Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 16:11:06 (GMT)
From: Feb 26, 2001 To: Mar 07, 2001 Page: 5 Of: 5


Bazza -:- More from Downton's book -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:54:53 (GMT)
__ Jean-Michel -:- Downton book's excerpts online -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:30:57 (GMT)
__ Charles S. -:- No wonder M. is allways telling the premies... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:50:38 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- Crticising Captain Rawat -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:33:51 (GMT)
__ __ Sandy -:- It's not surprising, based on Downton's research -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 13:25:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- The words are important -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:54:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ Michael Dettmers -:- It's not surprising, based on Downton's research -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 14:02:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Sandy -:- FA, what just happened to my reply to Michael?? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 14:51:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Forum Admin -:- FA, what just happened to my reply to Michael?? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 15:19:45 (GMT)
__ Barry -:- Hey CD! Check this upper post out!(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:25:19 (GMT)
__ Pat Conlon -:- Thanks Bazza, He hit the nail on the head NT -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:14:59 (GMT)

Bazza -:- On the road (OT) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:26:03 (GMT)
__ janet -:- On the road (OT)palm springs.. is L A too far? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:46:52 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- Janet is SF too far for you? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:11:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ janet -:- is SF too far for you? god would i love to... -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:03:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Janet, you didn't put you full email address -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:48:39 (GMT)
__ __ janet -:- interested in an L A thing, type a 1 below me. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:49:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ Barry -:- Hi Janet!(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:09:30 (GMT)
__ Barry -:- Check out Victoria and my band Baz! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 06:16:36 (GMT)
__ __ Bazza -:- Check out Victoria and my band Baz!/OT -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 06:47:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ Barry -:- Really? No shit? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:07:31 (GMT)

Jim -:- Van Gogh was a premie! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:26:20 (GMT)
__ Sean -:- No wonder he cut his ear off! (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:14:54 (GMT)
__ __ Barry -:- Actually sean, that stories bull! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:16:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ Sean -:- Prostitute? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:44:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Barry -:- Ya! and when she wasn't fat enough.... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:51:55 (GMT)
__ Connie -:- or was someone a Van Gough fan? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:55:03 (GMT)
__ __ AJW -:- And with absynth. (ot) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:48:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ Connie -:- So he had one ear AND a bad liver (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:25:18 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- Capt Rawat bought Van Gogh's paintbrush -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:06:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ Charles S. -:- He also mentioned locking it up in his SAFE (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:58:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- Did he mention where he got the money to buy it? -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:28:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- someone sent it to him as a gift -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:19:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Oh, did anyone ask why he doesn't sell -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 03:31:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ la-ex -:- only because it helps propagate K to artistsJoe.nt -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 17:39:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- Oh yeah sure...ha ha ha ha ha -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 03:52:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Van Gogh on ELK also any movies that he mentions -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:45:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- Pat, I get the feeling are you casting -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:19:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Connie, I never saw the secret private face -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 17:55:33 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- Pat, I am talking about -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 01:54:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Charles S. -:- Public face and private ''understanding''... -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 10:08:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Postie -:- Isn't it like a child having a . . . -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 18:19:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Connie, it was that schizo public/private -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 04:39:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Postie -:- Connie, Conlon - may I cut in? -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 05:01:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- Glad you did -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 07:44:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Connie, Conlon - may I cut in? -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 05:12:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Postie -:- Conlon- Thanks, it was a rockin' day (nt) -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 06:46:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Sean -:- Jimi Hendrix -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 12:46:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ zydeco x -:- Jimi Hendrix -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 13:36:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- Captain Rawat the Artist -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:37:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Captain Rawat has no shame and no taste NT -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:10:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ Barry -:- More like winston's butts!!(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:19:43 (GMT)
__ __ Aussi Ji -:- He suffered from epilepsy... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:38:09 (GMT)
__ Monmot -:- My brain is rotting from an OD of saccharine...nt -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:48:58 (GMT)

Jim -:- Tom Hanks is a premie! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:21:44 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- I mustn't forget.... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:04:59 (GMT)
__ Barry -:- Hurray for Joe Camel!(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:49:56 (GMT)
__ Postie -:- Tom Hanks is a premie! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:01:47 (GMT)
__ __ Aussi Ji -:- Maybe adolph hitler was a premie too.LOL(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:42:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ janet -:- he was vegetarian-fanatical about perfection-hmmmm -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:54:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ Barry -:- Nope! Catholic. The dirt lipped bastard! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:53:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Secret charismatic Catholic cult -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:46:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Aussi Ji -:- I must be the reincarnation of hitler -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:01:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Well, they don't call it Down Under for nothing -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 17:53:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Barry -:- Fraaaaaaaaaaap! -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:08:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ janet -:- maybe he blew up in his own methane bunker -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 04:52:27 (GMT)

Nigel -:- Change of email (ot) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:55:50 (GMT)
__ salam -:- bloody polite pommy bastard..nt -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:24:01 (GMT)
__ Postie -:- Still accepting Amaroo donations Nigel? (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:05:53 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- I need to do some hard sums.. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 17:58:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ Postie -:- Yes, go for the SmartCard at least (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:11:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Nigel -:- BTW: Do I know you, Postie? -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:34:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Postie -:- BTW: Do I know you, Postie? -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:00:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- BTW: Do I know you, Postie? -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 15:35:52 (GMT)

JHB -:- K-Lite v. a more blatant cult -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:37:00 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- Premie Uniforms -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:41:09 (GMT)
__ __ janet -:- Premie Uniforms-dont forget the... -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:10:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ DeProGram Anand Ji -:- Premie Uniforms-dont forget the... -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 10:28:45 (GMT)
__ Nigel -:- The more blatant cult -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:10:10 (GMT)
__ __ Sean -:- Monkey on a Stick -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:41:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- No - who's it by? (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:49:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Sean -:- Monkey on a Stick -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:10:17 (GMT)
__ __ moldy warp -:- Hi nige - you still there? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:31:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Hi mold - Yes, and yes.. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:43:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ moldy warp -:- to nige Like the redcrow -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:50:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- LOL - 'on the evidence that salt did not agree..' -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:15:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Sean -:- Redcrow -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:45:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Marianne -:- Redcrow --OT -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:07:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ moldy warp -:- To nige the non-twitcher -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:32:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- twitchers... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:46:24 (GMT)
__ Thelma -:- Well, I liked the Krishna drag -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:05:46 (GMT)
__ __ Sean -:- Well, I liked the Krishna drag -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Ithyphallic Shiva or Nataraja? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:58:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Sean -:- Ithyphallic Shiva or Nataraja? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:50:05 (GMT)

Joe -:- More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:23:04 (GMT)
__ Joe -:- The amazing thing is the hypocrisy -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:06:13 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- Lila - the game has just begun. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:29 (GMT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Frampton -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:47:44 (GMT)
__ __ Bin Liner -:- The hypocrisy , yes , that's the most galling -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:39:07 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- M must have been slurring his words again -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:58:37 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- the word is ''bhang'' meaning hashish -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:42:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- ''bhang'' lassi (yoghurt) cold works too! (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:00:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:32:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:43:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Marianne -:- How do they get hash into a liquid? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 20:55:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- It's illegal? Damn I didn't know that. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:16:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- PS Glen Whittaker once told me -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:46:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ JHB -:- Ashrams didn't exist in India???? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:53:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- John, ashrams in India are the guru's home -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:00:23 (GMT)
__ Joe -:- Sorry typo on the date s/b Dec. 20, 1976 -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:51:53 (GMT)
__ Ulf -:- More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:50:04 (GMT)
__ __ Joe -:- I would LOVE it. -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:54:17 (GMT)

cq -:- Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:33:06 (GMT)
__ JohnT -:- What I like most about this article -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:07:20 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Ditto..hear hear. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:37:32 (GMT)
__ __ cq -:- very ying-yang. Like the logic behind illogic? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:44:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Actually, I've a couple of problems wirh this... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:28:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Nigel -:- I'll explain in the morn..(nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:04:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ cq -:- layers of the onion? -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:57:36 (GMT)

cq -:- You're getting scissor-happy, FA. Be careful -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:20:36 (GMT)
__ Forum Admin -:- An apology -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:52:41 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- FA, can you remember what the thread was about? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:59:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ Forum Admin -:- FA, can you remember what the thread was about? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:52:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ AJW -:- The Axe Wielder. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:51:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- This FA has an axe to grind -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 15:42:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Forum Admin -:- Mistakes have been made -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:26:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Ha ha ha -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:30:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Until we meet again. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:14:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Until we meet again (addendum). -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:44:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- That thread - pity about Sandy's posts -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:34:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Sandy -:- It's a good thing the FA is not in the business of -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 13:04:52 (GMT)

Jean-Michel -:- EV's new seminars ! -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:39:59 (GMT)
__ Roger eDrek -:- Nice job, J-M -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:41:02 (GMT)
__ __ Jean-Michel -:- I didn't write much intro for those -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:40:48 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- Yvette and Harry are still in this mess!?? -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:23:47 (GMT)
__ gerry -:- Guerilla tactics: Easterners--service opportunity -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:51:46 (GMT)
__ __ janet -:- bet its the Patel clan of hotelkeepers worldwide -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:37:14 (GMT)

Pat Conlon -:- Revisionism and the Dark Night of the Soul -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:01:20 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- I know it took us a while to 'get it' -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:33:31 (GMT)
__ __ Charles S. -:- ''getting it'', ''getting out'', and... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:38:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- This is a great point you keep making ... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 22:28:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- This is a great point you keep making ... -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:27:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Sorry.. meant to say -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:29:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Joe, meditation -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:46:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Patrick, meditation -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:24:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Charles S. -:- The mind as the ''Enemy''.. -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 09:09:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Joe, I do not meditate the way the Bratguru taught -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:29:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Patrick, meditation -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:05:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Thank you, Francesca -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:31:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Patrick, meditation -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:09:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Joe, it is still a cult -:- Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:36:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Tell that to Sandy -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 22:42:17 (GMT)

Hal -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 07:13:02 (GMT)
__ cq -:- the only keys to the kingdom -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:40:10 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- cq - that's brilliant - Bilingual turkey indeed -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:52:50 (GMT)
__ Hal -:- Thanks guys -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:15:46 (GMT)
__ Kelly -:- Happy anniversary! -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 18:25:58 (GMT)
__ Way -:- Thanks, Hal, bravo! (nt) -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:39:51 (GMT)
__ Robyn -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:37:52 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- You opened the pod door Hal! -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:10:50 (GMT)
__ Brian Smith -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:31:30 (GMT)
__ __ la-ex -:- Brian-N+Z-my story as well,thanks-great post! nt -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 17:20:15 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Great post Brian...a keeper. -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:18:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ Brian Smith -:- Great post Brian...a keeper. I might just do that -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:49:43 (GMT)
__ __ Joe -:- Terrific post, Brian. Thanks so much. -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:25:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ Brian Smith -:- Terrific post, Brian. Thanks so much. -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:20:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Connie -:- Agree 100% with what you said, same for me (nt) -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:25:09 (GMT)
__ __ Bin Liner -:- Hal and Brian , Thanks for those posts -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:49:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ Hal -:- Let the dust settle Binnie -:- Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:47:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Bin Liner -:- Thanks for the offer (nt ) -:- Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 03:19:22 (GMT)
__ __ Francesca -:- Great post Brian ... keep it up -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:28:40 (GMT)
__ __ Joy -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:11:04 (GMT)
__ __ JHB -:- And thanks for your post too! -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 14:32:45 (GMT)
__ __ __ Brian Smith -:- And thanks for your post too! YES JHB -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:17:37 (GMT)
__ Pat Conlon -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 09:53:06 (GMT)
__ __ Postie -:- Now and Zen -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 16:14:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ hal -:- More Ikkyu ! Great - thanks Postie nt -:- Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:17:51 (GMT)


Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:54:53 (GMT)
From: Bazza
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: More from Downton's book
Message:
Finally found time for a bit of late night reading. Here is another interesting extract from:

'Sacred Journeys: The Conversion of Young Americans to Divine Light Mission', by James V. Downton Jr., Columbia University Press, 1979.

'Believing the guru to be a saint, premies were ready to conform to his wishes (as well as they could), while many lost the capacity to criticize him. Even during the height of the public scandals which hit the Mission in its formative period, I did not hear premies express even one critical comment about the guru. Given their views of him as the Lord, it was as clearly outside of the realm of possibility for them to oppose or criticize him in any way, as for Moses to have told God that he wanted him to edit the Ten Commandments.

Devotion to Guru Maharaji seems similar to the type of unquestioning affection children feel for their parents during the time before adoloscence when they are emotionally merged with them. This is one of the reasons that, once formed, a follower's strong emotional bond with a leader is so hard to break, especially when the leader is viewed as Divine.

.......

I believe there is a time when the devotee's autonomy from a guru, like independence from one's parents, should be achieved, otherwise surrender remains only an instrument of social control to serve the guru's ends, rather than a means of bringing the person into an individual relationship to God and the world.

The emotional disengagement of children from their parents seems to take a natural course, but for the adults who have emotionally merged with a guru becoming more independent must be more conscious and deliberate, A danger is that, by idealizing the guru, the devotee preserves the distance between then so that it always appears as if more needs to be done. This of course provides the devotee with the rationale for the continuation of dependence on him. Some followers may be able to face the trauma of separation, while others may have to be pushed away when the time is right.

If both the guru and devotee are psychologically or socially dependent on the relationship, then neither are likely to initiate a rift and the devotee may become permanently fixed in that regressive state, never to go beyond the role of obediant child.'

This was written around 1977/78. How little things have changed in 20 years!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:30:57 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Downton book's excerpts online
Message:
Here As well as lots of other references

Thanks Bazza !!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:50:38 (GMT)
From: Charles S.
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: No wonder M. is allways telling the premies...
Message:
... to ''have the heart of a child''. Fits right in, doesn't it?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:33:51 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Crticising Captain Rawat
Message:
Hi Bazza,

It's always interesting to ask premies what their main criticisms of Captain Rawat are. JHB often does this. The premies always dodge the issue. It's funny to see their reactions.

Anth the critic.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 13:25:29 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: It's not surprising, based on Downton's research
Message:
It's always interesting to ask premies what their main criticisms of Captain Rawat are. JHB often does this. The premies always dodge the issue. It's funny to see their reactions. -Anth the critic.

