Your priceless Bhilni poem.

Where to begin?

I woke-up determined to think of a really funny story to tell you, like the time (as a community coordinator) I tried to skip satsang and borrow a nearby hotel's swimming pool and sauna... except that when I tried to smuggle my bag out of the ashram by tossing it out a window, it landed on the little roof overhanging the main entrance just before all the premies arrived for satsang.

Your quote above about the condition you were in when Prem Rawat put you and hundreds of others in that position without saying a word, without any acknowledgement, apology or so much as a penny of financial assistance after nearly 20% of all ashram income was handed over to him and his organization for an entire decade...

The only difference is in the way we describe it. I've used my "put out on the road * with no job, no money, no car and nothing but my tattered suitcase half full of Maharaji photos and magazines" schtick many times here, but yours's is much more accurate. Ragtag broken misfits with big hearts for sure. For me, however, the courage would come many years later and only as a result of the courage of people like you and others here who came before me.

Your cussing in "red, extra bold, super large font" was a source of great inspiration to me when I was lurking, in part because you were free to do it.

No, there's nothing funny about the devestating and ongoing mental, psychological and even physical harm and abuse suffered by countless ashram (and non-ashram) premies during that heavy devotional era and beyond. And as we now know, Prem's abuse of human beings wasn't limited to that.

Why do I say ongoing harm? The explanation lies in in part by the rationalizations and excuses that some of those premies will surely come-up with - and already have - for Prem and Marolyn's apparent sexual abuse and molestation of their own children as evidenced by Prem, Wadi and Daya's acknowledgement of it in a conversation recorded in 2019.

It might make you smile just a little to know that my photo of toe jam juice surrounded by all my proffered-up bare foot and Krishna crown photos and other cult paraphernalia somehow made it onto Shana Noel Rawat's Facebook page. It's still there, but you have to scroll down about a mile past all her other efforts to expose the cult for what it is. (She must've picked-it up from Prembio's website.)

Thank you so much, Karen. Really the only thing that comes to mind is kindred spirits.

* I even plagiarized that line from the movie Rain Man when Dustin Hoffman said "you put my underwear on the road" after Tom Cruise tossed it out of the top-down convertable they were driving in.