Hi Livia,

I know what you mean about displacement.  I'm feeling much the same.

I  think the rotten vegetables idea is still in existence big time among the premies.  That's why you hear premies say we ex-premies are all miserable, fixated on attacking Maharaji, compuslive and living in abject, miserable anger,  and the like.  When something bad happens to an ex-premie, like what happened to Neville, well, that is glomed onto as proof.  Anything positive is ignored; it's just the reverse ofn the way proof of how knowledge works is determined.

There was a really revealing example of this about a 18 months ago, when Elan Vital attempted to do some "FAQs" to try to counter what ex-premies were saying.  One of them was about people who don't practice anymore.  The gist of it was that if people lack the wherewithall to practice knowledge, then they probably won't and then they won't have any experience and then they might leave.  This circular and bizarre theory helped even the PR people at Elan Vital avoid the taboo subject that somebody might really pactice knowledge just the way Maharaji says to do it and not like it, find it worthless, or worse.  The bottom line was that the only people who wouldn't love knowledge and Maharaji were just lazy, defective people who didn't understand the value of what they had and didn't make any effort to practice it.

Note also, that "practice" is variably described as extremely easy and simple and anyone can do it, to that it's really, really hard and no on can do it and therefore you can only rely on Maharaji to have any experience.  It just depends on the context M is trying to acheive. This is another one of those contradictory, meaningless things about this cult.

Now, there was nothing about rotten vegetables or going to hell in the EV FAQ, because for the general public that would be taboo to say.  I don't think we even said it at intro programs in the 70s while M was saying i to us.  It would scare people off.  Lots of things, if premies said what they really believed, would scare people off, at least after 1975.  That's why he won't let premies give satsang anymore.  He can't have them saying what they really believe, or parroting something he said in some "pwk-only" event.

But I think premies still think it's true, and that's why premies are so very afraid of listening to dissenting opinions, for fear of leaving, and then god knows what might happen to them.  For the aging holdovers from the 70s, this is probably more subconscious than conscious, but I think it's very deep.  Many of us were primed to believe stuff like that due to various religious indoctrination early in our lives, like mine in the Roman Catholic Church, which has much the same teachings, or at least used to have them.

The "its for everybody"  stuff I think is translated like this:  Knowledge really IS for everybody, absolutely everybody, but some people are too confused to know it.  So, because they are so confused, you have to lure them in by lying to them and saying they can just try it and see if they like it and that it's just a personal decision.  All the absolutes, except the "perfect place" nonsense, like the fears about leaving, or that is has to be for everybody, has to be hidden and not said publicly, in fact as a premie you learn to lie about that stuff and think it's okay and for that person's own good.  But I think most premies still believe it.

Joe