Dear Joe,

While you have a keen sense of the history and evolution of the premie culture in the U.S. and have a good memory of the late 70s and 80s, more and more your writing is not applicable to today.  To keep trying to apply earlier times to today is like comparing rock n’ roll to trance music or fax machines to ftp technology.  I think that the early days and the adolescence stages of the organization were really a product of people trying to organize it according to their own ideas.  First the Mahatmas and DLM from India and later, the wanna-be CEOs and MBAs who didn’t make it in corporate culture.  Underlying all this is a steady point: the experience matters, not the party line.

So today, as then, many people do have a genuine experience that is not dissectible with logic as theologians do with religion, because this is not a religion.  The experience of knowledge is honesty, not lies as you keep promoting.  The simple choice to follow Maharaji as a teacher or as one who inspires, is not forced, but a choice.  The key problem with propagation is the concept itself as something separate from our experience and living, not the inability to be honest or open or enthused.  There is a lot of enthusiasm and real, heightened, awareness of life. Keeping a reference point of some church ladies shields your perception from the many people in the U.S, and elsewhere of course, who enjoy Maharaji, his inspiration, and knowledge.  You know a lot of pwks, but there are more and more who are finding it real, helpful, and not in conflict with their professional or social worlds.  People are attracted to the energy and clarity that knowledge opens up, which is what attracted most of us in the first place (not the words or claims) as you noted.

I know you are convinced other wise, at this point, but I just wanted to offer another perspective based on experience.  There are not crafted lies and efforts to mislead but sincere efforts to show people a way to realize what already is. It’s good the emotional bang fizzled out, because peeling back reality to the core, there is not emotion, nor thought, but stillness and energy.  Organizations come and go, like paper clips and notebooks we use for work.  But the experience and resulting kindness, energy, and acceptance from knowledge keeps growing.  Maybe you can find something in this post that resonates before you react.  I do respect your passion for truth.

~ Kind regards, Ghi