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Date: Tues, Nov 17, 1998 at 20:52:52 (EST)
From: Evidence (10)...
Email: None
To: Nigel, Jim, JW, TD
Subject: Farus Dampier
Message:
Farus Dampier (which crossword enthusiasts will
instantly recognise as an anagram of 'Prem is a fraud') is
better-known to forum-dwellers as 'TD'. Her account of
serial gurunoid Farus's journey reveals that the El-org
editors are nothing if not inconsistent.
Whether or not it is because three of the the four site
editors are currently in India, there are all sorts of words
and phrases slipping through the net that weren't allowed
one month ago. For instance, Andy O'Dwyer was not allowed to
mention 'surrendering the reins of his life', yet Farus does
so with impunity.
True to form, however, as soon as there is the slightest
hint of implied criticism of Maharaji - however oblique, out
comes the correcting fluid, and in come the added clarifying
phrases.
And remember premies, you must never give thanks for
hallucinogens even if they ultimately do lead you to the
lotus feet. I suspect this particular omission had less to
do with any 'Just Say No' to drugs campaign than a concern
that people might come to associate the master's precious
gift with mundane brain chemistry phenomena.
**************************************************
'Third time lucky' by Farus Dampier
(Firstly this is a great site and a great find. It's nice to
actually plug in Maharaji to a search engine and get to this
little 'oasis').
I am 48 years old, have known about Maharaji for 24 years,
but have only had Knowledge for about 12 of those years. I
guess you could say that I was one of those long-term
aspirants, one of those people who would drift in and out of
the premie world, battling with my life, my mind and my ego
until, after a long and colourful journey, I finally
received Knowledge in 1986.
I first heard about Maharaji when I was studying Arts at
Sydney University in the early 70s. I was living in a
communal house with about 10 others, and spent an awful lot
of time taking LSD, talking politics, listening to trippy
music, taking LSD, eating macrobiotic food, sleeping with as
many women I could, and reading every spiritual or beatnik
book that was circulating in the household at the time.
[TO THIS DAY, I’M REALLY
GRATEFUL FOR ACID FOR SHOWING ME THAT THERE WAS A WORLD
BEYOND WHAT WAS IN FRONT OF MY EYES, AND FOR A LOT OF US, IT
REALLY DID START OFF THAT SEARCH FOR SOME SORT OF DIVINE
EXPERIENCE THAT WE COULD HAVE WITHOUT THE NEED TO TAKE
HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS.]
A couple of us, including me, had been into TM and were
followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi but a close friend
and my girlfriend at the time, had become enamoured of the
then boy guru [, GURU MAHARAJ
JI AND THE DIVINE LIGHT MISSION]. I was
pretty perturbed that she had chosen
[GMJ]
[Maharaji]
over the Maharishi, and her sudden obsession with him
and practicing 'Knowledge' eventually led us to breaking up,
as she decided to leave our household and move into one of
the ashrams. I realise now that that was pretty selfish of
me as I had long tried to convert her to the benefits of TM,
but partly I was jealous because she seemed to be having
such a better experience than I was meditating. I had been
to a number of satsangs and found them quite inspiring, but
I wasn’t really ready to surrender and ‘hand over
the reins of my life’ to Maharaji, as I couldn't see
myself giving up sex and living the monastic kind of life
that the premies were. I obviously had no problem with
communal living, but I just wasn't ready to make the
commitment that premies had to
[GURU MAHARAJI JI]
[Maharaji].
I also think I was still internally messed up and
didn’t really know what I wanted from life.
After another couple of years studying and after abandoning
any practice of TM, I then did what a lot of Australians
did, and headed for London where I hung out in Earls Court
for a number of years, working in all sorts of jobs and
travelling around Europe in a kombi van. I was amazed at how
many premies I would come across on my travels who was still
so rapturous in their devotion and experience of Knowledge
and Maharaji, but by that stage, I was more preoccupied with
the ‘world outside’ then the ‘world
inside’.
When I headed back off to Australia, I went back home via
the overland route, through the Middle East and then
Pakistan and then to a place any self-respecting hippy
should go to - India! It was there I experienced the next
chapter in my spiritual odyssey. While in Goa and after an
extremely wasted couple of months where I smoked more dope
than I had while in university, I met a guy who told me
about the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He said he had been to his
ashram in Poona and was going back there as this guy had
‘samadhi’ and was going to do amazing things for
the world. I ended up going there for a spell, changing my
name and even ended up eventually following him to America
where he set up an Ashram in Antelope Oregon called
Rajnesshpuram. I stayed for quite some time, but fortunately
after my sister came and found me, I ended leaving Oregon
and came back to Australia. It was a pretty strange period
of my life.
When I arrived back, I was feeling pretty desperate and
lonely, and disorientated after the last ten or so years. I
hadn't even thought much about what had happened to
[GURU MAHARAJ
JI]
[Maharaji],
until I caught up with my friend who had become a premie in
1974. I told him about my experience, and he told me that
the ashrams were no longer, and that Maharaji had finally
rid himself of a lot of the Indian baggage that had
originally been attached to the Divine Light Mission
[AND
THAT THE MISSION TOO WAS GONE]. He said that
Maharaji
[FINALLY]
[HAD
CHANGED EVERYTHING
AND] made
Knowledge what it should have been in the first place, just
a simple process, and that it should just be about Knowledge
and the Master, and that you could live your life however
you liked, only the bonus was, you had this beautiful
experience inside. This sounded so refreshing, as naturally
I was still pretty wary as I’d had my fair share of
gurus, but at the same time, I was impressed that the
premies I knew, had been premies for so long, and that
despite the ups and downs in their life, they had remained
steadfast in their devotion to Maharaji and committed to
their practice of Knowledge.
I ended up sharing a house with this friend, and slowly,
over time, I became an aspirant. It took me another two
years, but in 1986, I received Knowledge. Receiving
Knowledge was like 'cleaning my slate', being reborn after
many years of aimless searching for what I really had inside
of me all that time. Maharaji really did give me the key and
I'm really grateful to have him as my Master. My premie
friend and I joke how it took me two tries until I found my
true Master, that it was a case of third time lucky for me,
but thanks to Maharaji I don't have to keep on looking. My
thirst is finally quenched!
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