Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol
and m's hypocrisy.
Best of the Forum Index

Joe -:- More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:23:04 (GMT)

__ Joe -:- The amazing thing is the hypocrisy -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:06:13 (GMT)

__ __ Pat Conlon -:- Lila - the game has just begun. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:29 (GMT)

__ __ Jerry -:- Frampton -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:47:44 (GMT)

__ __ Bin Liner -:- The hypocrisy , yes , that's the most galling -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:39:07 (GMT)

__ Francesca -:- M must have been slurring his words again -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:58:37 (GMT)

__ __ Pat Conlon -:- the word is ''bhang'' meaning hashish -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:42:01 (GMT)

__ __ __ cq -:- ''bhang'' lassi (yoghurt) cold works too! (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:00:12 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ Joe -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:32:57 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:43:42 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ __ __ Marianne -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 20:55:30 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- It's illegal? Damn I didn't know that. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:16:51 (GMT)

__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- PS Glen Whittaker once told me -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:46:17 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ JHB -:- Ashrams didn't exist in India???? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:53:05 (GMT)

__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- John, ashrams in India are the guru's home -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:00:23 (GMT)

__ Joe -:- Sorry typo on the date s/b Dec. 20, 1976 -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:51:53 (GMT)

__ Ulf -:- More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:50:04 (GMT)

__ __ Joe -:- I would LOVE it. -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:54:17 (GMT)

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:23:04 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol
Message:

Thanks everyone for the tremedous posts down below. Although hearing the outrageous and damaging stuff Maharaji said to us is very powerful, it's the comments from the ex-premies, and how all this affected them personally that is even more powerful.

Okay, so more from the coordinators meeting Maharaji helt on December 29, 1976 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

After spending a lot of time trashing relationships and marriage, and how getting married was equivalent to blowing your brains out with dynamite, towards the end of the meeting, Maharaji starts going through the communities represented and asking how things are going. There are a lot of premies decrying how we 'really got out there' and got confused, and how much they need him to give direction, although a number of these coordinators seem to have some spiritual ego themselves, implying that if everyone in their communities were like them, and had the proper 'understanding' like them, those communities wouldn't be so spaced out.

Still on the subject of the ashrams, the coordinator from Montreal said that they had 17 people in the ashram, and that was now reduced to 5, only two of which were originally from Montreal. I guess the other 3 got sent there from someplace else. She had a couple of tsk tsk comments about that.

Anyhow, she said that the people who moved out wanted to 'get their own life together' and 'live their own life' which she, having the attitude of a lot of these coordinators that, while their communites were completely spaced out, THEY were quite clear and had THAT UNDERSTANDING, couldn't understand it because this was the opportunity to dedicate and a great gift to be in the ashram. She said those who moved out 'wanted to live their own life.' To which Maharaji interjected:

But they don't have their own life. They are just puppets. That is the truth. It ISN'T their life. And this is what they don't understand.

At another point in the meeting a premie asks about smoking pot. He said (again with an air of spiritual superiority over other 'spaced out' premies) that about half the premies he knew, including some ashram and some 'regular' premies were smoking pot and that he thought premies were very unclear about this.

Then he said something that seemed to make Maharaji quite miffed. He said that Maharaji hadn't said anything about smoking pot in satsang for awhile, at which point Maharaji interjected and said:

Did you ever hear a satsang from me saying you COULD? Just because I didn't say the exact words..it's like can you imagine talking and saying everything BUT the words you mean to say? Can you imagine that? But it has been very clear and understood that premies shouldn't do it. It is a substitute on the path of realization.

See, people have all these excuses and reasons why, about what it does for them, but see, knowledge does the same thing. And it's just a substitute on the path of realization.

I know a lot of premies drink bong (sp?) in India, even in the ashram, and I know these people. And you can just walk around and see them, and they are completely out of it. Their eyes are read and they are just wasted.

