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$550 for registration only?
Who paid for the land, built the accommodation? What a rip-off cult! At least in my day, registration was more of a donation, and if you didn't have any money ( which wasn't unusual what with all the time doing 'service', and the travelling to programs) you could get in free.
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Well at least you could until recently, I could ask someone to be sure it's still available. If you couldn't pay you made arrangements beforehand and got away with a token donation or nothing though it took a bit of administration work to make it happen.
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I agree, usually one could get in for free to the various programs and whatnot, however as you say, it takes quite a bit of administration. Also there always was and still is a fair amount of 'guilt tripping' if one does not make a 'contribution', at the very least the whole point about 'contributions' is kept very much to the fore, all basically piling on the pressure to cough up hard earned cash. For many premies, of course, earnings that are simply not there. Or alternatively earnings that would be better spent on needy things, like clothes for their children, retirement benefits etc. Take for example this EV UK email received less than one hour ago. (my emphasis). ____________ Maharaji’s tours & activities, and support for propagation There will be a series of events in various venues around the UK over the next few weeks. The events will include of 3 wonderful new DVDs showing excerpts of Maharaji's events in recent months, about 20 minutes each, and a presentation on providing financial support, and all aspects of supporting propagation. It is hoped that they will enable everyone to go home with an inspiring perspective of Maharaji's activities, together with a clear understanding of exactly what is supported by contributions. There will also be the latest news of Maharaji's events, and dozens of fabulous, recent photos, as well as the opportunity to ask questions about any aspect of financial support. Whether you are currently a contributor or not, you are warmly invited to come, as these events will be relevant to everyone. The events will last approximately one hour and thirty minutes.
Modified by T at Wed, May 10, 2006, 16:18:31
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Don't get me wrong, I consider the whole thing is quite disgusting but I want to be fair and ensure no false information (false personal ideas, sure, I've got plenty of those) is posted on the forum. You can still get in for nothign financial as long as you don't mind the humiliation.
Leaving aside India which is a world of it's own I've sometimes thought that if it was possible to work out the number of propagated new premies since 1982 and the donations made and divide them we would find that the cost of each new premie (let alone how long they lasted) would be incredible especially if we could factor in the cost of the voluntary labour.
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Maybe locals will be able to get in without paying the fee, but there's no way anyone's gonna pay for a flight from the U.S. or Europe to Australia, not being able to pay the registration fee. Btw, it would be impossible to factor in the cost of voluntary labor. It's not like DLM or EV ever kept track of it's free labor. Otherwise, I would have sued the sob's ass for back labor at DECA. There's tremendous pressure to pay for these events, make no mistake about it. These are profit-making operations. The last time I went to one the entire focus was to make sure I pay, pay, pay (in 1999 in Montreal). The premies were very nasty to me about it and they had lost my registration information. They actually were mean to me and I couldn't believe how weird they were acting. Phew...just the cost of putting that Gulfstream V into the air must be astronomical by now, with today's cost of jet fuel, landing fees, etc. Ya just can't fly a private jet into an airport for free. Must be nice to be a "great king." 
Modified by Cynthia at Wed, May 10, 2006, 16:52:32
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At one program many years ago I put the word 'donation' to the test and told them I didn't want to give a donation. I got the same reaction, they were nasty and I basically had to argue with them.
The last one I went to, where I was 'undercover', again I put it to the test. I didn't get in one session and got in one. I was treated with suspicion, which was strange. One tactic they use is to make the room a bit undersized and therefore crowded, so that if you don't pay it's likely you won't get in.
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Well that's one technique they can't try at Amaroo
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Does that include discussion of the vast mansion we have the picture of on the front page of epo? And all the other mansions and extravagances? Not bloomin' likely! I remember those special meetings about "support". Once, one of the old premies had the temerity to ask about Rawat's personal finances. We all held our breath. "Well, that's not up for discussion," said Dave who-ever-it-was, "That's why it's called 'personal'." The premie was (nicely) crushed. We all, I presume, properly silenced our minds on the topic. End of story. ~Shelagh
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Now that Rawat is set up financially for the rest of his and his family's life ( and has been for a long time) he can afford to start spilling a few beans on how the money is spent, the good works, charity etc of his various organisations. I don't suppose the emphasis of these presentations will be on the details of his own personal properties and expenses.A damage limitation exercise in order to seem transparent IMO.
