Your comment on 'personal enrichment and self-aggrandizement' got me going.

If someone stumbles onto Prem Rawat these days, they find what seems to be more or less a pleasant message about 'peace' (albeit presented with unremarkable intelligence) with the option to get some meditation tools.  Personally, I am fine with the message that peace is important, and that any meaningful access to peace is 'within'.  I am also fine with practicing meditation and even the techniques he borrowed from very old traditions (at lease as a beginning practice).  I am not fine with him.

Why is it still OK to practicing premies that he got so fecking wealthy?  And why does he continue to live as if he is in fact the Lord of the Universe?  And why is it OK to him that so many of his followers forgo 'bigger' lives for themselves to support him and exhaust their earnings to follow him around?  And so on and so forth.  

There is SUCH a disingenuous, deliberately dishonest disconnect between his public image these days and the images of him remaining within the heads of those that continue their devotion and to support his obscene lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, obscene because it's based on deceiving those that donated his lifestyle.

The bait of devotion to a Godman, and the switch to learning from a peace teacher.  

Nothing new here, but I am really curious as to how old premies rationalize this dynamic.  I am also curious as to how those that are coming to him now perceive him.  Are they seeing him an one would see any sort of new-age spiritual teacher, like say, a Byron Katie, Wayne Dyer, Oprah, etc?  Is the Perfect Master myth still driving the bus for  newcomers?

Love some fresh input on this.

M