
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 03:44:09 (EST)
From: cp
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Smith
Message:
On Smith- one year ago I came across him. Didnt recognize him from the old days. I thought it looked promising to have a nice handsome modern looking intiator or what ever he is.
Well he started speaking at the event and his eyes went very glassy and into slits. I couldnt figure out why he was scary. The words he was saying were smooth and full of 'I- am- awake- and- aware- and- doing- the- right- thing'
When he finished speaking, I got up close to take a good look.

His eyes . Meanwhile his demeanor was socially proper- engaging and cool.
It took me hours to shake the creepy feeling. That was the first night that I felt that there was something definitely seriously wrong with M effect on people- up to that point I had put all the early goings on the apres 60 mind set that was partially my own responsibilty.
Smith- This yuppie-devotee was a shell of something we only see in Stephen King novels.Hang on I have never read on of those- but it was HORRIBLE.
That night was the beginning of a conscious descision to phase out of the M trip for ever. Two weeks later I found this forum.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 08:25:22 (EST)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: cp
Subject: Addiction sucks
Message:
But the real question is, did his eyelids shut from side to side instead of from up to down?

That was one scary story, cp. I want my MOMMY!!!

How could one be an initiator and not be nutty as a fruitcake, I ask you? those initiators seemed aimless, bored, depressed, and psychotic to me, every last one. And I saw a lot of them having had the longest aspirancy in the history of premie-dom.

So you think their madness might have given me a clue to 'Run, run like the wind!! Get out now while you can!!' Nooooo, I had to hang in there so I could get the key to the promised fabulous experience within. Talk about not using critical thinking.

I listened to this AA tape one time that said you can offer alcoholics a choice: either you keep drinking and your insides will harden and eventually your brain and liver will go all resulting in death if you continue to drink, or you can give up drink and live one day at a time needing support and having your health back. The alcoholic says 'What was the first choice again?'

Ya just can't reason with addicts, ya know?
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:50:40 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: cp
Subject: Smith
Message:
Interesting, cp:

I also credit the robot Smith for getting me out of the cult. It was like I needed to see the most extreme example of what the cult could do to someone before the spell of the cult programming was broken.

This was back in 1981, and what I observed in his desire to mess with people both physically and psychologically, the truly sadistic things he did to people -- the most vulnerable ashram premies especially -- on top of his stated belief that he was a robot controlled by Maharaji, both frightened me, and made me doubt Maharaji on a level I never had. He was compulsive, vindictive, miserable, amazinging uptight, paranoid and suspicious, and about as far away from being a human being I think I've ever seen, and yet he was supposedly Maharaji's representative, and still is. This was especially astounding to me because it was a change. Prior to that I had been around Smith some and just saw him as this gangly, gee-wiz guy who gave self-depricating satsang. Boy, did that change.

Even then, it took two years before I left entirely, but it was pretty much over after those experiences.

JW
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 16:05:49 (EST)
From: Tami
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: you guys are crewl
Message:
my boyfriend Tommy Lee says the cure is a koole band, but I didn't understan the words on that one I heard.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 17:15:20 (EST)
From: Tammy Faye Baker
Email: None
To: Tami
Subject: you guys are crewl
Message:
Oh Tami, I know that we'd get along so well.
I was down in the dumps with my man going to jail and all, but now Jesus has made a smile be my umbrella!! I have a new man who is rich and I can go shopping at Walmart all I want! It's cheaper than a psychiatrist!!

Honey, you come on over and we'll laugh and cry and I'll do a makeover on you!! I just want Jesus to do for you what He has done for me!! I'll pray for you!!
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 15:39:12 (EST)
From: AE
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Ashrams & Maharaji's abuse
Message:
It's all there for the world to see on
Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 06:25:15 (EST)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Meditation without M, finally!
Message:
I've got some new stuff on my site, for aspirants and premies and exes who've never understood anything reg meditation:

Meditation unvealed

These techniques don't belong to ANY master, nor is it necessary to have one to learn and practice them.

I don't say you've to practice them....
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 16:58:07 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Meditation without M, finally!
Message:
Great stuff,JM. So yoni mudra will save you even if you have it off with the gurus wife? M never told us that one .Geez, all that time in the ashram, I could have been doing all sorts of things and a bit of yoni mudra would have fixed it all up.BTW, I have a copy of the techniques as taught by Yogananda and SLF. I have some hesitation in posting them for a few reasons. One is I view Yogananda as having a lot more integrity than M and in the booklets they are part of a whole range of preparations and techniques with thorough explanations.There also may be some copyrite problems-the booklets are not public publications.What's your view?
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 18:16:22 (EST)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: chr:
Subject: Yogananda & others
Message:
Hi chr,

my point is to show that:

- the techniques are public
- m is NOT a good teacher
- m is a liar
- there are many other teachers, and there is no need to surrender to any 'master' to discover something inside, if that's your goal
- that the BM really offers a path of devotion, and nothing else.
- that he's not such a nice person.

Any materials illustrating these points are welcome.
If those writings are old enough, there is no copyright involved.
AND I don't intend to reproduce them in whole,
only some excerpts to illustrate my point.

And how to get copies of those materials if some people are interested, like editors if still available, or libraries.

I'd like to see the BM a bit more humble .....
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:22:11 (EST)
From: bill
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Yogananda & others
Message:
Comon JM, by your dream, you would like him so humble that
he would sit still while you inject him with the sleeping
death shot used on animals.

That is such an image you had inyour dream that I keep
having it flash in my memory. At first I was really taken
aback, but now I laugh.

I am trying to get back that instructor list of scripture
quotes you asked for. Mysister lent it to one of her freinds and
she is out of state now. ButI am working on it. time
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 05:53:01 (EST)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: bill
Subject: The BM's mood
Message:
I'd love to know more about his mood these days, specially reg his declared 'enemies'!

Is this something like an earthquake for him, did he change his cognac for beer, did he leave with Monica? Or he doesn't care at all. Just keeps preparing for the next events!

anyone?
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:56:33 (EST)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: The BM's mood
Message:
He's on the defensive, that's for sure. Kind of funny really. There he was, always talking about lila and now we've given him a real lila.

I can't get over that crap on his web site where he talks about not wanting to be a leader or a figurehead. I mean, that's gold plated, perfect bullshit, isn't it. So how is he going to rope people into his master worship cult now? Is he going to drop hints or something about how he wants to be worshipped as the Lord God Almighty while complaining that people see him as a figurehead?

It's going to be a hard cake to bake, that. Me; I think it's a bit of a laugh. But I'd like to know what he's really thinking.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 23:04:50 (EST)
From: Zac
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: The BM's mood
Message:
He's thinking... these westerners...they don't have enough indian concepts in 'em. The stories not sticking. I'll have to rustle up some more stories of the Mahabrata let 'em reeeaaally picture it. Yeah that'll do it. 'Marolyn get my costume out.' We'll see if it still fits. Oh good it still fits. 'another evolution dear, ya still with me?'
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:32:32 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: The BM's mood
Message:
Is this something like an earthquake for him, did he change his cognac for beer, did he leave with Monica? Or he doesn't care at all. Just keeps preparing for the next events!

Well, I did notice that he doesn't have any 'events' scheduled for North America or Europe, and the only thing he's done was that satellite thing, held at some early hour in the morning in Pasadena, and from which known ex-premies may have been excluded. Frankly, I think me might be thinking about writing off the West and focusing on other countries with Indian emigre populations who aren't as affected by the internet. With the exception of South America, those are the countries, including in Africa, which he focuses on anyway.

It is interesting to note that M has never been to China, the most populous country in the World, nor has be been to Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union. He has also never been, as far as I know, to any part of the Arabic world, except possibly where there is an East Indian population. He has also not been to the former Indochina, nor any part of Southeast Asia except for, again, visiting the Indian population of Malaysia. Maybe Thailand? Has he been to any part of Africa that doesn't have a large Indian population like South Africa, Mauritius, etc.

His propogation results outside those East Indian areas, especially in North America, are pitiful.
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 11:28:20 (EST)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Not so sure
Message:
His records are really bad compared to Radhasoami in India, where he's also loosing his new premies faster than you can imagine!
He's been initiating more than 10,000 aspirants per year, maybe a little less some years, and the figures are not increasing. The increasing figures is his 'total attendance' to video events, which is really the number of entries, because he's been expanding his video distribution in India, very likely hoping to increase the aspirants numbers. I doubt he'll be more successful than in the West! He's been distributing 100s of 1000s of tapes, and the only success is maybe the royalties!

Africa, Asia etc already have plenty of 'gurus' much more successful, and it looks like the governments are after those gurus that are considered public nuisance. I've recently read they've even passed new laws in Malaysia against gurus!
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 19:45:39 (EST)
From: Brian
Email: brian@ex-premie.org
To: Everyone
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
I got this via the Feedback form from someone who just found the site. (He didn't see the link to the forum.) It's long, and I didn't want to edit it down, so I told him I'd post it here. Tom should be wandering here in soon. [I lost the paragraph breaks when I saved it to disk, so the ones shown are mine.]

I appreciate having the opportunity to read the comments on this site and reminise about my past as a premie. It was a truly special and unique time of my life. Through practicing the techniques, I was able to throw off many years of a tragic and dysfunctional childhood and become aware of the spiritual path. I received experiences and a perspective on life as a spiritual being that I will never lose.