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I'm sure it's often the case in India (getting in for free). I 'm also fairly sure it's still possible in Europe.In 2002 I went to register using the internet (in a cafe, as I wasn't on line then) and was shocked to discover that,at that time,you couldn't register online UNLESS you paid the full amount. I was happy to pay for myself and had intended to anyway...but my terminally ill premie friend and his wife had no money and I ended up having to pay for them in order to be able to register them. ( I didn't tell them as they would have been very upset). I couldn't afford to but did anyway as I knew it was the last time my friend would see his guru. We couldn't turn up unregistered as we needed to book a wheelchair place. It's probably still possible to get in free....but no doubt a big ballyhoo. I don't think it really matters to EV that some can't afford to pay.These freebie guys bulk up the numbers,are usually pretty devoted and give the lord all the more credibility. A premie who lives near me has never paid or donated a cent (or a pee).She still sees herself as a "fully paid up" premie and when she talks about "Maraaji" points out to the listener that he definitely doesn't want our money because she has never given any.
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The Ballad of Amaroo
An event's coming up down in Eastern Australia
They're setting much store by its profit or failure
So unfreeze those assets, skip bail, jump parole
Reschedule, reprogramme, remortgage your soul
For a seat near the feet of your Lord and Creator
Who after the vids will be steaming on later
Buoyed up with Dutch courage to outline your goal
- as pewks from all nations cry 'Oui, oui! - Jawohl! An event's going down up in Queensland this autumn
With trinkets and mugs (like the mugs who just bought ‘em)
Amazing - just four hundred bucks registration
then spare some loose change for that ‘special donation’
Plus eight hundred more for a tent near a ditch
Tho' bugs and mosquitos might cause you to itch
If snakebite should ail thee, you won't feel a thing
'Tis a precious experience (if just a big sting..) Amaroo, Amaroo
They’re turning the screw
To furnish the needs of Prem Pal, Satguru
Come bruces, come sheilas
The shearing's begun!
See him fleece the whole flock
In the bright morning sun.. They’ll tell you it's sultry in sunny Australia
So watch out for snakes and respiratory failure
But should you go down with a heat-stroke attack,
Don't worry, they'll soon have the shirt off your back..
'til refreshed and reborn in the makeshift canteen You'll then get to sample the no-star cuisine
And if at this point you’re not feeling so ill
Just wait till you glance at the size of your bill.. So wear a wide hat, splash on factor 19
Stay out of the sunshine and keep your nose clean
For unseemly behaviour is not tolerated
(Except when you’re Prem or his chosen x-rated)
So while at the bar don’t get carried away
Or shout ‘Bhole shri satg’rudev fatso ki jai!’
You'll be out on your ear with the lessons you've learned
When you look in the mirror you’ll see you’ve been burned.. Amaroo, Amaroo
Yes he’s summoning you! Let us furnish His yacht
with that solid gold loo..
Come bruces, come sheilas
The shearing's begun!
He’ll fleece the damned flock,
Take the money and run.. The event's been and gone - was it such an ordeal?
Did somebody murmur they got a raw deal?
- a fistful of soundbites, some 'Happy New Breath'
'This Love..' 'This Creation..' 'This Life..' (but no death…)
And you’ve heard it before, still you’ll listen again
Provided it comes from that prince among men?
That jolliest of swagmen, his jumbucks in tow
Move over Ned Kelly – Prem Pal, way to go!
Once felons transported with ricketts and scurvy
Did build a great land in a world topsy-turvy
Believe me, those founders knew not how to steal...
(But ‘it’s not about money – it’s just what you feel’?)
Well the Daintree is heaven, Port Douglas a joy
There’s Darwin and Melbourne [Hi, Mel!] and Perth and Fitzroy
There's Cairns, Coonawarra and Woolloomooloo
But you emptied your tin out in wild Amaroo..
Amaroo, Amaroo
hear it calling to you
It’s time to get ready,
It’s time for Phase Two!
Come bruces, come sheilas
Take leave of your mind
While hope springs eternal
– right up your behind…!
Modified by larkin at Thu, May 11, 2006, 05:06:59
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Brilliant, Larkin!
Modified by LP at Thu, May 11, 2006, 06:49:49
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Thanks LP., appreciated Hope you are doing better since your post lower down. We only come this way once, so, in my experience the more you can laugh at the absurdities and avoid fretting about things that don't take you anywhere, so much the better. (BTW: personally, I would never advise going to a therapist - except possibly the cognitive-behavioural kind, who have a pretty impressive evidence base.) Friends you can trust, music, art, a good book etc and a regular drop of Theakston's OP will probably serve you better. Cheers, Larkin.
Modified by larkin at Fri, May 12, 2006, 16:20:20
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Thanks,
Larkin, much better: that advice sounds like much more my cup of tea.
