And then Forum 8 helped me to understand in greater depth. That was a year and a half ago and it's been amazing and really helpful to read here. When I first read EPO I wanted to go into denial - just as many premies do. My natural reaction was to try and explain away all the facts and justify M.

Lots of exes have told me the same thing and the forum has been enormously helpful to sort everything out for me too.  I still learn things now, even though it's been so many years posting online for me.

But, it was Maharaji himself that drove me out with his own words out of his mouth - live via satellite. I just couldn't tolerate his arrogance anymore and ironically, it was his lack of gratitude to premies, for everything premies have done for and given to him that became increasingly disturbing.  Something snapped.  I no longer could rationalize how he could live the way he lives and continue to demand so much more by laying guilt on the people who gave him all of it to begin with, with so much love.  That became intolerable to me. 

He was complaining about premies again in a 1999 satellite feed, and he got more nasty than I'd ever heard him be at a program, telling us about what a bunch of ingrates we all were -- again!  It hit me like a ton of bricks:  This is a cult. He really doesn't care about me one bit.  I was so tired of rationalizing everything about and for him.

So, it was a relief to find EPO even though it felt like sacrilege to read it.  It was deliciously forbidden reading though and I recommend that any premie do it with abandon!   

Anna, I think it's also ironic that those old pictures you were looking for of Maharaji on the official websites were possibly the same one's that Elan Vital tried to have removed off of EPO.

Be well,

Cynthia