This is so funny, thanks for writing it.  This was in regard to the infamous David Smith. Comments below:

He was the General Secretary of the main and only ashram in city I lived in. 

I never knew that Smith was GC in Chicago.  What was that, around 1973?  I assume you are talking about Chicago.

I wasn't dedicated enough to actually live in the ashram and have sex with sisters in the attic or the basement or the huge gymnaisum building in the back of the ashram.  So, I was in the dreaded "pre-ashram". 

Yes, the dreaded "pre-ashrams" where you had to be more Catholic than the Pope as it were.  It wasn't until after I left Chicago, that I found out that one particularly infamous sister was having sex with at least one  of the ashram brothers in the attic of the ashram, right (above) our very noses, and I was the Housefather, so that tells you how much I knew.  This was a different ashram, the one in Rogers Park.

Greg Vizzone put an ad in Divine Times inviting every nutcase across the nation to come to live in our premie house, which he didn't live in because he lived at home with his parents. 

Was Greg a sort of short, balding guy?  Did the ad actually say "WANTED: NUTCASES?"  Seriously, I can understand that would be a problem.  There was no shortage of nutcase premies, that's for sure, and they always seemed to need a place to live.

And the reason Greg wanted people to come was so they could be "like a hair on the body of Guru Maharaji" and go to Chiang Mai in Thailand to set up a premie house to spread Knowledge and smoke the finest opium and to make use of the exquite prostitutes there. 

Wow, sounds like a great plan, but how would people coming to live in your pre-ashram help him get to Thailand?

Well, along comes an complete headcase premie ex-VietNam vet named Marshal

Oh God, I remember Marshal.  He scared me.  I always was afraid if I moved to quickly, he would like, think  I was a Viet Cong and pull out a gun.  I always looked for something to duck under just in case. Was Marshal African American?

 Oh, yeah, on those foam pads that we all called beds.  Lovely!

Well, to be fair, even the "real ashram" people slept on those.  I think I slept on foam pads on the floor until the Fall of 1977, when I slept in the bottom bunk of a bunkbed in an ashram bedroom with three other brothers (not in the bed, just in the room).

And there were other problems at our premie house too.  We were in a drug (heroin) infested neighborhood right next to some really nasty projects and the women would be chased home and accosted in the vestibule. 

God, was that in Hyde Park?  Woodlawn?

 And then there was good old Steve Lavender, who really should have stayed home with his parents and stayed on his meds.  And thanks Steve for taking that plastic garbage bag that contained my laundry out to the garbage cans - I had way too many nice clothes.  And thanks, Dad, for letting me charge that pack of 6 underwear on your credit card.

Steve really threw your clothes into the garbage?  That's funny, although I'm sure it wasn't at the time.  Yes,  I remeember Steve.

So, I made an appointment with David Smith, Secretary General of the Ashram....I met with him in this aged and very ornate mansion that the premies had bought in a part of town that was very much an isolated island in a sea of crime and ghetto. 

Okay, that has to be that huge mansion on Greenwood Avenue in Hyde Park, right?  That was a cool house, although it was freezing, and the wiring was messed up, and of course a crazy premie with no electrical license and no permits, re-wired the house, and then the city of Chicago CONDEMNED the house and all the premies had to move out.  That was one of those cult-things that were always happening.  That's when the ashram moved to the far north side.

Right, though, it was in a very nice island in the middle of terrible neighborhoods.  I have to say, though, I was back in Chicago recently, and that whole area has gotten very chi chi -- very upper class and trendy.  I'm sure that house is worth a gazillion dollars now.

 I explained to David that I really loved Maharaji and I really wanted to move into the ashram and that the pre-ashram was driving me crazy.  I forgot what David Smith said but he didn't say much and he ended whatever he said with, "We need to remember Holy Name" at which point he started to loudly breathe in and out, in and out, in and out.  So, there we were looking at each other breathing in and out. 

Yeah, you know, David was very unpredictable.  He could be completely dead and self-depricating, and kind of this lanky, impish, kid, and then he could become this totally rigid, sadistic, weirdo and was so uptight and repressed  that he looked like he was about to explode.  The  guy clearly had some serious problems and the cult didn't help them.

Bhole Shri!

Maharaj KI JAI!

Thanks for that, it was very entertaining and brought back memories.