I am so sorry you went through that Lesley, and the visceral description of what you felt, checking to see if your hands were still there... wow.
And how that has impacted your life.
Below Lakeshore and Drek also post about PTSD and it is so real.
I think of good premies so differently now. Good premies are the premies where GOOD still means something other than loyal. I do have to question, the goodness, of people who stay despite knowing hideous things about the Prem Rawat, who still vouch for him, support him. I am sure they aren't all the same. I think there are a minority of premies who actually are amoral and like the concepts of lila and maya and devotion ( I am sure all the terms rebranded but remain) and they like that Prem sells a worldview where as long as you love him and suck away on the holy name, nothing else is real. Excuses all manner of misbehavior. I could name several I think are this type, and I think this type tends to rise to the top of the cult. They are the most likely to pass the gradual initiations to become x-rated or whatever THAT may be termed now.
Some though, I think are likely in it because they were sincere and have a conscience. But like having your hands blow off, it would be a trauma of the first order to find the courage to leave. To admit what they have been doing most of their lives is devote them to a very bad man. Maybe they suck away at the Holy Name too, but not because they really enjoy being bad.
Maybe the only others who are left are the dabblers. There always were people who were premies on the fringes, not taking it all too seriously, enjoying the social aspects, maybe not thinking too hard about whether they were doing what Prem demanded.
I am troubled too, by who is left, and whether some of them are complicit or victims.
I think about what Michael Dettmers told us about the hit and run in India. That reflexively, it seems, "on the spot", a plan was hatched, and all cooperated in the illegal plan, to let someone else take the blame and whisk Prem away. The crime was running and covering it up.
I hope those who are sincere "good" premies might continue to wake up, no matter how painful the awakening might be.
