so I'm hoping they get over it soon.  

The fascinating thing that I have noticed this time around keeping chickens is the sublime state they go into when they lay an egg.  It is touching and spreads an aura around which I think contributes to their happiness and all round them.  Hopefully a few days of egg-laying will lay the python fear to rest.

cults are indeed like that.  It strikes me too - the way that python mesmerises terrorises and takes over their nest.  

Eek! to the canoe story.  When I was a child I dreamed one night that there was a pit of snakes under my bed and so I used to jump into bed from a metre away - never once got bit.

People who live by absolutes are absolutely deluded, absolutely dangerous. I'm absolutely sure of it.

I heard recently that Prem has lost his pilots license after having stroke/s. Knowing that was one of the only REAL accomplishments he has achieved in his life, this loss has to be a bitter pill for Prem. I may be a mite small and petty, but this gives me joy! 

He may be able to take that blue pill to continue molesting minors, but he cannot undo the damage his drinking has done to his health. I see the ants lining up to eat this snake. I hope the poison within him doesn't  poison the little ants!

Sorry if I was excessively gross and explicit. But he is excessively horrible.

Karen.

I think one of the reasons I enjoy reading here, is hoping to hear bad news about prem. Specifically, I have always hoped to hear that he had a stroke or something else physically debilitating. I could never cause harm to another person, even him, but I can certainly enjoy the karma that must be his after all his evil.  So, good news day!

With his decades of extravagance and particularly with that jet, the man has burned through millions in well-intentioned donations and loads of legacies that could have gone to far more useful causes. All to allow him to burn 1000's of tons of fuel high up in the atmosphere, causing far more damage to the climate than most people could manage if they lived to be a thousand years old. And all of that just to keep his donors onside and try to recruit a few more to believe in his completely fake and worthless 'Knowledge'.

And now he's 66, and was likely to have lost his pilot's license one way or another anyway.

His eventual demise will just leave a legacy of great harm and injustice, and I would get much greater satisfaction from people recognising that more than I would from any suffering that may be coming his way.

But I am with you emotionally. I really want him to live long enough that the spotlight of the truth is well known to the general public and hence all his followers, former followers, and families,  and he’s had to look into many faces and been in many situations and face it. We know quite well, because we have seen it on film, because like so many cult leaders he loves to be filmed, that he will blame others. prem bio has video of him blaming the mahatmas and the premies for what he has had to deal with, the stigma, they created for him that he has had to face. No doubt he’ll find a new scapegoat. So I don’t think hope of real regret is any part of what he would feel. He would give the appearance of a shamestorm if that’s what would engender sympathy from someone he is manipulating. I don’t think he is capable of genuine shame. If he is able to have a modicum of self doubt, he knows how to anesthetise that pesky emotion.

My fantasy isn’t the snake or the ants. But it is accountability. I don’t have much faith in the justice system. Sometimes it works but it often fails. But I wouldn’t mind seeing it go to a jury of outsiders as Keith Raniere or the Apostles of La Luz Del Mundo or Warren Jeffs. 

It’s helping others to see the truth. Let them live in the light of the truth. Be freed from the crap. That no domestic violence court, public school, prison would want to be associated with him, even the watered down version that is PEP. Maybe some parent of a child in a school with  PEP realizes something akin to what the TM parents did and sues the district? Maybe others see that and say hell no we won’t take this risk? Maybe some parent will think better of leaving their money to TPRF and give it to their own children. 

I just meant I don't believe he'll get what he 'deserves', and I don't believe the justice system can nab him. And at 66, his inability to fly a plane is a small loss which was probably due anyway.

No, I would get more satisfaction from more people seeing through his charade, and seeing him for who he is, and as you say, they will then no longer want to be associated with him.

They tried to bury us they didn’t know we were seeds. On the other hand- Monsanto. 

Justice does happen once in a while. I cited a few examples. But have been reading a lot about the “cultiverse” there are plenty of cults. and many cases of no justice at all. 

What did someone say.. one day maybe I will wake up and not be naive?