After my time in DLM, I learned that Truth is found in many places. I found essentially the same message in some teachings. Other disciplines such as 4th way were useful, too, but devoid of heartfulness. We have to use our discrimination to perceive what is necessary for us at various phases in our life. If we are open to it we are led to what we need. Maharaji spread traditional
techniques and packaged it in an unorthodox way contemporary to the times (early-mid 70s). His connection as a transmitter of shaktipat was valid, despite his human failings. Truth is an impersonal force and is separate from the channeler, their dogma, and their human failings. All Maharaji really did for me was point the way.

When I sincerely practiced Knowledge, I was blessed with a number of life-changing 'peak' experiences. It transformed me. No one can ever convince me these experiences were not real. I don't care what you may think--it doesn't change it if you don't believe. It did not require thinking on Maharaji or pledging surrender to him. All it takes for anyone, then and now, is attention to techniques and the right attitude.

The power does not belong to him. It is our birthright, freely available from many places. Use his techniques, or someone else's - there is only One Truth. How we receive it as individuals is a result of our upbringing and cultural influences. Many branches, one tree.

But as to needing Maharaji's darshan, and his organization, it became apparent that these things were not necessary. He did not apply his potential in the righteous tradition of the guru. He allowed his mind to take over, and indulged in the usual human failings, as most of us have. People expected better from him, and I guess that is the cause of the bitterness and disillusionment some ex-premies feel. That, and the lavish lifestyle.

I brought a special woman into Knowledge. She became very organizationally correct and we parted ways because I was not believing in the same way as her. I could blame Maharaji for this,
but why bother? My readjustment from her was not without some pain. But after some time I was taken in other directions.

In more recent years I have moved ahead and am thankful for the experiences that were necessary for growth. The premies I knew were like everyone else, only they had the courage to believe. To wear Maharaji buttons in public (I rarely did that and kept my practice hidden), to satsang friends, family, and complete strangers to death. Lots of smiles, and for the most part, pure intentions and simple hearts. It is very beneficial to share with other lovers of God, whatever their outward practice and beliefs. The 'us and them' thing is generally just an illusion.

Many recipients of Knowledge and of similar disciplines have tried to express their experience in poetry, music, art. This is not a new phenomenon, it has gone on for countless years. Fragments of Truth have filtered into the mainstream. To most people, they are meaningless words and concepts. But reading it, hearing it, and seeing it is not the same as living it. To those who understand from their own personal spiritual experience, these expressions are deeply inspirational, almost scripture. I see it in the most unlikely places even today, and I wonder to myself, 'Was this person ever a premie, or something similar?' Kind of like a secret society that never talks to each other, yet shares the same essential understanding.

The future will see mankind begin to understand, to throw off religious dogmas, and to worship in a common yet individual way. It won't come easily, or quickly, but something's coming, something good, if we can wait. At some point the spiritual evolution will rival today's rapid advances in technology.

Don't you ever listen? Don't you ever learn? The understanding in explicit simplicity comes to you blindingly, never you mindingly how. It makes its changes and yet nothing is changed - you're enthralled. Let it flow like a river, let it flow through you. We're being guided, we can look to ourselves for the way.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 21:08:55 (EST)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Brian
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
Tom,
You're a piece of work, you are. Who knew!? Who knew that you knew better than maharaji himself? Who would've thunk that his word wasn't final? How clever of you to realize when he went off the path!

So the little fat fuck was half right? Shit, I just thought when I discovered he was a fraud that all his goods were snake oil. Now you say that some of his goods were okay, so now I've got to re-arrange my life all over again?

Listen, Tom, while you're at it... just how do you know what the future holds? And how do you know all those specific details about the future?

Shit, Tom, if we'd only known, we all could've followed you.

You're so damn magical!

Love and Light,
Rick
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 23:46:22 (EST)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
I feel some agreement. I think it's important to debunk a fraud like the Mirage. For me the Lord thing was a big fraud, and the peace on earth thing was a big fraud. The icing on the cake was not these obviously dishonest, false and self-aggrandizing (meaning HE got plenty of benefit out of our naiive belief) claims he made, but facing the fact that he didn't feel any responsibility to the people who got duped- that's why it IS a dupe!

We just got taken and dumped when we dried up as a source for his material advancement. It's disappointing to see the people strolling in here lately, thinking that it's forgettable, forgivable. It may be, but that's a job for God (forgiving
) if there is one. I don't want to forgive that shit while it's (he) is still 'on the street' for sure.

The site is becoming more popular and more trafficked, evidenced by a huge influx of contributors and increased download times (if I'm not mistaken). The site is successful, the scene is here, not with Mirage. In this context, exes with no grudge against M as well as premies stroll on board confidently posting. I can remember being scared for my life to speak out against Miragey in
a public forum of any kind (but I did try). Scared for my life. If you are unscarred and are a success story and an ex-premie, you might consider the many of us who slowed on our social, educational, and financial track to follow a self-proclaimed enlightening messiah. We spent the greater part of our youth squandering our idealism on a greedy fatcat looking to build an opulent empire for himself and his family.

It's not the one item or the other in the story of Guru Maharaj-ji. It's the lack of the love for his devotees and lack of responsiblity toward his devotees. It's the callous and blatant disregard for the welfare of foolish, idealistic humans, many with meager resources who threw themselves at him at his request, only to be tossed back without regard for the lives that they (we) had so easily dedicated to him.

Let's find some consensual agreement here, think? Some of us stil meditate and some don't true! But that IS inside. I'm here to dis the bastard. It may save someone else. We can share meditation stuff. I meditate. But let's call a ripoff a ripoff.

You have to be pretty thick (read: brainwashed) to ignore the Lord stuff and the peace on earth stuff. But there are often a couple posts up which say just that. I mean, this isn't secret stuff about M's affairs or drinking or smuggling or whatever. These are printed quotations in books that were published by the organizations that spread M's own message. But people still want to deny it! And then exes want to say, well he was ok.

Somewhere on this site is the farewell speech that Krishnamurti made when he declined the messiahship that early 20th century occultists (dunno Blavatsky, Bailey, Ledbetter) had awarded on him. If M is so great, he could say 'look, I'm just not going to be able to do what i promised.' But nooooooo, M needs a faster jet with a bigger seat. Well good, but he needs a bigger critique with a stronger population base. He needs a larger presence not afraid to call a ripoff a ripoff.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 00:16:36 (EST)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: right on-nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 00:45:08 (EST)
From: JW
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Spiritual Ego
Message:
I tend to think that posts like Tom reflect a lot of effort into trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

I kind of know the process. First, you don't want to admit you were duped, but in fact you were drawn to something real. Not only that, like Tom, you had the spiritual advancement to separate the wheat from the shaff and avoid the bad stuff in the cult, unlike all of the other less-spiritually-advance premies who actually took Maharaji literally.

Then, you devise a whole spiritual cosmology that just includes Maharaji as one of the many steps in your very advanced spiritual development. You can then lecture others, both premies and ex-premies on how it all fits. It's so neat and tidy!
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 07:58:53 (EST)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: JW
Subject: Spiritual Ego
Message:
I tend to think that posts like Tom reflect a lot of effort into trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

I tend to think posts like Tom's are total nonsense.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 01:16:53 (EST)
From: x
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
I think that another important fact to not overlook is the fact that Maharaji has neither done, or is doing, anything even resembling an act of charity. I mean I have a feeling that I'VE given more to charities and done more volunteer work than him, and I'm broke! The way that I understand it, every cent of money that BM gets from premies, or wherever(amtext, etc.), basically goes into fueling his lavish jet set lifestyle.
I heard that in the very early days, premies sometimes were encouraged to do 'service' in their local communities a little bit. Helping out at old age homes, picking up trash, whatever, and that BM counted that as service, but that then BM changed that and said that only service directly to him counted for anything anymore. Now I hear that he prefers gratitude to service, and that his favorite form of gratitude is having direct access to your bank account for easy monthly 'donations' to BM>
If there is anyone out there who knows I am wrong about this and has factual knowledge of BM giving to charity or doing anything to benefit anybody besides himself, I would love to hear about it. I don't mean him 'helping' the world, by spreading knowledge either, I've heard that dodge. I mean giving money to charities, or even serving up stew at a soup kitchen for the needy or something. Anything.
Let's hear it premies, I'm challenging you.
What has he done?
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 02:48:17 (EST)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: x
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
What I'm saying is, the clincher is that he drives some to starvation and then really doesn't give a shit about them MUCH LESS PEOPLE OUT ON THE STREET! I think I could forgive it all (and there's plenty) if he did look after his own, but some animals eat their children, and that's about it for the big Mirage.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 09:03:15 (EST)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
So true, run. Maharaji doesn't know that old adage 'don't shit where you live'
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:08:21 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: x
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
There used to be this thing called World Welfare Organisation (WWA). We went to nursing homes etc. It was very short lived.It was supposed to give a caring face to propagation.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:11:49 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: chr
Subject: oops,sorry x,
Message:
I can't remember whether it was WWO (organisation) or WWA(association).
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 23:52:34 (EST)
From: nimrod
Email: None
To: chr
Subject: oops,sorry x,
Message:
Hey guys!
It was WWA...World Welfare Association.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 00:35:27 (EST)
From: Nimrod
Email: None
To: x
Subject: M's acts of charity...hm...
Message:
let's see now...oh!..I know!!
A few years ago, there was this old mahatma in India,whom m noticed was having difficulty seeing through these ancient pair of glasses that he owned.m in his incredible sense of charitableness, being the giver of all givers that he is, actually told the old guy to get himself a new pair of glasses, or he told someone else in the ashram to make sure the old guy got a new pair of glasses.
AND THEN, m made a point of telling this little story,god only knows how many times, in how many videos, in order to drive home the point, that for the devotee who truly surrenders to the master... well, the master will take care of his every need just like he did for the old mahatma.
Alright x,whad'ya think? Does this qualify as an act of charity on m's part?
Buying one of his old mahatmas a pair of glasses, and then telling the whole world about it.
What a giver! What class!
Sorry x, but when it comes to m's acts of charity...well this is the best I could come up with.I tried. I really did.
And this is it.
Pathetic, I know, but then again, its m we're talking about...
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 01:00:51 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: x
Subject: Prem's Acts of charity
Message:
He did once buy a newspaper from a vendor. He thought of buying the whole lots of papers, but decided not too as it would give the vendor false hopes that it would happen again. So he only bought one. Wow what love and comapssion.