See, knowledge is more fantastic, and I can say for sure that a stoned person can't do meditation (I think he said something about 'falling over' in meditation, but it isn't clear.) See, when you are stoned, that's when all your horses just go wild. You have no control over anything.

And it's the same with alcohol, same with cigarettes, same with eggs and meat. I'm surprised that so many people in America don't go 'moo' every morning from eating cow. And it was like Marino was telling me that his father used to eat every part of the cow from the tongue to the tail. (laughing). I mean instead of brains you have horsemeat. It really does affect you.

You already have all these things stacked against you, and then if you do those things too, it just makes it impossible.

Then, Maharaji talks about the great vegetarian food they have at the residence, like Indian and Mexican food, and it isn't just 'eating grass' like some people think, and he was going to ask the cooks to put together a list of recipes for people, that 'anybody can cook.'

At another point Maharaji said that things in Denver got very out there, and the Mission became a burden on premies. He said that when he did his recent tour and did a program in Denver, the premies were so 'confused' that if there had been a curtain between him and the premies, he wouldn't have felt any vibe whatsoever. He said that the premies had gotten into things like 'evaluate yourself -- what is this? And it got so confusing for the premies that to me, the whole vibe at the Denver program was dead.'

Then he continued:

And it's all just a sophisticated way of mind. It was a big mind trip. ...

It's because people have been led to believe that everything has to be rational. And it's like workshops, what do they do? They just dismantle things, you know, they discuss this and that, what do you think about this, what do yout think about that, and they have input and output or whatever you call it. And it all just becomes so systematic that our mind just comes out and we just SHARE MIND. It's just mind.

And you can't just stir up mind and expect you can get away from it. It's like is you stir up mind, up in the air, that cloud won't just disappear. It isn't just like some dust that you can blow on it and make it go away. It just isn't that kind of dirt.
It gets bigger. It gets bigger and just engulfs more and more. And it's like mind, you have to conquer it. It's a wild horse. Don't try to ride it or you will get broken legs and arms. Let the horse just be over in the pasture and don't disurb it. Don't fall into that trap...

It is only by satsang, service and meditation. Satsang service and meditation, I live that way. It may be illogical and irrational... But we have to just have lots of satsang and inspire the premies to do prachar and to do propagation.

...

Canada and American are very lucky they have close access to me.

...

Later, Maharaji, I think, is already talking about planes and the need to raise money for him to get his own plane. It appears that the Mission leased a plane for Maharaji to come to Atlantic City from Malibu, and Maharaji said he was less tired. Seems he just couldn't cut it with commercial airlines.

Then he said:

And we have to get it together because these jets are expensive. It's the way I like to travel -- commercial airlines are too hard.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:06:13 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The amazing thing is the hypocrisy
Message:

So, Maharaji says you shouldn't smoke dope or cigarettes, eat meat or eggs, or drink alcohol, because they affect you and you certainly can't meditate if you are stoned.

Okay, so what we find out is that Maharaji, at this very time, and for quite a bit earlier, has been drinking alcohol like a fish. Bob Mishler reports that Maharaji was getting drunk quite a lot prior to when Mishler left, which was right about the time of this Atlantic City meeting.

Also, from what Michael tells us, Maharaji was also smoking dope at this very same time, or took it up soon after that. When did the 'Peter Frampton Live' album come out?

And at some point, Maharaji took up smoking cigarettes as well, and eating meat. What kind of hypocrisy is that?

Also, a couple of people mentioned the hypocrisy of Maharaji being married and trashing marriage to all the premies. At one point on the tape, Maharaji says that marriage in and or itself isn't bad, because, as he admits, he is married himself, but what's wrong is the desire to get married. Also, he implies that HE is 'ready' to get married and the premies, who are so 'diseased', aren't.

