Basically the motivation for those who endeavor to be good premies is not so much about the "good stuff" you might get for being a premie, but what 'bad stuff' you might avoid by 'hanging in there', and not leaving the perfect master.

Remember two important things:

1) To most premies, Prem Rawat is still the 'perfect master', with whatever connotations that might bring up...

2) A double negative might equal a positive. In other words, if by staying a premie, you can avoid something bad, that might be considered good.

A few of the reasons for staying:

1) It's still a comfortable thing to do, with some social connections that are nice to stay up with, either locally, or at large programs. For some people, it's easier to just let the whole thing gradully fade away, rather than rock the boat of their own carefully guarded concepts. Those concepts are the umbilical cord to the perfect master-why cut them by thinking, when you have been conditoned for 20-30 years to NOT think? As one premie told me about the Dettmers revelations: 'It's simple...if I don't think about it, I'm OK...besides, I won't believe it until Maharajiays it himself....who do I trust more?- Maharaji or Michael Dettmers?......

2) Avoid guilt possibly felt by leaving the perfect master. Remember, you promised your life to him, and he's still around. Are YOU going to refuse GOD?

3) It's insurance, to stay around,'just in case'. As wacky as that seems, many religious people have told me the same thing about their religion. They don't necessarily believe it all, but it costs nothing,or very little, to BELIEVE. (Little do they know, how much it DOES cost to BELIEVE). And just suppose it IS true, won't you be glad that you stayed?

Of  course, this isn't much of a motivation for propagation, and that's why premies are like, so not into it.

4) A chance to possibly be around the big guy, in the inner circle. This is an extremely powerful idea for many premies. Most premies have never been around Maharaji except at programs, and they are very curious about what it would be like. Charlatans like Maharaji love to create this vacuum around them, and premies are drawn to it, until they realize that like all vacuums, it is completely empty. The fascination is always there, and a good cult leader can milk it for all it's worth. This also creates a power over those in the 'inner circle' to obey in order to not get kicked out, when they know there are numerous others waiting in line to take their place.

5) Staying, even marginally, is SO much easier than leaving. If you leave (as we all know), you have to do some serious soul searching. If you stay, even though you don't really buy into it completely, you don't have to rock your concept boat. One friend of mine said this-- 'All I have to do is put in one hour a week at the hall, and nobody bugs me'....he never once noted how bizarre that sounded, which bings up the next point:

6) There is a deep,deep seated fear of leaving that most premies have been conditioned for 20-30 years to accept. They believe that their life would be worse if they left, rather than better. The believe that 'the mind' would swallow them up and destroy them. This is not talked about too much these days, (it was talked about all the time in the past), but it is still a premie belief for many. Also, most premies I know don't come close to practicing for an hour per day, so they put in their 10-15 minutes, go to a video once every week or two, and are still 'on the team'.

7) Many premies are still waiting for Maharajito 'manifest his work', or 'reveal himself'. They are still hoping that Maharaji will finally get it together, and do what he promised to do, despite all the tremendous failures of Maharaji to be successful in either "propagating knowledge" or even holding on to the vast majority of people who actually receive knowledge.

Currently there are also some beliefs/theories that Elan Vital is 'leaking' to the premies. These may be trial balloons, but they are obviously trying to make some kind of coherent explanation for why Rawat did was he did in the past as very well advertized by the ex-premies:

a) Maybe Maharaji really is human, after all. They don't say what that might be, and it would have been unthinkable for a premie to believe that in the past, but it serves to cushion the blow when rank and file premies begin to hear some of the stuff on EPO.

b) Elan Vitall is actually telling city contacts that the people around Maharaji, from DLM to EV, have always kept people in the dark, and manipulated things. This is the usual Elan Vital lies about how it was always other people around Rawat, not Rawat himself who was behind all that has happened. This is, of course, mostly nonsense.

Of course, Rawat iis not to be implicated, and the blame is placed precisely where it should be-on the shoulders of the poor premie. This concept dovetails rather nicely with the current 'Elan Vital downsizing'--Maharajican imply that the 'downsizing' is not because faith is eroding and donations are drying up, but because it is a necessary 'housecleaning' that will now FINALLY let him 'manifest' his 'unique vision'. Premies are conditioned to buy into this, simple, although completly inadequate and illogical, explanation.

The dysfunction is hard to come to terms with. The poor premie who gave their life completely to Maharajiis blamed for Maharaji's inability to succeed. Many of them are way behind in life, with little savings, little career, little relationship experience,a cheap apartment, a beat up old car, and not much in the way of self-confidence or self-esteem. Maharaji tells them they have failed, and failed him. They have not experienced the happiness he promised them, and they believe it is still 'just around the corner' if only they would 'get off the fence', and really practice more.

Those abusive "training sessions" that Rawat has done are in line with that. They are essentially sessions in which Maharaji tells the premies what failures they are and how they have screwed up what he was trying to do. They have just never gotten it together, and the failures are all their fault, not the fault of the Perfect Master. Since premies are conditioned to NEVER criticize Maharaji, there is nothing left but to blame themselves.

If you really belive that Maharaji provides the key to happiness, it is SO easy for him to continue to guilt trip you into staying...after all, who can ever say they have enough happiness, or couldn't be just a bit happier?

I think this is why EPO is so incredibly threatening to Maharaji. For the first time, the average premie who has been so easily manpulated, may finaly see through the facade, and see that Maharaji doesn't have the spiritual contenment or happiness he talks about, and that they are better off putting their sincerity elsewhere. I think that most of the reasons for staying these days, are not for positive reasons, but simply to avoid negative, or perceived negative consequences. EPO is brewing the coffee for premies to smell. When they do wake up and smell the coffee, they may just decide that Maharaji is not their 'cup of tea' (or coffee).