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I'm sure it varies, but I'm interested to hear if anyone has kept up their friendships with premies. I have only one close premie friend, and she's halfway out the door herself. I cannot bear to hear them drool over Rawat and won't put myself in a situation where that's likely to happen. I have a few other social friends, but I can hang with them because they don't talk about it anyway. Today's premies are a lot more "worldly."
And I know there's no use in trying to educate them on the truth unless they're having drips.
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I would have kept friendships with premies.
But as soon it was clear that i was out, i was avoided.
Even those that i considered as real friends or as characters that have an interest beyound the cult didn't want to have contact anymore. A sad story of programmed minds that only hear their master's voice
Toby
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yeah, it was similar for me. Once it was clear I had exited and wasn't staying quiet about it I was actively excised from the flock and saw premies cross the street to avoid me.
And yes, even people who you know are capable of being better friends than that stayed away. Once I was driving down the street and saw a friend and stopped to say hello because we were so fond of each other and I hadn't seen her in ages and I'd temporarily forgotten about the premie thing.
That's when I understood why even good friends had abandoned me because she was frightened - frightened of going to Hell frightened - when she started to enjoy my company.
I still maintain we learnt all about each other on the primary school playground!
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To build on the thread, yes, avoided and excised from the flock. It reminds me of the year before I left when I more boldly started to question what I thought were ridiculous decisions being made by premies in charge of things. "Bob, why are you so negative!?" I'd heard the word so often that I surmised it was a cult code word for going wobbly and falling into the grips of the dreaded "mind." When I left after thirty-four years, almost my entire adult life, my best premie friend who was dating another best premie friend essentially said that we could continue as friends so long as I didn't say anything negative about Rawat. Now, if anyone remembers how they felt in their first month after they left... I concluded that what kind of friendship is it really when almost your entire adult life is off limits for discussion?
Modified by lakeshore at Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 08:17:51
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yes the same for me - I could stay friends if we didn't talk about it but really that didn't work for any of us.
as you say, what kind of friendship is that? stilted, shallow, hurtful after the closeness of the past.
the aussie version of negative was I got told I wasn't a team player. what? did I sign up for a soccer team? JSCA, I replied.
fascinating to think back. That premie then said to me that I didn't understand Maharaji, what he wanted was team players.
Looking back I left as I understood he was right about Rawat but he had stayed! what did he hope to achieve out of that - a position as head coach, extra lemonade at half time? fat chance!
I guess in some disconnected way he must still have believed in Rawat's divinity despite according him his undivinity.
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My guess is that by "team player," he meant mindless, unquestioning and obedient -- "synchronized" -- followers with no room for independent thinking, "personal momentums" or the worst of the lot: bongos or munmuts. Ironic that Rawat resorted to "team training" to coercively threaten premies back into such a sorry state of dependency and submissiveness. Not then and never was for you and the rest of the beautiful people here!
Modified by lakeshore at Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 08:32:06
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thank you Lakeshore, you always understand me so well. I appreciate it so much.
To be fair, the 'team player' is what most people like. It's the way we were taught and I still shudder when I think of learning my times tables at primary school. I'm still not confident of them.
So say there's 90% of the population quite happy with the times tables and 10% that get the shudders. That doesn't mean they're a good idea for any body. it's not 'horses for courses', it's just a bad idea some suffer less from but that doesn't mean there isn't better ways to learn.
I have tested it out with swimming. In the 5 years I did it, every child and adult that came my way benefitted from my abandoning the drills in favour of me just showing them the skill in action. There were a few complaints from children who were most comfortable with being told what to do like they don't have a mind of their own but mainly it would be the other children who would cue them in, and at the minimum we had more fun but I will swear on a stack of bibles that they all achieved better results - more elegant style. Just much better to be in control of your own learning.
But they got there by submitting to my leadership. They had to abandon all notions and let me call the shots. I'd get in the water with them and we'd make our way around the pool as a group and that really is one of the best things - the way that they would help each other without thinking or looking to me first.
It is subtle and extraordinary the interplay of dependency and originality, control and submission.
What I'm trying to say is that we weren't wrong in the way we were, just fooled into being that way with a charlatan.
Modified by lesley at Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 14:46:02
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Thank you for that. After exiting the cult nearly ten years ago, I still need to be reminded that "we weren't wrong in the way se were." In recent posts, I've idealized independence, surely as it relates to reclaiming it from the grips of Rawat and the cult. But it's not as if I ever was a Hollywood depiction of a rugged, independent, strong, self-sufficient hero type in the first place. It reminded me of a significant rationalization for moving into the ashram: what do I have to lose? It's not as if I had much else going for me at the time. (Yes, I'm fully aware that that feeds an excuse Rawat tried to pull and even more aware of how shamelessly baseless that is as an excuse!) And that reminded me of a deep pang of empathy I felt the other day as I was watching a show about religion. First, a knee jerk ugly (for lack of a better word) part of me mocked the followers. But then, observing their faces, it occurred to me that that may be their only source of hope and impetus for carrying on, especially in tragically and horrifically war torn parts of the world that even my own empathy cannot... struggling for a word... touch. What to make of all that? I don't know, and perhaps that's one of the most rewarding feelings I'm left with in my post "Knowledge" life. Indeed, "we weren't wrong in the way we were," and leaving Knowledge takes us right back to that place. What to make of all that (part II): why do I still keep searching for absolutes to cling to?