And there was that time when he saw this child in the slums of (can't remember where) playing with a a hoop and and a stick, and he saw how happy that child was. Of course he didn't give the child anything because he didn't want to disturb the child's experience. Wow isn't prem sensitive.

Such a charitable person.

I'm sure there were other times....but i can't remember any more after listening to him for more than 20 years.
.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 09:00:36 (EST)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
So true, Run. I did not spend a huge amount of time (compared to a lifetime) on GM but I still think even after I left him I still had some pretty goofy ideas that were very deep in my subconscious about the nature of reality, human attachment, death, emotions etc. The whole guru thing certainly can color one's philosophy and perceptions, making one removed from human life & kind of fatalistic in a sense. I'm thinking here about ex-ex who said that he doesn't like funerals, avoids them etc, and I'm thinking it's more of that 'funerals don't give me a good experience so I'll just avoid them and besides anything that gives me a bummer can't be real/ pretend it doesn't exist and it will go away/ Maharaji will save me'-think

Ex-ex, sorry to gossip about you, I already told you in that thread on funerals what I think.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:08:25 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
Right on Runamok'

regards

Richard
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 12:36:29 (EST)
From: Stevei
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: BOOK OF MIND
Message:
Hey....It seems anything which has a spiritual or religious conatation is just an illusion, a piece of shit, or you should read this or that book and the sychiatrists are the gurus of tody..they tell you if your experiences are real or not..they tell you if it is a Brain feedback loop problem or whatever..JUST DONT BELIEVE IN YOUR EXPERIENCES ANYMORE...THEY DONT COUNT..THEY ARE NOTHING ...THEY DONT EXIST...

RICK...TOM IS A SANE GUY...AND WHAT HE SAYS IS WHAT HE GENUINELY BELIEVS....I MEAN THE KNOWLEDGE WORKS ANYWAY...WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT...THE ISSUE HERE IS WHAT M GET UP TO...THAT IS THE THING THAT UPSET PEOPLE MOST HERE...MAYBE BECAUSE THEY DID NOT GET ANYTHING OUT OF K...

WELL I DID...AND STILL DO....

LIGHT TO ALL OR IS IT THE BOOK OF THE MIND WHICH IS THE NEW BIBLE
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 14:04:06 (EST)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Stevei
Subject: BOOK OF MIND
Message:
Okay, Stevei, what did you get out of knowledge? When you say it 'worked' for you, what does that mean? Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? Is he just a guy who teaches meditation? Is he the 'Lord' or God? How could knowledge work for some people and not others?

No one said Tom wasn't sane. Maybe he used his involvement with Guru Maharaj Ji and other spiritual practices to distance himself from his troubles. Arrogance is a way to compensate for feelings of powerlessness, and nothing make one so arrogant, so fast, as 'spirituality'.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 17:34:35 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: Stevei
Subject: BOOK OF MIND
Message:
Actually, many of the people who post here do continue to have a spiritual approach to life-its just not the ridiculous mind /knowledge polarity that M set up. I think Tom's posts have some valid points,especially in relation to the techniques working without M.I personally was damaged by M's whole trip. Years in the ashram and quite a bit of time around M himself left me fragmented and eroded . I suppose it has at least made me feel a need to be very clear about who I am. I also now realise the importance of upholding my own personal integrity as an individual.
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 01:03:37 (EST)
From: a chance for steven
Email: None
To: Stevei
Subject: to tell some truth
Message:
what have you seen on the back of your eyelids?
did you see god?

what did you taste with your tongue?

what did you hear inside?

how much during your day do you feel your breath?
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 10:15:22 (EST)
From: SHP
Email: None
To: Brian
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
Brian,
Thank you for posting Tom's articulate message.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 21:15:15 (EST)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: premies and pro-Tommers
Subject: Tom's post
Message:
It's worth noting that this forum wouldn't exist except for the anti-M sentiment prevalent amongst the people who initiated all of this internet activity. If you appreciate Brian posting Tom's writings, you should note that Brian goes to the trouble of posting according to a uniform policy for fairness' sake. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Brian is involved to express his criticism of, not sympathy for, M.

I didn't concern myself with overly criticising Tom. People have different experiences with the obvious division between people who meditate and those who don't. I just hope the premies and those exes who are more sypathetic to M realise that the forum exists largely because of those who ARE opposed to M and want to be able to say so openly.

It's no joke. You think M's cool, good for you. But all that roadkill that you're keeping off your shoes is people that we knew and loved. You want to rationalize a greedy, self-serving, lying, fraudulent fake messiah that's your business. But I don't think there would be a site like this to post on if everybody here had said 'yeah but M's cool, even tho'.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 23:01:21 (EST)
From: Tom
Email: None
To: SHP
Subject: My post
Message:
It's obvious that not everyone is thrilled with my assessment. As an ex-premie, I know that many of you tried to make it work. You trusted and believed it all. Maybe that made you better than me at the time. Maybe I was a slacker premie. I was too busy working my way through college to make the total committment. It became quickly obvious that the Lord was enjoying his little maya.

I find it interesting that many respondents are rather mocking of me, being so smart and all, while they were snookered. Gee! That's too bad, boys and girls. Now why don't you get over it? Some people are content to wallow in their bitterness. You have my sympathy, up to a point.

The big mistake is continuing to focus on all the wrongs this guy has done. Hells bells, look around, children! There are much bigger fish to fry. This world is full of scoundrels. Some would make M look like a piker. There is a time to move on. Focus on misery and it will come to you like a magnet. For all the lives that were wrecked by this man, the forum hears from a few who just can't put it down. Hate is poison. It will eat you up. Move on with your life, get away from this obsession and revenge. Give it up! Look at Clinton. Is he bothered by his haters? He's still hanging in there and has it made, smoking his cigar and beating his bongo.

My acknowledgement to the few cooler heads prevailing in this forum, such as SHP and stevi. And thanks again to Brian for posting my initial message. Gotta stir the pot!
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 00:39:00 (EST)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Tom
Subject: My post
Message:
I find it interesting that many respondents are rather mocking of me, being so smart and all, while they were snookered. Gee! That's too bad, boys and girls. Now why don't you get over it? Some people are content to wallow in their bitterness. You have my sympathy, up to a point.

Tom,
You dope! The irony is your cavalier attitude. You managed to not get snookered because you're arrogant, not smart. The resilience you had in not getting wrapped up in Maharaji's cult was no less ignorant than our devotion. And your argument about focusing on the positive is new age garbage.

I don't think anyone here wants your sympathy. And you're wrong about the contributors to this forum being bitter or hateful.

Guru Maharaj Ji is a fraud and a liar and this forum exposes him. Your response implies that you don't want to see that happen, and that's suspicious because you didn't get shortchanged.

Of course you have a right to your opinion, but you can't expect much of a reception when you diminish other people's regret.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 18:35:18 (EST)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Tom
Subject: Up your own .....Tom
Message:
Most people who got anything from the 'practice' of knowledge were nearly all outside of the ashram, especially not near gm.
Base this on discussions here about the value of k and elsewhere..
What does this say about gm!

Prove me wrong, but already you come over as a new ager interested solely in their experience of joy. What about people getting sucked into the master trip, or stuck. A large number of people have been grateful to this site for helping them to think for themselves, a number after thirty years or so. Some of us are here to 'serve' the followers as much create a bulwark against you-know-who. But hey, you're having a good time, why think of anyone else?

Just because people post here doesn't mean it's their whole life, or that they don't work on larger things, although they don't get much larger than gm.(ha !)

If you were to hang around you'd see that your simplistic assumption that people are focussing on misery is just a little wayward.Loads of humour here.

Are you suggesting Clinton as a role model?!Personally hedonism runs deep for me, but with a touch more style than Clinton.
Anyway since when did hedonism preclude fighting for justice?

We have a number of self-righteous premies come here, ever thought that peoples reactions to you might have been because you carry a strong new-age premie vibe with you, especially a large degree of self-absorbtion.

