Thanks, Jim, for reposting the "offending" item.  I haven't reread it yet but I am very familiar with both the article and the evidence behind it. 

After having had a little while to digest John's last post, I am thinking that he is far from "balanced."  It will evidently take some time to reach that point, not only for John but for anybody who has been involved with Mr. Rawat's cult in the past and those who are still involved.  Let us remember that John was more deeply and closely involved than most premies.  There are many former premies who simply walk away because they were only marginally involved in the first place.

Mr. Rawat himself is the problem in this balancing act.  He performs as an impersonal force  (to use one of John's phrases) when he is Guru Maharaj Ji, or Maharaji.  He dips his toe into the human level when he presents himself as a motivational speaker, but he has said how much he hates to think of himself that way.  When he speaks about himself as Master, it is always in the third person, with the rarest of exceptions.    He has spoken about the conflict between himself as a father and himself in the role of master.  (He said that in dealing with his children there is a human vulnerability).

What Mr. Rawat is like to those people who know him personally, only they know about his humanity.  It is those people who may or may not want to apologize to him for some reason, or to show some irritation and anger toward him, or to laugh with him, as people do.  But don't we all know that as premies, this is not our place; only as ex-premies do we even consider Mr. Rawat the man and how that affects his teaching and our response to that teaching.

Perhaps John has enough of a history with Mr. Rawat the man to be able to write him a letter and to think that he might even read it. (Of course Rawat probably will be forwarded the letter given the circumstances).  Maybe there is enough normal human relationship dynamics between those two men to consider such a thing as an apology.  

But the question becomes how do you treat Maharaji the Master.  Do you offer an apology to a superior being who shows people the "life force" or "energy that builds them"  and if you do, don't you thereby make the presumption that one becomes a devoted follower again?  One premie indicated here yesterday that there is a history of Maharaji the Master accepting wayward devotees back into discipleship.  What does it mean to apologize to the Master for criticising him while remaining an ex-student?  If you apologize for the criticism, doesn't that necessarily say that the presumption of the Master's standing is once again recognized and accepted? 

An individual's personal life is not something to be criticized or revealed in the press as long as that life is honest and lawful.  Mr. Rawat's personal life is probably as close to honest and lawful as many normal human beings.  But, (and this is one big hairy but), he is also a self-proclaimed savior-figure who allows himself to be worshiped and adored and described as magnificent.  The fact that he largely gets away with this farce is testament to the failure of governments and individual people to criticise when needed and to take the required measures against cults.

The Dark Ages when religious tyrants enjoy control over the masses is not yet over.  But it will be someday.  Maharaji/Prem Rawat and those like him will receive the criticism they so justly deserve, and nobody will apologize for it.

p.s. I have just reread my post, and I have to take something back, that part about Mr. Rawat's personal life probably being as honest and lawful as most normal people's.  I doubt that is true, in fact I can only imagine how extremely weird his personal life must be.  But I am not privy to any of that.  The one person I know who is privy to that realm is not allowed to tell me anything.   The few things I do know about their relationship is actually a little sick.