My memory of receiving knowledge in the 70's is that we were generally quite zealous. Some more than others. As I'm sure most honest premies who were around at that time would agree, I remember that Maharaji taught that we should come to Him for Knowledge very much with a humble attitude. I believe that there were Hindu stories given that compared aspirants to beggars. Some vocally begged in a quite alarming manner, other people begged in a less desperate way. The process of waiting for Knowledge helped us 'aspirants' develop this humble attitude and increased our thirst to become a 'premie' (lover) of Maharaji. That was the idea anyway - that your cup should be emptied so as to be filled by Knowledge.

Most people would wait for months before they were selected to receive the initiation. This time had to be spent becoming thoroughly soaked in regular Satsang (listening to all day lectures) and Service (working to spread Knowledge or directly for Maharaji) in order to be deemed 'ready'. The selection process was somewhat at the whim of the instructor which made it even more 'mysterious'. At that time, no prosaic explanations were needed - everyone was high on the idea that it was by Maharaji's grace that the whole process moved. Occasionally someone for no apparent reason would be selected to receive Knowledge after very little preparative time. Hence the whim of the instructor was interpreted as ‘Maharaji’s Grace’. I even knew of someone who took a wrong turn and walked into a Knowledge Session accidentally off the street! However for most people it was a long, often confronting or confusing wait interspersed with moments of conviction in this new path. One could say that waiting was a time to develop trust before taking the plunge.

Personally I waited for several months aged 17 in a rather seedy environment in South London which I actually found quite unpleasant in many ways. I was light-hearted enough to make it through this process relatively psychologically intact, although thoroughly brainwashed into the cult. Not so for my elder brother who was a sensitive, educated, soft English gentleman. He took the whole thing very seriously and was quickly put to work day and night (in the name of 'service' at the premie factory in Camberwell. My brother had a very good understanding of engineering and was mostly given service to do maintaining cars at 'GM Motors'. I remember one day visiting him there. I found him weeping and covered in oil under some jacked-up car. It was so sad. He was most sincere but unfortunately for him, also intelligent enough to be torn with moral and intellectual issues prompted by the double-standards he saw going on around him. (premies could be quite ruthless). He was so torn that he really never recovered to this day. It was truly traumatic for him. The selection process was not necessarily only about preparing yourself to be judged 'ready' to become a Premie. It was also about you making judgements about yourself and your worthlessness. Hence for many a lad coming from a middle-class Christian upbringing, inherent Christian guilt trips were fuelled by the demanding and intense reality of waiting for Knowledge from the Living Lord.

My brother was later selected for Knowledge by Mahatma Krishnasuchanand but left the room when the assembled were asked to consider finally if they were ready to make the weighty and serious vow. "Oh my Guru Maharaji, I am weak and ignorant and filled with the impurities of this world, please save me, I surrender myself at your Holy Lotus Feet.” Now was the time to back out if one was not prepared to take this solemn vow (entirely on good faith) on the ‘most important day of your life’. We'd been told that to receive the Knowledge and not to practice it was like being given a ton of vegetables and not eating it. The rot would a million times worse. So there was a lot of fear around at that time. It was just too much for my poor brother. He took things too seriously and sincerely for his own good. My observation was that if you took Maharaji's high demands, alternate flattering and doom-laden put-downs too seriously you wouldn't last long. It was little surprise then that premies became very dysfunctional and simply did not take what Maharaji said at face value. We developed the ability to overlook things that didn’t add up. It was all perfect. We trusted that.

I received the Knowledge in June 1974 and went home to the Sussex countryside where I experienced massive relief from the pressure of being around the cult epicentre in London. I practised the meditation part of the Knowledge very earnestly for the next months and had an undeniably deep and peaceful experience. The truth is that the meditational side has been something enriching to me whereas all the surrounding Master stuff, although seductive, caused me an awful lot of pain and confusion over many years. The long advocated ‘Surrender your life to Maharaji’ dictum wasted so much talent and time in people’s lives. This is really what Maharaji should have acknowledged in my opinion. Many people were hurt and more importantly, sometimes still hurt. His acknowledgement or empathy would have helped people to move on. Maybe it's too late for this now. He should probably have done this years ago and avoided a lot of bitterness and criticism.

