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I have been wondering
more and more how I managed to live with all the
weird and inconsistent beliefs I subscribed to so
recently. I was a liar in so many ways when I was a
premie. I was a liar in that I never questioned the
party line.
I was there in the days when he openly said guru
is greater than god, give me the reins of your life
etc.
In those early days it was easy to believe for
me I think it's possible he even believed it
himself.. It was easy to believe because it was
reinforced constantly by gopi-chat in the day,
large pictures on every wall, a huge investment in
that almost everything I did was either to get
closer to m inside or to serve his holey mission,
topped off with 3hrs of mutual brainwashing and an
hour or two of exhausted nodding under a blanket
every night. In those days I wouldn't call myself a
liar just brainwashed and deluded. And I can
forgive myself for that.. I was young and
vulnerable and a bit above myself. One of the
chosen few with a mission to bring peace to the
world was something to be.
But in 1975 I left that factory farm environment
and had my first real doubts. This is where I first
started to lie to myself.
And when the mutual brainwashing was halted I
thought we were lucky, I had recognized that some
of my fellow devotees would bullshit a bit and
surely it would be so beneficial just to hear the
pure words of the master and look at his glorious
form. (I know, I know!)
But slowly I grew up and began to mix in the
wider world (before my kids went to school I don't
think I knew anyone that wasn't a premie). I
remember well in about 1984 wanting to ask Maharaji
if he was the only way. I could see the same belief
in followers of other religions and cults. I never
asked him.. I used to write an affirmation….
'I am now ready to fearlessly examine my relation
with Maharaji' Well I may have been ready!!! Here
the lying escalated. I hardly talked about Maharaji
after this, not even to my children. (the mother's
instinct won through). I adjusted my beliefs
gradually to enable me to continue to be a
premie.
Lie number one; I continued to persuade myself I
loved Maharaji. I left the ashram in 1975, I had
fallen in love with a real person, people like
Saphalanand were smoking dope and such with some of
the ashram premies. This was in London. I was in
what Glen W called a non-satsang ashram there was
more room to think and desire than in the previous
ashrams I'd been in. There was some indecision
about whether we would both leave but I left anyway
and remember saying 'I don't belong here I don't
love Maharaji anymore.' I went to Edinburgh, a
place I had loved before K, I visited the ashram
there and being an outsider for the first time in
years saw a really depressed and unfriendly group
of people, they didn't talk to each other. The next
year for me was very hard emotionally, I was in a
right state but blamed it on leaving the ashram and
my own and my new partners (he did leave) failings.
Surrounded by premies and satsang, I did not pursue
my doubts but drowned them in SS&M and as much
D as we could afford.
Lie number two. I continued to tell myself,
secretly inside, that Maharaji was in some way
divine. This was a lie because, if I had truly
followed through and examined the doubt about 'only
way' I would have probably ended up realizing more.
The lie was that I just told myself it would all be
made clear at the right time M was my divine
enlightened master and knew best. I let this
question rest. It made me feel uncomfortable
whenever I met a devotee of Rajneesh or Babaji or a
spiritual Christian, I never met them with a
similar devotional fervor which, looking back was
because I didn't honestly believe it anymore, I was
lying.
Lie number three; I continued to pay lip service
to Knowledge as the manifestation of God within.
Since 1979 I had my third child and stopped regular
meditation. I realised that what I had always
thought was nectar was in fact the discharge of
electricity between gold and mercury in my mouth.
Nothing had really changed in my meditation since I
first started practicing….I did often enjoy it
when I did it, and occasionally experienced lovely
out of body floating sensations and euphoria, but
NOTHING that I could remotely say with any sort of
certainty was an experience of god within (whatever
that may be) or was nearly as mind blowing as LSD.
It did not necessarily make anything better for me
when I did it, although I worried about becoming a
rotting cabbage at first. Then in the eighties I
tried rebirthing (a breathing technique) and had a
much more powerful and reliable experience with
this. I justified it by saying that rebirthing
cleared the way for the experience of
knowledge… but I didn't even practice those
famous techniques. I would tend to attribute any
good feeling to my sporadic practicing of the
knowledge and being a (sshh!) devotee of the
perfect master. This was not rational and did me no
good at all. I was lying.
There are probably loads more and there is
definitely the one about his beautiful form.( I
always wished he had nice eyes and why was he so
fat.) I just wanted to have a go at working things
out on paper like people do here,. Quite enjoyed it
but it took me sooo long!
Peg
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