More hugs to you. 

When I first moved here I found a stand of bamboo that had been planted on top of the underground creek.  Pile of rocks, no way I can dig it out so I resort to Roundup.  Back then I was still able to convince myself I wasn't using a poison, the idea being that it killed the plant but became inert as soon as it touched the soil.  I don't believe that any more.  

Anyway I did get rid of the bamboo and then for years I piled composting branches on the spot in an act of expiation and finally I planted an avocado tree - loved getting a good crop last year so much I have planted more avocados, but lost my fruit set this year, possibly too much chicken poo. 

Much as I am glad I killed the bamboo (I had imaginings of bamboo thickets coming up down Marshalls Creek), I don't think I could use Roundup again, I found the applicator bottle in the shed yesterday and threw it in the bin.  All that yummy plastic waste.  Do we really still hope that plastic-eating bacteria is going to develop and eat it all?  I'm hoping for a new Ice Age, I think it might be kinder - I don't want to meet those plastic-eating bacteria after they've pigged out on the landfill.

The reason for coal is that trees fell down and died before bacteria that eat lignin and cellulose evolved. So it just piled up, went black and waited for us to invent firelighters. These days there's plenty of stuff that eats lignin and cellulose, so I guess there isn't much new coal being made.

So there is some hope, and some signs, that plastic eating bacteria are developing. Could be a new problem down the line, but it would be nice if they started eating the stuff soon.

Put one bacteria on a sterile plate of nutrient-filled agar jelly, and it will grow and divide spreading across the agar until all the food is eaten or all the excretions make it too toxic it for the bacteria to survive. If the bacteria doesn't transform itself into a spore to survive, the plate will become sterile again.

Luckily, our planet isn't so flat.

Roundup absolutely goes inert on contact with the soil otherwise it would be more expensive and it would be called a pre-emergent herbicide.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6918143/

This is a link to a study done in 2019.  It is funded by the University of Florida and claims to be impartial.  It's on an official US govt. website.

I remember the initial excitement over Roundup - this is a weed-killer we can use because it becomes inert on contact with the soil.  

It really was the best thing since sliced bread.  

We kinda knew though, at the back of our heads that it probably really was too good to be true.  It's just, as you captured so well, that we so wanted it to be true, the weeds grew faster than our sweat could fall.

That was when I was living up Left Band Rd and on the western side the whole end of the valley was bananas.

It never occurred to me to wonder how the hillsides where nothing grew but bananas happened, I just sort of thought they created their own environment, triumphed like a giant weed, I guess but there was a big fish kill just down the road from them years later and it came from an old shed beside the creek full of drums of chemicals they'd used previous to Roundup.

The Google rule of thumb is it stays active in the soil for 6 months.  

There's a lot to support the idea that it is heavy usage of glyphosate that creates a lot of the problems, including my own experience.  I don't regret using it on the bamboo, but when it was used excessively on the top edge of my property I experienced some plant-kill and a lot of failure to thrive.  There was an extremely excessive usage in front of the mango tree.  It created an area where not even the weeds could grow for at least six months.

They use a whipper-snipper now.  It's like going from darkness to light. 

Where are the fruit bats when you need them.  Just this morning two more beautiful fruit dropped from the mango tree.  I have filled the freezer and made a big pot of mango and ginger chutney and have a big pot of mango pulp ready to make ice cream.  I am going to have a go at making a reduced caramelised mango puree with some of it, see how it works.

Thanks for the reminder and the hugs.

Anyway, when I am anxious lately, I say hello to myself and give that feeling respect and honor as part of me and protecting me. It dampens it right down, because I think any feeling one is ashamed of gets unearned power. But I think it’s a cult remnant that I feel a sense I have failed if I am not “happy” . Remember constantly meditate and remember the Holy name? I don’t remember premies as able to do that - I saw a lot of unhappy premies- but that was mind- were were all in our minds so much right? After all Prem Rawat would scream at us from the stage so often how we were failing to live up to Knowledge. I see it a whole lot like mind as a concept like “devil” and being possessed. Gee he even called it “mr. Mind” like an entity. And where we were supposed to be, “holy name” well, he said we were being given Knowledge of God. It was clearly we were to be merging with God. And when he berated us for not surrendering- that would f•••ing scare me, I always saw surrendering a little like dying, like being a zombie or losing my identity or uniqueness- I remember just feeling I was so in my mind when I resisted this concept of surrendering to Guru Maharaj ji so much. Some part of me wanted to get to be Susan.