My feeling is that inner peace can indeed be found through such meditation practices but that ones attitude should not be so biased by a teacher. Maharaji always maintained that he could put people in touch with their 'eternal spring' within (so to speak) and this (ever-changing) Master set up still provides some framework for people to focus and develop their thirst in that direction. However you are still subtly encouraged to associate this with the Master and not just as something you can, for example, freely share or teach others . It seems to me rather telling that as a 'student' you can never develop into a teacher yourself within this system. No matter how deep your understanding you remain a very small cog in the play of the perceived Great Master. The suggestion is that you can never be his equal. Even if one happily accepts this as fact, and all this attention and responsibility for 'leading the way' remains resting on the shoulders of the one man there is still a problem. Maharaji himself has quite clearly been under such huge pressures in his position as the 'one and only Master' that his character and health has been, some would argue, adversely affected. He apparently became alcoholic and ill-tempered for a start. Maybe the fact that he does not share his power more is at the root of this overload.

Mike Finch uses the analogy of Maharaji running a kind of Byzantine Court where almost inevitably and despite any former noble aspirations, the ruler or dictator becomes corrupted by his power. I think that many premies have had to face and integrate the fact that Maharaji has not been so 'perfect' as to be exempt or above this principle. Many have seen it with their own eyes, and clearly the whole restructuring of Maharaji's empire has been to 'move with him' in such a way where he remains the boss but is not required to publicly demonstrate any of the commonly expected personal benefits of the Knowledge he spreads (like inner peace) or any particular lifestyle (like the Spartan one he was advocating for followers). I suspect that his continuing ability to hold and entertain, even teach an audience is less of a reflection of his personal practice of Knowledge and more because he has simply developed as a speaker on this topic over many, many years. As one with probably more than his fair share of vices and problems in private he nevertheless is held up by his followers as being the only one who can authoritatively speak about something which maybe himself he doesn't practice so much. After all one does wonder why, if he were doing so much practice of a truly divinely inspired Knowledge, he does not demonstrate more kindness, more loving and understanding of premies and their problems, less hard-drinking, swearing and generally acting for all the world like an authoratative corporate family patriarch. (I deliberately do not use the term ‘Mafia family boss’ although this would be the correct term for the corrupt and legally-challenged version of the above)

Having said this it comes to mind that Khalil Gibran apparently died a bitter, love-torn alcoholic in New York. This doesn't reflect the supposed inspired poet whom we looked up to. Same with all the very poetic, preachy types I know. Their private lives, surprisingly, are often more sordid and messed-up than one might imagine from listening to their lofty words. Clearly mankind has produced many so-called inspirational leaders and speakers, many of who did not practice what they preached. A Hindu scholar friend of mine informs me that the revered Indian Saint Ramakrishna's sexual proclivities were somewhat out-of-step with a man of God. There is some evidence that he was a pedophile I believe. Even Jesus on the cross was supposed to have lost faith momentarily in the God who had ‘forsaken’ him.

I suppose if Maharaji were simply an ‘entertainer’ he could be as controversial as he liked in his private life and, as long as he remained law-abiding, he would fit in quite well within society . The trouble is that’s not what he’s really aspiring to. He is striving to achieve credibility as some kind of World Leader if what TPRF missives say is true. (see addendum below)*
This will inevitably mean he has to face some public scrutiny surely? Can he do this without answering his critics and accounting for his past? I don’t really think so - I just don’t think that premies will extend to him that much rope...that he can draw a curtain over the past and even deny aspects of it. What he seems to be counting on is that he can achieve public acceptability and respect through power, wealth and influence - traditional methods in other words!

So anyway, it seems that from the moment one committed to the process of being an ‘aspirant’ in the seventies, and now the same for someone who ‘does the keys’, one is essentially dedicating to a process where a ‘life-changing ‘ large leap of trust is required. This in itself seems a liberating experience from the muddle and uncertainty of modern life, and seems to be fulfilling an extremely powerful human need. This is the need to relinquish one’s faith and responsibility for one’s own spiritual development and fate into the hands of a trusted teacher or Divine Being. One can only marvel how, as a direct result of the intensity of Maharaji’s aspirant programs in the seventies, we still see today such a large number of extraordinarily loyal premies, many now in their fifties, whose implicit trust has survived unflinchingly, somewhat against all reasonable odds, into this century. If the object was to produce a hard-core army of fiercely loyal, dependent ‘beggars’ Maharaji succeeded. One has to remember that this is for them nothing to be ashamed of. Ask any devout religious person, they will probably also say they are proud to be a beggar at the feet of their Master. If anything it re-enforces their sense of ‘proud-to-be-humble’ self-respect.

I accept that we are all ultimately at the mercy of fate - whether our begging to a higher power makes any difference I can’t say.

* This is more than being an entertainer. Maharaji seems to aspire to being some kind of 'religious' leader. (correct me if I'm wrong) I can't think of a better description right now - he certainly isn't going to be seen as a powerful 'businessman' in the normal sense, nor could he be described as a 'political leader'... 'Inspirational leader' maybe?? What kind of leader would TPRF describe him as?