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In his book, Hear Yourself, Prem relates a beautiful story of his awakening
"One day I went out into the garden and had this desire to grasp the moment. I remember my heart was entirely open to the day and I was happy walking around inspecting everything growing there. A little later, I was sitting under one of the magnolia trees, looking at the clouds and the flowers, when I had an overpowering sense that whatever created me also made these magnolia trees and the perfumed flowers, and put the dew on the lawn, and carried the sun from horizon to horizon, and made those fat clouds float across the blue sky. In that moment, the he or she or it that originally created me said, very softly: "Just feel."
It was a perfect sentiment for a perfect moment. Just feel.
From then on I could sit under that magnolia tree and go into a feeling in which I had no wants, no wishes, no inner need to do anything. It felt good just to be. Ever since, a voice has continued to say to me: "This day is for you," and it means that day back in the garden just as it means the day I'm living in right now.
That feeling part of me hasn't changed. It really hasn't. That day in the garden was for me, and I’ve understood that I must never lose that feeling. I have experienced the deep connection again and again and again. It is my reality - a feeling of perfect peace - and everything else is noise (sometimes enjoyable noise, sometimes distracting noise). Perfection is not only the memory of that moment from childhood but the living experience of being able to just feel right now."
Its no wonder he spent so much time terrified of being punished for not doing his homework, he spent too much time in perfect peace under the magnolia trees.
Is this the same Prem Rawat we knew who wore out pinball machines, blew countless speakers apart playing Peter Frampton Comes Alive at volume level 11, souped up gadgets to deliver painful electric jolts, screamed and shouted his way through speeches condemning his followers for not surrendering adequately and generally lived his life in a circle of chaos?
Or is this book ghost written by Ole Grunbaum?
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Recognising the beauty of nature and feeling a profound connection with it all is something that surely we all do and have felt from time to time - and everyone has forever - read Thomas Hardy or so many
His words or not I don't doubt that Prem Rawat has also felt this - just like anyone else. Good for him in a way. But the self - delusion part is where you go on to imagine that such experiences mark you out as in any way special - and to validate you as a teacher etc etc - and so the trouble starts.
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Yes we've probably all felt that. It should be a point of connection between people rather than of differentiation.
I've really really appreciated and enjoyed nature, but how arrogant it would be to imagine my feelings were in any way unique to me, and then to think it gave me license to teach you all how to be as appreciative as me!
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Satsang used to be all of us taking turns sharing our personal experiences like these.
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Hah--yes you are quite right. The premie satsang story would be a bit different though since exactly the same sentiment - basically 'how gorgeous it can be sometimes to just sit quietly and appreciate nature - would have been expressed as something like ' you know -- I just felt so much grace today - it's like Guru Maharaji was just letting me feel so much -- like I was a child - given that gift to be let free and given the run of his garden - and really feel that moment and see and feel the beauty of the sky and trees etc etc '
whereas in Prem Rawat's story the feeling of connection with nature is told more as a tale to add to the mythology of his 'specialness' - that right from the start he was able to feel some special connection with 'the creator'.
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So Prem had some profound feelings of being one with nature. We've all had them; I experience those feelings at least once a week, living in the country. In fact, that's why I choose to live in the country.However, that's a long way from demanding a lifetime of devotion to you. I remember one of the old videos recently posted where he proclaimed "if you have a perfect master in your life, your purpose is to worship that perfect master every day". It's a long stretch between feeling good in nature and possibly wanting to share some of that with people, to demanding they then worship you every day. I guess being told since you were born that you're the savior of humanity and dancing around in front of thousands of people who worship you and consider every banality that you utter, to be pearls of great wisdom , might have something to do with such delusional thinking...
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for your information Ole Grunbaum has passed away since maybe 6 months . Guess you missed that
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You don't believe in ghost writing?
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I don't know who Ole Gunbaum was but I am sorry about the passing of your friend. The "Hear Yourself" book was published several years ago so it doesn't sound like ghost writer speculation would necessarily be figurative.
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Beautifully put.
I've read half the book now and I go with ghost written. I suggest Ole Grunbaum because he edited all of Rawat's earlier books and other publications. These were all edited speeches so he knew all of Rawat's favorite quotes like Know Yourself and all the old stories like the Necklace in the River that Rawat has used.
I may be wrong. Rawat might have spent the last 20 years actually learning a little more about human history and the quotes he uses but I don't think so. I've found that he always lowers the bar on my expectations and has never raised it.
The book is full of reasonably good advice but also a lot of false promise and in my opinion a lot of lies about Rawat's actual life experience. I'm wondering whether he actually comes out and does a PEAK and not just a PEP.
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I'm not someone who believes everything Rawat says is a demonic lie, I'm sure he says many banal and true things, but I can't believe anyone with history with Rawat could believe that story. I defy anyone to read anyone of Rawat's hundreds of pre-1984 speeches (there are 608 available on www.prem-rawat-bio.org) or even his post 1983 ones (165 available) that have any sentiments like that in them.
This is just Rawat going with the times (as best he can) and (ghost) writing something to make premies' hearts sing and maybe attract the attention of a few others dissatisfied with their lives.
