|
|
|
A few days ago I was going for a walk with a good friend. We were briefly discussing the exiting from the cult , I mentioned the forum and a few things I read here in the beginning that made the exit decision easy.I mentioned that prem the infallible had run over a cyclist and accidentally killed him, while getting a loyal and brainwashed premie from India to take the rap.
It's like gang recruiting methods- she said What? You know they do something terrible and if you want to be a member of the gang you take the rap for something you didn't do or otherwise implicate yourself in a dangerous or undesirable situation...by doing something terrible... such is your belief
Gosh, I'd never thought of it that way before. Do you think prem has something in mind for those he's recruiting in prison?
|
|
|
|
|
Keep with it Suzy. I'm irritated as they all, including good friends,people I love, went off for a get together ,including a silent auction. My 70 year old friend on the phone as we talked was struggling with what to donate. " A new crock pot? or this or that painting" I feel the shame, but helplessness from them all, but after 4 decades + in, can't quit. I'm trying to be gentle, thus not push it, as I love them all. I guess it's the same as Fentanyl, but won't kill ya.I'm trying not to have emotions over it, but that is hard for me.
|
|
|
|
Yes Auggie, It's hard not to have a reaction to the pitiful prison of beliefs, based on the flawed idea that prem rawat is something!!!what? who is he? ask them Do they admit he's the lord of the universe? No, probably not out loud. Not to someone who doesn't already 'know' that secret fact
But they probably also find a bit of a gap with believing that his sole purpose for arriving on the planet was to save our souls, you know, 'peace ambassador' - while having to suppress his obvious importance and worshipful qualities because the ordinary folk won't get it.
He stopped saying a long while ago that he was the living master of the time but he hasn't stopped them all from thinking it, in fact he introduces enough key words to keep the illusion going and going and going, just long enough to get the bequests written up. ( btw is there a way I can leave him my debts?)
Never mind the unenlightened, the ones who dont recognise his amazing powers, they will also benefit from his talks, how can they fail to? because of course they are listening to the divine incarnation of wisdom and THE knowledge of ages. The large majority find nothing in him that is remarkable though.
meanwhile he and they continue to promote him as the poster boy of 'peace', as if anything he has ever said or done since starting this gig more than 50 years ago has had ANY impact on peace on the planet? His version of peace is called HEAD IN THE SAND peace. ignore, ignore, ignore ... I wonder how long it can go on for?
From a practising premies point of view .........It is really hard to see that someone you thought LOVED you 1.Doesn't even know you (not secret inner workings, either) 2.Has never, ever given the tiniest shit about you 3. Has kept just the right distance and closeness to provide a screen for your projections and just enough ambiguity in his words to have you believe what you want to believe. 4. Has manipulated you and others into dedicating their lives and bank accounts in order to bring any good resources you will be willing to give to the embodied lover of mankind,.... to him, because he's doing a good impersonation so far and btw shhhh
it's basically a bit of a shock. Because love, because money, because pride and the falseness of it, because waste of time and effort , because I have been betrayed
His argument against the exes, or the words I heard from various premies while still in the cult, funny that it was practically verbatim, so it must have been handed down... were... Some people have had disappointments in life and hold M responsible, they are bitter because things didn't work out the way they expected. That's his out. Typical narc technique
|
|
|
|
"His version of peace is called HEAD IN THE SAND peace. ignore, ignore, ignore ... "
So true SuzyQ To this I will add: head in the clouds. Based on a memory of the imagery I did carry in my own head. I recall also a precise personal situation, very difficult, which would have required seeking help, taking action. Instead I did have this image of flying on an higher plane, above it all. That I should not step down to the level of the low stabbing I was subjected to.
Nothing in my pratice of so called Knowledge, did bring me ability to handle better the challenges of life other than a strategy of avoidance. I am aware that as human beings we deal with things differently. Trauma as far I can see having a paralyzing effect.
Being in the cult disempowered me further. Created a vicious circle. Where I would seek refuge in meditation, the laundry room ( hehe ), going to satsangs, events etc... actually aggravating a situation which required muscled intervention.
Did I feel peaceful as a result of this strategy? Of course not. In fact the rollercoaster got wilder and wilder. With no help whatsoever from Rawat and his K.
