I'm not as nice as Jasper though I was a lot nicer when I was younger. I'm not as smart as Roark though I'm a lot smarter than I was in 1973. I'm more level-headed than FK and probably always was. I don't understand these TED Farkel references.
I first saw something about DLM (not in the media) when coming out of the movies where a double header was playing with a movie about the great rock and rollers - Little Richard, Chuck Berry, etc and Godspell. Being religious though non-Christian I was surprisingly moved by Godspell and came out singing "Day by day, day by day, Oh dear Lord three things I pray ..." but under my breath. There was a poster on the bus shed across the road saying something like "I Can Show You God!" It was very poorly designed but well pasted. I came to understand that dichotomy later. "Show you God? That would be nice," I thought "To see Thee more clearly ..." However I didn't jaunt off to satsang until later when a friend suggested it.
When we first came to satsang in the 70s we had 2 very young children and would alternate our time in the nursery and in the hall - never leaving our kids alone. We noticed that few fathers spent time in the nursery as they had "more important service." There were some mothers who left their children alone, often crying, and there were more whose children were always crying because their mothers believed they needed to fast or eat a 100% vegan diet and they were always hungry. Straightaway we could see that down at the back, DLM was not as shiny as up at the front.
We could come early to settle the children and the nursery also doubled as an informal "satsang to the troubled" area. There always seemed to be some premies emotionally troubled, relationship break-ups, back-sliding, using drugs or crazy (slightly or more so) and other premies would be giving one on one, heart-to-heart, full-eye contact, tongue-back-in-mouth (but not when they were talking) satsang to them. There were more premies requiring this type of satsang than giving it.
With hindsight we should have said "Let's get out of here and stay out. This Knowledge is not doing what it's claimed it can do. Our normal wide range of friends, family and acquaintances are far more together than this lot." In decades of associating with premies I never knew this percentage to change and those people in need of help stayed in need of help and the helpers remained helpers though they lost at least some of their verve and most of both groups disappeared over time.
Our problem was that we concentrated on the inspiring, the beautiful premies, the dedicated and the shining eyes even though these were a minority. We could see no direct link between those with administrative authority in DLM and those with (for want of a better word) spiritual authority, they weren't necessarily the same people. There was more than one hierarchy. We concentrated (oh yes we did a lot of concentration) on those premies who inspired us and as we initially had come to satsang without any major problems we enjoyed the ride for a few years and overlooked, excused, explained away and ignored the obvious fact that DLM was not what it claimed to be or what we hoped. We should never have become involved and we should have left but once we were both involved we could never openly discuss our fears, our doubts and our disagreements. She loved darshan and all the excitement. I actually saw him in darshan as he really was. I don't mean in a high falutin' way but just as you'd judge any phony. This was a problem and for a time I would become one of the premies needing one-on-one satsang. Also, there wasn't a lot of time with nightly satsang, 2 hours meditation, work and toddlers and there were some shocks along the way that we basically ignored.
He got married at 14 to a 30 year old woman. I exaggerate but surely not as much as those premies who got up in satsang and said they truly thought this was a wonderful Lila that showed Maharaji was really marrying all of us. Mata Ji, the Divine Mother, disowned him on April Fools Day. Wow. Try to understand the cosmic ironies in that. Maybe it was what all the premies kept talking about - a Lila. Why were all the Lilas bad? Why weren't there lilas where Guru Mahahaj Ji donated his wealth to the poor in Bihar? Why weren't there lilas where droughts were broken when Guru Maharaj Ji gave satsang? Why did Lilas always have to excuse poor behaviour rather than exalt miracles? Time passed. The ashrams closed. But everyone in the ashrams had shining eyes and loved dedicating their lives to Guru Maharaj Ji, didn't they?
As time went on my wife and I did discuss our disagreements ie we argued. Decades later, long divorced, the once great divisions between devotion/non-attachment, meditation/television, dedication/security, never delay in attending satsang/children come first, festivals/mortgage are forgotten with only a residue of bitterness. It was the extreme dedication of a few premies and, I'm ashamed to say, my own recklessness that got us involved in DLM against all common sense. Eventually I began to see premies in a clearer light and realised the Knowledge was going nowhere.
Still I've been surprised at the later twists and turns and debacles that the renamed Prem Rawat has produced but I'm pretty sure if we met he'd point out that he's got the expensive clothes, the expensive cars, the expensive jet plane and a TV in every toilet.
My aunt says the fish rots from the head, she was a restaurateur.