Hi Anth,

I used to sit there and wonder why he was going on and on and on and on, telling the same story with just a few changes, and there I'd be in the middle of a big room full of fawning, ooohing and aaahhing, hands together, teary eyed premies. And I'd say to myself 'this is not my group, and this is not my house and this is not my car...and the rain comes down.....

Then he'd insert a line that would fail-safe him and pull me back in like the one at Albert Hall, which he got alot of mileage out of that goes like this 'When you come to the guru, don't just listen to the words, but listen to the love, the heart, the care, etc. That would always pull me back. And also, being a father, I could relate to the fact that it is not always the words that are the focal point and sometimes the words don't make it, but the love behind them does. So that would reel me back to my chair and my body time after time.

I don't know if this is a criticism as much as it is an observation and a self-examination.

Sandy the esoterically challenged

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:54:51 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: The words are important
Message:
'don't just listen to the words...sometimes the words don't make it'

You do need to listen to the words, and the words need to make it. Words do have meaning, they have have a purpose, to communicate ideas, feelings, etc.

Say you have a poorly composed piece of music, it doesn't matter how it's played, it's going to suck. And I've heard Rawat say plenty of words in a very heartless way, like: 'Don't have friends'.

'So that would reel me back to my chair and my body time after time.'

Like a hooked fish?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 14:02:25 (GMT)
From: Michael Dettmers
Email: dettmers@gylanix.com
To: Sandy
Subject: It's not surprising, based on Downton's research
Message:
Sandy,

I don't know if this is a criticism as much as it is an observation and a self-examination.

This sounds to me like more fence sitting. If and when you ever take a stand on the Maharaji issue, you will have no trouble distinguishing whether it is a “criticism or an observation.“

You paraphrase Maharaji's address at the Albert Hall as follows: When you come to the guru, don't just listen to the words, but listen to the love, the heart, the care, etc. I can imaging many premies reading Joe's posts about Maharaji's meeting with coordinators in Atlantic City in December 1976 and dismissing his outrageous comments and hypocrisy on the basis that the “guru's words are not as important as the love, the heart, the care, etc.'

Sandy, there is nothing esoteric about Maharaji's greedy, irresponsible and megalomaniacal behavior. How long are you going to continue giving him the benefit of the doubt?

Michael

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 14:51:02 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Michael Dettmers
Subject: FA, what just happened to my reply to Michael??
Message:
I just spent alot of time and brain cells to really come clean with Michael? Can you retrieve it?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 15:19:45 (GMT)
From: Forum Admin
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: FA, what just happened to my reply to Michael??
Message:
Sandy,

Honestly, I haven't seen your reply, only your Gathering of Thoughts post above.

Forum Admin

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:25:19 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Hey CD! Check this upper post out!(nt)
Message:
Simple and truthful.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:14:59 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Thanks Bazza, He hit the nail on the head NT
Message:
r
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:26:03 (GMT)
From: Bazza
Email: bshaw8@bellsouth.net
To: Everyone
Subject: On the road (OT)
Message:
Going to be travelling to a few gigs soon in Palm Springs, New York and Dallas. Any exes fancy meeting for tea and crumpets let me know by email.

cheers

bazza

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:46:52 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: On the road (OT)palm springs.. is L A too far?
Message:
we could have a west coast get together here in los angeles. i live on the beach near the santa monica pier. its rainy about every 3rd day right now but we dont have to hang outside.

who would be up for a los angeles ex=po???
vote here below me:

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:11:48 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: pdconlon@yahoo.com
To: janet
Subject: Janet is SF too far for you?
Message:
Email me for details of latvian night in SF in May if you're interested. Would love to meet you.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:03:00 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: is SF too far for you? god would i love to...
Message:
on my own power i can think of three ways to come. bus, train or commuter plane out of burbank airport. but money may be impossible. if someone else from my area is going up from L A, maybe they can take me along. la-ex? eDrek?

i would so love an excuse to come up to SF and get outta here for a while. and to meet you all face to face.

3 snaps in z formation to you, thelma!!!

keep in touch by email. you have mine dont you?
@webtv.net??

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:48:39 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: pdconlon@yahoo.com
To: janet
Subject: Janet, you didn't put you full email address
Message:
Email me at the above address and I'll fill you in. Don't worry about the money - I'll sell some plasma or we'll get Pauline to sell a kidney.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:49:14 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: interested in an L A thing, type a 1 below me.
Message:
11111????
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:09:30 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Hi Janet!(nt)
Message:
jjjjjj
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 06:16:36 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Check out Victoria and my band Baz!
Message:
From one Barry to another.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 06:47:23 (GMT)
From: Bazza
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Check out Victoria and my band Baz!/OT
Message:
Victoria - that's near New York isn't it? You need a video making - I'm your man!! Shooting Cheap Trick next week in Miami, should be fun. What's your band like - is Jim in it? If so, how do you manage to agree on what to play?;-)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:07:31 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Bazza
Subject: Really? No shit?
Message:
Are you really shooting C T's vid? If you are ya gotta tell me all about your job etc...If you got connections I could sure use em??? Sounds great Bazza. Jim and I use to play in a band called Gravel. My band now is called Barry Clarke and the Medication. Check it out www.barryclarke.com I must have posted the site address a hundred times already, so please-nobody bug me on this, it's for Baz- Ha Ha Ha. Anyhow, Ya! Me and Jim played well together most of the time. If their were some arguments and shit, unfortunatly I caused them. I was quite the maniac back then. Jim was actually pretty cool about shit. Have a great trip!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:26:20 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Van Gogh was a premie!
Message:
Vincent van Gogh

Thank you www.enjoyinglife.org and thank you Josie Winter, Bourne End, UK for the Jan. 25, 2001 quotation in Wit and Wisdom entitled Vincent Van Gogh: The mighty breath (from 'His letters')...and thank you Vincent Van Gogh for reminding me of the mighty and eternal breath... through written words from some letters you've left...behind.. through the 'timeless' grace of this living breath today!

Thank you, thank you, thank you
to this eternal perfect breath and
to our living teacher

I bow down at this 'Wit & Wisdom' piece by Van Gogh... I bow down to that holy breath... that .was there since the beginning... BREATHTAKING! Right?

I would go as far as saying that...
...it took my breath away...
but in the right direction...
and put it inside...,
...while, during, and after reading
...such an inspirational message,
such a devotional message...such an.enduring message

It's fascinating to me...such insights!...from so long ago...from that era of the 1800's...and the message so clear; ... When I was a student of Philosophy at the University of Miami, a long time ago, ... I had heard some mention of this holy breath. I believe I had heard (by word of mouth) then that the ancients used to call it the 'word'...the holy name and the holy breath.

But we acquire different ways of speaking...

Today... it is words like 'totally radical dude' and 'awesome'; and 'BAD' which actually means 'good'.

This is just an example of how hard it would be for people who might live in... say, the year 4,000 to understand and interpret these words. From their past, they would look back at writings of the year 2000, and they would see the words: 'The movie was Bad'. Would they really know it really means:'The movie was great'?

This is why feelings are so important, right? Feelings and the master of our era.to clarify... to exemplify... to take us.there to those words written in our hearts...NOW...today!

I feel Van Gogh was really inspired by this breath which he depicts in his paintings and drawings...most surely...whether he had achieved Knowledge who knows? I feel he was right there...at least with these words.

Thank you for this excerpt. Van Gogh's writing was a direct and beautiful experience...for me... It sent me flying across open space directly to that breath, that beginning breath that always stays with me. And for a moment blew all my concepts away. It was a gift for me and I knew and felt that it could be a gift for everyone. Indeed it is!

Thank you to the creator of the breath and the sweet living teacher of it...Now...

Carolina Cacicedo
Miami, Fl, USA

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:14:54 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: No wonder he cut his ear off! (nt)
Message:
Who IS GooGooMarahjee?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:16:04 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Sean
Subject: Actually sean, that stories bull!
Message:
It never happened that way. There's a bit of an ear involved, and a prostitute is in there too. No great love tragedy I'm afraid!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:44:48 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: seang2@earthlink.net
To: Barry
Subject: Prostitute?
Message:
So was he picking someone up for M? A little Service?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:51:55 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Sean
Subject: Ya! and when she wasn't fat enough....
Message:
M bit some of his ear off!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:55:03 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: or was someone a Van Gough fan?
Message:
maharaji has talked about Van Gough now and then.

Every time he mentioned him, often in relation to how much his paintings cost today, my 'doubtmaker' had a sneaky thought that it was because he wanted to own one, and was dropping a few hints to the in crowd.

Oh well, guess I was wrong again.

Didn't Van Gough have problems with sanity?

C

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:48:01 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: And with absynth. (ot)
Message:
Hi Connie,

Found you at last. I feel like someone at a Carnival Party, where everyone is wearing a mask. Didn't know you'd arrived already.

Welcome to the madhouse.

So, the obscure title of my post refers to van Gough's absynth habit, which he also had a problem with apparently.

It's great to see you posting here Connie.

Welcome back to the good old imperfect planet Earth.

Anth who is enjoying Carnival in Maastricht right now.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:25:18 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: So he had one ear AND a bad liver (nt)
Message:
haha
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:06:47 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Capt Rawat bought Van Gogh's paintbrush
Message:
he gave a speech in Durban where he said: ''Some people think that if you use Van Gogh's paintbrush you can paint like him.'' He rattled on in that vein for a while and then let slip that that someone was him.

PS He also has Winston Churchill's ashtray. No kidding. He said in so in public without wincing with embarassment.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:58:14 (GMT)
From: Charles S.
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: He also mentioned locking it up in his SAFE (nt)
Message:
a
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:28:00 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Charles S.
Subject: Did he mention where he got the money to buy it?
Message:
I assume he didn't, but what's more amazing is that no one stood up and asked.

Something like:

'Hey, Maharaji, is that my donations, that are supposed to be going to 'spreading knowledge' that you used to buy some expensive trinket for your collection?'

'Hey, those are great priorities, Man!'

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:19:50 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: someone sent it to him as a gift
Message:
mmmmm
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 03:31:18 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Oh, did anyone ask why he doesn't sell
Message:
something so useless and use the money for his professed, selfless, desire to spread knowledge to the entire world?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 17:39:43 (GMT)
From: la-ex
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: only because it helps propagate K to artistsJoe.nt
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 03:52:21 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Oh yeah sure...ha ha ha ha ha
Message:
ha ha

The start of this thread about what was posted on the EV website, I find reflects the thinking.

m spoke about Van Gough in a positive manner, hey presto sometime later Van Gough is glorified. Premies take his personal likes and dislikes as something almost divine, even if he didn't refer to it in that way. Everything he says has meaning......

How many premies have an Apple as a reflection of their consciousness?

C

C

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:45:40 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Van Gogh on ELK also any movies that he mentions
Message:
become cult favorites of course. Sheep. But, Connie, he seems to have finally silenced the lambs with the propagation seminars and introductory packages. Everything is scripted down to the finest detail because we are all so stupid and have learned nothing for ourselves in 30 years.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:19:06 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Pat, I get the feeling are you casting
Message:
a fishing line.

I think the public face is what you are talking about, I am talking about the 'secret' private face.

Which do you think is more powerful?

C

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 17:55:33 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Connie, I never saw the secret private face
Message:
so I don't know which is more powerful. Which is?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 01:54:40 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Pat, I am talking about
Message:
I am talking about the presentation (face) to the public, and what impression they get of what it is.

I am not talking about the so called inner circle, and those by association.

Today, when someone goes to an introductory or learning more video, they are shown selected videos deemed appropriate for them. The message they get is that it is simply about enjoying life – the public face.

Those involved also present this face, they have been primed as to what the current jargon is, and how to present it by listening to videos themselves, going to meetings and attending a training.

In the meetings today, nothing really is said about maharaji or knowledge. They are more about practical things, dependant upon the focus of participation, i.e., setting up video programs.

Things like how many table cloths are needed or where to place a pot plant are discussed until team consensus (ha ha) is reached (yuk, yuk, yuk). I think you talked about this, and it was the sterility of it that was your final drip.

Sometimes something may be said about m or k, but that is also on a practical level, like when Anth mentioned in his journey about what one of his drips were, intelligent people talking about THE logo, and how beautiful it was. I see this as a combination of the public and private face. It is ok to talk about the logo publicly, that is up front. The private face is the meaning that is attached to it, the unspoken, shared buzz they all get, they know. I have been in situations like that, and could really relate to it. That shared secret smile, that shared buzz, that now makes me feel stupid, sick and angry.

The public face to some extent is about minimizing maharaji and knowledge, whereas the private face is the maximizing of them.

The public face, spoken, is that it is all about you, it is simple, nothing is asked of you. The private face, unspoken, is that it is all about maharaji, there are many twists and turns, and everything is asked of you.

I have been thinking about words and their meanings, plus our interpretation of them.

In EV words change at a rapid rate. Maharaji introduces a new word and it is the buzz word. I have always found it frightening how quickly they are adopted. This is the public face. The private face is knowing what those words actually mean, all they really are is a rose by another name. I also remember he still says, as do many, that k is still the same, what that meant to me privately was not what I presented publically.

Take the word synchronize, mouthed every five seconds. Synchronize is the word voiced in public. When I heard it, within me I privately associated it with the meaning of another word – agya, and that is how I responded to it.

Thanks for making me think about this a bit more.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 10:08:05 (GMT)
From: Charles S.
Email: bctanda@hotmail.com
To: Connie
Subject: Public face and private ''understanding''...
Message:
Connie said:

The public face to some extent is about minimizing maharaji and knowledge, whereas the private face is the maximizing of them.

The public face, spoken, is that it is all about you, it is simple, nothing is asked of you. The private face, unspoken, is that it is all about maharaji, there are many twists and turns, and everything is asked of you.

Connie, you have described it PERFECTLY. At the committee meetings, we all seemed to be speaking english, but something was wrong. There was some ''other'' understanding going on. I started to feel like we were all agreeing to hide things, without ever talking about what those things were. The public face to new people was, ''It's all about you'', but the private understanding was, ''It's all about Maharaji''. With many twists and turns, indeed! And asking a lot, you bet! I've always believed, say what you mean, and mean what you say. That unspoken ''understanding'' totally creeped me out.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 18:19:51 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Charles S.
Subject: Isn't it like a child having a . . .
Message:
. . . special invisible friend. Someone a child can talk to, confide in, put trust and faith in. Someone who is never really there at all. In other words, everyone pretends that the child has a special friend but everyone also knows it's a innocent fabrication. Wink, wink, isn't that cute? The problem arises when that fabrication becomes an integral part of the 'child's' psychological construct. Reality isn't the same if 'He' is not part of it.

