Mysterious Miracles, Aliens from Spaceship Earth, A Spiritual Odyssey

This video is a rich, though unsettling, series of interviews with devotees of some of the most famous, and infamous, gurus of the 1960's and 1970's. It is introduced by the singer, Donovan, who was a follower of the Maharishi of TM. Donovan is the commentator and voice-over voice but Rennie Davis has the co-star role. It is still available at Amazon and is a must for anyone with an interest in the wilder reaches of human religion and the excesses of 60's counter-cultural youth.

The video contains some Indian footage including scenes of the "Holy Family" in India with an explanatory voice-over by the folk singer, Donovan, who MCs the video. "This rare footage traces the development of a highly publicized and controversial career. Of all the well known gurus, the youngest, Guru Maharaji Ji is easily the hardest for the skeptical Westerner to believe in, particularly in the light of publicity concerning his family's struggles for control of the organisation which he nominally heads. What few people realize was that he was proclaimed Perfect Master and named head of the Divine Light Mission after his father's death. His father founded the worldwide organisation in 1961 and died five years later when the boy was just eight years old. He now claims millions of devotees around the world. Many of them, Rennie Davis, included, have braved the ridicule of family to follow this path to an experience of consciousness."

Here is a video clip of a darshan line in Montrose, Colorado in July, 1972. Bihari Singh collects the donations as the premies come to pranam to Maharaji. "This time he’s come as a great king." - Rennie Davis

"People think God is a man. People think God has got ears, nose, teeth and he rises daily in the morning, toothbrushes, washes mouth and he is an old man also so he makes his beard also and all that people think. But no, God is energy, God is perfect and pure energy and that is why scientists say energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed. There is a glorious sun, not the sun that you see in the sky but the sun that is within ourselves which is much brighter, much, much, much brighter than the sun you see in the sky. People try to search God outside. How can we get you? God is inside."

"Peace in this world has become very strange for people. Peace in this universe has become a antique. And if we want to today receive and achieve this point of peace we have to go to him who is known as Perfect Master. Now why do they call me Perfect Master? See, if someone teaches you Maths, if someone teaches you English, if someone teaches you Science, you call him Maths Master, English Master, Science Master, respectively. Same way I can teach people peace. Uh now, again I tell this to people that I'm not prophet, I'm not a prophet. I'm just an ordinary human being with two legs, two eyes, and I work and I voluntary put myself here so that I can reveal this Knowledge to people. I think because people need it, people have forgotten what this Knowledge is and I'm just teaching them perfectness and that's why they call me Perfect Master."

Seeing His slightest signal Across the head of the throng Hearing His faintest whisper Above earth's loudest song. I'm hearing His faintest whisper Above earth's loudest song. At the Feet of the master Well you can really let it go Let it flow Cause we're all love We're all love We're all love, love, love By His grace

Joe Anato of the Public Affairs Department of Divine Light Mission speaks on control of the organisation. Unfortunately, the social service programs he mentions were more pipe dreams than reality and all attempts were stopped once Prem Rawat fired Bob Mishler and took control of the mission's direction. "The question has come up several times as to whether Guru Maharaj Ji is still in control of this Divine Light Mission. Honestly, he has always been in control and always will be as far as his followers are concerned. Because many things that were reported in the media were not reported corrctly. Actually under his direction what’s really happening is that people who are practicing this meditation are coming together in communities all over the world and they’re opening food co-ops and they’re uh starting medical clinics and there are social service programs, for instance here in America there are 250 ongoing social service programs in prisons, in old folks’ homes, in childrens’ hospitals because whenever you are experiencing love then it is something you want to share."

Rennie Davis talks about the supposed biological bases of Maharaji's techniques of Knowledge: "More and more believing that a natural physical or biological change takes place while experiencing this pure energy inside ourself, that there's actually a gland on the top of the brain called the pineal gland and that this gland is a light receptor and when we turn to the energy inside ourself which is light it activates a gland that right now in the human body is not active and this gland in turn secretes chemicals that leads to a whole harmonisation of the physical body so that the gland that ordinarily secretes chemicals that lead to fear and outrage and anger are actually brought under control."

Rennie talks about the true test of the guru: "The thing is, there are many gurus in the world but it's not what you believe or whether you have any faith or whether you get high by his, by his words but whether or not he can actually show you that light inside of yourself that is keeping you alive. To me that's really the test of the guru."

"I suppose really the lives of a whole generation have just been a series of incredible surprises and certainly when I was in Chicago with Judge Hoffman in the trial of the Chicago Seven, you know, I just had just had no idea that you know that just a few years later I would be involved you know in a very deep meditation and really believing that a breakthrough in human consciousness was going to be the solution to the problems of the world."

"Thousands of people are convinced from actual experiences that they have found in themselves, that they have experienced a breakthrough in consciousness that is perhaps one of the most dramatic and exciting changes in the history of civilisation."

"You know a little baby comes into the world and their their face is just completely like open and shining and just everything is so incredibly joyous well this meditation is like that, I mean it just puts you in in, it's so incredible, it's magic, it's, it's like being in love all of the time and you can actually work in the world, you can be in a very intense situation, you can be in a subway in New York city, you can be you know in a screaming battleground and yet you're just connected to a very pure and beautiful place inside and you're just completely open to life and it's really beautiful."

"You know to me the search of the whole 60's, the activity of the whole generation in the 60's was really, was really just a search for peace, to really try to find what are the root causes of war, of racism, of human suffering and I think that you know that whole period was really a search outside ourselves you know a search in the external world and I think we came to see that that actually our own human mind is what is creating war, is what creating separation, is what is creating our difficulties and many, many people in this country are are now sensing that, you know, without inner peace we can't have peace outside, if there can't be peace of mind you can't have peace on earth."

"We all have concepts about how a holy man should be, you know and we, we remember stories, you know, when I was growing up I was uh went to Sunday School in the Baptist Church and they always made a point in Sunday School about how the people of Christ's time had sort of a concept that he would come as a great king and when he came more according to the the ways of that time and, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey you know it seemed like everybody freaked out it was just just peoples' concepts and now we have a concept about a holy man that goes sort of back 2,000 years and now we have a come to the 20th century and he rides in an airplanes and rides in cars and appears on television sets and it doesn't fit our concepts concept and we're beginning to see that perhaps it's a kind of cosmic joke maybe that this time he's come as a great king."