Delusion, grand delusion is what comes to my mind now in regard to all of this. I was so deluded!
As far as R saying that exes are bitter because of life challenges they blame on him... Yes life can be challenging. No am not bitter. But yes I do blame R for taking me on this foolish costly ride of serving him, sucking my focus into a lot of nothing! Brainwashing me, manipulating me. Narrowing down my experience of life, my choice of responses. Making me believe that we were it and the rest of the world a despicable lost ignorant bunch. When in fact I was the one kept in ignorance in his cheesy cult.
Modified by Inis at Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 23:06:22
|
|
|
|
I tried to read him a little of your post on the phone, but he hung up. He said "I just had a wonderful weekend retreat with 25 PWK's and doesn't want to hear anything from a bunch of crazies." I am now inclined to not attend the annual reunion BBQ at his house for the staff of the PWK owned restaurant I worked at for 23 years. Last time I was cringing anyway overhearing the recollections of blissfulness of being sprayed with colored water in Florida way back when.
|
|
|
|
I hear you really. And can well imagine what position it does put you in if you hang out with them on an occasion like a barbecue.Painful. Does not mean they are bad people. I was a staunch one when I was in it! And don't consider I was a bad person. But deluded yes. Fanatical yes. Brainwashed yes. Blind and cut off from my reasoning power yes.
I personally don't see much point in trying to convince a premie still in it, or for that matter anyone involved in a cult of any sort, that they could see things differently. If time comes for them to question their creed and involvement, then let them inquire. This image is coming in my mind of a small animal, a mole(?), sticking their little nose out in the open air, and seeing hey there is a whole world out there, smelling fresh and looking green. If I was to put my hand in their hole trying to bring them out, I dont think it would do much good 
Way back, after I left, I got a very agressive reaction from a premie. Maybe it was a bit my fault really. We were on the phone, and I asked " are you still in it? " Maybe not too tactful. He flew off the board!
More recently I did meet once with another premie to see an exhibit he had organized. A beautiful one by the way. He did not ask me anything.
We tackled the subject of an influential someone we both knew from the past. Not a premie at all. And it was clear that there too, his positioning was denial, denial denial.
Head in the sand as says SuzyQ
What to do? At times as human beings , we dont want to be challenged in the comfort of our beliefs I can recognize I have been there.
I find it a total pain though to be around people in that stage.
Modified by Inis at Mon, Jun 26, 2017, 22:29:35
|
|
|
|
It is true that there is also that aspect. Having to let go of friends. Well maybe that is not at all what you want to do. Since you express having strong bonds of love with your premie friends. In any case, it seems that relating to them brings on pain.
When I left the cult, which I did alone like probably many, that was the next layer. After realizing I could not stand Rawat and his wishwash talks any longer, I still mourned being around what felt to me like extended family. I ran a couple of hosting houses in Malibu, and in spite of the hardships, there were also good times and partying and laughing. Lots of premies went thru these 2 places. And we did bond no doubt. All of a sudden, all this was gone.
And it is not as there were immediate replacements. In fact having been "away" from regular life on earth did not make it easy to merge back. I felt like another specie.
And maybe looked like one too? Who knows.
What is sure is that at the beginning and for quite a while, the connection was difficult to say the least. I did shut up mostly. How do you explain to people you' ve just been on such a ride for years! Plus all the rest of it...
Modified by Inis at Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 06:30:15
|
|
|
|
'How do you explain to people you've just been on such a ride for years! '
Once upon a time we imagined we were special, devotees of the lord of the universe, knowers of his secret knowledge.
The longer I've been out of the cult the less extraordinary it seems. It was one cult amongst very many (when I realised it was a cult, I remember thinking that at least it wasn't the Moonies, which is clearly crazy, as if the cult I'd just left was mitigated by being somehow more reasonable or logical!). How many cults are there? I don't know where to draw the line between a cult and a religion. And I regard many aspects of nationalism and sport to be rather cultish too.
I met a fellow a couple of weeks ago who on hearing of the sudden death of a friend immediately quit the job he'd been doing for the last thirty years, with the idea he didn't want to waste even one more day on it. Some people wake up to the unpleasant realisation that their partner isn't at all that lovable, and is perhaps a bit of a bastard, and everything changes for them.