Postie - practicing therapy without a licensce

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 04:39:07 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Connie, it was that schizo public/private
Message:
rubbish which was my final drip more than the sterility. I will one day post what happened to me and how I realized that I was running up against that ''private'' secret cult within the non-cult church. The closer I got to it the creepier it became. At least in the old days there was not this schizophrenia which results in such secretiveness and conspiracy.

The local industrial strength church-lady (whose service was to watch videos and retire the embarassing ones and extract the good bits from the rubbish) would never answer my emails. Her stock answer was: ''Let's do lunch and we can talk about it. You know it's much better to talk about these things face to face.''

I knew she felt that she could convince me with her ''vibe'' but also she could not say (was told not to) what she really wanted to say: ''But you know that is what M wants.'' Unspoken was ''M is after all GOD.'' She was the one who said at out last participation meeting; ''You know that there are certain thoings that M can't say.''

Yeah, like, ''I am Krishna.''

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 05:01:41 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon and Connie
Subject: Connie, Conlon - may I cut in?
Message:
Recently some friends were over and we were talking about various practices. I found myself couching the whole subject of my past by calling Maharaji my 'teacher' and calling knowledge my 'practice' and all of that. It felt so weird and untoward and deceitful that I showed them that retrospective video and then a holi video. Well that got them wanting 'Learn More About Maharaji' for sure. I didn't even bother telling them about the 'knowledge process' because I knew they wouldn't make it past the first intro. You could say I pre-screened them - blissful service. Funny, they were attracted to the more honest balls out bhakti juju guru but not the 'sanitized for your protection' version.

I know I've told this before - I'm not having a senior moment.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 07:44:39 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Postie
Subject: Glad you did
Message:
Good for you Postie. Your last stand?

That is not the face EV wants to give or is giving, though they know it is really what it is all about.

I agree deceitful, deceitful, deceitful and yuk.

Totally conned

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 05:12:08 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Postie
Subject: Connie, Conlon - may I cut in?
Message:
Yep, he should have stuck with saying honestly that he thinks he is an avatar of Krishna but the only people he would attract would be the hindu hippies living on SSI. So he sanitized it for middle America where the big bucks are and it is blowing up in his own face.

Hapy BD.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 06:46:50 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Conlon- Thanks, it was a rockin' day (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 12:46:20 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: seang2@earthlink.net
To: Jim,et al
Subject: Jimi Hendrix
Message:
M once told us that Jimi was an angel. It was alright after that for me to listen to Jimi again.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 13:36:52 (GMT)
From: zydeco x
Email: None
To: Sean
Subject: Jimi Hendrix
Message:
i always knew he was!!!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:37:00 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Captain Rawat the Artist
Message:
Hi Pat,

Did you notice the post a few days ago, about Captain Rawat's 'Freedom Bird' poem.

Apparently it was plagiarised.

Has the Captain no shame?

Anth the funny hat.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:10:08 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Captain Rawat has no shame and no taste NT
Message:
f
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:19:43 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: More like winston's butts!!(nt)
Message:
Bum!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:38:09 (GMT)
From: Aussi Ji
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: He suffered from epilepsy...
Message:
G,Day Connie,
Hows they hangin mate(presuming you're a bloke)or how's it goin' if you're a sheila(lady)
I saw a doco recently that put forward the theory that Vincent suffered from a rare type of epilepsy that causes the recipient of this ailment to paint unusual stuff.There is a guy in the states who got the same disease in his mid fifties and now all of a sudden paints similar to Van Gough.Interesting isn't it

Cheers from the di dinkum Aussi Ji

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:48:58 (GMT)
From: Monmot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: My brain is rotting from an OD of saccharine...nt
Message:
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:21:44 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Tom Hanks is a premie!
Message:
Breath alert

Beauty in abundance is this life
Blessing in abundance is this breath
Kindness in abundance is the gift of the master

The preciousness of this breath never hits us less we're desperate for it, until we're gasping for it.

'Breath is such a powerful thing,' said a dying man, as Maharaji narrated to us in Paris last year.

'When you leave behind all the other rosaries and take on the rosary of this breath, then in your life, you will experience peace. Then you will forget everything else, and remember that which resides within your heart. Then in your life, you will experience peace. Not before then.' Maharaji said at the Hans Jayanti 2000 event.

There are many reminders which surround us that breath is indeed the most powerful thing! And the reminders come in many ways. The latest breath alert for me was from the motion picture Castway. The character that Tom Hanks played, Chuck Noland had to find out the hard way how precious his breath is and how he had to keep on surviving to get home to Memphis and be with the love of his life.

Do we have to be put in such extreme conditions to realize the magnitude of the gift that we have been given? It is sad, but true. And in my life, and in the lives of many people I know who have been touched by Maharaji and his message, boy, are we glad that the hope and help came at the right time.

Chuck Noland at the turning point of his life says to his friend: 'I know what I'll do, I'll keep breathing, the sun will shine tomorrow, and who knows what the tide will bring tomorrow. I kept breathing. Logic said that there was no hope, but I kept breathing, and I am here today talking to you.'

It was such a strangely heart warming feeling when I watched Chuck going through such an ordeal. I kept on thanking Maharaji for the wisdom I have received from him..

Don't get me wrong: I am not the official spokesperson for Castway. But catch the movie if you can and count the blessings. I did. Or I too would have been a castaway, marooned somewhere far away from my breath and my heart.

Hema Ramasamy
Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:04:59 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I mustn't forget....
Message:
...gotta keep breathing or I die.

Thanks for reminding me Jim.

Anth, puff, pant, puff.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:49:56 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Hurray for Joe Camel!(nt)
Message:
hhhh
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:01:47 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Tom Hanks is a premie!
Message:
Well, I just saw the movie and I've got to break it to Hema Ramasamy that the Tom Hanks character actually saves himself by persisting until he learns to feed himself and shelter himself and make fire. And he becomes more human and compassionate in the process. Later a whale saves him by blowing wet breath spray all over him to wake him up. (And whale breath really stinks). Whale Breath? Holy Breath? Oh yeah, that's it. The whale is Maharaji. I get it. Clever of Tom to subtly work that in.

It's funny but back in the day I remember taking absolutely everything I saw or read or heard and somehow applying that to M & K.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:42:27 (GMT)
From: Aussi Ji
Email: None
To: Postie
Subject: Maybe adolph hitler was a premie too.LOL(nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:54:59 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Aussi Ji
Subject: he was vegetarian-fanatical about perfection-hmmmm
Message:
there certainly are parallels in the behavior, don't you think?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:53:52 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Aussi Ji
Subject: Nope! Catholic. The dirt lipped bastard!
Message:
jjjjjj
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:46:09 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Secret charismatic Catholic cult
Message:
Hitler actually believed in the teachings of some weird Polish Catholic mystical cult. He also suffered from chronic flatulence and no one could actually stand to be in a closed room with him for too long because the smell from his constant farts stank even more than the bullshit running from his lips. He had to wear those baggy pants because most of his farts were wet. Just kidding about the last bit.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:01:52 (GMT)
From: Aussi Ji
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: I must be the reincarnation of hitler
Message:
G,day Pat,
Yes I must be if my flatulance is anything to go by.I would win a guiness book of records contest anyday.

Cheers mate
Aussi Ji(don't anyone light that match)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 17:53:04 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Aussi Ji
Subject: Well, they don't call it Down Under for nothing
Message:
I just hope you don't make your family duck under the bed covers first, grand-pa.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:08:16 (GMT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Fraaaaaaaaaaap!
Message:
Thanks Pat. I knew it was some stinky Catholic thing!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 04:52:27 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: maybe he blew up in his own methane bunker
Message:
that fanatical vegetarianism--itll getcha every time...
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:55:50 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Everyone
Subject: Change of email (ot)
Message:
Sorry to waste forum space but my 'liverpool.ac' email is known to so many of you by now, it would be quicker to use the forum to request you start using the above address (my original mailbox) instead than try to contact everyone to notify the change.

I'm just trying to separate work from pleasure. (It seems work is rarely pleasure and pleasure can be too much fookin hard work...)

I'll still get emails sent to the uni, so no urgency..

(Sorry FA's - nobody need reply to this, so it won't take up much forum, I hope)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:24:01 (GMT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: bloody polite pommy bastard..nt
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:05:53 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Still accepting Amaroo donations Nigel? (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 17:58:42 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Postie
Subject: I need to do some hard sums..
Message:
re. when I'm going on my hols this year. Amaroo would be a gas, but there is no official sponsorship collection for admission fees as yet, and April might be a bit soon for me anyway. My other problem would be getting the smartcard. I might start an exchange of emails with relevant EV parties, irrespective of whether I go. I think it's worth testing the warmth of the invitation which we ALL have received - especially if I make no bones about my non-devotee status.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:11:28 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Yes, go for the SmartCard at least (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:34:13 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Postie
Subject: BTW: Do I know you, Postie?
Message:
On the one hand you seem like a pretty recent forum regular, but with a voice which speaks ages..?

Thanks for the encouragement re. smartcard. I'll see what I can do.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:00:17 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: BTW: Do I know you, Postie?
Message:
No Nigel I don't know you and vice versa. Just being friendly and recalling your 'plans' to crash the Amaroo darshan opportunity. I've been around since 1972 and observing and remembering. When a chunk of that memory icedam cuts loose, I share it here.

Good luck with the SmartCard request.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 15:35:52 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Postie
Subject: BTW: Do I know you, Postie?
Message:
Thanks, Postie. I knew you were being friendly, so don't worry, I wasn't being suspicious or paranoid. Just curious really.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:37:00 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: K-Lite v. a more blatant cult
Message:
When Maharaji removed the more blatant trappings of hinduism used by the cult, maybe he was being quite clever. Imagine, for a moment, that being a premie meant you had to wear a Krishna costume all day. It would be hard to hide the fact that you're in a cult, wouldn't it? But Maharaji allowed us to hide. We could live in the world but not tell anybody we looked down on it.

So years pass, we get good jobs, live outwardly normally, and give money for 'Maharaji's work'. For 9 years I worked for an investment bank in London. During that time I made lots of friends, got drunk a lot, had a bit of a career, was given lots of responsibility, and only once told anyone about Maharaji, and that was in a pub after a few pints of rather fine ale.

So Maharaji gets to keep a devotee, get his regular payments, and stays hidden to the outside world. Clever, eh? Might have been better having to wear a Krishna costume every day. Might have got out quicker!

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:41:09 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Premie Uniforms
Message:
Hi John,

I remember when the official premie uniform was a second-hand suit from Divine Sales, a 3-D Rainbow badge with Captain Rawat's ugly mug in the middle, a pocket full of leaflets to hand out on the way to work, and an armful of 'Divine Times' newspapers to sell in your lunchhour.

Oh yeah, and a couple of lentil sandwiches in the other pocket.

Anth informed on uniforms.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:10:44 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Premie Uniforms-dont forget the...
Message:
earth shoes! the short haircuts while everybody else was still growing theirs long.

and for the feminine panache, ankle skirts or dresses, long sleeves and high necks, long hair tightly combed back in a bun, no makeup, nailpolish, and no perfume unless it was prashad from the residence. and earth shoes.

and for nighttime sleepwear, no lingerie nighties or normal pajamas, only indian whites. and a swan necklace.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 10:28:45 (GMT)
From: DeProGram Anand Ji
Email: not given
To: janet
Subject: Premie Uniforms-dont forget the...
Message:
Forgot all about the earth with the inlined sole to keep the spine erect, everone in the ashram seemed to have a pair. Wow that takes me back!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:10:10 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: redcrow@demon.co.uk
To: JHB
Subject: The more blatant cult
Message:
The Krishnas learned the very same trick a bit late in the day (after Prabhupada snuffed it) and have even worse propagation problems than Prem - but they at least started their decline from a higher baseline, hence still vastly greater membership worldwide.

But both movements are inevitably heading for post-internet oblivion. Is there any other direction for prescientific belief systems desperately upgrading to a modern, post-guru world?

M's should he/shouldn't he dilemma (about going online two years ago, as revealed in public contradictory statements about the web) merely confirm his acknowledgement of the problem - and the threat he faces.

Of course, if Tubby were a man who spoke the truth and only the truth, and had spoken it consistently from the start, there would be no threat. How could there be?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:41:58 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Monkey on a Stick
Message:
Ever read 'Monkey on a Stick'? Very good book about the realities of 'Krishna Consciousness'.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:49:20 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Sean
Subject: No - who's it by? (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 03:10:17 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: seang2@earthlink.net
To: Nigel
Subject: Monkey on a Stick
Message:
Hubner, John & Gruson, Lindsey: Monkey On A Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas

Really good book and all too familiar!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:31:02 (GMT)
From: moldy warp
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Hi nige - you still there?
Message:
Is this your E mail at home? I should be in bed really but been trying to sort out confusion re Narrow Escape thread below before I am damned forever as EV sympathiser. And to Thelma - I was rather fond of dancing with Krishna at Kissimee (or whjatever I was actually doing -felt very erotic anyway - probably due to extreme sleep deprivation and diet of oats brought in suitcase in England)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:43:56 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: moldy warp
Subject: Hi mold - Yes, and yes..
Message:
You can get me here or the other mailbox. I can see both simultaneously thanks to the wonders of Outlook Express (Oy - Bill Gates - I want a nominal fee for advertising your wares, mate)

I'm trying to go back to the redcrow mailbox just to separate business from pleasure. (Maybe I'll do an off-topic thread to say so and reduce confusion...)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:50:36 (GMT)
From: moldy warp
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: to nige Like the redcrow
Message:
Is it your invention? Are you of Native American descent? Alas as a young and innocent hippy I thought I was a reincarnated N. A. (on the somewhat flimsy evidence that salt did not agree with me). Probably should have stuck to that world-view. Would have got me into a lot less trouble than Hamster-world. Going to bed now to dream of those heady pre-premie days. Night night.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:15:31 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: moldy warp
Subject: LOL - 'on the evidence that salt did not agree..'
Message:
Personally I don't agree with salt. I think it's arguments are all over the place, its evidence dodgy and it comes to the wrong conclusions every time.

