I was pretty shocked how one of our coach party could die like that and we could carry on as if nothing had happened. Well perhaps people were covering it up in Maharaji's grace but it was a tragedy and I guess people had to rationalise it within Maharaji's world. Deep down I expect most people, including you, felt very saddened by it.I was saddened, but I did believe that it was all 'covered', in a sense, by Maharaji's grace. What I mean, is that I thought Maharaji really was the Lord, without whose grace not a leaf stirred, and that his Knowledge really was the way to understand all things, at least in oneself.
The satsang I gave on the bus afterwards was thus an attempt to include the sadness and shock within the greater world of Maharaji's love and grace. As I said, it was genuine. The cringing bit was that I could ever have thought like this, and I did think it for nearly 30 years - trying to shoehorn into Maharaji's philosophy elemental human suffering like that.
(That is, if we can dignify M's message by calling it a 'philosophy' - the ironic thing is that as premies we would have been horrified to hear of our Lord's words of wisdom being called a 'philosophy'!)
So PatD, in your post above, you are right - it was a test. And unfortunately, I passed the test, showing yet again my ability to immerse anything real and gut-felt into a soapy set of platitudes that passed at the time for ultimate wisdom. Ah well, better late than never, as they say.
-- Mike