Modified by lakeshore at Sun, Apr 02, 2017, 06:50:52
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If we weren't born with a whole raft of behavioural stuff to support ingesting food we'd not be born at all. Surely it is even more so for love, don't you think?
When 13 was crossing the Atlantic he said people asked him how he coped with being alone and he'd reply one thing he did was to remember it wasn't going to last for ever. This rugged independent self-sufficient thing is a bit of a myth, I think. We are conversational creatures.
One of the main ways people cope is to talk to God. I remember the joke in my parent's generation was it's alright unless he starts talking back. but where's the fun in that! and where's the companionship where's the love and where's the justice if he doesn't talk back?
we could talk about endorphins but I just think we've got a lot more to learn about how it all happens. and talking endorphins peptides, cells and messengers is more likely to produce a limiting viewpoint rather than a full explanation of the religious experience.
we could talk soul mates, and I do believe, for all the mayhem and mishap, that there is a genuine experience underlying that idea. One thing we are learning more and more now we are getting older is there is a lot more to life than meets the eye. Tho funnily enough it is good observation that shows us that.
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"One of the main ways people cope is to talk to God. I remember the joke in my parent's generation was it's alright unless he starts talking back." I was more or less kindly criticized when I admitted to still doing just that with the understanding that I was talking to a fantasy, an imagination. Okay... I still do that! I talk to some... "other," and the words do come back. The difference is that I know I was the one who planted those words that come back to me. That's a backhanded way of declaring relative normalcy. Who doesn't carry on internal dialogues with themselves? And I do talk back to myself! Even a sailor would be embarrassed to call me the names I sometimes call myself. It helps to put me back into my place. The more important part of your post was this: "One thing we are learning more and more now we are getting older is there is a lot more to life than meets the eye. Tho funnily enough it is good observation that shows us that." First, that really helps to put me back into my place -- recognizing how very little I actually know (if anything... in case 13 catches this  ). Secondly, it's only because I'm out of the "knowing" cult that allows me to open my eyes and accept the beauty, human condition and poignancy of not knowing. This thread strikes me as all about reconnecting to everything lost, sacrificed and suppressed while I was a premie.
Modified by lakeshore at Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 07:03:24
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"This thread strikes me as all about reconnecting to everything lost, sacrificed and suppressed while I was a premie."
yes it is, isn't it. 
I remember hearing this man talking on the abc radio in the studio one day. years ago now this is, when we were in the thick of exiting. What caught my attention is him saying if you think you're crazy for having a conversation in your head well you're not. Everybody does.
They have those nice colourful images of the brain where they can see how first one side then the other side lights up. Apparently the faster it is the better your coordination and the slower it is the longer the thought you can sustain.
But when God talks back then that's an added something to talking to yourself. It's talking to someone else. Are you sure you know you planted the words that come back to you?
One of those phenomena that commonly occurs is oh well one incident was my mum was out in the centre of London having dinner with the in-laws when she got up from the table and said she had to get back home, I needed her. And indeed I had been knocked down by a speeding car outside the house. It must have taken a lot of guts to act on that. A lot. Whereas these days if you live round here and you got up from dinner saying you had to leave, your child needed you, they'd just think that was normal behaviour.
It's not that it's a new phenomenon, maybe after the war people wanted not to listen for a while. God, we've been a lucky generation.
anyway so there we are as premies, believing that if we can't have a conversation in our head with Rawat we are substandard premies. And yet really the stuff I have had the hardest time with is the memories of the times when i thought I did have a conversation. In my imagination over time he morphed out of the 'Maharaji' I believed him to be into a capricious monster. Maybe I really was listening to him!  !!
Mainly, I've tended to think it was an intuitive warning - all the stuff i must have subconsciously picked up about Rawat coming up in my imagination. But really the stuff that happens. And it's always with hindsight you go oh I should have listened to my intuition. I don't know exactly what to think these days.
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I tried and I tried to help friends escape but w/the exception of one my attempts failed. He had experienced a major drip and expressed it to me. I told him I'd tell him what I think if he really wanted to know. He said yes and never attended a cult event again on local or national level. We remain in contact to this day.
Other than that, my attempt to warn other friends turned out to be the big squadoosh. A few are willing to talk on the most superficial level. They even call or email me. Most though, want nothing to do with me. Rather difficult for those who have bought into this crap for 40+ years to have the honest conversation w/themselves.
Some I know seem to embrace Rawat but have done their own spinoff like yoga.
Other t
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I don't even try to discuss leaving the guru unless they ask me a direct and answerable question. It's too much like that awful cringe-making "propagation" we were urged to do.....remember that ? ....and the awful feelings that went with it.
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I lived in a premie cult house (not an ashram) for a few years. One night after satsang, we went home only to have some Mormons come to our door. Talk about cringe. A part of me knew both sides were full o' crap.
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My Friendship "test" is I show the techniques in public ( its just yoga anyway ).
If they say anything against me, or even try to stop me. Then I know they put the GuGu above me and its probably time to part ways
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