No the 'redcrow' was fairly arbitrary, but I like it's associations:

'The Red Crow' is an album by Irish Folk band Altan which I was well into at the time I picked the name.

I like crows (rooks, ravens, magpies, jays etc.) Can't say why, I'm not a twitcher, but I just like them. Creepy and cool.

The red crow is also a character (actually a talking bird) in an Ian Banks novel whose raison d'etre is to visit the parapets of this Gormenghast-type castle each morn and tell the prisoners there that life if pointless and why not fling yourself over the edge right now..? It had a certain nihilistic poignancy...

Also, I guess, Well 'red' is a lefty (and I'm a lefty) and you 'crow' when you're proud, I guess. Well I'm not exactly proud, but I've nothing to be ashamed of... (And humility stinks, IMO!)


Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:45:43 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Redcrow
Message:
That's also the Lakota name of Floyd Westerman (you may have seen him in 'Dances With Wolves').
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:07:40 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: delores@gofree.indigo.ie
To: Sean
Subject: Redcrow --OT
Message:
Hi Sean. I read your reference to having been in a Sundance. I was around AIM activists for a few years in the 70's when I was doing political work with those folks. How did you manage to get invited to a Sundance and pierce? I take it this was in South Dakota. I know some people from the juvenile justice group VisionQuest used to attend.

You can email me about this if you want. Love Floyd Westerman's music.

Marianne

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:32:06 (GMT)
From: moldy warp
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: To nige the non-twitcher
Message:
Wot's a twitcher???Sounds alarming. Glad youre not one. Yes I find salt to be an argumentative bastard. Sugar on the other hand...by passes evidence all together and last seen following the living Lord somewhere in Neasdon.

Moldy warp who really is on the way to bed ( in humble -grovel grovel obsequience - acknowledgement of Anth who adds excellent appendages to his name)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:46:24 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: moldy warp
Subject: twitchers...
Message:
..are usually people in anoraks with binoculars who gather with vacuum flasks and sandwiches and cameras in meadows, on seashores and foggy marshlands and by inland waterways to count the number of lesser-spotted woodshanks or shrikes they've seen this season and make notes. Or something. They look like sad bastards but might be happy in their own way. Hmm, but but it would be a sad old world if we were all the same..?

Nige (who happens to know that Anth's excellent appendage is prosthetically enhanced)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:05:46 (GMT)
From: Thelma
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Well, I liked the Krishna drag
Message:
and it was more honest. The current K-lite scene is schizophrenic because all the PWKs know that the Bratguru is Krishna but dare not say - their devotion is the new ''love that dare not speak it's name.''
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:28 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: None
To: Thelma
Subject: Well, I liked the Krishna drag
Message:
Rajeshwarand once told us that M covered himself with a blanket and when he lifted it he was Shiva.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:58:58 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Sean
Subject: Ithyphallic Shiva or Nataraja?
Message:
In other words was his lingam erect or hanging down? Just kidding. I doubt if Rev Rawat knows who Shiva was - really, not just the romanticized version in the Vedas created by the invading Aryans, the ancestors of the Krishnites like the Rawats.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:50:05 (GMT)
From: Sean
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Ithyphallic Shiva or Nataraja?
Message:
I never could figure out why Rajeshwarand would tell us that. He kept saying 'OH, OH, I'll get in so much trouble. I'm not supposed to tell you this'. Oh my God! Do you suppose? We're all horribly, horribly wrong! GooGee was/is GOD! Of course there were 6 of us in satsang that night on acid, it probably never happened. Oh well, I'll have to just continue my search.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:23:04 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol
Message:
Thanks everyone for the tremedous posts down below. Although hearing the outrageous and damaging stuff Maharaji said to us is very powerful, it's the comments from the ex-premies, and how all this affected them personally that is even more powerful.

Okay, so more from the coordinators meeting Maharaji helt on December 29, 1976 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

After spending a lot of time trashing relationships and marriage, and how getting married was equivalent to blowing your brains out with dynamite, towards the end of the meeting, Maharaji starts going through the communities represented and asking how things are going. There are a lot of premies decrying how we 'really got out there' and got confused, and how much they need him to give direction, although a number of these coordinators seem to have some spiritual ego themselves, implying that if everyone in their communities were like them, and had the proper 'understanding' like them, those communities wouldn't be so spaced out.

Still on the subject of the ashrams, the coordinator from Montreal said that they had 17 people in the ashram, and that was now reduced to 5, only two of which were originally from Montreal. I guess the other 3 got sent there from someplace else. She had a couple of tsk tsk comments about that.

Anyhow, she said that the people who moved out wanted to 'get their own life together' and 'live their own life' which she, having the attitude of a lot of these coordinators that, while their communites were completely spaced out, THEY were quite clear and had THAT UNDERSTANDING, couldn't understand it because this was the opportunity to dedicate and a great gift to be in the ashram. She said those who moved out 'wanted to live their own life.' To which Maharaji interjected:

But they don't have their own life. They are just puppets. That is the truth. It ISN'T their life. And this is what they don't understand.

At another point in the meeting a premie asks about smoking pot. He said (again with an air of spiritual superiority over other 'spaced out' premies) that about half the premies he knew, including some ashram and some 'regular' premies were smoking pot and that he thought premies were very unclear about this.

Then he said something that seemed to make Maharaji quite miffed. He said that Maharaji hadn't said anything about smoking pot in satsang for awhile, at which point Maharaji interjected and said:

Did you ever hear a satsang from me saying you COULD? Just because I didn't say the exact words..it's like can you imagine talking and saying everything BUT the words you mean to say? Can you imagine that? But it has been very clear and understood that premies shouldn't do it. It is a substitute on the path of realization.

See, people have all these excuses and reasons why, about what it does for them, but see, knowledge does the same thing. And it's just a substitute on the path of realization.

I know a lot of premies drink bong (sp?) in India, even in the ashram, and I know these people. And you can just walk around and see them, and they are completely out of it. Their eyes are read and they are just wasted.

See, knowledge is more fantastic, and I can say for sure that a stoned person can't do meditation (I think he said something about 'falling over' in meditation, but it isn't clear.) See, when you are stoned, that's when all your horses just go wild. You have no control over anything.

And it's the same with alcohol, same with cigarettes, same with eggs and meat. I'm surprised that so many people in America don't go 'moo' every morning from eating cow. And it was like Marino was telling me that his father used to eat every part of the cow from the tongue to the tail. (laughing). I mean instead of brains you have horsemeat. It really does affect you.

You already have all these things stacked against you, and then if you do those things too, it just makes it impossible.

Then, Maharaji talks about the great vegetarian food they have at the residence, like Indian and Mexican food, and it isn't just 'eating grass' like some people think, and he was going to ask the cooks to put together a list of recipes for people, that 'anybody can cook.'

At another point Maharaji said that things in Denver got very out there, and the Mission became a burden on premies. He said that when he did his recent tour and did a program in Denver, the premies were so 'confused' that if there had been a curtain between him and the premies, he wouldn't have felt any vibe whatsoever. He said that the premies had gotten into things like 'evaluate yourself -- what is this? And it got so confusing for the premies that to me, the whole vibe at the Denver program was dead.'

Then he continued:

And it's all just a sophisticated way of mind. It was a big mind trip. ...

It's because people have been led to believe that everything has to be rational. And it's like workshops, what do they do? They just dismantle things, you know, they discuss this and that, what do you think about this, what do yout think about that, and they have input and output or whatever you call it. And it all just becomes so systematic that our mind just comes out and we just SHARE MIND. It's just mind.

And you can't just stir up mind and expect you can get away from it. It's like is you stir up mind, up in the air, that cloud won't just disappear. It isn't just like some dust that you can blow on it and make it go away. It just isn't that kind of dirt.
It gets bigger. It gets bigger and just engulfs more and more. And it's like mind, you have to conquer it. It's a wild horse. Don't try to ride it or you will get broken legs and arms. Let the horse just be over in the pasture and don't disurb it. Don't fall into that trap...

It is only by satsang, service and meditation. Satsang service and meditation, I live that way. It may be illogical and irrational... But we have to just have lots of satsang and inspire the premies to do prachar and to do propagation.

...

Canada and American are very lucky they have close access to me.

...

Later, Maharaji, I think, is already talking about planes and the need to raise money for him to get his own plane. It appears that the Mission leased a plane for Maharaji to come to Atlantic City from Malibu, and Maharaji said he was less tired. Seems he just couldn't cut it with commercial airlines.

Then he said:

And we have to get it together because these jets are expensive. It's the way I like to travel -- commercial airlines are too hard.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:06:13 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The amazing thing is the hypocrisy
Message:
So, Maharaji says you shouldn't smoke dope or cigarettes, eat meat or eggs, or drink alcohol, because they affect you and you certainly can't meditate if you are stoned.

Okay, so what we find out is that Maharaji, at this very time, and for quite a bit earlier, has been drinking alcohol like a fish. Bob Mishler reports that Maharaji was getting drunk quite a lot prior to when Mishler left, which was right about the time of this Atlantic City meeting.

Also, from what Michael tells us, Maharaji was also smoking dope at this very same time, or took it up soon after that. When did the 'Peter Frampton Live' album come out?

And at some point, Maharaji took up smoking cigarettes as well, and eating meat. What kind of hypocrisy is that?

Also, a couple of people mentioned the hypocrisy of Maharaji being married and trashing marriage to all the premies. At one point on the tape, Maharaji says that marriage in and or itself isn't bad, because, as he admits, he is married himself, but what's wrong is the desire to get married. Also, he implies that HE is 'ready' to get married and the premies, who are so 'diseased', aren't.

Also, at one point in the meeting, Maharaj calls on Teddy Tannenbaum, and Teddy puts on a little performance saying that he got really spaced out, but that Maharaji was getting things back on the right track again. Teddy said that what we needed to do was 'surrender' to Maharaji, but that is wasn't 'surrender' so much as 'give up.' Judging from the laughter, Maharaji and the audience thought this was very cute and funny.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:48:29 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Lila - the game has just begun.
Message:
I was born and raised in a city where three-quarters of the population are Indian and spent 23 years growing up among them. What is taken for ''hypocrisy'' is often just a Hindu tendency to be loose with the truth or at least quite tolerant of fudging. The charitable take on this by non-Indian South Africans was that they were basically a passive people not aggressive about anything including making strong assertions regarding truth and regard truth as more fluid than we do. Others, less charitable, could not stand them and did not trust them at all, regarding them as two-faced liars and conmen.

Add to these tendencies and the other great Hindu tendency - hyperbole - to the sociopathic tendencies of a sploit brat who had been raised to think of himself as god and you have lila ie playing mindfucking godlike games. If you ever read E M Forster's ''Passage to India'' you will see how the British got their minds fucked by lilas played on them sometimes unintentionally by ordinary Indians often resulting in an opposite affect than the one anticipated. The Bratguru had the power the Rawat family business to back up his outbursts of unbridled ego and willfulness and to boast his lilas to truly social engineering proportions.

But of course all this is seen with hindsight. I did not see this then. Rev rawat basically was doing whatever he felt like doing whenever he felt like doing it and getting away with as much power he could wield wihthout any thought to the consquences or his repsonsibility for those consequences.

He was not nearly as organized or deliberate as we may have thought. Most of what he did was on a selfish whim. He is still playing that game only now it is fairly organized and he can get up there with his pie-charts and pointer and slide shows of how many babies were born at Hans Jyanti etc and look like Bill Gates and play the part of a tycoon with money he did not earn honestly. It is still a lila. Krishna may wear tailored suits but underneath it he is wearing an invisible mala. I hope it isn't like Kali's mala of skulls.

You said: ''And at some point, Maharaji took up smoking cigarettes as well, and eating meat.''

I remember when the hamburger story circulated in 1974. It freaked out all us diehard vegetarians who had been vege before the Bratguru told us to be. And a friend of mine (Mike but I don't recall his last name) did service at Reigate (Rev Rawat's house in UK) and told us how he found cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes and rolling papers and hashish under the bed in Rawat's room. I of course loved the story at the time and thought my pot-smoking was being giving a blessing.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:47:44 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Frampton
Message:
Joe,

The Frampton album came out in '76. Maybe he went home to get stoned and listen to it right after he gave this satsang.

Unbelievable.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:39:07 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The hypocrisy , yes , that's the most galling
Message:

& maddening thing about the bastard .

Difficult enough to come to terms with buying into a false mental construct , but when you find out that the principal was taking the piss all along ....it's just too much .

At that time I was living alone , having left a Premie Centre , was trying to ignore heavy pressure to move into an ashram , & was trying to get it on with ssm .

I was very confused & torn between how to live life with M , & being in the world at the same time .

Often I 'fell into maya ' , & became an in the woodwork premie.

This caused me to feel very guilty & worried .

Meanwhile Rawat was fucking , swilling , gorging , doping & generally loafing around .

I remember giving satsang once to a very nasty petty criminal I knew then .

He just laughed , told me that Rawat was snorting coke & getting his cock sucked , & said he wished he'd thought that one up .

I was shocked & thought he was beyond help .

But he was right & I was wrong .

The only moral I can think of is the old cliche.

It takes one to know one.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:58:37 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: freitano@hotmail.com
To: Joe
Subject: M must have been slurring his words again
Message:
Bong, I believe, has something to do with smoking pot in a bong pipe (though maybe there is such a beverage in India, who knows? but he was talking to Americans).

I love the part about eating every part of the cow and ending up full of horsemeat.

And this is the corker:

'And you can't just stir up mind and expect you can get away from it. It's like is you stir up mind, up in the air, that cloud won't just disappear. It isn't just like some dust that you can blow on it and make it go away. It just isn't that kind of dirt.
It gets bigger. It gets bigger and just engulfs more and more. And it's like mind, you have to conquer it. It's a wild horse. Don't try to ride it or you will get broken legs and arms. Let the horse just be over in the pasture and don't disurb it. Don't fall into that trap...'

A clear example of him making this wierd bogeyman out of the mind. If you read HAL's wonderful post (and Postie-san's comments) you'll see why a lot of people wanted a more sane view of the mind. He obviously didn't meditate, or he would have experienced that if you leave mind alone, don't feed it or don't try to chase it away, thoughts come and go of their own accord. And you don't have to go with them, you can just let them be. Like sitting outside and watching the cloud formations.

