I guess that got officially dropped at some point, but I don't think it was anytime before I left the cult in 1983, was it?   Rawat was still preaching god realization combined with total devotion to him, well in to the 80s.

I think it was simpler in the early 70s, when the "path of knowledge" was emphasized as the means to God Realization.

But in the late 70s and into the 80s, it was less "path of knowledge" and more "devotion and surrender" or "path of devotion" that was emphasized, but this was still part of the means to God Realizaiton.

Isn't that how you looked at it then?  I know I did.

By the "fat dour bitch," do you mean Mata Ji?

I was only around Mata Ji (other than when she was on stage) a couple of times and both times she was indeed dour, and actually very bitchy -- complaining about this and that.

But when I lived in the ashram in San Antonio (COLL), one of the Bais was sent to live there (I think her name was Sulaksna Bai?) and she used to tell me really gross stories about what a bitch Mata Ji was to her, how she really abused here physically and otherwise.  I think she had been assigned to Mata Ji as her servant, which was more like a slave from what she told me.  Sulaksna said that Prem "saved" her from Mata Ji by sending her out on tour. 

I don't know what she did wrong, but it must have been bad, because only the nearly-defrocked initiators got sent to lieve in San Antonio.  One was Parlokanand who got sent there for molesting kids.  Parlokanand was not allowed to give satang.  I think Sulaksna was, but otherwise she worked in the kitchen and wasn't functioning as a regular, touring, intitiator.