Modified by LP at Fri, May 12, 2006, 17:09:03
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Now that's poetry! Well, here's one "sheila" who's not going to be there.  ~Shelagh
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It's not poetry, I just do 'rhyming verse', Shee. ('Shee' is the way that Sheilas of any spelling are addressed in Scouseland, especially those who were born here. There's no such thing as a lapsed Liverpudlian!) True poets dispense with rhyme, metre, imagery, meaning - the lot. They have no need for it. Here's one real-deal poet whose feet I might have to restart kissing again... 'Our life,
our understanding,
our want,
and our thirst
are all simple.
We are simple.
When we are in that real place, there is joy.'
I will doff my humble cap to that.
Your invisible friend, Larkin.
Modified by larkin at Fri, May 12, 2006, 16:28:13
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Verse and Worse. Is that the title of a book? If it isn't, it ought to be! What's worse than verse? Very large abstarctions with absolutely no sensory fun whatsoever. Pretty good description of Rawat's effusions, dontcha think?! His assets are pretty concrete, however. I'd like to put all that sand and gravel back where it came from--thinking of that Malibu monstrosity. Time will take care of it of course. Do you remember how he always talked about Time being like the librarian, always putting things back where they came from? Guess what-- I'm a librarian--and librarians are not to be messed with in this present state of affairs in the U.S.A. Be well, write more! Your Toxteth lass, "our Shee"
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Some of the posts here have got me thinking:
there are some things I still quite like: words.
I mean; it's been sullied now; given bad associations, and
various religious ones: but the word: Word was a favorite of mine.
And it had a deeper meaning than solemn promise.
When I used it in poems
it was with a kind of reverence:
not in any christian or biblical sense,
but in, a way more somehow, innocent.
It had a subliminal meaning for me, feeling that
I write my story as I live it, nor is it finished yet.
It is the line that moves through life's time track,
the record more than the building blocks
of time's endless flow of...
Changing moments. It
Is the hand of the present:
Writing as it goes.
Knowing the end of a play, is essential
in order to set up the inciting incidents.
Without this: throughout the acts and scenes:
neither the genre is known, nor the theme.
Do we sing tales:
Of woe or triumph.
As yet it is unwritten,
We all write jointly...
The story. each day,
It is our story on earth,
And when it is gone..
It is gone. Whether
It, the story stays, or it
Is also lost, it's....
An interesting
Question, but it is not the
Concern of the poet.
Whether it's on paper
Or in space eternal he
Tries to give it life.
He wants only to hover
Where those currents of air are
Most evokative:
Savor the delicate
Play of emotions life brings
And then record them,
To capture the whisps
Of scents, sounds, movements in light;
That define moments:
The poignancy of
Feelings conjured up by a
Single memory.
It was purer than
Trying to be enlightened.
It was about Word.
To link it with the breath was a nice thought:
could have done without the neckache though.
LP
Modified by LP at Fri, May 12, 2006, 20:19:38
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found, by a girl on her pillow in the summer of 1964.
A Word has sounded in my heart
That, having no syllable,
Cries forth to soothe
An everlasting love for life's brief breath.
A Word shaped in odourless delight,
Near death in sight and sound,
Has, with its spell,
Refired the ebbing senses,
And recast spring: a fragrant sigh.
And now, my love, I must leave awhile,
Lest, losing life, love also may be lost,
I must follow my breath
Into the mist
To taste of morning's first kiss;
A wandering shadow searching for a self,
Until, one day,
I'll sip the nectar of a morning tulip bud
That I may wake alive.
1964
Modified by LP at Fri, May 12, 2006, 20:51:50
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Word which still is resounding in my past;
Refrain, heartsung, that lulls the world asleep:
Wordless lifelong, our winded hope; that last
Remaining energy; God's secret keep.
Inspired as friends, decrying consciences
Of elders: wrote better poems than I.
Still stranger source of deepening glimpses;
Our mysteriously turning unseen sky.
Truth, so hungry, found starved out of churches,
Echoes to us from our lives' past seeking,
Reflections of love in aching searches
For inner beauty and outside meaning:
For awe. Word of heroes, holding apart
Five senses and calling from page to heart.
Sustains from dreams and directs, smiling wise
Starry face that sent me. Eventually
Looked out, bestowed from time into our eyes,
Companion... 'f saints and poets equally,
Or teachers; sometimes in light more grand
"Than bright sunshine" that sustains but succumbs
To death and life; taught our souls to guide and
Rising from this holy rain, whole spectrums
Bow forth hung so. Good ghosts that balance
Close to the sleepy edge of children's fear,
Hiding under our listening trances:
Sound of breathing; grown alien to our ear.
Word that utters no one thing, but whispers
Presence into each grain, each universe.
Bubble before laughter wrings its tears.