Another thing, about forgiveness, remorse etc. I listen to this show called the rewatchables. They break down films that are “rewatchable” and they did “flight”

Here is a link to the scene that made me think about whether people who do really bad things can feel remorse, and that in the unlikely event they do, that if they really get what they did, that person isn’t owed forgiveness. Interesting it was a pilot too. I made a post called “souls on board” because it was hard to imagine that Prem really took that seriously. He sure as hell hasn’t taken the souls of his family, or the Divine Light Mission and all the rebrands after seriously. But he took his one earned accomplishment piloting seriously. He had the uniform, the pin the papers and he and marolyn et all all brag about the technical skill. But could he have had the ethics of the sacred responsibility of the lives of the others on the plane? How long did he keep flying after these strokes? Was that what a real captain does?

Still, this film scene was worth watching even if it’s a fairy tale of what taking responsibility might look like.

I like that he also values his sobriety. That is how I feel now, I value my sobriety from his cult. 

Thanks for that.

It's not synonymous with misery. You don't have to be a downer (just learn when not to say anything). It doesn't have to be a one-way permanent stance.

But it's interesting. Feels like dancing with the devil.

The alternative is to live with the fixed idea that everything is getting better and will continue to do so.

Have fun with that!

Because I didn't have children, my pessimism remained undisturbed.  I know it's incongruous with premie beliefs it just was there.

ok so a while ago there was a brief time, a matter of days maybe, where it changed - this was because you wrote a post saying there were these simple things that could be done that would make things so much better.  oh, I thought.  yes I suppose if we started doing things better the earth could recover.  its

not impossible.  But then my pessimism returned as I remembered the other stuff  - how we got into such a mess in the first place.

I do think there's something magical about life.  More to it than we imagine.  I would hate to be a premie again, where such thoughts are taken up with Rawat.  I still get a shock when I remember that it used to be like that.  I enjoy my pessimism, its comfortable and true.  

Though my cat went missing and when it was more than 24 hours I thought he was gone and started feeling so upset and hoping he hadn't suffered and then I get this idea he might be down on the road and walk down the driveway and finally he saunters into view in fine shape - a bit of optimism might have saved me from that.    well not really, he's just being a pussy cat.

I used to look at grumpy old people and wonder how the hell they became that way. 

The other thought I had in my 40's, after spending time on this forum was that the saying 'the cream rises to the top'  is true.

Now I am becoming old and I could think my age is the reason for my dark with silver lining outlook, but I don't.  I know it must seem arrogant to think I know, like I have an Olympus Mountain outlook but it isn't that, I'm just over arguing with myself.  

The whole breath thing was an anchor for me for years as well. Slowly over time though it just sort of faded away. Now in stressful situations I prefer to do times tables in my head. It distracts me because it takes some focus but not total concentration. LOL

I try to live in a positive frame of mind most of the time and it is so true about how much better things are these days in so many ways. But it is just as easy to slip into the negative mind-think because of the injustices and evil in the world. It really is a matter of trying to keep one's focus on what matters.

I don't want to live like an ostrich with my head buried in the sand, avoiding all unpleasantness - that way lies abdiction of responsibility and allows evil to flourish. But on the other hand, it is not conducive to good health to only see the wrongness - that way lies madness too.

Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying thank you for reminding me how beautiful things in this world can be too.

We have chickens too. But lost two flocks to predators so I have anticipatory grieving with them and can’t bond anymore. Though this time they have been doing well for 2 years. The coop seems to have been secured.

K