Very clear summary and critique of what Maharaji teaches.

You write:

Rawat's teaching is false.

An interesting point for me, which might appear hair-splitting but I don't think so, is this - is it:

a) the philosophy (that 'that which you are looking for is within you') that is false, or

b) the fact that Maharaji cannot take a person to that 'within' ?

Of course, if (a) is false, then (b) must be false too. As I understand you, that is your position, and it is now mine too - it is both unhelpful and untrue to believe that there is 'some light hidden deep within our psyches ' as you eloquently put it.

But it is quite possible to believe that (b) is false, but that (a) is nevertheless true. In fact, this was my position when I first left Maharaji. I left him because it was clear to me that he could not deliver on his promise; that he either could not or would not 'take those thousand steps' towards me and show me the realisation of the Knowledge. The satsang line was that I had to take that one step for him to take the thousand towards me; I believe that I did take that one step, at least I did the best I possibly could have done. So either I did take that step and he did not fulfill what he promised to take the thousand, or I could not even manage the one step, in which case he could not or would not help me.

So that is why I left. I was fully convinced that there was a heart/atman/soul/inner-pure-light whatever, somewhere inside me to 'reach', a pearl of great price hidden somewhere in the dunghill of my own being - in other words, I was a fully paid up member of (a). It was just that Maharaji could not or would not take me there. I even thought that he quite likely *did* have the power to take me there, but just was not going to use it to help me, for some reason (my early posts on Forum x, whatever the number was then, in early 2001 were full of this attitude).

It is obvious to me now that he does not, and never did, have any such power; and that both propositions (a) and (b) are false - or at best that (a) is a metaphor. My point is that in order to accept that (b) is false, it is not necessary to accept that (a) is false also (although it certainly helps!)