Also, at one point in the meeting, Maharaj calls on Teddy Tannenbaum, and Teddy puts on a little performance saying that he got really spaced out, but that Maharaji was getting things back on the right track again. Teddy said that what we needed to do was 'surrender' to Maharaji, but that is wasn't 'surrender' so much as 'give up.' Judging from the laughter, Maharaji and the audience thought this was very cute and funny.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:29 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Lila - the game has just begun.
Message:

I was born and raised in a city where three-quarters of the population are Indian and spent 23 years growing up among them. What is taken for ''hypocrisy'' is often just a Hindu tendency to be loose with the truth or at least quite tolerant of fudging. The charitable take on this by non-Indian South Africans was that they were basically a passive people not aggressive about anything including making strong assertions regarding truth and regard truth as more fluid than we do. Others, less charitable, could not stand them and did not trust them at all, regarding them as two-faced liars and conmen.

Add to these tendencies and the other great Hindu tendency - hyperbole - to the sociopathic tendencies of a sploit brat who had been raised to think of himself as god and you have lila ie playing mindfucking godlike games. If you ever read E M Forster's ''Passage to India'' you will see how the British got their minds fucked by lilas played on them sometimes unintentionally by ordinary Indians often resulting in an opposite affect than the one anticipated. The Bratguru had the power the Rawat family business to back up his outbursts of unbridled ego and willfulness and to boast his lilas to truly social engineering proportions.

But of course all this is seen with hindsight. I did not see this then. Rev rawat basically was doing whatever he felt like doing whenever he felt like doing it and getting away with as much power he could wield wihthout any thought to the consquences or his repsonsibility for those consequences.

He was not nearly as organized or deliberate as we may have thought. Most of what he did was on a selfish whim. He is still playing that game only now it is fairly organized and he can get up there with his pie-charts and pointer and slide shows of how many babies were born at Hans Jyanti etc and look like Bill Gates and play the part of a tycoon with money he did not earn honestly. It is still a lila. Krishna may wear tailored suits but underneath it he is wearing an invisible mala. I hope it isn't like Kali's mala of skulls.

You said: ''And at some point, Maharaji took up smoking cigarettes as well, and eating meat.''

I remember when the hamburger story circulated in 1974. It freaked out all us diehard vegetarians who had been vege before the Bratguru told us to be. And a friend of mine (Mike but I don't recall his last name) did service at Reigate (Rev Rawat's house in UK) and told us how he found cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes and rolling papers and hashish under the bed in Rawat's room. I of course loved the story at the time and thought my pot-smoking was being giving a blessing.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:47:44 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Frampton
Message:

Joe,

The Frampton album came out in '76. Maybe he went home to get stoned and listen to it right after he gave this satsang.

Unbelievable.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:39:07 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The hypocrisy , yes , that's the most galling
Message:


& maddening thing about the bastard .

Difficult enough to come to terms with buying into a false mental construct , but when you find out that the principal was taking the piss all along ....it's just too much .

At that time I was living alone , having left a Premie Centre , was trying to ignore heavy pressure to move into an ashram , & was trying to get it on with ssm .

I was very confused & torn between how to live life with M , & being in the world at the same time .

Often I 'fell into maya ' , & became an in the woodwork premie.

This caused me to feel very guilty & worried .

Meanwhile Rawat was fucking , swilling , gorging , doping & generally loafing around .

I remember giving satsang once to a very nasty petty criminal I knew then .

He just laughed , told me that Rawat was snorting coke & getting his cock sucked , & said he wished he'd thought that one up .

I was shocked & thought he was beyond help .

But he was right & I was wrong .

The only moral I can think of is the old cliche.

It takes one to know one.

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:58:37 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: freitano@hotmail.com
To: Joe
Subject: M must have been slurring his words again
Message:

Bong, I believe, has something to do with smoking pot in a bong pipe (though maybe there is such a beverage in India, who knows? but he was talking to Americans).

I love the part about eating every part of the cow and ending up full of horsemeat.

And this is the corker:

'And you can't just stir up mind and expect you can get away from it. It's like is you stir up mind, up in the air, that cloud won't just disappear. It isn't just like some dust that you can blow on it and make it go away. It just isn't that kind of dirt.
It gets bigger. It gets bigger and just engulfs more and more. And it's like mind, you have to conquer it. It's a wild horse. Don't try to ride it or you will get broken legs and arms. Let the horse just be over in the pasture and don't disurb it. Don't fall into that trap...'