I think leaving the cult isn't after all so unusual or unique. Many people have experiences that are similar in some ways. OK, there were some fairly unique features in our experience, but maybe they're not the important features.
I do remember feeling like I rejoined the human race, only later to think, actually, I never left it. The ability to believe nonsense, a suseptabilty to being deceived and manipulated, a willingness to suspend our critical faculties... we're all full of it, or at least most of us are. It's a big part of the human experience.
One consolation of having been in a cult of thousands though, is that we have each other. Which has got to be easier than waking up to a long held delusion that was all yours and yours alone.
|
|
|
|
Thanks for that beautiful explanation.I agree the process is made 100 times easier by having this forum and each other.
Long held delusions are painful and yes probably an essential part of waking up to ones own humanity and our part in it
All we have to give ourselves and each other is love and acceptance and respect in the end.
Sometimes it seems to have been a rather complicated route for such a simple conclusion
|
|
|
|
It was a late night post, fiddling about with my phone.
I was really just trying to make the case that our stepping out of the cult isn't such a unique and strange experience. I don't want to diminish the harm done by Rawat in his practise of 'cheat and deceit' - his charade has radically changed the course of many people's lives leaving most of them financially much worse off, he has wrecked families with his demands for devotion to him alone, he has harboured other criminals - the now familiar list goes on.
And yet it's nothing compared to having belonged to ISIS, or the Lord's Resistance Army or living somewhere like N Korea (might sound a far fetched comparison, but they're people too, the luckiest of whom might come to recognise their delusion). Zooming out, there's the manipulation of masses by religion and political ideologies, and zooming in there's the manipulation of vulnerable people by family and 'friends'. And then there are even more invisible memes such as consumerism - how many people's lives are twisted by their requirement to own the biggest, latest, must-have thing? Or the greatest experience? Or something at least to post on Facebook? I heard an old woman on the radio who had had her savings ripped off by a young fellow posing as an insurance salesman. It took a while for her to take in that all her money had gone, and then, that she didn't actually have any insurance cover, and then, she became concerned over the young man's welfare on account of him seeming to her such a nice young man. You could see the scales falling from her eyes, but slowly, and not all of them.
We can do our best to recognise how we've been duped, but it would be a mistake to think it unusual, and complacent to think we're immunised by our experience.
|
|
|
|
doesn't it stack up well with time. I liked watching the video - weren't we a scary looking lot pouring out into the streets!
"We can do our best to recognise how we've been duped, but it would be a mistake to think it unusual, and complacent to think we're immunised by our experience."
yeah. exactly. well actually your whole post again. Reading it puts my experiences into context in a very comforting way.
Old people get targeted even more than the rest of us and I think the thing is the hurt to their feelings. I am taking some really nice pumpkin soup over when I visit Pat today.
|
|
|
|
It does stack up well, but watching the vid I was reminded of how little I was concerned about any of that, once safely inside the Divine Light Mission bubble. The other thing, not something recognised then or now by those of us fortunate to not have experienced it, is that for the many Americans who ended up in Vietnam, not this particular song maybe, but a lot of the rest from that time, is war music.
They have a different emotional response to it & often can't bear to hear music from that era. I have this on good authority from someone who was there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM8ix0siRVQ&index=7&list=RDInRDF_0lfHk
Modified by PatD at Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 22:52:36
|
|
|
|
I have been listening to the songs - The Animals, The Doors, The Rolling Stones - what a collection, and it reminded me too of how I thought and felt and really it is summed up in the slogan Make love not war that comes through so strongly in those songs and the videos with them, I really felt like that. I remember seeing the odd Vietnam vet in the corner of the room getting tanked and looking like they were caught in a storm and I was too young to understand what it was like for them.
At 18 I went and studied ceramics and I was in the kiln room, it was time to go home but I was watching the kiln and maybe it was getting close to temperature I don't remember but the teacher came in and I remember how he'd checked, and was about to go when he groaned and slid down the wall til he was sitting on the floor in front of the kiln where I was. He told me he was a vet from the Korean war (I didn't even know what that was at the time) and he told me he had been walking through a village and heard a noise and got very scared and started shooting and then he saw it was an old lady with a donkey - poor man, I started to understand a little bit.
