This is no exaggeration. For eight years, I lived in Maharaji's shelter in which popular music, radio, television, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, schooling, careers, family, non-cult friends, intimate relationships, children and so much more were forbidden -- all without a car, money or possessions of my own.
As a run of the mill premie i did service at ashrams. I washed vases, weeded the garden (and got stung by bees), I cooked figs into a jam for instructor Julie's breakfast, she was too bust meditating I think.
There were a bunch of things that were quite normal things to do, cleaning things that were already clean mostly and yet because it was service it was meant to be done in a non normal way, a special way, I felt like I was walking on eggshells, at my house there were 6 flatmates, it was casual and comfortable. There would be plenty of cleaning and perfecting to do when i got home. In my eyes the ashram premies were achieving a level of devotion I could never reach, I tried to peer into them and figure out how they could glide around without making any perceptible mess. Maybe because there weren't that many possessions. Anyway with the same waling on eggshells trepidation I admired the ashram premies and then one day they just weren't there anymore. He closed the ashrams and I never heard where any one went or what really happened at the time. No one mentioned it. It was all about what the lord had ordained and I didn't really even think too hard about it. Or anything much....Now I'm sorry you had to go through all that Lakeshore and especially the part where he left you all in the lurch.
