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i'm sure I'm not the first to say this but after years and years of exiting the cult I still fail to have the depth of connection with other humans that I seemed to have when I was culted up. It's sad in a way, at least that's how I feel this evening. Was it just pretend? I remember so many people with so much affection. And now they are no more, some dead some still in. From 30 plus years in I am in touch with two dear friends from those years... That is all. x
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Hi Morph,
I know what you mean about lacking the depth of connection. I just wonder how real that depth really was. In the early years when we could give satsang, the normal was that "I once was lost but now I'm found but I need to surrender more". Possibly, our connection was little more than what we would find at a Neurotics Anonymous meeting.
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yes, I am pretty certain now that it is normal - we are not the first generation to say the friendships forged in those early years of adulthood have a particular depth of connection.
The thing we all say we liked the best about our cult days were the people we met, the friends we made and at least for me that is what I miss the most, that band of friends.
Joining a cult gave with one hand - it was like joining a groovy version of a church group really, we trusted each other deeply and formed a lot of friendships.
and joining a cult took away with the other hand - once I could no longer believe in la Rawat I lost my friends. They might have come more slowly but they'd still be here if I hadn't done the cult thing. as it is the friends I have are mainly ex premies! that's the best. 
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can totally relate - its my experience 100%
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i consider myself fortunate that most of my closest friends were not premies at all. They are just very accepting people. They love me when I'm culted up and they love me when I'm not. It remains to be seen how the friendships with premies stack up. Who can look me in the eye and who can't. Most can't at this point. The damage was done in my connection to myself, which paradoxically he claimed through the knowledge I would maintain
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Modified by lakeshore at Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 23:57:03
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I first want to say I think your sense of loss is real. Like others who responded the only thing in hindsight that I take away as "real" from those days are the friendships. The talking about life in a car after satsang. The satsang it self may not have been truth but some of the conversation after was.
I hesitate to say this because I don't want to seem patronizing. It's simply my own experience. My view of the world as a premie was very black and white. Us and them. Premies were real and non premies were some sort of decoy humans whose only value was as potential aspirants. After being out for awhile I found I was connecting with non premies ( not all of course ) in a similar way as I used to with premies. And of course, it's very freeing and just a better way of being human.
Findinf kindred spirits in the world though isn't always easy. Maybe there was something in the people willing to make themselves vulnerable to consider the Rawat message. Not sure why it was true that so many beautiful souls joined the cult. In fact, I think the beautiful soul mixed with ethics and intellect that you find here on this board is why I check it. Rawat is meaningless but the people aren't.
It's also, just so dangerous to divide the world the way at least I did as premie. I for a short time at least was brainwashed enough in the "us = real" "them = not real" that I scare Myself in how I sort of understand the mentality where people commit atrocities at the behest of cult leaders. I think, at least about 1977, if Rawat had been Jim Jones or Charles Manson I would have done almost anything he asked. That chills me.
I've mentioned before I am a nurse. Among my colleagues I meet a lot of really good, smart and caring people. I have a tribe of sorts. I think I am lucky that way. Not everyone is a kindred spirit but many are and I can feel just as connected that way.
hugs to you.
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As Susan says, back in the day, it was them and us, premies and non-premies (and poor aspirants who had to wait and perform devotional stunts sometimes for years before they were let in from the cold). I could work up a theory that all spiritual practises have evolved simply to mark out one tribe from another, but there's no need for such grandiosity. There are other tribes out there. Find one that suits, or rather, do what you really want to do, and then look who else happens to be doing that.
I went sailing for my own romantic notions, and found myself in anchorages having sundowners with a very mixed and intriguing crowd. I'd found another tribe, and the practises and thinking of the premie tribe started falling into disuse, only occasionally contemplated.
I think it's doing things with other people that deepens the bonds. Sure, the bonds we made in our youth were all deep and meaningful, and I doubt they can be replicated by yakking with your neighbour over the fence. But if you and your neighbour did a thing - anything you fancy - a business, a book, a journey, whatever - I think you'd find those newer friendships deepening. My best friends are the ones I shared adventures with.
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yes, thanks for that. very good advice.
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I said in my post that I deleted that my two takeaways were the friendships... and the ashram food -- can't forget that! It was my other gibberish that I had to delete. Great post Susan. 
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a lot of good cooks having fun with new ingredients. I got this job cooking in one of the two vegetarian restaurants, the first ones in London, nobody knew how to cook vegetarian. We did lunch, it was a basement and there was a huge health food store above. I would go up in the morning and pick whatever I wanted out of the shelves.
The restaurant was packed. The portion sizes grew huge. The waitresses lived off the pots of Hagendaz ice-cream in the freezer and portions grew huger, eventually management complained.