So yes, soon after that I was safely hoovered up into Prem's bubble of delusion but I never lost that sense of the way forward that we shared as a generation - make love not war - you could just about say that's why I became a premie, as soon as I realised Rawat was a fakester, I walked.
So tho we were in a cult I still feel that we were a good bunch of people in the main and maybe from my perspective anyway, the best. make love not war was a good call.
Tho I have to say my little group of grannies yesterday said the worst thing the young women of our generation faced up to was the free sex thing that came with it.
|
|
|
|
I used to really like the Who, Floyd, Leonard Cohen, John Marytn and many others. Now, I almost never listen to music. Occasional live jazz or classical. It feels like intrusive noise. I've considered ear defenders when I'm shopping. I added that link because it seemed an appropriate addition to my post that I felt was becoming laboured and over-bearing. Later, I tried listening to it, but only got halfway.
I met a lot of Vietnam vets when I was hitching in the US. A lot of them were OK for money, but couldn't settle, and would drive long distances to visit other vets, but often found their company too hard to bear for long. So there were quite a few driving about. Most weren't talking about Vietnam, but a few opened up and spilled some grim stories.
|
|
|
|
yes, me too. I haven't listened to music much for quite a long time, so it was a very enjoyable treat to listen to all those songs - The Who, The Animals and The Doors were favourite bands so I thought I'd listen on. By the time I got to Can't Get No Satisfaction by the Stones I was grooving away! wonderful.
|
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm completely out of tune with people who have to have music playing constantly in the background of their lives. That's a lot of people but there we are. I find now & again is much better.
One of the most interesting stories I heard about Vietnam, interesting from the pov of human nature & how loyalty works that is, pretty grim as you say otherwise, so I'll leave out the gory details, was what happened when 100 or so marines got cut off & besieged without food & water for 5 days on a hilltop.
The army sent helicopters to rescue them, but the pilots kept on bottling out at the last moment because it was too dangerous. Every now & then one of them would get shot down on the way back. The guys on the hillside cheered when that happened & cursed the pilots, not the NVA.
Counter intuitive you might say.
Finally, 2 helicopters made it, but they were from the marine corps not the army, & one of them contained an unarmed general in an immaculate uniform, who went to the highest & most exposed point on the hill, without a helmet & with a telephone to each ear. He had a bodyguard of 15 men around him who stood with rifles pointed towards the totally fucked up men waiting to be rescued, saying 'stand back from the general'.
Then he called in the airforce to provide distraction & got everyone out in marine corps helicopters which didn't turn back.
The guy who told me this said that if that general had then told them he wanted to be the King of New York & would they back him by force of arms, then they would've done so without question.
I'm getting interested in ideas around cultural evolution these days, though it's a topic frowned on by the strictly scientific Darwinists. Loyalty for its own sake is a big thing with the remaining premies it seems to me, maybe the only thing, I don't know.
Here's some music for you to dip into. Seeing as you're a man who's gone down to the sea, you might like to contemplate the picture that goes with it. At first sight it appears to be 3 strange alien figures in an apocalyptic landscape, but closer inspection reveals 2 well dressed ladies watching boats set sail, with an old man in a broken down unfashionable hat behind.
On even closer inspection, they aren't setting sail, they're coming back.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this so I'll leave it there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1uvYdW8MSk
Modified by PatD at Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 22:38:41
|
|
|
|
First thing that strikes me is those boats are sailing downwind onto a lee shore. There's no anchorage, just surf.
Either the painter knew nothing about sailing, (and leaving the topsails up in the closest boat is odd) or he was depicting a deliberate stranding or he didn't care about the story the picture tells, just the colours and shapes and intrigue.
|
|
|
|
I very much appreciate your post 13And agree that having a place such as this forum is so helpful. Am also very greateful to be here now. Circumstances do vary though. When I did ex ( since that is the terminology used, and not " left " as I have been writing so far" ), well then it was out of the question for me to join EPO for personal situational reasons. So it was indeed a very lonely experience.