Thinking, you should try it sometime, you might even surprize yourself riding on your personal little space ship toward blissland.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:15:44 (EST)
From: JELLY
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
Hi,
Does anybody have any information on the Knowledge Cult in South Africa?
Somebody loved very much by me is urging me to join him in going to K introductory videos. I have been once and listened to a number of tapes and much as I was moved by what M said I found that when I repeated what he'd said to somebody else I realised as the words were coming out of my mouth that it was nothing that I didn't know before he said it. What he says is in the delivery not the content.
Being naturally curious and sceptical I have been avoiding going to any more events until I could find out some background on the philosophy. So I looked up Maharaji+Knowledge on the web and imagine my horror at not finding a working Knowledge site but instead an in depth ex-premie site.
How am I going to tell this young man that all is not what it seems? He is on about stage three. He gets to events early twice a week but now he is talking about going to India to receive knowledge in spite of the fact that he can barely afford to pay his monthly expenses. How am I going to tell him why I am no longer interested in going? In many ways he has benefitted from his experience so far and it has been a calming influence in his life. Unfortunately this seems to be the point at which all is downhill from here.
Any suggestions?
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:27:00 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: JELLY
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
That's a tough one.

If you are trying to discourage your friend, you probably can't. You could save him a lot of money by showing him the knowledge techniques right here on this site. Tell him he can get the techniques for free! (Letting him spend time reading this site is not a bad idea, either)

One of the best things you can do is to be honest with your friend about your thoughts and feelings on the subject, so he doesn't continue to have expectations concerning your involvement. I have had to do this myself.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:27:55 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: JELLY
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
Hi Jelly,
you can check out the site www.enjoyinglife.org
at this site, you may find information on phone lines for South Africa (in 'Listings')
hope this helps
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:25:30 (EST)
From: bb
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
Dont pay any attention to that idiot orlando.

What makes you think it is all down hill form here?
Unless down hill means avoiding a chance to be snared by
a confused hindu guru trip.
Feel your breath if you want. We have been with him, heard him
plenty, believed him, and we take the time to warn you away
from foolishness.

Tell him clearly that there are people that spent 10, 20 and 28
years involved with the guy and they say beware.
Tell him it is only smart to look at both sides before
glueing his beliefs to this.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:55:55 (EST)
From: Happy
Email: None
To: Jelly
Subject: Warn your friend
Message:
Jelly,

It was good for you and your friend that you found this site.
Getting involved with Maharaji is dangerous. It seems subtle,
but it is dangerous really. He tells you you can't meditate
without worshipping him. This is truly nonsense. He is really only after money. Ask your friend to read through this website carefully. The history of Maharaji's mission is full of scandals.
www.enjoyinglife.org is a website for Maharaji's brainwashed
followers, of which Orlando is one. Of course, study that too
if you wish. But really, most people who received Knowledge saw through it and left Maharaji. Only fools stay, loose their money
and important years of their life, and end up mad with anger towards Maharaji.

The meditation techniques Maharaji sells as 'his' Knowledge are
well-known yoga techniques, nothing else. They are not 'his'.
He only use them as a bait, in order to get people to worship him.
You can find them clearly described on this website, see also
a post of mine a little below this. I don't think it is worthwile
going to India for that!

Happy
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:45:02 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: Jelly
Subject: Warning
Message:
Hi
as you might have already guessed, this site is not sympathetic to Knowledge and Maharaji.
you are free to make up your own mind. since you had asked, i just wanted to let you know where you could find a site with listings of phone numbers (might include South Africa).

PS: i am not 'an idiot'; however people on this site like to portray me as such because i still am practice Knowledge and enjoy it very much (and also because i don't write english very well).
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:52:14 (EST)
From: bill
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Warning
Message:
I didnt refer to you as an idiot or whatever term because you
feel your breath sometimes.
Why steer him to prem rawat?
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:22:25 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: bill
Subject: Warning
Message:
bill
i did not steer anything. Jelly asked info about phone numbers in South Africa. i responded. period. i do not call this steering.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:01:49 (EST)
From: bill
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Warning
Message:
Your right.
He asked.
I jumped the gun.
I thought you were throwing a guy in water a weight.
Then again, prem rawat is clearly still pushing himself as
the higher authority and master of life.
So, connecting someone up with a site that is clearly
propaganda IS like helping him off a cliff, or at least
helping him to the edge.

So I still dont see where it is a good deed.
Although I apologise for calling you an idiot.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 12:29:26 (EST)
From: JELLY
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Warning
Message:
Hi Orlando,
What are you doing on this site when it is obviously not sympathetic to M and K?
I checked out the web site you suggested. I tried a couple of days ago but it wasn't running. Doesn't it bother you that you have to read a 5 page document telling you all the things you're NOT allowed to do on the website before you can enter?
Believing what you want to believe does not make you an idiot. If M has made you happy then I am pleased for you. You also must have courage if you are prepared to go up against all the ex-premies and you must enjoy arguing which means your brain can't be dead.
JELLY
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 11:50:38 (EST)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
Orlando,

Did you see my post about critical thinking? If you did, I'd be curious to know what you think of it.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 12:58:16 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: about critical thinking
Message:
Hi Jerry
i did read your post and found it very interesting.

you write:
'How many people, I wonder, would have become premies if they had been effectively trained in the art of critical thinking. I, personally, don't think I would have. I don't think Maharaji can stand up to critical thinking.'

i could add:
if people were 'effectively trained', how many could fall in love?
being in love is the most irrational thing, isn't it? yet this is a great feeling.

or
How many people would believe in God (whatever religion), how many people would believe in a Creator? How many people would believe in the goodness of human beings? etc. Believing in such things is totally irrational too...

i don't mind not being critical all the time.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 13:37:26 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Love versus In Love
Message:
Sometime being in love is NOT a great feeling. Sometimes it is very painful and sometimes it is VERY stupid--loving the wrong person, for example. Not everyone is good for us.

It depends on the situation. In my opinion, real love is something you have to work at. REAL relationships are not just a feeling, like being 'in love' is. That feeling often fades. Having a relationship of true love is a responsibility that requires work and commitment when you don't FEEL like doing work or being committed. But the rewards for the work are greater than giving up or going with something that is fantasy. If you rely on feelings alone, which often fade, you are doomed to a lifetime of disappointment.

Having a relationship with Maharaji may feel great, but that does not mean it is real. What does he give to the devotee, personally--one on one? It's a little bit like being in love with a famous rock star, isn't it? One who doesn't even know you are alive. The fantasy is fun, and is reinforced if you share if with someone else (other fans, other premies) But where is the reality of a real relationship?

Some of the dumbest, most impulsive things are done based on a feeling alone. Not to beat a dead horse, but I'll bet Bill Clinton FELT a great feeling when he was with Monica Lewinsky, eh?

Feelings can be great, and I'm not saying they are bad, because I believe they are very important. But thinking has GOT to be a player, too, or life could just fall apart.

VP
Thankful for the cranium, myself
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 13:57:57 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Love versus In Love
Message:
VP,
if you were referring to my post, please note that it was in response to Jerry's post and was addressing questions which (in my mind) were not necessarily related to M. and knowledge (ie; falling in love, etc.)
Just want to add:
it is true that in the name of love, a lot of stupid mistakes are made.
but a lot of mistakes are also made in the name of 'critical thinking'. Every one takes his chances.
We have choices to make troughout or lives and we will know only at the very end if our choices were a good ones. What seems good today may seem totally wrong in 20 years from now, etc
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 19:27:37 (EST)
From: Brian
Email: brian@ex-premie.org
To: Orlando
Subject: Lord versus Ex-Lord
Message:
What seems good today may seem totally wrong in 20 years from now, etc

Hence, this site and forum to lay our mistakes bare. Did you really think that people who post here aren't aware of this insight of yours? And premies say ex's are stuck in the past...
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 05:36:21 (EST)
From: Guess who
Email: None
To: Brian
Subject: Brian, you'd make a great law-
Message:
yer. You're amazing!
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:18:56 (EST)
From: John
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Love ya vp!
Message:
Just want to say veep, that it's good to 'read' from you again. I especially like it when you 'snicker'.
heh heh.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:26:31 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: John
Subject: Love ya vp!
Message:
Thanks, John. I was glad to see your name back here again recently.

We need to get together sometime. Let me know when you are in town and I'll meet you for a brewski. Maybe we can get Katie to loan us the sarong...snicker
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 16:44:27 (EST)
From: Selene
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Love versus In Love
Message:
wow veep, that was great.
I think I'm 'in love' :)

I have had it with premie relationships of any kind including friendships. Sure there are exceptions to the rule, but my experience has been they make lousy friends. Too busy avoiding the hard painful stuff. Easier to be superior and know they are following the truest master, they are doing the best meditation, they have the strongest connection, etc.
I am grateful to have an opportunity to work on things now. Sure it hurts sometimes, this week has been awful for me.

But I am not pining away waiting for the next plane ride to see bm and that makes my life feel more real somehow.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 22:14:06 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Selene
Subject: Love versus In Love
Message:
The past two weeks have been awful for me in the Love department myself, so I guess I am just thinking out loud here. I hope things are going to run smoother for both of us soon. God (or knows, it IS work sometimes. Things are going to get better. How can they get worse? (snicker!)