Here is how he has updated his receiving Knowledge story in that book:
I learned from my father whenever I could, often sitting at his feet as he addressed audiences of followers and others seeking insight. I first spoke at one of his events when I was four years old. My message that day was simple: peace is possible when you start with yourself. I had always felt the truth of that in my heart and, despite being so very young, it seemed entirely natural to stand up and share that insight with the people sitting before me.
One day, two years later, I was playing outside with my brothers when a family friend came to us saying, "Your father wants to see you all inside. Now!" We thought, “Uh-oh, what have we done?” When we went inside, father asked us whether we would like to receive Knowledge. That was the word he and others used to describe a set of insights and techniques related to self-knowledge. Without stopping to think, we all said yes.
That session with my father didn’t last long, and it was only over the following years that I developed a proper understanding of what he had passed on to me that day, and which I will pass on to you. I realized that I had started to gain a much wider perspective on life, better appreciating that we aren’t just shaped by what’s outside us or by our thoughts. There’s something else going on inside too—something incredibly powerful.
I already had a sense of the inner world, but it was at this particular point that I started to see how self-knowledge was a route to personal peace and that practicing it enabled me to stay centered and grounded. I felt that Knowledge was giving me focus and confidence when others often seemed unsure of themselves. With Knowledge, there’s no need to be anywhere else or think of anything else. No need for an awareness of anything other than the sweet delight of just being. And I began to understand that peace is not a luxury in our lives; it’s a necessity.
Here is how it was written about in 1972
Guru Maharaj Ji was born in Hardwar, India on December 10, 1957. His father, Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, was recognized by thousands of Indian devotees as Satguru: the one living master who reveals the ancient Knowledge of the inner self. Walking from village to village, he illumined the hearts of all seekers with the experience of divine Light and the holy Name of God - the essence of all religions. Yet in time this Perfect Master was to offer his full prostration to the Lotus Feet of his youngest son. At two years of age, Guru Maharaj Ji had astonished his family by giving holy discourses, speaking simply but directly to members of his father's household about the importance of realizing God. He soon joined his mother, Shri Mata Ji, and his three elder brothers, Shri Bal Bhagwan Ji, Shri Bhole Ji, and Shri Raja Ji, at public programs where his father was addressing his disciples. Taking the microphone himself, the young Maharaj Ji began giving satsang (holy discourse), speaking in Hindi. "When I was six," Guru Maharaj Ji said, "my Father gave me Knowledge with my brothers in the same room. I was given Knowledge and didn't realize it right away. I knew it was my duty, and l began to meditate, and in about a month I realized it." He then delivered his first English discourse, speaking for over thirty minutes with a strength and authority that moved his audience to tears. His father declared that although Guru Maharaj Ji was small in age, he was great in wisdom and enlightenment, and would one day shine over the whole world as brightly as the sun shines in the sky. Many things in Hear Yourself have revisionist parallels to earlier versions (and this is not the first updating of his shtick) but the story of peace under the magnolias is not one of them. A truer part of the book is this: Technology certainly plays a significant role in my day-to-day life. Flying is important to me, for example. When I was young, I always used to think about airplanes and dreamed of being able to fly. Rawat didn't dream of flying as most of us did, he dreamt of flying an airplane.
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Yes a revealing comparison – it’s great that you have all this stuff to hand. As you say 99% lies and transparently just whatever
unlikely yarn Rawat inc. needed to spin in order to support his legitimacy at
the time. 1972 – the era of Guru Maharaji, legitimacy derives from the previous perfect master (aka God) and the
entire Holy family. 2019? – the era of the Peace ambassador with a unique message Both narratives have to have Rawat marked out even from childhood to be special in some way to presage his
remarkable and important mission in later life. The 1972 narrative is easy – the story can be
as unlikely as you like - Prem was obviously god in a bod from even the age of
two, fluent in HINDI and English at six, Dad just hanging around for a year or
so before he passed over the torch. No
need to worry about Prem’s authority or legitimacy there! But concocting an origin story for the reborn Rawat superhero suitable for 2019 presents a much more
difficult problem. His father still
figures but more vaguely as someone with followers who he could learn something
about ‘self knowledge’ from. The
ludicrous claim that he was giving holy discourses at two is replaced with the claim
that he was right up there with his father at events presciently affirming the current
weaselly message that ‘peace is possible’ at age four – presumably while his
father was still spouting all that old quasi-Hindi nonsense about the divine
light etc. You couldn’t make it (the past) up - but unfortunately they can
and do. Quite obviously Rawat was an unremarkable
child, interested in planes, cars and watches etc without a profound thought in
his head but brought up into some very strange circumstances. He can probably
barely remember his father – let alone have learned anything from him. On a much more important topic. This little article on self-improvement
via via cats is entertaining – and even
insightful.. Voices:
How observing cats can make you a better human (msn.com) Of course, it
is not the easiest thing to be ourselves. And the fact is that no one can teach
us how to be ourselves. It is so difficult to be ourselves in a world that is
always forcing us to compare ourselves to one another, and screaming at us to
retreat towards the safety of conformity, that being who we are has often been
seen as a spiritual virtue, the upshot of years of silent meditation or surrender before some conception of supreme reality.
Per Thomas Merton: “For me, to be a saint means for me to be myself."
Modified by tommo at Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 04:18:03
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