Hi Paddy,

The good news is that you might abandon your family for a period but they don't abandon you and many premies were sensible enough not to do that either. The satsang hall was always pretty empty at Christmas.

It's interesting that you say this because in Hartford, Connecticut, a die-hard, devotional community in the 70s, the satsang hall was filled at Christmas.  If premies went home to their families on Xmass (or other major holidays) they usually did it during the day, spent very little time there, and rushed back for satsang. Also, there was the time when one of Rawat's kids was being born on Christmas -- premies most definitely were present for that meditation marathon.  Also, I'd imagine that the 1979 Christmas satsang that Rawat gave as a phonefeed from the DECA satsang hall drew numbers, too, but I was at DECA by then so I don't know.

Interesting to compare the difference between different continents, IMO.

Cynthia