No greater or smaller, nearer. More; seems
To be invisible; yet soon appears
The moment things we know revert to dreams.
Makes things real; while showing; all is unreal.
Thorns out the thorn of our baser desire.
Alters ambition; succeeds; where we fail
Though our aims seem consumed in time's cold fire.
Gives love of others: most cherished magic.
Metes out fresh ease on our sadness and care.
Resting, acts work, asleep, 'wakens logic:
Glows all around ever where good thoughts air.
Eyes could not be seeing, nor voice proclaim
Without some faint light from this endless name.
Nations, all vieing and strife torn, still
might, rising above it, leave behind war,
Shrugging ugliest tendency to kill.
A Word might be; simply being heard more;
Solution to our hurt world's hourly deaths.
Iron curtailments then might, gossamer
Like, shimmer flags of freedom, waving breaths.
Trees might fence; suffice; murmuring gently
Word to come, which: here, now: never went.
Showing us to love ourselves, which all do well.
Sometimes rendering the heart transparent;
Enabling us, at last, to see through hell
To Our Word, our own life, hidden within:
Space; our place where saving truths slip in.
Feb. 1984.
Modified by LP at Sat, May 13, 2006, 05:13:38
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I write my story as I live it I liked this comment from your poem/post LP! And further, I would say to write it is to live it! I like the phenomenological approach to things, which says, basically: I speak the world and the world speaks me. I sometimes have the feeling that I am not writing a poem, but the poem is writing me. Great when that happens! But all too rare. I think I need to do more tilling of the ground so that I'm ready when it does! The word, yes--very powerful. We haven't lost that. I suspect that I haven't lost anything except an illusion I am better off without. Be well, Shelagh
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You sensed my concern, there's something I don't want to throw away, there was a good set of connections forming from life's rich lessons. As a would be poet, I toyed with every word and Word was no exception.
But in so many more immediate ways we had personal experiences with breathing. When running, dancing, laughing, swimming, sleeping, waking, falling in love, making love, tripping, doing yoga, exercising etc.etc..
All tell us the breath is part of our life and therefore important. We have all this as humans before we even consider whether to entertain any spiritual beliefs. That one might eventually grow to see that there were deep, many levelled connections between things, might be expected, given the way existence works.
But to have so many hard and fast, ready formed and crystallised beliefs imposed, so rapidly, and then to discard them. What else was dredged out of my natural psyche?
Will I ever savour a moment again in my breath: while meanings, deeper than words, waft by like warm whispers in the pines, innocently, without trying.
Or will I now, ignore its more poetic or yogic offerings, letting it (my breath) stay in a corner of my room, but hardly trusting it, regarding it now, like an old friend who had betrayed me?
Or is it I who have betrayed my breath? my mind? Giving them over so readily, to some people I hardly knew. Letting them tell me what to think this was: who to think it was!
Limiting my options until I had only slaveries of several kinds to choose from. In healing from rawat, dare I even hope to find that undefined mystery where the mind searches for words to describe the abstract, the universal, the subtle again?
Or enjoy the breeze fully? We can never estimate the full count of what we lost.
lp
Modified by LP at Sun, May 14, 2006, 15:55:00
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Not bad (that means it's "pretty good" in Austalian and "pretty good" probably is the same as really excellent in California) but before it can really become accepted you'll have to rewrite it so it can be sung to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda". If you don't know the tune there is a version done by the band of the Royal Australian Navy at http://www.navy.gov.au/ranband/audio.html
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(but keep 'em coming anyway!) Well, Ocker for one thing Waltzing Matilda is the obvious first-choice national anthem for Oz in preference to Advance Australia Fair (!) What joker came up with that one? http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/WM/ But with all due respect to Banjo Patterson, I prefer, Eric Bogle’s The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, (best performed by the Pogues…) http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/matilda.html
And not forgetting, Oz-folkies, Weddings, Parties, Anything’s Scorn of the Women (link unavailable), And Tom Waits’ sublime Tom Traubert’s Blues… http://solosong.net/traubert.html Anyway, the Ballad of Amaroo has a tune already, and it ain’t changing for anyone, even if it never gets sung. But sod all that. Can you chuck us another prawn on the barbie, matey, and sling over a tinnie? And we’ll have a few shouts of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie – Oy! Oy! Oy!
Modified by larkin at Thu, May 11, 2006, 17:13:46
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I can understand why you'd prefer Bogle's Lament to Waltzing Matilda as a song but as a ditty to be sung, drunkenly, by Aussies in pubs and footy matches all over the world it leaves a lot to be desired. Besides he's such a Scottish leftie that the song is pretty depressing and wrong for that matter as Anzac Day and it's myth and celebration goes from strength to strength while Bogle ages and fades away, but then again, don't we all?
