Journeys: Robin Reiley

Date: November 14, 2002

Email: robin499@operamail.com

I received knowledge on Sept 21, 1973 in New Haven Ct. My mother had been a premie about a year at this point. She got involved with Maharaji through a close friend named Gerhard who was a language major at Columbia University. He had translated and published the Heart and Diamond Sutras from the original Sanscrit a few years before and was friends with an inlaw of my cousins. He would come up to the Catskill Mountains,(about 20 miles north of Woodstock) to escape the City and visit. He had travelled extensively, living in a monastary in Taiwan, treking the Himalayas, etc. He was and still is a very spiritual soul. Before returning to Germany in the early 80's to raise a family, he snuck into China to do missionary work for Guru Maharaji. It was probably his spirituality that I was drawn to, more than Maharaji's, who of course was not exactly accessible to a 16 year old street kid from upstate New York. There were probably 10 or 12 of us in our little group who were seeking enlightenment in various ways, and Gerhard really felt he had found his true path through Maharaji. My mother attended satsang at various ashrams in the New York area with Gerhard and received knowledge sometime in 72. I was searching very sincerely for truth at this point in my life, having had my dance with drugs, sex and rock and roll and needed something to anchor my life. I started attending satsang at an ashram in Poughkeepsie and made a trip to NYC to hear various speakers, and met Gurucharnanand who had been a disciple of Maharaji's father. He was travelling thru NY and New England visiting the ashrams and I fell in with some gypsie premies who were following him from town to town (kind of like Dead Heads). After a few weeks I ended up in New Haven and received knowledge near Yale University. Gurucharnanand told a story that always stuck with me, and if true may shed light on my next incarnation. He said that if a Mahatma leads you into devotion to a false Perfect Master, then the Mahatma will reincarnate as a snake, and his followers will come back as ants and devour him. I guess that's not so bad as long as you are not the Mahatma! I was going to hitchike back to the Catskills after receiving knowledge,and was looking forward to the adventure, but the Mission was trying to maintain a clean cut image at this point and recomended that I have my mother come and pick me up, which she did. I attended the big shindig at the Astrodome that November and did not see any flying saucers, but I did get to debate with every vocal religious group I can think of who were trying to lure us away from Maharaji to follow their own particular path. There were Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Hari Krishnas, Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses, and probably a lot more groups who were very concerned with our souls. Being young and full of energy, I ended up spending alot of time at the loading docks unloading trucks, and supposedly being on the lookout for some guy who had made a death threat and was supposed to be comming in a Ford station wagon to test Maharaji's immortality in a concrete way. It was here that I started to see the political hierarchy, and ran into the "holier than thou" elite of the movement. Up until then most of my contact had been with the sincere recently converted who were really looking for truth. I started to see the same egotistical,power hungry trips that had led me away from western religion in the first place. I flew back home and gradually lost touch with the organized parts of the scene. I used the techniques for a few years, and watched from the sidelines as the whole thing seemed to unravel around Maharaji. I met a lot of great people during that time who were only looking for the truth, whatever that may be, and who seem to be awakening once again, wondering where this world is heading. We still ask the same questions but are content to have the universe reveal it's secrets on it's own without needing an "Official Certified Spokesperson" to give us the Knowledge.

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