A clear example of him making this wierd bogeyman out of the mind. If you read HAL's wonderful post (and Postie-san's comments) you'll see why a lot of people wanted a more sane view of the mind. He obviously didn't meditate, or he would have experienced that if you leave mind alone, don't feed it or don't try to chase it away, thoughts come and go of their own accord. And you don't have to go with them, you can just let them be. Like sitting outside and watching the cloud formations.

Thanks for all this info. And the comments about the plane, Wow! I wish I could see the literature that was going around concerning the plane. The reasoning given was that it was more cost effective to send the entourage by private plane. Also that he could tour more efficiently, i.e. get to more places, the exact places he needed to go and teach, by not hassling with airlines scheduling.

Then the excuse to get rid of DECCA's flying hotel was that he needed the jet to get more range. It could hold more fuel between stops and thus the Lard would be safe. And as a trade off, it wouldn't hold the whole traveling circus -- he wouldn't drag along his whole family and bhakti slaves everywhere he went.

Oy!

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:42:01 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: the word is ''bhang'' meaning hashish
Message:

stirred into hot spicy milk. Yogis use it to ''open their hearts'' and get into feeling instead of just thinking. Yummy.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:00:12 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: ''bhang'' lassi (yoghurt) cold works too! (nt)
Message:

dfg

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:32:57 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid? (nt)
Message:

nt

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:43:42 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid?
Message:

I'll show you how. You bring the hash. I'll boil the milk and spices.

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 20:55:30 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid?
Message:

That would be illegal in San Francisco. I advise against it. If you go to Amsterdam, it would be legal.

Marianne

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Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:16:51 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: It's illegal? Damn I didn't know that.
Message:

You mean I am a criminal? Thank you counsellor for your cautionary advice. I guess I will just have to go visit Anth.

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:46:17 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: PS Glen Whittaker once told me
Message:

how the Bratguru used to make all the western premies drink bhang and laugh when they got high. What the fuck was he up to with creating ashrams in the west? Nothing like them existed in India ever. The only answer that I can up with is that the ashcans were the basis for constructing the Rawat family business in the west and you guys were the breadwinners. Dis-fucking-gusting!

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:53:05 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Ashrams didn't exist in India????
Message:

I know you mean the western style ashrams didn't exist in India, but this is amazing. Who thought them up? What are Indian ashrams like? Do you think someone looked at monasteries and thought that's a good idea?

Tell us more!

John.

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:00:23 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: John, ashrams in India are the guru's home
Message:

The guru may allow some devotees to live there as the Rawats allowed mahatmas to live at Prem Nagar. Most gurus' devotees are householders. Single wandering saddhus and sanyassis travel and live in temple compunds. There are a few monasteries called sanghas for brahmacharyas (celibates.) BUT NO - ashcans like we had here do not exist in India.

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:51:53 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Sorry typo on the date s/b Dec. 20, 1976
Message:

and NOT December 29, 1976. It's part of the same meeting discussed down below.

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:50:04 (GMT)
From: Ulf
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol
Message:

Hi Joe

I think i got part 1 of Atlantic city conf.

But i am not sure, because there is no text on the label
Thats why you did not get it with the first tape
But seeing the response ,, why not?

On this tape there is only one cordinater asking one
question,, and then M is talking only

If you want it i will send it to you ?

Ulf

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Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:54:17 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: kevjo@mindspring.com
To: Ulf
Subject: I would LOVE it.
Message:

Please, if you can, go ahead and send it.

The tape you sent me is great, one full side and part of the second side, but it does appear to just kind of begin without any introduction. So, anything more you have would be great.

I think you have my address, but email me if you need it again.

Also, if you can, don't send it registered mail, because I had to go to the Post Office and pick it up.

Thanks, Ulf, this is most appreciated.

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