That pining away feeling you describe for Maharaji isn't something to build on, that is for sure. Do you think it is something that is difficult for some people to give up?
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 23:06:15 (EST)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Love versus In Love
Message:
YES! That is the romantic notion of love, being in love with love, infatuation, wistfulness, unattainability, melancholy

'Oh Heathcliff'
'Oh Kathy'...they called to one another across the moors, but there love was a forbidden one..twas not meant to be

I told you all I was delirious. This is kind of fun...hee hee hee
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 20:50:50 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Helen
Subject: Forbidden
Message:
'What light from yonder window breaks? 'Tis the East, and Juliet is the sun...'

Unattainability and melancholy are such sweet torture! Yes those are the words of the week.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 22:23:39 (EST)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Forbidden
Message:
'It hurts so good, come on baby make it hurt so good...'
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:30:53 (EST)
From: Diz
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Hi VEEP
Message:
VEEP, you're a sweetie. Talk about heart and head working together! Hope all is well with you and your family

Love, Diz
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 22:03:46 (EST)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Diz
Subject: Hi DIZ
Message:
Howdy, gal!
Thanks for the well wishes and the nice compliment. Wishing you all the best, too. Nice to see you here again, BTW.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 14:51:11 (EST)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: about critical thinking
Message:
if people were 'effectively trained', how many could fall in love? being in love is the most irrational thing, isn't it? yet this is a great feeling.

I don't know if you can be trained to fall in love, Orlando. I do believe you can be trained to think effectively. No, I don't think love is irrational. Generally, what or who we love satisfies some need in us. Without the object of our love, the need would be left unfulfilled, so it is a rational thing in that respect. Yes, it is a great feeling. It can also be a painful one.

How many people would believe in God (whatever religion), how many people would believe in a Creator? How many people would believe in the goodness of human beings? etc. Believing in such things is totally irrational too...

If you've got a good reason for believing in something or someone, it's not irrational at all. If you think about it, I'm sure you'll agree.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:33:24 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: about critical thinking
Message:
Jerry

'If you've got a good reason for believing in something or someone, it's not irrational at all. If you think about it, I'm sure you'll agree.'

i agree, and i do have good reasons to believe in Maharaji and Knowledge. these reasons might not good to you, but they are to me
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:11:16 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Orlando
Subject: Dumb argument, Orlando
Message:
if people were 'effectively trained', how many could fall in love?

About the same number as always.

being in love is the most irrational thing, isn't it? yet this is a great feeling.

There is nothing irrational about going with a great feeling, Orlando. What is irrational, however, is attributing the great feelings you get to Prem Rawat. (Did you read my 'altered states and compliance' post? Any thoughts?)

How many people would believe in God (whatever religion), how many people would believe in a Creator? How many people would believe in the goodness of human beings? etc. Believing in such things is totally irrational too...

True.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:26:53 (EST)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: Dumb argument, Orlando
Message:
whatever i write, you will call it 'dumb'
i am getting used to this
i reread my initial post and frankly, i don't see what is so 'dumb' about it.
i must be really dumb...
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:29:29 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: not nigel (nt)
Message:
no text
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 15:43:27 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Dumb argument, Orlando
Message:
whatever i write, you will call it 'dumb'

Not true, Orlando. I just call it as I see it, one argument at a time.

i am getting used to this
i reread my initial post and frankly, i don't see what is so 'dumb' about it.


I was responding to the idea that being in love was in any way at odds with rationality, and especially your claim that training in critical thinking would effect the numbers of people falling in love. Love and thinking are completely different processes / experiences, but both are products of a single nervous system that works as a unified whole. Each serves a different function. You can't use Love to explain the universe (though people often try), and trying to explain rationally to someone why they ought to fall in love with you probably isn't going to work (unless you've a million dollars in the bank)

Also dumb, in my opinion, is the idea that the premie's experience of love is a gift from Mr Rawat (or don't you suscribe to this view?)

i must be really dumb..

I don't know. You tell me.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:18:43 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: Dumb argument, Orlando
Message:
Nigel

'Also dumb, in my opinion, is the idea that the premie's experience of love is a gift from Mr Rawat (or don't you suscribe to this view?)'

where did you read this in my post?
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 02:16:48 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: I didn't read it.I'm inferring
Message:
Orlando: I didn't read that last one in your post, but I'd be very interested to know where you stand on this question (Is Mr Rawat the SOURCE of your experience?) - since you are among ex-premies here. You can't kid a kidder, you know. We've all been there, and we all knew the party line, and yes we all believed some pretty dumb things in our time.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 06:54:17 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: Nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: nigel
Subject: Orlando: a challenge!
Message:
Orlando:

I feel I ought to justify why I make inferences from your post about things you didn't actually say. The inferences I draw are based mainly on the other posts you have made to this forum - probably in the hundreds by now. It is a bit like the ELK.org editorial guidelines we managed to deduce from studying the edits they make to the premie contributions to that site. By trimming the fat, you can see clearly what remains.

But observing what you do and don't say in your forum posts, it is also pretty clear you cling to certain tenets of premie belief that are shared by op, PT, Bruce, Mel Bourne and others.

If I am wrong, here is your chance to point out my error.

The challenge:

Are any of the following statements true , in your opinion? (There is no need to be evasive, here. A simple 'I agree' will do.)

(1) Prem Rawat is less than perfect.

(2) A person doesn't need to receive Knowledge from Prem Rawat, in order to have the same experience.

(3) When Prem Rawat changed the rules about practising from doing it 'constantly' to down to three videos a week plus an hour's meditation, he showed inconsistency and lack of clear purpose.

(4) It was a damaging mistake to encourage premies to live in celibate ashrams under the understanding that they would be spending their lives there (and then closing them without warning)

(5) It is hypocritical for Prem Rawat to get drunk, laid or stoned, and eat meat whilst forbidding premies from taking part in the same activities.

(6) If you were blindfolded, in the same room as Prem Rawat, and he said nothing, you would not be able to feel 'a divine presence'.

(7) If you went through a darshan line blindfolded without being told who was in the chair, you would never know whose feet you were kissing.

(8) Prem Rawat should shoulder at least some responsibility for what becomes of of his followers, including those who suffer breakdowns or commit suicide.

(9) Prem Rawat definitely is responsible when a premie says that Knowledge has brought them lasting peace and happiness (sorry, you can't have this one, unless you also agree with 8.)

(10) Prem Rawat hasn't got very far with his promises to establish world peace, or feed the world's hungry.

(11) Prem Rawat has way too much money, and an insatiable appetite for luxury goods, including a ridiculous gold toilet.

(12) Prem Rawat's fear of germs from touching door handles suggests a troubled, insecure individual.

(13) Forbidding premies to share satsang reveals a control-freak tendency.

(14) Prem Rawats comments on evolution, reincarnation and diet look very much like the words of an idiot. (Check Jean Michel's site if you haven't yet had the pleasure of reading them)

Ok, Orlando, which of these statements do you agree with? Say 'none of them' (or number '9'), and I'll assume my inferences were correct.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:27:44 (EST)
From: Zac
Email: None
To: Orlando
Subject: Lasting Peace and Happiness
Message:
Have you received lasting peace and happiness? If not do you personally know anyone who has? Just wondering?
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 11:46:32 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: Orlando: a challenge!
Message:
do you actually expect me to respond to this 'challenge'?
you got to be kidding.
why would i waste my time with this? why wsaste your time with this.

ps: i had read in a previous post a while back (i think it was from Katie) that you had never been a 'premie'. if i was weong, i apologize.
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Date: Tues, Feb 16, 1999 at 00:55:08 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: Orlando: a challenge!
Message:
Why do you keep wasting your time writing stuff like 'why would i waste my time with this?'?
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 10:45:03 (EST)
From: JELLY
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: critical thinking
Message:
I think that even if one has been trained in critical thinking if something comes along that makes one feel good thought goes straight out the back door.
M doesn't stand up to critical thinking, for example:

If I told you I was going to give you a GIFT but that I didn't think you were ready for yet so I suggested that you come along and sit outside my house and think about it a couple of times a week. Sadly I won't be able to come and check that you're doing what I've asked so I'll get some of my neighbours to watch you and occasionally give you hints on what the instructions will be but never in any order that you can understand. Then I'll let the neighbours give you tea and have a chat with you IF they think you're dedicated enough. The nice thing is that you'll have a chance just to sit and relax. When the neighbours tell me that you have been really nice and are really enthusiastic about this gift then I'll ask you to fly out to visit me (at your own expense) so that I can see if I really want to give you this gift. And then once you have this gift I expect you not only to use it but to revere me and pay me for having given it to you.

I don't think that most people, once put in the above terms, would even get to sit outside my door. In fact, I would have had the most interesting terms of abuse thrown at me and possibly a couple of body parts missing.

A GIFT is something given with no expectation of a return, no strings attached, often a surprise and always free... otherwise it is NOT a gift. It then becomes a business deal, a barter or bribery and corruption.
The problem is that if somebody is telling you how wonderful you are and how important you are and how much better everything will be afterwards it becomes extremely hard to remember to analyse. Most people need to be loved and generally will give everything for the promise of love. It is also very hard to be critical when you are introduced to somebody really, really nice.
Happy Valentine's Day
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 09:43:59 (EST)
From: Orlando
Email: None
To: JELLY
Subject: to jelly and nigel
Message:
there is something you two have in common:
you are neither 'premies', 'ex-premies','aspirants', or'ex-aspirants'.
whatever you think you know about M and knowledge comes from this very biased site. so...basically you really don't know what you are talking about .
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:10:35 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Orlando
Subject: excuse me, pal..!
Message:
I am a premie. I know all the techniques. I abandoned my newly-bereaved family to go and sit at the lotus feet of a psychopath called David Smith for four days, and he learned 'em to me - and I very nearly missed my brother's funeral. Practiced K for years, and know all the rationalisations, word for word - which is why it pisses me off to see you, op, PT, Bruce and Mel Bourne still spouting the same old indefensible revisionist crap. Paid my dues. So have you. Learned a few lessons. Have you?