Thanks for all this info. And the comments about the plane, Wow! I wish I could see the literature that was going around concerning the plane. The reasoning given was that it was more cost effective to send the entourage by private plane. Also that he could tour more efficiently, i.e. get to more places, the exact places he needed to go and teach, by not hassling with airlines scheduling.

Then the excuse to get rid of DECCA's flying hotel was that he needed the jet to get more range. It could hold more fuel between stops and thus the Lard would be safe. And as a trade off, it wouldn't hold the whole traveling circus -- he wouldn't drag along his whole family and bhakti slaves everywhere he went.

Oy!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:42:01 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: the word is ''bhang'' meaning hashish
Message:
stirred into hot spicy milk. Yogis use it to ''open their hearts'' and get into feeling instead of just thinking. Yummy.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:00:12 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: ''bhang'' lassi (yoghurt) cold works too! (nt)
Message:
dfg
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:32:57 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid? (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 19:43:42 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid?
Message:
I'll show you how. You bring the hash. I'll boil the milk and spices.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 20:55:30 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: How do they get hash into a liquid?
Message:
That would be illegal in San Francisco. I advise against it. If you go to Amsterdam, it would be legal.

Marianne

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:16:51 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: It's illegal? Damn I didn't know that.
Message:
You mean I am a criminal? Thank you counsellor for your cautionary advice. I guess I will just have to go visit Anth.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:46:17 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: PS Glen Whittaker once told me
Message:
how the Bratguru used to make all the western premies drink bhang and laugh when they got high. What the fuck was he up to with creating ashrams in the west? Nothing like them existed in India ever. The only answer that I can up with is that the ashcans were the basis for constructing the Rawat family business in the west and you guys were the breadwinners. Dis-fucking-gusting!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:53:05 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Ashrams didn't exist in India????
Message:
I know you mean the western style ashrams didn't exist in India, but this is amazing. Who thought them up? What are Indian ashrams like? Do you think someone looked at monasteries and thought that's a good idea?

Tell us more!

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:00:23 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: John, ashrams in India are the guru's home
Message:
The guru may allow some devotees to live there as the Rawats allowed mahatmas to live at Prem Nagar. Most gurus' devotees are householders. Single wandering saddhus and sanyassis travel and live in temple compunds. There are a few monasteries called sanghas for brahmacharyas (celibates.) BUT NO - ashcans like we had here do not exist in India.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:51:53 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Sorry typo on the date s/b Dec. 20, 1976
Message:
and NOT December 29, 1976. It's part of the same meeting discussed down below.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:50:04 (GMT)
From: Ulf
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: More from Maharaji 12/76 Ashrams/Pot/Meat/Alcohol
Message:
Hi Joe

I think i got part 1 of Atlantic city conf.

But i am not sure, because there is no text on the label
Thats why you did not get it with the first tape
But seeing the response ,, why not?

On this tape there is only one cordinater asking one
question,, and then M is talking only

If you want it i will send it to you ?

Ulf

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:54:17 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: kevjo@mindspring.com
To: Ulf
Subject: I would LOVE it.
Message:
Please, if you can, go ahead and send it.

The tape you sent me is great, one full side and part of the second side, but it does appear to just kind of begin without any introduction. So, anything more you have would be great.

I think you have my address, but email me if you need it again.

Also, if you can, don't send it registered mail, because I had to go to the Post Office and pick it up.

Thanks, Ulf, this is most appreciated.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:33:06 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die
Message:

The following excerpt from the Skeptical Enquirer was a casualty of this weekends (IMO) over-enthusiastic editing.

I consider it to be of importance to the whole issue of how we communicate on this site.

Here it is:
.
.
.
.


Skeptical thinkers must realize that because of the survival value of beliefs,
disconfirming evidence will rarely, if ever, be sufficient to change beliefs, even in
'otherwise intelligent' people. In order to effectively change beliefs skeptics must
attend to their survival value, not just their data-accuracy value. This involves
several elements.

First, skeptics must not expect beliefs to change simply as the result of data or
assuming that people are stupid because their beliefs don't change. They must
avoid becoming critical or demeaning in response to the resilience of beliefs.
People are not necessarily idiots just because their beliefs don't yield to new
information. Data is always necessary, but it is rarely sufficient.

Second, skeptics must learn to always discuss not just the specific topic addressed
by the data, but also the implications that changing the related beliefs will
have for the fundamental worldview and belief system of the affected
individuals. Unfortunately, addressing belief systems is a much more complicated
and daunting task than simply presenting contradictory evidence. Skeptics must
discuss the meaning of their data in the face of the brain's need to maintain its belief
system in order to maintain a sense of wholeness, consistency, and control in life.
Skeptics must become adept at discussing issues of fundamental philosophies and
the existential anxiety that is stirred up any time beliefs are challenged. The task is
every bit as much philosophical and psychological as it is scientific and
data-based.

Third, and perhaps most important, skeptics must always appreciate how hard it is
for people to have their beliefs challenged. It is, quite literally, a threat to their
brain's sense of survival. It is entirely normal for people to be defensive in such
situations. The brain feels it is fighting for its life. It is unfortunate that this can
produce behavior that is provocative, hostile, and even vicious, but it is
understandable as well.

The lesson for skeptics is to understand that people are generally not intending to
be mean, contrary, harsh, or stupid when they are challenged. It's a fight for
survival. The only effective way to deal with this type of defensiveness is to
de-escalate the fighting rather than inflame it. Becoming sarcastic or demeaning
simply gives the other person's defenses a foothold to engage in a tit-for-tat
exchange that justifies their feelings of being threatened ('Of course we fight the
skeptics-look what uncaring, hostile jerks they are!') rather than a continued focus
on the truth.

Skeptics will only win the war for rational beliefs by continuing, even in the face of
defensive responses from others, to use behavior that is unfailingly dignified and
tactful and that communicates respect and wisdom. For the data to speak loudly,
skeptics must always refrain from screaming.

Finally, it should be comforting to all skeptics to remember that the truly amazing
part of all of this is not that so few beliefs change or that people can be so
irrational, but that anyone's beliefs ever change at all. Skeptics' ability to alter their
own beliefs in response to data is a true gift; a unique, powerful, and precious
ability. It is genuinely a 'higher brain function' in that it goes against some of the
most natural and fundamental biological urges. Skeptics must appreciate the
power and, truly, the dangerousness that this ability bestows upon them. They
have in their possession a skill that can be frightening, life-changing, and capable of
inducing pain. In turning this ability on others it should be used carefully and wisely.
Challenging beliefs must always be done with care and compassion.

Skeptics must remember to always keep their eye on the goal. They must see the
long view. They must attempt to win the war for rational beliefs, not to engage in a
fight to the death over any one particular battle with any one particular individual
or any one particular belief. Not only must skeptics' methods and data be clean,
direct, and unbiased, their demeanor and behavior must be as well.


.
.
.
end of excerpt.
(the whole article is worth a look too, at http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html')

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:07:20 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: What I like most about this article
Message:
is that it argues beliefs have to be resistant to sensory data -- it claims that is their point and utility. Further, it is persuasive that understanding this can help a lot in countering unreasonable beliefs and superstitions of whatever sort.

For what it's worth, I recommend giving it a read.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 00:37:32 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: JohnT
Subject: Ditto..hear hear.
Message:
I did my undergrad dissertation in the area of paranormal belief, and this excellent article supports a lot of other research in the area.

I know people treat the word 'skeptic' (or 'sceptic', if you prefer) like a bad smell, but sceptical should be everybody's default position. For their own good. Scepticism will keep them safe from so much - too much - bullshit (like splashing out serious money on going to an 'astrological counsellor' for a 'reading', or whatever).

For me scepticism means - as in its original use - 'in a spirit of open and honest inquiry' with a measure of 'doubt everything you're told until the evidence is trustworthy'.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:44:57 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: very ying-yang. Like the logic behind illogic?
Message:
You're right - the whole article (glad I posted a link to it) raised many more interesting ideas. Such as:
.
.
.
'Beliefs are not supposed to change easily or
simply in response to disconfirming evidence. If they did, they would be virtually
useless as tools for survival. Our caveman would not last long if his belief in
potential dangers in the jungle evaporated every time his sensory information told
him there was no immediate threat. A police officer unable to believe in the
possibility of a killer lurking behind a harmless appearance could easily get hurt or
killed.'
.
.
.
'... When data and belief come into conflict, the brain does not automatically give
preference to data. This is why beliefs-even bad beliefs, irrational beliefs, silly
beliefs, or crazy beliefs-often don't die in the face of contradictory evidence. The
brain doesn't care whether or not the belief matches the data. It cares whether the
belief is helpful for survival. Period. So while the scientific, rational part of our
brains may think that data should supercede contradictory beliefs, on a more
fundamental level of importance our brain has no such bias. It is extremely reticent
to jettison its beliefs. Like an old soldier with an old gun who does not quite trust
that the war is really over, the brain often refuses to surrender its weapon even
though the data say it should.'

.
.
.
'...even seemingly small, inconsequential beliefs can be as integral to
the brain's experience of survival as are beliefs that are 'obviously' connected to
survival. Thus, trying to change any belief, no matter how small or silly it may
seem, can produce ripple effects through the entire system and ultimately threaten
the brain's experience of survival. This is why people are so often driven to defend
even seemingly small or tangential beliefs. A creationist cannot tolerate believing in
the accuracy of data indicating the reality of evolution not because of the accuracy
or inaccuracy of the data itself, but because changing even one belief related to
matters of the Bible and the nature of creation will crack an entire system of belief,
a fundamental worldview and, ultimately, their brain's experience of survival. '

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:28:24 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: cq
Subject: Actually, I've a couple of problems wirh this...
Message:
Not so much his conclusion that beliefs, once arrived at, are enduring (so what else is new?)

Just the arguments he uses as evidence look a bit all over the place. And he doesn't define what he means by 'belief' in any useful way.

Past my bedtime, and yours, probably..

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:04:20 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I'll explain in the morn..(nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:57:36 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: layers of the onion?
Message:
applying that sceptical mind to its own conclusions - sounds like some good science could result from that process! (either that, or we end up disappearing up our own fundaments;)

Would be glad to hear your results, Nigel.

(and though I posted the link, it doesn't mean I agree willy-nilly with all the author's observations, though the article itself certainly caught my interest).

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:20:36 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: You're getting scissor-happy, FA. Be careful
Message:
Good grief. Go easy with your editing blade, FA.

I guess I was lucky to catch your reply that you gave only 10 minutes ago - (already deleted).

But before I go any further, let me make one thing crystal clear: THIS THREAD IS ON TOPIC OK?

I am VERY dissapointed to hear that posts from less than 48 hours ago have been deleted. Posts that were COMPLETELY on-topic and VERY relevant to this Forum.

May I ask the reason for deleting so-called 'OT' posts? Quite often un-related (at first) discussions eventually lead to the expressing of opinions that are relevant to the stated purpose of this site.

In other words, a thread that starts as off-topic may well end up totally ON topic. Are you deleting those threads simply because of the letters 'ot' in the title post? (thinks ... that's the last time I'll being doing that again!).

Is there a problem with financing the storage of archive material or something?

If not, then what's the purpose in deleting threads that DO contain material that is relevant to the issues?

What's the policy here now?

could you please clarify?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:52:41 (GMT)
From: Forum Admin
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: An apology
Message:
One of the threads in the Inactive index that was deleted did contain some good on-topic posts. These should have been retained.

Sorry:-(

Forum Admin

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:59:26 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Forum Admin
Subject: FA, can you remember what the thread was about?
Message:
us gasbags can just post them all over again.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:52:35 (GMT)
From: Forum Admin
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: FA, can you remember what the thread was about?
Message:
I hope you don't:-) It was the thread started by Jim questioning CD's sincerity. It was memorable for the argument between Jim and Katie which Barry and JHB joined in.

CQ's skeptical enquirer post was also there (since resubmitted), as was a post from Sandy that showed something approaching true personal honesty about his struggle to come to terms with the truth about Maharaji.

Forum Admin

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 11:51:07 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Forum Admin
Subject: The Axe Wielder.
Message:
Hi FA,

Wasn't there a thread from Sandy, about resolving disputes on the forum too?

On the topic of OT threads, I think the archivists delete them before archiving anyway, so there shouldn't be a space problem.

We should keep the windows open so the breeze of freedom doesn't bypass us.

Maybe we should invite Djuro back, so you've got someone you can practice your swordplay on.

Anth, who having relenquished responsibility as a Forum Elve, can become a critical yobbo again.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 15:42:02 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: This FA has an axe to grind
Message:
Yeah, what kind of shit is this to have such on the fly, arbitrary deletion of stuff? We're not talking spam, we're talking whole discussions, sometimes representing what must the hours of typing by various people. Invariably, the threads carry all sorts of sentiments, a little something for everyone, so to speak. But this FA just sits back, decides that now that HE's read it all there really isn't much purpose to keep it around, it's all incidental or worse unseemly, and zap!, there it goes.

Is THIS post going to survive? Why should it? What do you say, FA? A little too infantile for you? Beside the point? What's your druthers, boss? We aim to please.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:26:13 (GMT)
From: Forum Admin
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Mistakes have been made
Message:
No, your post will not be deleted. Mistakes have been made in trying to keep this forum as a place where people can learn about their involvement with Maharaji. I can assure you that those responsible, including myself, regret those mistakes, and apologise.

Every attempt will be made in future to ensure that intelligent debates (both on-topic and off-topic) remain on the forum, both active and inactive, for as long as possible.

Forum Admin

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 16:30:43 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Forum Admin
Subject: Ha ha ha
Message:
Sorry, don't mean to laugh or anything, but this:

Every attempt will be made in future to ensure that intelligent debates (both on-topic and off-topic) remain on the forum, both active and inactive, for as long as possible.

(emphasis added)

highly-qualified promise leaves open a world of uncertainty.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:14:50 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Forum Admin
Subject: Until we meet again.
Message:
Sorry,but this business of deleting posts according some arbitrary interpretation of a vague rule determined by the administrator just runs counter to what I think dialogue is all about. I believe in unconstrained dialogue. It has a 'saving grace' that edited texts and court proceedings lack. An administrator simply does not have sufficient insight to avoid being arbitrary. I prefer to spend my time in a more open forum, and to tell the truth I have little interest in Maharaji any more. I mean, I do have in interest in what happens but you can only 'say' so much about the guy, without straying into related subjects that are nontheless important in their own right. At the moment, for instance, I think this John Edwards character is doing a lot of damage, and has about 1000 times the visibility of Maharaji. No, 10,000 times.

