What was going on in my life, why I received the big K, the new premies I met, where I lived, what I was thinking etc.

It was a crazy, exciting time, not unlike today in some respects.

My friends brother gave me satsang because he knew I was interested in meditation. I was impressed initially by charanand, who seemed to be genuinely peaceful. I actually told someone that I wouldn't mind making him my guru rather than the kid guru.

Anyway, after about a month of daily satsang, I was deemed ready and charanand initiated me.

Within a few months I was in a divine light center which then became an ashram. We were told to hang tight and give everything to the cause in anticipation of the big millennium festival in Houston that fall.

Millennium came and went. Overall, it was a rather lackluster event and a huge disappointment. We came back to the ashram and were told that big changes were underway and that Joan Apter would be visiting us soon and would fill us in.

Joan visited and told us it was "time to decide"! There was going to be a complete housecleaning of the ashrams. Rawat wanted to separate the "wheat from the chaff" and was clearing out the dead wood from the ashrams.

Now I always thought Joan was a fanatic from the beginning, a "true believer" for sure. And an opportunist for sure. I saw how she manipulated her way through the DLM world, always angling to get near rawat, sing the big song, give the big satsang etc. She was one of the original DLM superstars and milked it for all it was worth. 

But the satsang she gave us that day was one to remember. She told us if we were in the ashram that rawat, through his instructors, would move us around in some sort of mystical, unseen way. If we stayed in, it was all or nothing. Rawat might move us the next day across the country. Or we might stay in the same sorry house we were living in for the rest of our lives. I was painting houses at the time, and I was told that if rawat wanted me to paint houses and be the paint scraper for the rest of may life, I should be ready to accept that and be happy. It was all his grace. 

I was told to forget about any relationships, even friendships, for the rest of my life. No kids, no grandkids. No college, no career, nothing more than the 10 cents we had in our pocket the housefather gave us for a phone call. Forget about my parents or other family members.

It was me and rawat, and whatever the ashram structure told me to do.If an instructor or a DLM honcho told me to do something, it was rawat's direction, and I should feel lucky to have it.

It was at that point, in the middle of this ridiculous woman's heavy satsang that I realized not only that she was absolutely crazy, but that I could never go along with this agenda completely.

There was something about her presence and delivery that raised red flags all over the place.

I was getting something from the meditation, but this lady was clinically insane!

I decided in the middle of her talk that I would be leaving the ashram soon, and go back to college.

Because I have always had good experiences with yoga and meditation, I went to a school and started to tell people about meditation. Some students received knowledge and we had a very nice little community. It was congenial and friendly. 

But every time an instructor came through town, it got so weird! People worshipping rawat's socks, charanamrit, steamrolling over other premies to get near rawat, "heavy"satsang, idiotic satsang at times...

So, I guess I can thank Joan's fanaticism and obsession with helping me see early on that I needed to take a lot of what I heard with a big grain of salt. She is clearly someone in need of lots of therapy!

Over the years I watched her bully premies, drain the savings of a sisters ashram to buy a dress to go see rawat, say idiotic things in satsang, make a fool of herself at the residence and be made fun of consistently by rawat.

I have never liked her very much, as I though she was a hypocritical opportunist.

But I do have to thank her for one thing: she showed me early on that DLM's power structure was filled with a lot of power trippers and that I should never get caught up too much in what they said. I could never give myself completely to it and that has made all of the difference in the world.

I still enjoy meditation, but am so glad that I departed about 30 years later. 

The final "drip" for me was when I heard rawat say in the early 2000's that he never said that he was the perfect master, it was crazy premies from the 70's. That was it, I was out. And the fact that I was never able to completely drink the rawat-aide was in part, due to Joan's nuttiness. So, it wasn't all bad...