There is a song recently posted on ex-premie.org at http://www.ex-premie.org/video/amaroo/amaroosong.wmv that could really do with larkin lyrics cause the ones it has now plumb new nadirs of poetry.
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I've always liked this song. The line "invitation to come and rest" I sometimes heard as "invitation to come undressed". Kabir
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..or I didn't explain myself very well. (Guess one might lead to the other? Hmm...) Waltzing Matilda is of course the Oz national anthem. No contest and no challengers. I never thought of Bogle's song as being remotely political, whether left-wing or pacifist or whatever. More Rudyard Kipling than Wilfred Owen, even? Sympathy for the serving man whose efforts have left him crippled and not recognised by the younger generation or folks he's come home to. A bit like Springsteen's Born in the USA. I know Anzac Day's a big thing still down under (good!) - maybe more so than it used to be? But I don't think that invalidates the song. I will check out your video link soonest.
Modified by larkin at Fri, May 12, 2006, 14:56:00
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No I just threw those comments in. Now I love his great anti-war song, 'The Green Fields of France' but I don't like the tone of TBPWM. Australians didn't land at Suvla Bay that was the British and while I wasn't there either, I am quite sure that people did not turn away from the crippled, the wounded and the maimed on their return to Australia. The song demeans the veterans and misrepresents Australian attitudes.
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Thanks Larkin. You hit the nail on the head as usual. Rawat could learn a lot from your poetry, in more ways than one!
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Hi Larkin, I've been a fan of yours for a long time now. Your rendition of Arti is still one of my favorites! I saved this copy of it for myself because it is has great truth in it and yet it is so funny at the same time. Esp. for me being an "old timer". It really should be reposted IMHO. Along with the original Prem Rawat Arti from time to time. Your an inspiration. I hope you don't mind me reposting this... Best Thoughts!
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Modified by hilltop at Thu, May 11, 2006, 21:56:35
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I'll post the other information on this talk sometime soon.
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thanks for that hilltop. Something puzzles me.In the last column of Prem's cult talk ( dated 1977) he mentions "Navlata was born".This ties in with my memory of seeing her at the Reigate residence around 1983-ish and remembering her as being about seven years old then. Is the actress "Navi" Rawat the same daughter ( of Raja ji and Claudia ) or a different one ....did they have two girls and call them nearly the same name ? The actress Navi Rawat publicises her date of birth as being 1981.........I'm confused.
Related link: http://www.complexmagazine.com/index.php?task=Gallery&id=32§ion=2&issue=1#gtop
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......Thanks Cynthia, That's what I thought. Wikipedia (see link) and several publicity sites show Navlata's birth year as 1981. Here am I trying to sort out my own history whilst a part of Prem's world ( which year this or that happened etc) and all this revisionism on the part of himself AND his family makes it irritatingly difficult. It makes me start to doubt my own memories (which turn out to be correct ). Maybe Navi's acting career got off to a slow start whilst caught up in her uncle's circus and so she decided to erase a few years ?
Related link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Rawat
Modified by lexy at Sat, May 13, 2006, 10:38:44
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Is it cool to ask whether you used to post here as 'RT'? The hillbilly song seemed kinda familiar. No problem, if you are/were not, or would rather not say... 
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Hilltop used to post as " Hilltop for Love" that's what he told me anyway
Modified by lexy at Fri, May 12, 2006, 18:09:01
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... though I always thought he really wanted to call himself 'Mons veneris'!
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Don't remind me. I quess I was looking for a date as usual.
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It's all cool! Except for the way Prem Rawat used his nasty cult of mind abuse on his victims as he compared our minds to things like... snakes, rats, bottomless pits, sharks, sickness, the greatest nightmare, our worse enemy, maya, darkness, ants, and much more ... with Prem Rawat saying that there is nothing worse than being in your own mind. A rat hole! That's the real truth from Prem Rawat's own words. There is so much more that I should be posting about this. But ofcourse most ex-premies already know this stuff! RT? No, that was not me. I do remember a rjc. Here is one of his posts that I saved because it made me laugh. Best Thoughts!
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The press?
"Cult Busters Anonymous"? see This letter ...
Modified by G at Thu, May 11, 2006, 21:45:20
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I am afraid this group is too anonymous to be contacted.
The press may be interested just before and during the "event" but that is only because of Rawat's bizarre appearance, the ridiculous cost of the tent hire and because they might be able to get a few premies to make outrageous statements about Rawat and that isn't getting any easier.
For better or worse religion is a very low priority over here.
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