Up until I became a non premie in 1983, I used to openly tell people that Maharaji was God on Earth.  I was fortunate in that most of my non premie friends didn't believe it and I could still know them after I dropped out of Maharajism.  I would occasionally get asked if I was still into Maharaji to which the answer was, of course, no.  People are usually so wrapped up with their own lives that they easily forget that you used to tell them that God was on Earth.

I never felt embarrased about being a premie when I was one.  Maharaji was the Lord when I was his devotee and it was something to be proud of.  After I exited in 1983, Maharaji stopped being God and I would have found it very difficult to have continued to be a premie then, even if I'd wanted to have been.  How would I have told people that I was following someone who I used to say was God but who now wasn't?  I would have had a whole omelette on my face.

But the main reason why it would have been impossible to follow Maharaji after he stopped being God was because the only reason I followed him in the first place was because he was God on Earth.

I was never into "having a guru" and am not the best man on earth at taking direction from other people.  I could take orders from God but from another ordinary bloke?  As soon as Maharaji stopped being God, the whole house of cards collapsed, overnight.  The dream evaporated in an instant.

Strangely enough, this cataclismic event didn't happen when I left Maharaji in 1983 but years later in 1998 after reading Bob Mishler's interview and talking to David Stirling on the internet.  Then it finally dawned on me that Maharaji was just an ordinary human being.  Before this and before I found premies and ex-premies on the internet, I had continued to be a non premie and follow my own trail.  However, I used to think that perhaps one day, when the time was right, I'd get back into Maharajism and become a fully fledged premie again.  I felt He would call me back, when I was ready, or some such nonsense.

The revelation that Maharaji wasn't God was utterly astounding and bewildering to me.  There was no turning back from that moment, though.  Despite what premies might say, I believe most of them believe that Maharaji is God on Earth and that is the main glue which binds them to him.  I am not talking about the career premies who are in the business with Maharaji but your average premie who goes to see Maharaji at programs and places like Amaroo.

The one hold that Maharaji has over them is that they believe he is God.  It's as simple as that, even if they say otherwise.  It's a matter of how Maharaji is perceived.  If a person has an experience of meditation and they mistakenly attribute that experience to Maharaji, it makes Maharaji seem more powerful.  This is one trick that Maharaji plays - making people believe that he gives them an experience.  Another trick he plays is frightening people into thinking that if they leave him, all manner of dire consequences will result.

To people who still believe that, I would say one thing.  Where there is love, there is no fear.  If Maharaji was God then he wouldn't need to rule by fear - or guilt - or condemnation - or criticism - and all of these things Maharaji uses in abundance to lord it over the premies.

It's hard to understand how sane, intelligent people can allow themselves to be ruled by fear - but that is the dark place that Maharaji leads people to.  The path that we started walking in the early seventies seemed so wide and glorious.  I was proud to knock on people's doors and sell them a copy of Divine times.  I loved it when they invited me in and I told them of truth and how the world was going to be a better place.  There was nothing to embarrassed about then.  No need for shame as we had the Lord on our side.

And as the years have rolled on, that once great path has got more and more narrow, more and more restricted and inhuman.  Gone is the love that could be given so freely to all people, regardless of whether they were premies or not.  Instead it is a path so narrow that only those with smart cards can walk it.  The once superb dream of making the world a better place through the love of God and through simply love itself has all but gone and what is left is a mere paragraph in the book of life.

And in that clever way in which life teaches us, we can now see that the ordinary people, the non premies who premies used to think were ignorant, those people are leading the way and are making the world a better place.  The worldwide public response to the Asian Tsunami tragedy is staggering and it shows that the human race is not ignorant or lost but that we - the common-or-garden folk - really do care and are putting our money where our mouth is.

We don't need a pretend Lord to tell us what to do.  People already have those qualities of love, devotion and compassion in abundance.  And if God really did come to Earth to walk amongst us, I'm sure He would tell us that.