I agree with your assessment of the typical premie involvement. "It makes me feel good, it doesn't negatively impact my life (because I don't take it too seriously anymore), I've been doing it a long time and I love M, etc." If your total expectation and involvement is a couple of hours of meditation a week, and feeling "high" after your biannual sojourn to Miami, it's probably not much different in the end than reading books and taking a biannual hit of psychedelics. The more neurotic and cultic the attachment, the more neurotic and damaging the outcome. If you think Rawat is the source of grace in the universe, you will experience alienation from everyone, everything and ultimately yourself. This is self evident as you will never have a personal relationship with Rawat, let alone ever meet him, be able to ask him a question, rely on him for any personal direction or aid in times of trouble. You're just left with your imagination. You will compare everything  and everyone to an impossible and non-existant benchmark. You will see all your successes and failures as a reaction to "grace." In the big picture, psychologically no different than being a superstitious Catholic. This is my overwhelming experience after thirty years of involvement. Some premies may argue against this, saying "it's about the beautiful inner experience,"  but they probably spend 10,000 times as much time obsessing on their imaginary Maharaji as having the experience. You also state "Rawat does a horrible job of discussing what his "Knowledge" or "Self-Knowledge" might actually be." I again agree. Although it's obvious that any experience is in a sense undefinable, Rawat offers no framework for practice, no community, no real guidance, just lots of superlatives on what you should expect.. I agree with you - it all starts to fall apart when you see the paradox that M offers, and after 10, 20, 30 years with knowledge, why there is so minimal progress in achieving peace and understanding.

Now, on the other hand, your comment about the Zen master is definitely not my understanding of Zen practice. In fact, formal zazen meditation is the centerpiece of Zen practice and understanding, and lots of it - hours a day, sesshin (one week retreats) annually, weekend sesshin, etc. I agree that there is nothing to add or subtract from ourselves. Zen will say we are all Buddha - but stupid and asleep Buddha. But what does this mean? Are we a bundle of our neurotic death anxiety and endless cravings, obsessions, desires, and all the noise and chatter going on virtually ceaselessly in our minds? What happens when you try to still the noise? Is everything crossing the field of your perception as real as reality gets? Is there really no "deeper and deeper?" You may argue that this is the fact, but it certainly is not the Zen teachings. When the Buddha was asked "What are you?," he answered "I am awake." So I think there must also be "asleep," and accepting being asleep is certainly not the Zen Buddhist definition of enlightenment (e.g. satori). I don't need to discourse on Mahayana Buddhism, I'm not qualified (I think there are whole books on the subject ;?). But if you are saying that "recognition and acceptance of who we are IS the inner secret" that's fine, but first you gotta know "who we are is," and that's something to wake up to.

Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Tolstoy.