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That's an interesting
take, regarding the co-dependent relationship. That
makes a lot of sense.
I frankly can't fathom what Maharaji thinks
about it all, especially after all these years. For
example, can one tell if, when Maharaji says he
needs a new plane, car, yacht, whatever, and that
it's for 'spreading knowledge,' no matter how
ridiculous that is, or that it's just a gift to the
premies to give them an opportunity to
'participate' or 'express graditude' or 'do
service' (in earlier days), whether he actually
believes that, or is just making excuses because
he's a megalomaniac and greedy. To someone who is
objectively looking at it, it would be the latter.
But maybe that's over-simplified.
But I can't believe that Maharaji still holds
those beliefs entirely. I just gotta believe that
his failure to spread knowledge has to be obvious
to him, and must have in some ways made him doubt
his motivations, or his ability, or his sincerety,
or something like that. It just doesn't seem
possible that a human could be that deluded to not
see that, and then make more cynical, conscious
decisions to just play the role to get what he
wants. Who knows?
But what you say about his followers is very
significant to me, because the delusion there has
to be substanitally less. It's like what Guy was
saying about 'needing' or 'liking' being in the
devotee role for a period of his life, and then he
sort of outgrew it. Something like that. The idea
that there are just people who 'need' to be in that
role, and people who don't.
Maybe that's true, but to me it seems just a
little dangerous to say that being a devotee to
another human being, is ever a healthy thing, even
if you like it, or you think you like it. I guess
because there is always the danger that one would
hang out in that role forever, and continually
compromise and limit his or her life to keep it
going, and because I just think being a devotee is
really destructive to the human spirit to
self-actualization, to ones ability to have
meaningful relationships, etc.
That's what really irritates me when people say
they just 'enjoy' being a premie, and being, to one
degree or another, devoted to Maharaji. It's just
such a closed system, that way, with so little in
the way of thorough examination of what really is
going on.
I guess I agree with the authors of 'The Guru
Papers' in their contention that the devotee/master
relationship is an authoritarian system that is
inherently pathological and always prone to abuse.
From this side of being a former devotee, I really
think that's true.
Michael, your posts about your personal
observations, and especially your feelings you had
and continue to have about all this are really
valuable. Thanks so much.
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