Now, if you just let *everything* stream off the end after a couple of weeks that's a different matter. People can have the option of just saving what they want or value. Frankly, I can't see why *any* off topic posts need to be deleted. And who's to say what will or won't turn out to be 'on topic' in the long run? People make the investment to think through and type out a response expecting it to be around long enough for others to respond to, and also so that they can maintain accountability for what they themselves, and others, say and do. So if things can just disappear in a puff of smoke it would seem to undermine the whole process of accountability for what one says. Anyway, maybe I'm off the wall... but this stuff *really* bothers me. Either make it a 'formal' dialog, with all the rules stated up front, and a process of grievance with accountability, or just keep it entirely open and adhere only to rules about threats, troll attacks, spamming, etc.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 05:44:18 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Until we meet again (addendum).
Message:
Actually, I plan to post something about what this experience has meant, and what value it has for me. It somehow doesn't seem quite appropriate to just 'up and leave.' I need to put something out there that at least plays fair with the people who have bothered to discuss things with me, and who've tolerated my peckish ways. But I guess I feel a little like Sir Dave. I'm not sure what I'm doing here, given the relatively low priority I place on the Hamster's doings. Surely, I could invest the time in organizing my thoughts into a book or something. I've probably posted 300 pages worth of material here in the last three months alone. Just need to come up with a common theme, or perhaps take the 'best of' and start anew. So, it's not entirely due to the Forum Administration... and that's probably not as significant as I've made it out to be. Just time to move on, is all. I mean, you have to reap what you sew. It's a law, I think.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:34:05 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Forum Admin
Subject: That thread - pity about Sandy's posts
Message:
Sandy was starting to sound clear and strong and making sense. I'm sorry his posts got deleted. As for the rest the less said the better. But I am sorry to see Jim's post saying that he was dropping the battle deleted. I felt he was being a good sport.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 13:04:52 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: It's a good thing the FA is not in the business of
Message:
circumsision! We'd all be had!

But seriously, Pat, I think it's good to prune the trees back real good once in awhile....what is a true and healthy branch will surely sprout again. I am just a guest here anyway, so the house rules are what they are, whatever I think about it.

So let's forget about how to settle disputes, that you don't need a chainsaw to cut bread with, that some of us commoners figured out how to come to our own common ground after some scuffling...
let's see who is celebrating a birthday today, and who is blowing who down the thread a bit, and what new trinket Maharaji bought.

'Oops, I did it again'....-Britney Spears

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:39:59 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: EV's new seminars !
Message:
Looks like premies are still treated as idiots

Learn How to Talk about K in 3 HOURS !!!!

Maybe they're not such idiots after all. If you can learn that in 3 hours, when you didn't in 30 years .... doesn't make any sense for me !!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:41:02 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Nice job, J-M
Message:
J-M, I'm glad to see excerpts of EV documents back online. As you might know I had those pages or links to your old website at the House of Maharaji Drek , but I removed them in order to get back online after the illegal attempts by Maharaji and his lawyers to shut down my site.

These excerpts certainly reveal how lame the cult has become.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:40:48 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: I didn't write much intro for those
Message:
documents, they're self-explanatory enough !!

In case anyone wants to write something to introduce them, I'll be glad to add those comments to the appropriate pages.

BTW, there are lots of them online on the Elan Vital Today page ....

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:23:47 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Yvette and Harry are still in this mess!??
Message:
GROAN. How terrible. The one thing I am learning on this forum is who's in and who's not, somewhat. This is very helpful, in case I bump into someone I haven't seen in umpteen years. With them, it's been many, many, many.

--f

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:51:46 (GMT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Guerilla tactics: Easterners--service opportunity
Message:
Someone in the neighborhood should call the hotels who are hosting these seminars and explain the nature of the organization to whom they are renting space.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 09:37:14 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: bet its the Patel clan of hotelkeepers worldwide
Message:
and theyre all expatriot gujerati premies of shri hans
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:01:20 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: pdconlon@yahoo.com
To: Everyone
Subject: Revisionism and the Dark Night of the Soul
Message:
I began to see through Maharaj Jism initially in 1978 when I stood on the waterfront in Coconut Grove (in Miami) and shouted from one side of the street to my lover of the time who stood on the other, ''Well go fuck yourself then and fuck Guru Maharaj Ji if that's the way you feel about it.'' He had just told me of one of his numerous infidelities and had then told me that I was in my mind for being upset and to go with the flow and not be so attached and to remember the Holy fucking Hindu mumbo-jumbo Name.

Between then and 1981, when I met Charles and threw in my fortunes with him, I went through a dark night of the soul. It was sometime in those years that my path crossed those of Joe and Francesca and Joy. They all knew me when I had hit rock bottom and no longer had an unshakeable faith in Maharaj Jism but still had faith in the ancient traditions of meditation and satsang. I had faith in meditation because I was always an enthusiastic meditator and had been doing it before I met Rev Rawat and I had faith in satsang because of the wonderful times that I had spent with the Gujarati premies in Durban.

My life with Charles certainly lightened my dark night. Unfortunately, in the first few years of our partnership, most of our premie friends died of AIDS and the rest took another ten years to die. It put my own existential angst concerning Maharaj Jism, my mental anguish at my growing dislike for Rev Rawat, in proportion. Only Charles was there to hear what you guys have been sharing en masse here.

Charles had never been enchanted by the bhakti juju spell so it must have been tiresome for him but he heard me out because he loved me. He listened and watched me sitting on the fence like Sandy and Deputy Dog for nine years; one minute high as a kite from having been to see the Rev, the next criticizing him mercilessly for being a boastful ignoramus. Yes, Charles is patient, kind and forgiving. After 19 years together we see that what has kept us together is kindness and forgiveness.

But I digress. My dark night definitely started lifting about 10 years ago when, after being physically ill for a while, I began to practice mental hygeine (housecleaning my hard-drive, filing, trashing, defragmenting etc) and found that I had a lot of ugly shit in my ROM memory (longterm unexamined almost subconscious stuff) which affected my RAM (short-term workaday functioning.) I have always read and thought a lot so it was an enjoyable task and has resulted in a much more peaceful life. I found that blaming others caused my problems and that forgiveness was the solution.

A year ago I went back to participating in a synchronized way in the new non-cult Church of Elan Vital and it cured me of any remaining illusions I may have still harbored concerning Maharaj Jism. I would suggest that, if you are suffering from a dark night of the soul, just spend a few months participating in a synchronized way and you will be cured of Maharaj Jism once and for all. Guaranteed.

You will see that the majority of the current crop of PWKs are in no way better off than anyone else and in fact are often worse off than just plain folks (mental problems, social skill handicaps, stunted intellectual and emotional growth and an automoton-like pretense of elan vital or joie de vivre.) True strength and joy does not come from a guru or any external source. It comes from one's own effort.

PS If you think about it Maharaj Jism is all about revisionism. Rev Rawat came and said that Knowledge was not a religion but he wore Krishna outfits and talked Krishna talk. You can't get much more religious (Hinduism) than that. I guess that's why you need a living Master. He can keep rewriting history and revising his biography.

How the fuck did I fall for the scam that I needed a Master? My only answer is the Rawat family business with it's three ring fucking bhakti juju circus came to town.

The Rev no longer tells PWKs that they can in fact realize Knowledge but that ''there is the possibilty of Knowledge.'' When? Before we die or afterwards just like all other religions? Why would he want anyone to realize it? That might put him out of business.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 19:33:31 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: I know it took us a while to 'get it'
Message:
before our husbands did, but never fear. I'm sure Chas will agree you brought/bring a lot 'to the table' in your relationship to make up for taking so long to get over the LOTA.

You and I were getting divorces from Rawat. They hadn't gotten under the bhakti blanket with him, so no divorce necessary. Lucky them!

Besides, we all have mutual friends who are still getting over the LOTA, or don't realize they will need to start at some point, and at least they will understand their process better by having to watch us muddle, repent, laugh and curse our way along. There have been some eloquent posts lately describing the parts of the process I'd either forgotten or don't want to remember besides some of yours (HAL, Connie, Patrick (Anon), Brian Smith, janet, Babs, Disculta, Monmot, Joe, and a host of others).

I believe that telling our stories is a powerful use of this forum, and the most powerful, personal way we have to let people know that they are following a liar.

Love --f

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 21:38:23 (GMT)
From: Charles S.
Email: bctanda@hotmail.com
To: Francesca
Subject: ''getting it'', ''getting out'', and...
Message:
...''getting something so much better!''.

Pat said I wasn't affected by the Bhakti ju ju, but I wouldn't say that's completely true. I was affected, but the hooks didn't go nearly as deep, because I never made that strong emotional bond with M. The way many of the premies carried on at programs, reminded me of groupies worshipping a rock star. I couldn't relate to it at all, but didn't want to be a wet blanket or rain on anyones parade, so I just accepted it as right for them, but not for me.

I was never asked to surrender the reigns of my life or anything like that, and I know it has been easier for me to shake off in some ways. But I have had enough of a taste of feeling upset and disturbed at making the final break with the guru, to know how much WORSE it must be for people who had a much stronger Bhakti experience.

Perservering with my meditation helped me actually complete the break, because it became so obvious to me that I had been doing the meditation by myself all along anyway, that M. was sort of like a ghost in my mind, who really got in the way more than anything else. Especially during the last five years, he talked almost exclusivly about himself, the Master, and devotion to the Master, quoteing scriptures and shamelessly promoting himself, and expecting everyone to dote on his every word and laugh at his every joke and story, no matter how repetitive and boring. The meditation has been reduced to almost nothing. As M. often says these days, 'It's just four simple techniqes'. HE is supposed to be the all-important essential element (or should I say ''filiment''?)

In the last post that Joy made to me regading meditation, she had said that she felt the meditation was just a 'lure' to get people to be devoted to M. That has really stuck in my mind. I agree, I really think it WAS used as a lure. It certainly lured me. And the loving kindness and sometimes crazy but heart-felt satsang of the Haight Ashbury hippie premies was also a big lure. The combination was irresistable.

I was only 20 years old when I recieved special K. I had been in a construction accident three months earlier where two tons of steel beams fell on me, leaving me temorarlily crippled and disfigured (cracked leg and plevis, my teeth smashed-out and a piece of my lip missing). I had moved in with my first real 'boyfriend' only three weeks earlier, and that was all rapidly comming to an end. My family was far away, I was just comming to terms with being gay, and my life was turned upside down. I was left without friends, facing my own mortality.

I then discovered this loving premie community where I lived, many of whom were gay or gay-friendly. They were so disrespectful of any organized religion, and so full of creativity and energy and love, and such FUN to be with. I have such fond memories of those times. I think because my intial experiences were so good, and M. and K. were a large part of that scene, is why I stuck with M. for so long. I always had misgivings about somethings (like promising to keep the techinques secret, that really bothered me), but I had nowhere and no one to take my questions to. And since I did get something out of the meditation, I stuck with the whole thing, although on the fringes, mostly.

I feel some people on the forum are uncomfortable with people who like to continue the Meditation, because they feel it may lend credibility to M. as a legitimate teacher. I do understand why some people would feel that way. But I also feel that the best con-artists can take something that isn't theirs, something completely neutral, and mix it up with a bunch of crap. They take some neutral, simple thing to hook people, and mix it with their lies. The thing used to hook you might actually help you, but also seem to give credibility to the crap it was mixed up with.

Anyway, I have been greatly releived to be able to separate the two, and I hope some people on the forum will understand that for some people leaving M. now, that may be useful for them too. Many of us stayed as long as we did because we were getting some things out of it, be it the meditation or the love and friendship of some of the premies. We simply put up with the rest, as long as we could stand it. Having new information, to help put the pieces together, is enough to help some people move on. Leaving M. doesn't necessarily mean giving up meditation or premie friends, although for some people, they may want to or have to do both. It's an individual choice.

One of the reasons I went back to ''participate'' via the commitee meetings was because the local CC was an old hippy who I remembered and liked from the Haight days. I wanted to see if any of the ''love'', the good vibes, from those days were still around. There were a few glimers of those vibes from a few individuals, but for the most part, the scene was dead. Completely sterile. The Corporate EV vibe predominated, and all spontinaity was crushed. Spiritual Borgness. It was all about devotion to the guru, and doing whatever He wanted. A total killjoy experience.

I'm glad I got involved again, because it smashed any illusions I had left, and made it easier to leave. I got hooked on the loving vibes and the meditation, and those I can have without M., and have them FREELY, better than ever.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 22:28:44 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Charles S.
Subject: This is a great point you keep making ...
Message:
again and again, in many ways, from your own experience:

I feel some people on the forum are uncomfortable with people who like to continue the Meditation, because they feel it may lend credibility to M. as a legitimate teacher. I do understand why some people would feel that way. But I also feel that the best con-artists can take something that isn't theirs, something completely neutral, and mix it up with a bunch of crap. They take some neutral, simple thing to hook people, and mix it with their lies. The thing used to hook you might actually help you, but also seem to give credibility to the crap it was mixed up with.

It's an important perspective. If a con artist didn't sell us something good, why would we go for the con, or stick around for any length of time?

--f

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:27:24 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: This is a great point you keep making ...
Message:
It sounds to me like Charles has made great effort to hold onto meditation because he thinks it is of benefit to him. And I think it takes a lot of effort to make the separation between the meditation and Maharaji.

I think most premies got almost nothing out of meditation, so it just wasn't worth it to make the effort to make that kind of separation, when the thing doesn't seem very valuable.

I am one of those people. I found meditation to be a gigantic waste of time, by and large. I have much better things to do with my time. But to each his own.

I certainly have no objections to people continuing to practice those techniques, and I think there are very few ex-premies who feel that way. Actually, it's good to have someone saying this, because I'm sure there are one or two other people (can't imagine there are more) who actually find the meditation valuable, and might be holding onto that as a reason for staying in the cult.

