Brian,

Thank you for setting out so clearly a case for becoming free of the conditioning that was the common factor binding premies to Mr Rawat. I liked most of what you said, but would point out just one thing I don’t agree with.

You write:

"The other side of the coin is that once someone embraces a theory at the subconscious level as a truth it becomes the reality that is acted out in life without question."

Fine, but then you also write:

"So I lived my life according to my subconscious programming and wasted so much of my life, time and resources supporting M's selfish needs and goals."

The second quoted sentence reveals a replacement theory embraced at the subconscious level: that you have wasted so much of your life. As a premie for thirty years who left six months ago, it’s possible I have been through similar losses as yourself. But I don’t think I wasted anything. I had some good times and I learned a lot. I went down that path because I was drawn down that path. That I stuck it out so long, with apparently so mediocre results, indicates to me not that I was cruelly duped, but that it met some needs which I, a psychologically damaged person before I discovered Maharaji, needed to have met. The whole time I counted myself as a premie, I was getting something out of it. I distanced myself from a lot of what went on. In recent years, I decided not to attend events any more. Then I decided not to watch videos or satellites any more. Then I stopped meditating. I was a bit nervous about some of these steps because I was conditioned into a fear of what might happen. I might think I was all right but was I really sliding painlessly into hell?

Yes the subconscious programming was definitely there. But nature abhors a vacuum. What replacement programming shall we allow in?

I will not bore you with details of my new programming. But part of it embraces my past as something glorious, though painful and ignorant, not something wasted. And if I supported M’s selfish needs and goals, that’s his problem and not mine. I am not his victim! I chose a particular asylum to hang around in, whilst I gained strength. In some ways I did not develop, in other ways I did. I am absolutely glad I left, but to wish I had left earlier does not make sense to me, as I am learning to trust the wisdom of my journey, the rightness of my intuitions. If I can’t trust me, who can I trust? So I will not undermine myself with beliefs that I made a mistake. All right, I made lots of mistakes: but only repeated them until I had learned from them.

This may sound like "psycho-babble", but who cares? It’s my experience. I trust you and everyone else to be true to yours. And I loved what you wrote, even though taking issue on a minor point.

Best wishes,

Powysian (formerly Spangledy – a ridiculous name whose history I will not bore you with)