Now how about that challenge? (see above)
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 20:25:10 (EST)
From: CD
Email: None
To: JELLY
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
>How am I going to tell this young man that all is not what it seems?

It never is. Tell him what you feel.

I was introduced to Maharaji and Knowledge in 1972. I did go to India in 1972 and have no regrets about that interesting trip.
I have had many positive experiences and learned a lot from my association with Maharaji. Being reminded of what you know can be quite valuable.

If your friend appreciates the video events then why nag him about them. You and he don't have to agree to be close friends.

This ex-premie web site mainly represents one side of the story. Sometimes you will even find people with negative views on this site recounting positive benefits that they enjoyed.
So do read on and learn of other peoples negative and positive experiences and viewpoints. You have just started your learning journey.

Click here for a web page with some other sites

Regards,
CD
San Diego,CA
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 20:28:01 (EST)
From: Nil
Email: None
To: JELLY
Subject: KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Message:
Excuse me Jelly but I must ask you... Are you saying that because this ex-premie group puts more links to their negative web-pages out on the internet than someone who supports Maharaji, 'all is not what it seems'? Do you realise how easy it is these days to blare any message you want across people's awareness... irrespective of whether it's true or false? Clearly there are people who are negative about Maharaji. And there are many who don't agree with these people at all. So who are you going to believe? And a deeper question, what within yourself are you going to believe? Are you fearful and tentative or can you trust your own heart. The people on this website will appeal to your fears and apprehensions. The other side will support you addressing the needs of your heart for fulfillment. In case you haven't found a representative website for the other side, check out www.enjoyinglife.org
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 05:37:01 (EST)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Nil
Subject: Fears
Message:
'The people on this website will appeal to your fears and apprehensions.'

Actually Nil, it seems to me that people here encourage everyone to think for themselves by showing the dark as well as the light, while gm appeals to infantile fantasies of nothing but the light. This leads to repressed emotions, I knew and know so MANY premies who are stuck in the same cycle. Being caught in a loop is a state of living with continual fears & apprehensions.

That appeal to infantile happiness is also rooted in fear, fear of self & the world.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 21:47:15 (EST)
From: Nil
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: Fears
Message:
OK ham... if finding a truth that is not diminished by the world's woes, your life's ups and downs, or even death, is infintile, then why have so many wiser souls than you and I talked about such a truth for so many thousands of years? And how do you account for the answer being so much alike no matter who said it and whenever it was said?

YOU tell me ham, what is YOUR answer to this millenial need for such a deep happiness?
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 18:58:49 (EST)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Nil
Subject: Fears
Message:
'And how do you account for theanswer being so much alike no matter who said it and whenever it was said?'

Alike??????? Are you SERIOUS?

'YOU tell me ham, what is YOUR answer to this millenial need for such a deep happiness?'

Never heard of existential terror, dealing with one's own death and the buzz of getting high, whether those chemicals are stimulated internally from focus/attitude or from class A's?
That's apart from all the childhood neuroses carried over into adulthood.

The infantility of it referred to ONLY focussing on good feelings, does this not remind you just a little of babies, self absorbtion etc?
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 20:57:36 (EST)
From: Nil
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: Fears
Message:
Never heard of existential terror, dealing with one's own death and the buzz of getting high, whetherthose chemicals are stimulated internally from focus/attitude or from class A's? That's apart from all the childhood neuroses carried over into adulthood.

The infantility of it referred to ONLY focussing on good feelings, does this not remind you just a little of babies, self absorbtion etc?


Okay ham, you get the last word... just because you make so much sense.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 08:56:49 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Everyone
Subject: altered states and compliance
Message:
Hi.
As many of you know, I'm doing a research degree in psychology these days. My area is 'social cognition' which includes such things as attitude change, compliance and belief. My adopted research topic is hypnosis and so-called hypotic effects. Just reading the past literature, I keep seeing what I think are striking parallels between hypnosis research findings and familiar phenomena from the 'Knowledge' experience. I posted some ideas of a chap called Gorassini, in my 'Conviction Management' thread a couple of months back. But I'd be interested in what you might make of somne of my own thoughts, here.

Every time we speak to another person we influence them. In subtle ways our influence also changes what the other person thinks, what they feel, how they behave and also what they believe. We all possess the power to change people in all of these ways by doing nothing more than talking to them (or even by writing emails or posting to a web-board). A pretty extreme example: if I shout 'Fire' in a crowded cinema, the people around me will stop thinking about the film, and start worrying about getting the hell out; they will feel fear; they will certainly make appropriate changes to their behaviour, and - until they see evidence that there is no fire - will almost certainly believe me. Four big changes with one simple word. Easy as that. People can even be persuaded to comply with activities they find repellent; a rapist doesn't need to use physical force to gain the victim's co-operation (regardless of what the occasional brain-dead high court judge might say), provided the victim's thoughts, feelings, behaviour and beliefs can be manipulated into recognising she has no alternative but to comply.

Some people make a living from these basic skills (stage hypnotists, psychics, charismatic politicians, for example). Some people start religious movements and get rich from these skills (L.R.Hubbard, to name but one. You all know at least one more). Other people may feel some benefit or enjoyment from being so manipulated (their clients or followers, for example). Fine. But I think it is important to understand both that the manipulation is happening, and although the manipulatee (?) always has a choice as whether or not to 'go along' with things, the most powerful feeling/belief is the one that says 'the consequences of not going along with this will be socially unacceptable, embarrassing, sinful, catastrophic, like rotting vegetables etc.'

But there are, in fact no special skills involved. A fully-trained hypnotist may show you certificates attesting his/her 'qualifications', but anybody can carry out a hypnotic induction and obtain exactly the same compliant behaviour from the person being hypnotised (I have a tutorial group of 19-year-old students doing hypnotic inductions, right now. None of them has ever seen or taken part in any kind of hypnotic activity before, but they can do it as well as anybody. It is true that not everybody responds to hypnotic suggestions, irresepective of who is dishing them out, but I'll come back to that. Also, any 15-year-old semi-educated joker with or without special skills can run a pretty effective cult when circumstances permit.

There is nothing magical or mysterious involved in hypnosis. 'Past-life regression' is fanciful new-age bullshit; 'age regression' is just confabulation. 'Recovered memories', may or may not be genuine memories, but hypnosis has no special properties that facilitates their recovery (long-lost memories that are allegedly only accessible 'under hypnosis' and at no other time are almost certainly bogus.) The idea of people losing their volition and becoming zombies under hypnosis is just nonsense, as is the notion that a hypnotist is necessary to 'bring them out of the trance' by supplying a release signal. What do you imagine happens when a hypnotist deliberately abandons the person they have hypnotised? I'll tell you what: NOTHING. The person gets bored, forgets about being in a trance, gets up and buggers off down to the pub...

Over at www.hypnosis.com there is a discussion forum where a 'master-hypnotist' recently assured potential clients that a course of hypnotherapy guarantees penis and breast enlargements for those that seek them (one or the other, I would imagine, though I guess some people might fancy having both done, while they're about it…). Beware: there is a lot of snake oil about.
Sorry if I'm labouring the point here, but hypnosis is an excellent example of a dubious phenomenon that is almost universally believed in, especially the idea of a 'trance' state. I have seen analyses of cult processes which are expressed in terms of the followers being 'hypnotised'. Such accounts - if they are correct - are only correct to the extent that neither hypnosis nor cult behaviour require any special states or psychological processes that are definitively hypnotic or cultish. People do what they're told and believe what they're told, same as usual.

Certainly 'hypnotised' subjects behave as if they were in a classic trance state, they look as if they in a trance state, and may even be made to believe they have been in a trance state, but all that is really going on is a role-playing game called 'hypnosis' that somebody once invented almost by accident, and which - as everybody knows in advance - involves going into a trance. If legend had it that hypnosis involved picking your nose and eating the result of your excavations, then that's exactly what 'hypnotised' people would proceed to do - a bit like role-playing premies fainting in the darshan line, who stopped doing so after being informed that that behaviour was no longer a legitimate part of the drama. (cont...)
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:02:06 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: nigel
Subject: part ii
Message:
The things people do 'under hypnosis' are deliberate. People are in control of themselves the whole time. Sometimes they lie about it afterwards; sometimes they convince themselves they definitely have been in a trance, but all sorts of well-designed experiments have shown pretty conclusively (IMO) that there is absolutely no special psychological or brain process happening. The funny thing is, most of the academics and researchers who have worked in this area have tended to be 'state' theorists. Even now, apart from a handful in the UK - little ol' me included - and a bunch of admirable skeptical Canadians, including Gorassini, and a couple of other 'non-state' people in the US, hypnosis research is still dominated by 'trance state' believers.