But since Maharaji hardly even talks about meditation, I can't imagine that is very many people. They are in the cult for other reasons than enjoying meditation. I doubt very many of the premies even do meditation.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:29:03 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Sorry.. meant to say
Message:
I think there are very few, if any, ex-premies who actually object to people continuing to do the meditation techniques after rejecting Maharaji.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 23:46:57 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe, meditation
Message:
I did it a lot even before meeting the Bratguru and enjoyed it but it takes a lot of PERSONAL effort to get anything out of it. Those premies who have stuck it out until now AND meditated may have gotten to the point where they are getting something out of it. It sometimes takes years of effort.

The whole Hindu guru bhakti trip is to give you an artificial instant experience from the shaktipat (contact high) so as to keep your interest otherwise it would be boring and dry as you found out. More democratic yoga traditions rely on group satsang highs to do that.

You are right about the current PWKs. Most of them are still relying on the shaktipat to get high and seldom meditate themselves. I had to go back to find out that I was getting more out of it than they were because of my own PERSONAL effort.

It's not for everyone and neither is it the ONLY way to achieve the desired results of equanimity or even psychedelic (entheogenic) consciousness.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 00:24:43 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Patrick, meditation
Message:
Patrick, I did put years of effort into meditation. I really did, so the fact that I got nothing out of it did not result from lack of trying. I just think it's a very limited thing that is helpful to some people and not to others, regardless of the amount of time and effort they put into it.

From what I saw, some people kind of took to it immediately and liked it, and hence it didn't take much effort. Others never did. I think for many people it's the idea of meditation as some kind of mystical event that was the attraction. It's like people being attracted to the rituals of smoking as opposed to smoking itself.

Personally, I really like to think and found it nuts to engage in practice whose major point is to stop you from doing that. It never made one bit of sense to me.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 09:09:40 (GMT)
From: Charles S.
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The mind as the ''Enemy''..
Message:
... is a concept that was not really part of the Knowlege Lite experiance. I was never told the purpose of meditation was to stop the mind from thinking, and if I had, that would have been a terrible burden! Because the mind never really stops thinking. But you can slow it down, calm it down. You can observe your thoughts without rejecting them or engaging them. I find it a relaxing and restful way to be in the present moment.

Over the past twenty years, M. has hardley ever talked very much about meditation, so whenever he did, I really took notice. The last knowlege review we had, was in Thousand Oaks, 1995?

The first technique was described as putting one finger on your forhead between your eyes, and gently sliding one finger and one thumb of the same hand across your eyelids, into the corners of your eyes near the nose, and gently resting your fingertips there, NOT pressing against the eyes at all.

Techique two, no barogins. He says get used to holding your arms up without support; take a break if you need to. Your arms would get stronger eventually. He wanted to get people used to doing it without a barogin, because people would use not having a barogin as an excuse not to meditate. Most suspect most people would use a pillow or their knees for support, anyway. If I wanted to make my arms sore, I would lift weights.

Techinque three: breath. Don't try to control your breath, just let it go, and go with it. Don't try to do anything, just BE.

Technique four: place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth. You must NOT STRAIN when you do this. The point is not to push the tounge back as far as you can; the point is to be comfortable, and just concentrate on the tip of your tongue.

And he says absolutely nothing about what you are supposed to experinece when you do this. I have also heard him tell the premies not to question each other about what they experience.

Why am I telling you this? Because:

1). Some of the older premies make it sound like you are supposed to poke your eyes out and slit your tongue to make it go back as far as possible. That's torture! You guys may well have been taught it that way, but that's not what he says nowadays.

2). I made a promise not to reveal the techniques, so I'm getting my jollies doing it on a public forum. Big deal, they are all over the internet anyway. And they are not HIS. That promise was to keep us in the dark, ignorant. Bad promises must not be kept. Hidding information is a way of controling people.

3). Even if my experience is a 'Knowlege Lite' experience, it is still the way he is talking about it now to the current premies, including the older premies, regarless of what he may have said in the past.

M. also gave other advice at various times, like just watching your thoughts come and go, etc. I could tell you more, but this is not a meditation forum. Most of the scant ''good'' advice M. gave regarding meditation is also given by many other meditation teachers as well, with out all the ''think of ME when you die'' baggage. I add that because I don't want to give anyone the impression that I am claiming he is a credible teacher. He isn't.

In fact, I used to wonder why he so vehemently insisted that he was not just a ''teacher''. He once explained that a teacher could only show you what a nut and bolt were, and could explain to you what they were, but could not show you what to do with them, what they were for. I thought''HUH???''. Talk about a lame explanation. It was one of many times I found him embarrasing.

I think the reason he hates the word ''teacher'' is because a teacher can teach you something. When you have learned that thing (and you will if the teacher is any good), you move on. M. didn't want his ''students'' to move on. Students who move on don't send checks. So he also taught bhakti ju ju, to create a dependence on him. In India there is a bhakti tradition, and people understand what they are doing. Here there is no bhakti tradition, most people don't understand it, and he has been ''teaching'' it without explaining or admitting it.

He hates being refered to as a ''teacher'' for the same reason he hates the word ''inspirational speaker''. He is not very good at doing either, and if he tried to pass himself off as either, he would have competition, and wouldn't be so ''precious''. Calling himself the ''Master'' puts him in a class all his own, at least in the west.

For me meditation has always been more of a practical thing than a mystical thing. I always had trouble relating to the ''Magic'' stuff, and in the world of M's Knowlege, the Magic and the Master go together. M. has been using the word ''magic'' a lot in recent years to describe his World of Knowlege. I think of the word ''magic'' as being one of those ''Disney Bullshit'' words that should never be used to describe anything real or true, so it often made me wince. He keeps saying that nothing has changed over the years, the ''magic'' of the old days is still here.

Even if one were to assume the word ''magic'' just meant good feelings or good vibes, I can't help but think that he has to go around repeatedly insisting ''the magic is still here'', because it actually isn't anymore, at least not for him. Why would he keep saying that, unless people were doubting it?

Anyway I'm not proselytizing, many people can give good meditation tips (I've read several here from different meditators). I just wanted to offer a view of how M. talks about it now, compared to the eye poking, tongue tearing past. Heaven or Hell are never mentioned, except to deny that he ever said anything of the sort. It's taught very simply and comfortably, and with a lot of subliminal Bhakti ju ju, devotional, new-agey-rhadasoami-whammy, ''we are not a church or a religion'' type stuff thrown in. Sterile and uninspired. The Lord is here, just don't tell anyone. Give them this propagation packet, and hint at the POSSIBILITY of Knowledge... in a sycronized way, of course.

I agree with you Joe, that some people might take to meditation easier than others, and that it's not for everyone. I also agree with Pat in believing that many of the premies don't meditate either. That's probably fine with M. because many no doubt feel guitly and send checks.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:29:29 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe, I do not meditate the way the Bratguru taught
Message:

I just read your post and feel that I really need to clarify what I mean by meditation because I definitely don't do what the Bratguru taught.

I did kriya yoga before I met the Bratguru. He then added bhakti yoga to that. Bhakti yoga (guru worship) in India is for people who don't have the time for meditation (peasants, working class, merchants etc.) The point of yoga is single-mindedness. The single-minded devotion to the guru is the focus in bhakti. The Beas cults began the combination of the two yogas in the 1890s but never expected their devotees to master mental concentration on the own.

Meditation is all about focus not about stopping thinking. (Like the word Knowledge we were hoodwinked into thinking that it was a uniform and universal experience.) The Bratguru is a VERY BAD yoga teacher. He knows shit about it and relies entirely on keeping his students focussed by mesmerizing them with his bhakti juju which seems to work fine for certain Indians and some simple-minded PWKs but obviously not for us.

Too funny that you mention smoking because, as a ''bad'' premie I carried on doing the techniques ''my way'' (the way I had first learned them - which often included taking a smoke break between techniques to have a good think or read or do a crossword puzzle or do some hatha yoga to stretch my cramps.)

As Francesca has pointed out there are many types of meditation. It sounds like you were never really interested in yoga at all but joined up to put the world to rights, more of a karma yogi (what the warriors and leaders practiced in Hindu tradition - doing great deeds) or jnana yogi (for brahmans - arriving at clarity through intellectual introspection.) I do a bit of all of them and Francesca I know also tries to balance out her appraoch.

Kriya yoga as taught by the inept Bratguru is useless on its own. Chuck started doing Science of mind soon after he got K and I have always done other yogas as well as formulate my own ethics and philosophy. It certainly is not about stopping thinking. The stupid Bratguru did not understand that when he first started out. He has since ''revised'' his teaching about the mind (see CDs assertions) but not after confusing many people for many years. But his main teaching still is the personality cult not mental concentration.

Joy also said to me that she could not understanding how anyone did not enjoy thinking. I told her I love thinking and always have. I have been a reader (since 7) and writer (since 14) most of my life. Meditation is not about stopping thinking but about separating the thinker from the thoughts and simply remaining still as the thinker and not being yanked around by scattered thoughts.

And you still have to work on mental hygeine and morals unlike the Bratguru.


Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:05:49 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Patrick, meditation
Message:
It is true that with K we were told you to stop thinking and that the mind is the enemy. Some people really enjoy not thinking, but for me that's not the goal or the point of meditation. I'd rather be in tune with whatever this is that's happening, not try to shut it out.

That's why I went to other meditation techniques that do not require you to stop thinking, or see that as a goal. They work better for me personally. They do, of course, require that I let it all be -- the thoughts, sensations, the emotions, the whatever is happening. Not to invite them, not to send them away. Thoughts spontaneously arise from the creative nature of the mind. They come and they go.

I'm not saying you'd enjoy or benefit from what I do (and of course I can't describe it here -- I'm not a teacher), but there are many other forms of meditation out there.

Also, since the tradition the 4 techniques came from predates (by centuries) M's spin on what we were supposed to be doing when we practiced the techniques, some people that are currently using them may have found a practical and personal way to employ the techniques that does not involve the goals M set out for us. Or his or his instructor's meditation instructions. After all, M didn't meditate anyway, so what did he know about it?

I think since M started this war with our mind, mind as enemy, it was amazing, for example, to study Buddhism, where they talk about the true nature of mind, and other such concepts. I've heard several Buddhist teachers say that suppressing or stopping your thoughts is a trap. They say that some people get into convoluted versions of meditation techniques where they make themselves stop thinking, but that they are in sort of a 'dull' or 'torpid' state by doing that. I'm not saying that thoughts may not stop when meditating, they may or it may not, depending upon the moment. But I feel very clear that even having that as a goal is not good technique and can lead to stunted results in meditation. Or is that constipation?

Just a thought! --f

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:31:43 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Thank you, Francesca
Message:
Thank you for writing about meditation in so lucid a way. I cannot add any more to what you have just said. Pranam, Mahatma Francesca Ji. (Said playfully not sarcastically but I think you know what I mean.)

And yes, I don't think this is the place to go into details about it. It really is very private.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 01:09:52 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Patrick, meditation
Message:
Thanks Francesca, that actually makes sense, and friends who practice Buddhist meditation say the same thing.

Actually, Maharaji's 'war with your own mind' concentration camp he put us in, was reinforced by a lot of things that weren't really related to meditation. Like the commendment to 'never leave room for doubt in your mind.' He also preached, for years, that one should 'meditate' 24 hours a day. This was a recipe for using 'meditation' really just focusing on your breathing all the time to keep from thinking, if that thinking in any way involved a doubt.

I know it made me completely numb to my feelings and objective rationality. It was maddening. It was nuts. It was a cult.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 06:36:35 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe, it is still a cult
Message:
The bhakti juju personality cult of seeing the Master as God no matter how much revisionism goes on. His song is still the same tired old ''love me, obey me,serve me'' song.

Maharaj Jism is a cult!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 22:42:17 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Tell that to Sandy
Message:
If you've got the patience and compassion.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 07:13:02 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
It's been about a year since I renounced my affiliation with the maha.

A celebration is in order! My anniversary of freedom from stultifying cult frying . What an interesting year it's been.

A void was created, the path was no longer there. The pathless path began - no guru, no method , no teacher.

From the age of 17 I'd been a seeker of the 'divine'. Through Mahraji I seemed to connect to something, had blissful experiences, made some good friends. I felt special, elite, fortunate and had gratitude towards the 'master'. I was part of something big that would change the world, or so I thought.

What about now? What am I grateful for ? I am no more a seeker of the 'divine'. When things go right in life and all is well , I give no thanks or praises to God or guru. When times are tough I have no plea or prayer to be saved, nor any feeling of abandonment. There is simply me , in inter-relation to my surrounding world.

Am I less happy?-No. Am I more happy ?- No.Am I feeling more real and connected to myself ?-YES.

There is decreased struggle now because I'm less in duality. No more fighting or effort to be free from 'mind'. No more ideas about going beyond my 'lower' nature, transending the ego (whoever has?).

I am myself. More free, fewer concepts about 'it'. More feeling for my family and friends.

I did continue doing some meditation occasionaly using my own variations on the techniques although I long ago gave up poking at my sense organs. I started each session with a renunciation of Rawat and it still worked the same as always.For the last few months I haven't sat and 'practiced ' formal meditaion but I do become aware of the 'nowness ' and breath during my day involuntarily- I like that.I feel no different from not doing it. There is no lack.

Life is awesome, mysterious, wonderful. Difficult, easy, tedious, interesting.

I've found inspiration in reading Taoist - Zen sources with a preference for the 'no method' school of thought. The path of not striving.

' Follow your nature and accord with the Tao;
Saunter along and stop worrying.
If your thoughts are tied , you spoil what is genuine....
Don't be antagonistic to the world of the senses
For when you are not antagonistic to it,
It turns out to be complete Awakening.
The wise person does not strive ( for enlightenment)
The ignorant man ties himself up...
If you work on your mind with your mind,
How can you avoid an immense confusion ? '

As for Maha ? My thoughts ? - How the fuck did I go on so long, singing that song? My heart left long ago in '84 ; my concepts about 'master' kept me trapped there.

This forum and the ex sites were instrumental in assisting me to break free. I still read here almost daily but haven't posted much of late. I'm enjoying the new input from Pat , Charles , Kelly , Postie etc. and my old time favourites of course. Shame about the bickering over nothing and the prickly, touchy self important ego battles ; but that's life I guess- reflected here on the forum.

Anyway, enough of my self important musings !

To end , a poem by Ikkyu -

We eat, excret , sleep and get up.
This is our world.
All we have to do after that -
Is to die.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:40:10 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: the only keys to the kingdom
Message:

Happy 1st re-birthday, Hal!