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I can't say enough about it. Surely it would be hugely successful if someone could base a restaurant on it today. A typical breakfast spread at Sewall Ave in Boston circa 1977: Scrambled tofu, cous cous, oatmeal, yogurt, cereals, granola, breads, bagels, fresh baked muffins, healthy pancakes, fruit, dried fruit, nuts, berries, juice... I got into a hot sauce on my cous cous habit for awhile. Dinners were much the same with soups, salads, grains, pastas and all sorts of amazing veggie dishes, casseroles and frequent Indian and Italian cooking. And the welcome relief to those all day Sunday ashram video marathons: the community pot lucks before satsang!! There was always one in the rotation who was a bit challenged in the kitchen... Marianne (not our dear poster)... we dined on crunchy indian corn (blue corn) one evening -- the Halloween decoration type. Apparently, it never cooked, no matter how long it was boiled, until everyone was starving to the point where they couldn't wait a minute longer to try to eat it... when they almost broke their teeth and gave up. (With sincere affection if you ever happen to read this Marianne.)
Modified by lakeshore at Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 05:55:22
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Hot sauce on couscous for breakfast. Yes I can see how that could happen.
I think it was the first meal I cooked that made me pay attention. I guess I was about 16 and visiting friends and there were some vegetables in the fridge and we were going out but we were a bit hungry and nobody knew how to cook them. Oh I can make a sweet and sour sauce and cook them in that, I said enthusiastically. And it was going well, it looked good but it didn't taste right and so I'd add a bit more vinegar and then I'd add a bit more sugar and finally it was well pretty inedible. we all got a few spoonfuls down and went out but I kept thinking about it and finally it dawned I hadn't put any salt in.
when I first started writing in my 40's, writing my journey, a piece of verse popped out, I can still remember this line - if it tastes too sweet and it tastes too sour then put in some salt until it tastes swour. Damn. I still wish I hadn't forgotten the salt!
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Ashrams - that was where the food was! Some premie houses too, but sometimes, all the money had gone on getting to programs.
In an apartment in Montreal one winter's day there was only lentils. Nothing else and no water. I think in Canada, they aren't allowed to turn the heating off, as people would die in winter, so it was nice and warm, but the water was off. I tried frying the lentils in a little oil. I can tell you that it doesn't matter how long you fry them, they don't soften!
They don't make you lick the road each morning there either, as most days your tongue would stick to the road, otherwise no doubt that would have been the routine, after the hard lentils.
Life of luxury in those ashrams!
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yes totally. luxury. I still remember the sight that greeted me when I was invited into the ashram - a big table and it was covered with dishes of food, a real feast and it was so colourful and fragrant. The lentils hydrated and spiced. The cooks feeling very happy and pleased with themselves.
A cupful of snow off the pavement might have worked on those lentils, John.  a pinch of salt helps no end. Hard to go past a bowl of dahl soup, I was making it for two old ladies this Winter. Once you get a bit old it's hard to cook and they end up eating all food prepared in commercial kitchens. A nice bowl of homemade soup is very comforting to the digestive system. Funny to think really that many people around the world who go hungry from lack of food nonetheless eat better quality food than those in a land of plenty.
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Okay you two. Point taken. Total luxury. But that was before 1981 a year or so before Rawat shut the doors and put us out on the road. By that time, travel, health care, transient employment and basic living costs had taken their toll. Rawat didn't want to fork over a nickel of the 20% off the top of every dollar we were sending to him -- 15% to the "mission" and 5% to him personally. Picture the same lentils in penetrated plastic bags strewn about by the mice that had overtaken the pantry in an unheated house occupied by the last devoted clingers who refused to accept that the ashrams were really closing. (Funny that the mice were more clear and natural than those messed up premies -- thanks to Rawat.) On a lighter note... Lesley... an amazing description of real cooking! As for frying lentils, that's right up there with boiling Holloween decorations!
Modified by lakeshore at Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 20:54:56
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sold into slavery to a fake person's whims.
There's no excusing the 'ashram experiment'. There just isn't. No really. It has to be about forgiving oneself not the guru.
I was thinking about something that happened in my family and I was putting myself back in context of the time and still I was thinking how could you not have put two and two together and realised what was happening and that it was deliberate.
answer - because there was nothing in me with which I could conceive of the truth of the matter. Two and two didn't line up because I could not imagine it.
all that talk of cooking soup and I stopped off on the way home yesterday and got the makings for a batch of chicken stock. Normally it's enough to sit on the verandah with a cup of coffee in the early morning but it's already bubbling away and my cat is looking at me like she can get me to turn the smell into breakfast through sheer force of willpower. oh well she's being very cute and smiley now and taken herself off for a wash.
Modified by lesley at Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 17:24:49
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I too carry a fondness for the food memories. Thanks for that!
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That is a chilling thought. But it explains some things about my marriage....walls I can't climb, places I can't reach, looking for comfort and finding blankness. Not always, certainly. Frequently, though.
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Hi Angela, nice to see you here. I'm sorry but I just can't stop thinking that if it were only the religious cult beliefs then emotionally speaking he would have been willing and able to exit when he formed his relationship with you. so why didn't he. at least emotionally speaking. that's the question.
In my own marriage it took me the longest time to realise that the walls and the lack of affection were his choice not accidental. well choice, a way of life anyway.
We were both already premies when we met and he left without talking about it at all and so that was strange for me particularly after I left too. Why didn't you tell me, I asked him. The way that he was, it was much less affected by his cult beliefs than I was.
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