rgj,

I enjoyed the video SyzyQ recommended, and especially your posts
in response.

On the subject of old-timers, I recently was included in an
email from a high-profile premie friend that was trying to raise funds to get to
Amaroo.  I gave a quick thought to replying
with a few of my thoughts on how Rawat and his Knowledge were a misguided approach
to apprehending reality, but restrained. 
I can see how her life is difficult, the comfort her beliefs and experience
provide for her and that I would likely bring nothing helpful.

It reminded me of my relationship with my father, an evangelical Christian, and
our philosophical/spiritual debates over the years, and then how I came to accept
and even deeply appreciate his naïve faith as something that gave him comfort
and applied some order upon this complex, difficult and incomprehensible world
around us.  Though in the last few days
of his life, as I sat next to him on his deathbed, he lost his faith.  Not that he changed his mind at all, but he
just couldn’t seem to find it, couldn’t seem to find ANY thoughts, just stared (un-medicated)
with bright awareness thoughtlessly streaming through his unblinking eyes.  Exquisite, beautiful, tragic and profound.  Depth deftly sidestepping his ideas of
what it is that moves the universe.

I feel lucky that my own romantic vision of a guru ‘soulmate’
was stripped away earlier in my life and at a time that my psychological investment
was not so deep as the current old-timers. 
And I also feel deeply grateful for the guru-devotee structure and the focus
on meditation that Premiedom allowed me for a time.  It was truly heart-opening, albeit a phase.

M