I do agree that waking from any deluded situation has great similarities. All these good realizations do come with time though. And reflection. The actual process is quite foggier for what I recall.
So no we are not unique but each process is. And, often I bet, it is not easy..
While am at it...I dont know that we were less insane that the Moonies. Dont know much about them except for their reputation. Premies did not acquire such notoriety with the general public. So maybe we did not make it to the obvious label of crazies..not sure it makes the whole thing less coockoo
Cheerio!
Modified by Inis at Thu, Jun 29, 2017, 01:41:08
|
|
|
|
Your were very much more involved personally than me, and most posters here. For me, I was already distanced from the cult to a large extent, and had little to do with premies. So on finding EPO, it was for me more a case of ejecting half-redundant broken 'philosophy'. I appreciate your own situation was much closer up to the source of it all, and your personal situation all wrapped up in it. Well done so far eh? You're just about done I imagine. Good for you. Yes, each process has its' unique aspects, and we all have our own peculiar difficulties...
I was joking about the Moonies being crazier. It was just that I caught myself thinking, 'At least I was in a good cult..' before realising how absurd that was. I think Rawatism had nothing positive about it except many of the people involved, and the fact that it was relatively insipid and benign compared to a few other cults (ISIS, LRA, Waco, Scientology). We were screwed up and lost, and it's hard to say we were screwed up in a good way, and lost in a good place.
|
|
|
|
Yes, in the 70's, when people would question us about M and K, we would sometimes point out how different we were than the moonies. Sort of "cult-light" although we never said that to anyone. We did point out to people that new religions were traditionally called cults until they became established.
I was just remembering doing propagation. I would say to people that they had to come to that satsang every night in order to receive K. The reactions I got from people were often times hilarious. EVERY NIGHT? EVERY SINGLE NIGHT? That's crazy! Looking back, I see that I went every night because I really wanted the mythology to be true. Could this really be true? All these people seem to think so.
|
|
|
|
I was not aware he was doing this, having been away from his activities for a long time.
It is indeed scary. Since we all know that he always squeezes people into something for his benefit, one can wonder what he expects from these guys.
|
|
|
|
It's called PEP or peace education programeeek
|
|
|
|
He does it because he seeks 'legitimacy'. He always has, right back to when he was a teenager, hasn't he always been a teenager in the mind of his followers, & was getting the freedom of American cities, arranged by them.
He doesn't want anything from the prisoners themselves, what he wants is the recognition from their jailers, & from them to the powers that be, that he might have a solution to an impossible problem.
KUDOS.....that's what he wants.
|
|
|
|
Yes that's true, absolutely, he's a suave business investor, pilot, peace ambassador,guru, keys to the city, UN speaker, etc, man of many masks, he wants kudos from them ALLand he wants to think he does change lives I imagine. coz cognac doesn't help with sleeping, only passing out.
Maybe he believes his secret techniques ( i mean out there on the internet techniques) are enough to solve all those issues? Meanwhile I've heard him say many times knowledge wont solve your problems? They better get used to the cognitive dissonance early, but trauma can do that to you so he might get a higher strike rate there than in the general population, and hey they're already in prison so illusory freedom is good enough right?
He did change my life. Just not in a way I could have forseen My primary outlook was limited to a very narrow perspective, focus on him.
After my last, the very last ever! relationship with a narcissist - I can say one of the enduring shocks is realising just how much further beyond what I think they're capable of a narcissist can go.
This realisation comes again and again as more and more of the truth reveals itself. The realisation needs repeating to get beyond the total disbelief !
All I know is they do not think like me. Ever.
|
|
|
|
When you have a relationship with a narcissist you aren't really, you're talking to their sock puppet.
If you think of a person as fuelled by emotional energy, then just enough juice is going into the sock to make it happen and the real person is standing next door having entirely different feelings, hidden from view by the sock puppet.
scary but true. When you finally meet the real person it's often enough to make you want to run a mile - it's not that you don't sense them there but you know, well at first you're charmed, and I can see how without realising it's even happening to you from the inside of it, you end up doing what they want not because you are charmed any more, more likely bothered, but because you don't want to upset them.
|
|
|