And thanks for having the courage to mention that '...small tinge of fear of loss, as in losing my ticket to salvation, for Christ sake'

For that belief-system to work, it's a real humdinger of a Catch 22. And if I remember it well enough, the thought-process went something like this:

'If I don't believe he's God incarnate, then what could I be missing?'

'If I do believe he's God incarnate, how can I ever go back on my word?'

And at stake, in both scenarios, is your total self-worth.

IMO, getting in was certainly easier than getting out.

But you did! And your self-worth seems to have survived the process (though I sometimes wonder about Ikkyu's;)

And talking of poetry (Vogon too), I recently told Moldy Warp that I'd post an example of what my computer can do in the way of creating poetry that's a (slightly) more interesting that the carbon-copy-cat crap that's so often on ELK. So here it is: (all I had to do was key in a 'subject' for the poem - the rest was done by the computer program. I chose the word: 'Maharaji')

'Maharaji extends from his captivity.

Bilingual turkey: the penitent astronomer's unprincipled salt
Maharaji pays for
his ethical ability that he presumes
the Garden of Eden retreats from competition
his ejaculation shows things to just one anachronism ...

Innumerable mathematical procreations receive from a courteous youth,

If a false poet had the power to change your under-used imagination, I'd ask for your under-used imagination to become more true.

Maharaji criminally if delicately pines for an amiability.

I think, but an opposition starts.
The daisies throw something to this week's movie star.
Do you know why I crave neuropsychology?
Because neuropsychology reminds me of your guardian angel.
The hissing harmonious hands and true true teachers loosen loudly and look loudly,
a number of errors explain a yoke
just one golden decency explains his chocolate.'

.
.
.
(HAL' 9000's rendition of 'Daisy, Daisy', had a lot going for it, IMO)

Best of the best to you, Steve,

Cheers.

(PS - you coming over for March 10th's Latvian nite?)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:52:50 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: cq - that's brilliant - Bilingual turkey indeed
Message:
''Bilingual turkey...his ejaculation shows things to just one anachronism ...''

''If a false poet had the power to change your under-used imagination, I'd ask for your under-used imagination to become more true.''

''Maharaji criminally if delicately pines for an amiability''

Your computer must be an ex-premie.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:15:46 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Thanks guys
Message:
Really loved all your posts and yes the reason I don't post so much is because there are many of you expressing perfectly well what I think and feel about it all.

That was one hell of a good post Brian. I was in there for 28 yrs on and off and even when I was off Mha I was still very much into some kind of spiritual striving and carrying plenty of conceptual baggage.

It's really great that I can express these thoughts and know that there are all of you out there who can relate.

This really is a great forum. Who else can understand so intimately the power of maha's insidious trap as well as ex premies. Not even those who were caught in other cults can really understand our particular ex-premie connectedness.

Wishing you all enjoyment of life free from the domination of ol' Fatguru.

Steve Mulley

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 18:25:58 (GMT)
From: Kelly
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Happy anniversary!
Message:
Hi Hal,
Good to hear your voice again, and what a fabulous post to celebrate with. Congratulations.
I'd like to say more, but I'm off to a meeting this evening,and time is short...as is life!
Actually I am an EV mole and I'm off to report my latest discoveries!
See you later
love Kelly
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:39:51 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Thanks, Hal, bravo! (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:37:52 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
Dear Hal,
Love your post! So glad you are in such a good place. I have also found a lot of resonance with Taoist readings. I agree with all you've said and think you are doing very well to have arrived where you are in one short year!
Continued living life to the fullest on your own steam!
Love,
Robyn
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:10:50 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: You opened the pod door Hal!
Message:
Couldn't resist. Thanks for your inspiring post. I love this kind of stuff rather than the bickering.

--F

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:31:30 (GMT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
Much of what you talked about in your post fits very well with my new reality of just having fully exited the cult.

I too mentally exited about 1984, but for years was held in emotional bondage to the concepts of the Guru and Cult.
Many of these entanglements went deeper than I had expected or was willing to look at until I happened upon the Forum last Dec and embraced the process of breaking free.

I return here almost on a daily basis to remind myself of where I came from and of how deluded I was to have stayed so long (29 years.)
Reading and reviewing the stories of others like you who have been down the cult path and are now off it triggers a spark of truth within me that I could not have found on my own.

To face the reality of 29 years of committment to the falsehoods of a deceitful, manipulative, greedy guru, and his deranged cult by myself would have been very hard. Not to mention dealing with the massive guilt complex of leaving this all behind and somehow filling the void that it leaves.

Your post has pretty well confirmed that there never really was a void, I stuffed this guru crap, god worship into a perfectly normal space of youthful curiousity and exuberance and I paid dearly for years of sacrificing my free will and integrity.
I lost my ability to decide for myself or to have my own thoughts I merely repeated the many pat statements and answers that were drilled in by the cult to fit whatever circumstance I was in. I developed a smug spiritual ego that insulated me from the reality of any honest conversation. That attitude did not last long out here.

Everyonce now in a while I sigh deeply and wonder what have I done, I think mostly it is a knee jerk reaction to cutting loose many old friends and routines. These feelings are triggered by music mostly, passages of euphoric recall to some of the good times which I can't deny.
I occassionaly feel small pangs of guilt, as in betrayal, and a small tinge of fear of loss, as in losing my ticket to salvation, for Christ sake, I thought he was God incarnate, and that he held the only keys to the kingdom.

I know that I am out just a short time and these feelings are fairly normal and that time will eventually earase much of the residual attachment.
Don't worry, I am never going back to Him or anyone like him. I am completely committed to breaking free and I relish my new found freedom. I will never surrender my free will again to anyone, my independence belongs to me and I am grateful to have it back.

I have outed myself and finally talked honestly with my wife of 18 years (whom I insisted receive knowledge if we were ever going to have a meaningful relationship) and for the first time she told me the truth of her involvement. Thankfully she never bought in to the same deep traps as I did, she finally told me that she never believed any of this shit ever.
What is funny about this revelation is that this was the first honest conversation we had ever had about 'her' feelings in this matter. Even though I began mentally breaking free shortly after we got together and was not the zealot I once was, I know now she made considerable compromises that I took for granted for many years.

Believe me my wife is no pansy or pushover, she is extremely independent, intelligent and talented. It was just easier to let me go my own way, accompany me to go to an occasional event, than it was to try to and break down my concepts about the Guru. Now mind you, I was the one who insisted on having a meaningful relationship. Yet I was the one who donated mostly in cash so that she could not tell how much I actually contributed to the coffers. What I actually created was a very inauthentic premise for any relationship at all and I am lucky that she still puts up with me. This is just another good example of how convuluted my reality and concepts were for years. And at what cost to me and my relationship with those most near and dear to me. I was the one who could not allow myself to hear the truth so I shut down all opportunities for others to approach me on their honest terms. What an Asshole?

It is good to hear from others that life goes on just fine beyond the cult, that there is no big bump in the road and you and are not subjected to a life of bad karma for declaring your independence from the cult.

Actually I think that it was the other way around, as I now look at the falsehoods I created under the guise of spiritual development. What kind of karma is that?

I really liked that part where you mentioned the decreased struggle and fighting your own mind within yourself. I am feeling that too quite a lot lately.
What kind of life is that anyway, always at odds with ones own self?
Today, I feel much more at peace with myself, more accepting of others and so much less judgemental.

Who knows? I might even manage to have a meaningful relationship with myself

Thanks for your post Hal, it got me to thinking

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 17:20:15 (GMT)
From: la-ex
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Brian-N+Z-my story as well,thanks-great post! nt
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:18:08 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Great post Brian...a keeper.
Message:
Have you written a 'journeys' entry yet? If you do, may I suggest you use this post, word for word, as part of it?

Thanks
Nige

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 04:49:43 (GMT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Great post Brian...a keeper. I might just do that
Message:
not a bad idea Nigel, I will start working on a journeys entry right away and it will certainly include much more of the same and quite possibly excepts from this post.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:25:15 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Terrific post, Brian. Thanks so much.
Message:
For being so open and honest. Congratulations on breaking free.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 22:20:01 (GMT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Terrific post, Brian. Thanks so much.
Message:
You are quite welcome and thank you for the acknowledgement of the honesty.
'The truth shall set you free' and being open and honest is my only ticket back to freedom.
Maybe out of that stand, someone else can get closer to breaking free themselves.

Besides that I know that many of my experiences with the cult were not totally unique, we went through many of the same things.
Laying it on the line opens up the possibility for someone else to relate to a fairly common experience and give themself permission to also be honest about some of these same issues.
There are many people who read these posts who are still wondering and considering their position.

I owe it to myself and these folks to be as open and honest as I possibly can.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:25:09 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Agree 100% with what you said, same for me (nt)
Message:
gggggggr
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:49:09 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Hal and Brian , Thanks for those posts
Message:

I'm 7 months out after 28 yrs of on/off involvement , & haven't really resolved anything yet.

Which is why I keep coming here , to find insights that could help .

Thanks again.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Feb 27, 2001 at 18:47:56 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Bin Liner
Subject: Let the dust settle Binnie
Message:
I went through a lot in a very short time after renouncing premiehood. I didn't know what to believe in any more. I realised I'd been a fool for being duped for so long and I experienced dispair and desperation.

However the clouds cleared and I started to feel good again. I do have some good ex premie friends to chat with about all this stuff and some of them didn't feel so pissed off about things, they had a clearer perspective than me.

I was really aggressive and angry towards practicing premies for a while , of course it was really that I was angry with myself for being a fucking idiot.

There are several folks who would be glad to discuss things with you by e mail if you prefer , including me.

steve.mulley@clix,pt

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Mar 01, 2001 at 03:19:22 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Thanks for the offer (nt )
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:28:40 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Great post Brian ... keep it up
Message:
we're all ears.

I do remember still to this day being in someone's house (non prem) who was donating studio time for a music session with Rich Neal and a bunch of premie musicians.

Three of us were talking and our host was talking music. At one point I abruptly broke this conversation that was flowing quite nicely to turn the subject back to K, meditation and M. I could tell that even the premie involved in the conversation with the non-prem could see how rude it was.

It only sticks out as a painful example of many incidents like that, where you or I or any of the folks on FV would not have done the things we did if we didn't think M was god, and what we were on to was the only thing that was important. Sometimes it was sheer misplaced enthusiasm. Sometimes it was self-righteousness, which is, of course, uglier.

The rest of apparent reality was just something trying to take us away from the true path. Yikers. Connie's story below about husbands and wives and children being invited to special events with M and not telling each other was chilling. Imagine seeing your own spouse or child there, and knowing that you had all been that dishonest with each other. The only thing to soften the blow was that all parties had done the same thing to each other out of loyalty to M. We can all relate to your story and her story, and many of the stories we hear on here.

--F

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 17:11:04 (GMT)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: Brian Smith and Hal
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
Brian and Hal, what wonderful posts!

Thank you both for writing such honest and lengthy stories. After only(!) ten years in the cult, the breaking free process for me took several years and was pretty traumatic. I cannot imagine what trying to get free of 29 years' involvement must be like. I really applaud and congratulate you both on your courage and honesty in finally seeing this situation for what it is and dealing with it so consciously.

I'm also amazed at how M had conned people into handing over so much money each month. Patrick said he gave about $150 a month for almost 30 years -- if you add that up it's a pretty good downpayment on a house! Grrrrr. . . .

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 14:32:45 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: And thanks for your post too!
Message:
Your wife must be a saint! I particularly like the bit about donating in cash so she didn't know how much you were giving. Any similarities to alcoholism is purely coincidental!

Great post, Brian. Thanks again.

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 21:17:37 (GMT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: And thanks for your post too! YES JHB
Message:
You are absolutely right! Much like alcoholism there really was and is a sick addiction going on with this thing dependant on lies and secrets and of course denial. And yes my wife is a saint, and I have some serious amends to make up to her.
Keep the secret going at all costs, this is the plight of all addictions. Keep up appearances and pretend as if abnormal behavior was/is normal. How normal was it to drop everything else in life and chase a man around the world just for the opportunity to kiss his feet? I think now of even the unsanitary nature of it all and it sickens me amoung other things. And that is just a place to start looking at the weirdness of it all.

The secret here that I refused to acknowledge for years was that M was not the perfect master that I had thought he was. Stepping back and looking at the situation points only to the logical conclusion that this was just one more capitalization on spiritual ignorance.

If God were perfect and he wanted us to experience his perfection why would he encapsulate the only possibility for that experience via an obscure and convuluted imperfect manifestation such as M ? One that simply passed out a few methods of age old meditation techniques and then demanded a lifetime of emotional enslavement and dedication to fullfill his greedy and carnal needs.

Thanks for the knowledge M, I am not sure you ever imagined just how knowledgeable we would eventually get. The secret on you is out and like everyone else if you want to clean up your karma you have some serious amends to make.

Get off of it like Krishnamurti did and redeem what little is left of your so called perfection.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 09:53:06 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
You said: ''My heart left long ago in '84 ; my concepts about 'master' kept me trapped there.''

Ditto and amen. Thank you your post.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 16:14:24 (GMT)
From: Postie
Email: None
To: Hal
Subject: Now and Zen
Message:
Hal sez: 'I was part of something big that would change the world, or so I thought.'

That just about says it all Hal. Great post and here's hoping you contribute more. Every new viewpoint is one more facet in the 'crest jewel of discrimination' that F5 is.

Here's another Ikkyu poem:

Face it,
You're happy
And can only be
Where you are
And who.

Another one:

The mind,-
But if there is really
No such thing as the mind,
With what enlightenment
Shall it be enlightened?

And this one hits home:

These days I’m not bothering about
Getting enlightenment all the time
And the result is
I wake up in the morning feeling fine!


Ikkyu
( Ikkyu Sojun, Crazy Cloud )
( 1394 - 1481 )
According to James Steinberg, in Love of the God-Man, Ikkyu was among the few Zen priests who argued that his enlightenment ('satori') was deepened by consorting with 'pavillion girls'. He entered brothels wearing his black robes, since for him sexual intercourse was a religious rite. Stories of his 'Crazy-Wise' antics are so widespread that he has become a cult folk-hero in modern Japan.

A 'monk' I can relate to.

Postie-san

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 20:17:51 (GMT)
From: hal
Email: None
To: Postie
Subject: More Ikkyu ! Great - thanks Postie nt
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index