Devotion - Passages

The small minority of premies who have remained devoted to Rawat long enough to age from "premies" to "students" do have one thing in common, a surprisingly strong and apparently unwarranted devotion to Prem Rawat and a belief in his super competence and power to which they attribute everything good in their lives. We can see from the testimony of Linda Pascotto and Sandy Collier that this devotion was not based on the experience of years of meditation and practise of this "Knowledge" but on beliefs in his divinity and a 'conversion experience' akin to falling in love.

"He's shown me the most important, what I would now call the most important part of my existence as a human being and prior to that I'd heard the word and I'd associated it with certain emotions and romantic feelings but I did not know the existence of the heart and to establish that amongst human beings, umm, that's a (pause) the richness of that discovery, that's unparallelled as far as I know, it's unparallelled in human history to make that a reality for an entire globe. Tim Gallwey
"He's certainly fullfilled his promise and sort of going back to that original moment when when I sat in front of him and and asked him for peace if I could find peace in my life and, and that has certainly been fulfilled perhaps not in the way I expected you see I had this sort of hippie concept, sort of a bit of politics and anti-Vietnam (giggles) and feeling a bit cool inside myself but, but a real deep fulfillment inside my life, umm, there are things I can say about my life which I would like to hope that all human beings can say, I think all human beings should be able to say it but I can actually honselty say it those things I can, I can look at my life and say My life has been absolutely fantastic. The, umm. I cannot think of any way that it could of been better. It's just, you know, that's not to say there haven't been problems or difficulties but it but the fulfillment that Knowledge has given me and the inspiration that Maharaji has given me has meant that I am actually able to look at my existence, my life and say this is the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me and if I died right now I would say I would die saying 'WOW'!" Ron Geaves
"To me it's like an incredible love story, you know, this life. To discover, you know, who He is and who I am and just that play and that dance." Janet Wallace
"For a long time, for many, many years I felt I didn't love Maharaji and I was upset that I didn't love him because everybody else was saying "Oh we love you Maharaji." Well I can't say that well he's a man to start with and I'm a man so ... I respected him, I acknowledged him as my Master, I'd do anything for him but I didn't have that feeling of love but now I find that uggh that feeling of love is there, and I love him very strongly as if it's been there forever but I know, I remember the times when I was upset with myself for not loving him but so something's happened some kind of growth has happened where I see him on a video or in person or I read something that he's said and I'm just incredibly touched It's a very personal thing mumble mumble it's a gift he's giving me, he's he's he's going straight to my heart" Glen Whittaker
"Maharaji has brought to me personally a sense of extreme peace and just contentment, just contentment and so thankful that I have had this opportunity in my life and I just want it to keep growing and I want my last bit to be just more of the same. And she didn't even meditate properly for nearly 20 years either because 2 hours a day seemed so unrealistic. Linda Pascotto, President of the Prem Rawat Foundation
"And I don't have any theories about afterlife or next life or reincarnation but if there is reincarnation I would like to come back and have another go at it really and do exactly the same thing giggles) you know it's just and I think to be able to say that as a as a human being that your life has been fantastic, incredible you know it would be hard for anyone to have a better life than you is a compliment to Maharaji and Knowledge." Ron Geaves
"For me, he gave me love. He gave me trust. He gave me Knowledge. He gave me care. He gave me his kindness. How, without him, I can't imagine myself where I would be. In which street in the world, doing what? God knows. But for me, he gave me life, a new life. Life, which is full of joy, which is full of enthusiasm, which is full of love and whatever it is that's what he gave it to me and that's what I feel it and I'm ... I don't have the words to show my gratitude but he brought to me." Sampuranand
"I have to say that it's taken Maharaji a long time to teach me that life is about joy and he puts a lot of effort in the sense that of communicating his joy and because uh there's a lot that's not joyful but Maharaji has always kept his sense of joy and uh it's quite rare." Sandy Collier
"Deep inside if I just see him and I'm going 'Thank you, Maharaji.' To me it's, it's the icing on the cake. To be able, you know, to be able to do that, to to look at this person. Thank you. If you were not on this planet, I don't know, I mean really, it's as serious as that. If that guy was not on this planet, I don't even know." George Blodwell
"For all of my life I've been this feeling that he's with me at every step in this journey, on this process and I pray that it continues." Charanand That's quite a remarkable statement considering Charanand is a lot older than Prem Rawat. Of course, he believes that Rawat is the Perfect Master and that the Power of God incarnated in the young Prem Rawat when his father died.
"I had all these wonderful experiences with Maharaji, they were magic. I mean experiences that aargh you know where we just feel completely one um .... Things like that we can't share but definite magic, best, best, best experiences of my life." Joan Apter But she has just shared it ...
I wrote a poem to him once, long time ago and I told him, you're everything. I had that feeling then, I told him you're everything but I told him sss dare I say that you forgot you forgot one thing and that was to leave me a satisfactory way of saying "Thank you". ... and I still feel that. He's a Perfect, but to me he's Master, Perfect Master but he still hasn't given me a satisfactory way of thanking him. Bobby Hendry, Prem Rawat's chef
To me what he's achieved is in here, this gratitude, the bliss, the happiness that people can experience and that, that's the greatest thing isn't it? John Hampton No, it's not the greatest thing and it's not even close.