Why? - I think it is because the whole trip is a pretty powerful illusion, and just the idea of hypnosis is very attractive. People want the phenomenon to be real. Like Knowledge - it would be easier to explain the way it worked if there were some mysterious special process to be examined, but what you have instead of a hypnotic or meditative 'state' is just a number of perfectly ordinary psychological and physiological effects that get bundled together and sold as a package. Like hypnosis, Knowledge is definitely not an emergent property, ie., it si not 'more than the sum of its parts' - and the parts themselves are pretty commonplace, no matter what psychological benefits or good feelings might derive from them for some people, some of the time.

Remember the kind of line you'd hear in satsang: 'just sit down, relax and focus and let the experience happen…'? It masks beautifully the truth that just by relaxing and focusing you are, in fact, making 'it' happen. And I would estimate that 91.3% of whatever happens in meditation or hypnosis can be accounted for by simple relaxation. The four meditation techniques encourage the partial shutting-down perceptual systems and reducing associated stress-inducing stimuli. There is one hell of a paradox going on when to passively 'receive a gift' of something that is allegedly 'very simple', one must follow the gooroo's repeated entreaties to 'make that effort'. One might be forgiven for thinking there might, in fact, be nothing going on whatsoever apart from what you yourself are making happen when you 'make that effort'. (If making that effort should fail to deliver the goods, you can always resolve to 'make more effort' next time.)

But the one really special thing about Knowledge, we are repeatedly assured, is the incredible 'feeling of love' you experience (this could be the other 8.7% of the experience). The gooroo talks about love a lot; so you think about love a lot. Some of the time you will feel a lot of love, and - yes - love feels incredible. Big deal. Love is love, and Knowledge - whatever it is supposed to be - is just hitching a ride on that feeling. Liverpool football fans who gather on the terraces in all weathers to express their common enthusiasm for the Reds, also feel an incredible shared experience of love when Michael Owen scores the crucial winning goal in extra time, but you don't need to call that feeling 'Knowledge', nor attribute the source of the feeling to Guru Maharaj ji - who, let's face it, probably couldn't kick a pig's bladder around the meadow to save his ass. (The Liverpool fans will also feel the same incredible feeling of communal love when drowning their sorrows after getting twatted 5-0 by Manchester United, I should add.)

Gorassini (sorry, but find this man's research compelling...) studied the ways people approach being hypnotised and identified four strategies that people adopt when given a suggestion such as: 'You will now find your left arm beginning to rise'. They will (1) do nothing and wait for something to happen; others will (2) imagine the effect the hypnotist is suggesting to be actually happening; (3) they will 'cold act': ie. lift their arm deliberately, even though they know it is they alone who is in control, or (4) they will 'hot act': they try and make the hypnotist's suggestions actually happen, but at the same time try to feel as if the phenomenon were happening of its own accord.

Gorassini found that the 'wait for it' people (group 1), and the 'cold actors' (group 3) report virtually no hypnotic 'experience' whatsoever, while the 'imagine' group (2) do pretty well, but by far the most successful hypnotic performers were the 'hot actors' (group 4).

Knowledge is presented as a 'wait for it' (read: 'surrender' ) phenomenon, but I would say the premies who stick around for any length of time and report profound experiences of Grace are 'hot actors'. They seek to make an experience happen; such experiences they have are entirely the result of these, their own efforts, but at the same time they manage to attribute that experience to an external control source, 'higher power', or alcoholic millionaire. There is no 'altered state' involved, no keys to liberation, and no mystical element whatsoever - unless you want to take the essentially meaningless label 'mystical' and apply it to any physiological or psychological sensations that sometimes leave you feeling all-aglow. There is also the crucial belief factor: the client or devotee must be repeatedly persuaded that ordinary feelings of well-being or love derive exclusively from the special situation.

But I've gone on long enough, I think. Sorry, 'bout that. I could repost or email Gorassini's 'conviction management' stuff if anyone wanted, which I think covers the sustaining-dodgy-beliefs aspect of things very well.

Toodle-pip - and don't believe a word I've said, if you don't feel like it.
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 17:02:06 (EST)
From: Diz
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: faking it?
Message:
Good to hear from you, Nigel. I was wondering where you’d got to. Glad the study is going well - you’re surely a man of many talents.

Your post got me thinking. What I’m going to say here may not be right on the topic - I don’t know anything about hypnosis, have never even seen it done. Have NO idea of current thinking or literature on the topic. But I do have some thoughts on the subject of whether premies 'fake it'.

Seems to me that quite a few people who post here, including the wonderfully insightful JW (I mean that sincerely, Joe), believe that most premies strongly overplayed a very meagre experience in meditation. I’m not so sure about that. Maybe some did - well, people who post here have said they did. And that’s very understandable given the pressures to be in bliss/enjoying life 100% of the time. Also points to the fact that K isn’t universally applicable.

But I think for many premies, and I’d include myself, the actual experience of meditation WAS pretty incredible. And reasonably consistent. For me, that was the big stumbling block to leaving MJ, even though I really disliked much of what he and premies under his influence said and did.

BTW, I don’t think the argument that meditation has physiological correlates negates the value of the experience. Sex has physiological correlates. The love a mother feels for her new baby has physiological correlates. Doesn’t mean that the emotional, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of the subjective experiences which go with the physiological changes can’t be profound and valuable. (Hate that word 'spiritual' - too many connotations. Been using it a bit lately - can’t think of a better one.)

Certainly the culture in MJ’s world decreed that one should focus on the positives. In the early days when the plebs were allowed to give satsang, it was made very clear that you should only talk about K, and the benefits of practicing - not about things of the world or the mind. People who weren’t having much of an experience weren’t encouraged to give satsang (or, in situations where satsang givers were picked, like for intro and aspirant programs, they weren’t picked). It was certainly socially and politically advantageous to be having a good experience. Again, a pressure to 'overplay'.

But I don’t think that was the whole story - I think many people did and do have a deep, peaceful, loving experience in meditation. To me, that’s not the problem with MJ’s trip. The problems are to do with the beliefs and values placed around the experience, and the resulting devaluing of other aspects of life. The way the experience is used to justify MJ’s position as unquestioned and unquestionable leader. And the silencing of debate, dissent, democratic decision-making, doubt…. Including the idea that if you gave satsang you should always be positive. I used to love it when some semblance of the real struggles of premies got a look-in. When the whole of our lives, including the downside of trying to dedicate your life to Mj, got exposed. But that didn’t often happen.

I think I felt the need to put this point of view in to the debate because for me it was very important to understand the difference between my experience of meditation, and the rest of the trip. Unpacking the package, separating the baby from the bathwater - this was what my journey to liberation was all about. I really feel for premies who are caught in the same dilemma which caught me - a belief that since K 'delivers', everything that goes with it is valid - or at least has to be tolerated or ignored. To me, this is the cornerstone on which MJ builds his power. It’s certainly a key factor in the 'rebuttals' premies post here. One of the things this site can do is break the nexis between K and MJ’s dictates. The site introduction, with the monkey puzzle analogy, puts it really well (who wrote that? I can still remember reading it, not believing that anyone was really SAYING that heresy that so much need to be said.)

If we run the line that K is nothing, that people were/are just faking it, then premies who are having a solid experience from meditation can too easily dismiss the arguments here. I don’t want to encourage them to do that.

Diz
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Date: Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 21:06:04 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: Diz
Subject: faking it?
Message:
Hi Diz,
I agree. I didn't ever deliberately fake an experience-at the time it was real for me.I often sat in meditation for several hours and I enjoyed it.However,I was also programmed to believe that K and M were the only aspects of life worth putting energy into. I suspect most sects or cults have an area of experience that is genuine-but this makes the whole thing even more insidious.Something that is precious and real is used to prop up whole paradigms of unreality, so that one can be having an experience that is intermittently 'blissful' whilst the very fabric of one's individuality and self are being eroded and manipulated. chr
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 18:41:33 (EST)
From: Diz
Email: None
To: chr
Subject: faking it?
Message:
Well put! Wish I could be that succinct.
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Date: Sun, Feb 14, 1999 at 02:32:20 (EST)
From: chr
Email: None
To: Diz
Subject: faking it?
Message:
Thanks Diz.I've always found you pretty succinct also.
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 03:05:02 (EST)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Diz
Subject: not necessarily faking it...
Message:
Hiya Diz,

Great to speak to you too. I think you've raised some important points here. I certainly agree with Joe that premies used to (still?) overplay their experiences. I think people from all sorts of spiritual disciplines/paths will do this, depending on how much they have committed their lives to it. ie. the more they commit and have 'bought in' to a belief, the greater the (self-imposed?) pressure to be seen to be having powerful, life-changing experiences, and the greater the unwillingness to concede that things might be less than perfect. When you have something like 'Knowledge' which is allegedly perfect, as well as a 'Master' who claimed to be a perfect being (yes of course he did, you premie revisionists lurking out there!), then the dissonance is so much greater and harder to confront.

But I also agree that premies aren't necessarily faking their experiences, and I didn't really mean to imply that - even though they are, some of the time. There is certainly a big difference between faking hypnosis in a ten-minute experiment or stage-show, and trying to make a 24-hour-a-day commitment to Maharaji for many years.

And what you have written here about 'deep, peaceful, loving' experiences isn't necessarily at odds with what I was saying, in that that I think this is another way of describing relaxation and love, which I see as the prime components of the experiences that do happen, for some of the premies, some of the time. But, like I was saying, it was the premie's own efforts to have those experiences that enabled them to happen - although the context and presence of many like-minded fellow travellers certainly helps things along. Also (IMO), there is absolutely no need to bring in a 'spiritual' dimension. I agree the word is ambiguous, but for me it was always implied that 'Knowledge' was the key to eternal life, a spark of divine consciousness, or something, that would continue after the body has died. But however great my experiences may have been on the odd occasion, I never felt the slightest inkling that I been transported beyond the limitations of the ordinary sensory world, or what, in fact, my own nervous system might have been capable of providing for me. In fact, I now think our own nervous systems probably put a cap on how 'deep' your experiences can go.

But, yes, severing the link between M and K is such a crucial thing for people to do, if they're ever to get clear. One of the oddest things about our belief system back then - and current premie beliefs, I assume, is the idea that 'Knowledge' is unique - in spite of there being so many hundreds of alternative meditation-based paths, and so many hundreds of gurus, all talking the same jargon, and describing such similar experiences. I think people's willingness to see themselves as being among the chosen few is a very powerful thing. I mean, in world of seven billion people (or whatever), isn't it just the most natural thing that I should be so blessed as to be among the tiny band of followers who have received this unique divine gift??!!

Hope all is well for you and yours, Diz,
Nigel
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Date: Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 11:14:39 (EST)
From: bill
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: part ii
Message:
Great work Nigel.
Another one for the printer and reviewing.

By all means repost your other post also.
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:41:38 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: None
To: bill
Subject: gorassini - repost
Message:
Thanks bill,

Here's my orginal gorassini post:

......

The scanner is working, and I thought I would treat you all to the the following. It comes from a book entitles 'Hypnosis and Imagination', but many of the issues dealt with are universal.

This extract from a chapter by Donald Gorassini seems to offer an explanation for the way that people like Maharaji (and his premies, I think) can come to believe false ideas about themselves through first convincing others of their validity.

>>>>

Conviction Management: Lessons from Hypnosis Research about How Self Images of Dubious Validity Can Be Wilifully Sustained
DONALD R. GORASSINI

[There is an] ease with which people can come to believe whatever is convenient to believe, however ludicrous it may be [Chomsky 1, p. 20].

Who we think we are affects how we feel. Therefore, if we could regulate self-reflection, we would, thereby, regulate affect, Rid ourselves of some self-knowledge, that which demonstrates such traits as incompetence or callousness, and we escape anxiety and guilt. Bring forth other self-knowledge, that which implies good characteristics like intelligence and caring, and we gain a sense of pride. It is an unfortunate fact of life that things we would rather not know about ourselves are true, and things we wish were self-descriptive are, sadly, false. Therein lies the incentive to cheat, to ignore painful self-reflection and create conviction in pleasurable self-images, images that an unbiased analysis would reveal to be invalid.

This chapter concerns people's ability to engage in the ostensibly paradoxical activity of telling convincing lies to themselves about who they are. It is argued that people can indeed, as Chomsky asserts, easily convince themselves of ludicrous propositions. A model is presented to show how people succeed at manufacturing conviction in pre-selected self-definitions, even when the definitions are clearly invalid. Perhaps nowhere is the ability to lie effectively to the self about the self more clearly demonstrated than in hypnosis research. After presenting the self deception model, which was spawned by my observations of unhypnotizable subjects role-playing hypnotizable ones, hypnotic research that bears on the model is reviewed.

Some selves that we do not possess we would nonetheless like to have. Only some of these desired selves are, however, pursuable. Pursuable selves (e.g., gardener) can be sought and achieved whereas unpursuable selves (e.g., math genius) are imposed or bestowed by forces acting outside of our control. There is usually no hope of achieving unpursuable selves by legitimate means. But even if we do not possess a desired, unpursuable self, there is another way, albeit illegitimate, of attaining it: pretending it is true.

Consider pursuable self-definitions like gardener and doctor. In each case, the specified self can be thought of as a goat composed of a series of sub-goals. It is only through a conscious planning process that each of the sub-goals in the in the progression can be achieved. Successfully executing the acts serving as means to
the overarching goal result in valid application of the self-label. To be sure, pursuable selves vary in difficulty of attainment, with gardener being substantially easier than doctor, but no matter how difficult achievement is, the end can at least be sought, and it will be attained only if there is conscious planning and effort.

Some selves we cannot seek; they become part of our identity without any attempt on our parts to bring them about. These unpursuable selves result from internal (frequently medical) conditions that alter experience or behavior (e.g., migraine, schizophrenia); external events that subtly change our preferences (e.g., mere exposure, classical conditioning) (see, e.g., [2, 3]); or assignment by nature (e.g., male, math genius), other people (e.g., the religion of childhood as assigned by one's parents), or circumstance (e.g., citizenship) before the opportunity to choose and pursue alternatives presents itself.

Consider as an example of an unpursuable self-definition that of a migraine sufferer. An individual having a migraine attack, which occurs due to the constriction of cranial arteries on one side of the head, has unusual experiences (which can include an experience of detachment, partial blindness, numbness facially and in a hand, and the inability to form sentences) followed by extreme head pain. To be defined a migraine sufferer, you must have the disorder that causes the aforementioned syndrome to appear periodically. The process that controls the nature and course of symptoms operates on its own, interfering with consciously governed activity. The condition can be controlled somewhat, with medication, but is nonetheless impervious to direct and decisive conscious control.

The only self-definitions we can hope to attain, therefore, are the pursuable types, but even here attainment usually takes time, with success not always assured. Unpursuable self-definitions, we cannot even hope to attain through our own efforts because they depend on decisive forces operating completely, or almost so, beyond our control. But sometimes strong incentives to claim a particular self, whether the self applies validly or not, are present and demand an immediate response. For those who do not possess the desired definition, there is something to be gained by claiming the self in question nonetheless. Frequently the incentive is affect management: the acquisition of the good feeling that results when flattering information about the self is believed.

To illustrate, consider the richly detailed case study by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter [4] of a doomsday cult in the United States in which one of the group's leaders, pseudonymed Marion Keech by the investigators, makes what in our terms is an invalid self-claim [4]. She has others believe that beings not of this world communicate through her by controlling what she writes. Keech, in describing her first discovery of the ability, is quoted as saying:

I felt a kind of tingling or numbness in my arm, and my whole arm felt warm right up to the shoulder. . . . I had the feeling that someone was trying to get my attention. Without knowing why, 1 picked up a pencil and a pad that were lying on the table near by bed. My hand began to write in another handwriting. I looked at the handwriting and it was strangely familiar, but I knew it was not my own. I realized that somebody else was using my hand, and I said: 'Will you identify yourself?' And they did. I was much surprised to find that it was my father, who had passed away [4, p. 33].

A number of different entities communicated in this fashion through Keech, principal among them an outer space creature named Sananda, who made several testable predictions about visits to earth by space beings, incipient cataclysms that earth would undergo, and when believers would be rescued by spaceships. None of the predictions came true and the cult ultimately broke up in disamay.

Admittedly, the case study methodology makes it impossible to rule out completely that communication from outer space beings occurred, but the evidence that does exist suggests the messages were untrue. The case study is used here for its expository and heuristic value - to show the possibility and conditions of successfully lying to the self about the self. More definitive, experimental evidence concerning self-deceptive ability will be presented in the third major section of this chapter.

(cont...)
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Date: Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 02:44:29 (EST)
From: nigel
Email: None
To: nigel
Subject: gorassini - repost (2)
Message:
Consider what the above example suggests: First it illustrates that affect-change incentives for believing in invalid self-definitions can be powerful. As Festinger et al. put it:

We can only imagine the awe, the reverence, with which the Armstrongs [other leading members of the doomsday cult] and Mrs. Keech received these momentous pronouncements [from outer space]. Here, in the hands of three fairly ordinary people (by the world's standards) had been placed the most important news of our time, if not of all recorded history. A grave responsibility, an incomparable privilege had been thrust upon them [4, p. 57].

Incentives to Mrs. Keech to lie knowingly-to others but not to herself-about mediumship were weak in comparison to the pay-off for her to deceive herself. In fact, public knowledge of her and the group's beliefs brought nothing but Vouble, including vicious practical jokes, national ridicule, and attention from the police. The only apparent reason for her to press on in the face of such difficulty, with the courage and conviction she displayed, was to maintain a particular kind of self-image, one that brought with it great inner meaning.

Second, the case study illustrates what I mean by a self-claim. Such an assertion need not literally be a statement of the form, 'I am____ ,' but can be, and usually is, nonverbal. Mrs. Keech repeatedly engaged in Ihe behavior of mediumship, which served to reinforce and elaborate her own and the group's knowledge of her apparent gift.

Third, self-conviction takes place in a social setting, usually involving the support of like-minded accomplices [4]. Keech was part of a group of doomsdayers whose members refrained from questioning each other's claims cooperated for the most part in building and reinforcing the group's belief system.

Fourth, the example also sets out the nature of the lie to be told to the self On one hand, M~s. Keech in some sense knows she is not a medium, for deliberately acts out behaviors and deliberately engenders experiences Ihat, if they were authentic, would occur involuntarily. On the other hand, she seems able to avoid consciously registering knowledge of her active role-playing, with the result being conviction that she really is a medium.

Finally, the lie that is told to the self is a blatant one: Sananda, the mediumship and all the other core assumptions on which the group operated were false.