A couple of nights back I flicked onto EV satellite for the first time in ages to check things out.

A trailer was playing for apparently a big exciting upcoming ‘press interview’ by Prem to be scheduled in April.

In the clip, Prem was walking in his garden with the 'reporter'. Prem was in cheap-looking nylon shirt and slacks, the sycophantic reporter, obviously a premie blissed out by the service, in carefully relaxed gear. Prem was actually tiny – he could have fitted under the guy’s shoulder. He looked so completely small and insignificant and ordinary.

In a second shot, he was in an armani suit in an armchair, but still seemed really unimpressive.

The ‘interview’ focused on carefully prepared questions about feeling, and Prem reiterated more or less his stage talk. The overall effect was totally unspontaneous and naff, in fact so naff I had to ask myself why they would ever release it, as it must shock even those already bemused by his poetry in the late 80’s and surely shattered by his singing 3 or 4 years back.

If there had been a real reporter asking genuine questions (which of course would have been unthinkable), he would have been utterly non-plussed and made mince-meat.

Obviously, the strategy is to present Maharaji in a more accessible everyday form – Prem the ordinary but special type guy.

However, his lacklustre was so obvious, you had to mentally compare him to guys like the Dalai Lama or even maybe Charanand at his best, and he was quite shatteringly ordinary.

The thing which stood out was that without the special setting of a stage, where he sometimes still comes out quite impressively, he is quite shockingly insignificant as a figure and presence.

The whole thing demonstrated clearly the extent to which the relationship between Prem and his followers depends on separation and staged presence. It’s in the gap that the experience happens.

When he talks about heart and feeling, people tune into something peaceful inside, and the whole company intensifies the ‘bliss’.

The point seems to be that we attune to something natural inside, to a sense of being back at home with ourselves. I imagine that this is what happens with many other teachers, too.

The upshot of this can be either very shattering or reassuring from another aspect. It shows that Prem is dreadfully ordinary, but it can also perhaps be reassuring in showing that something quite beautiful exists inside us, quite independently of anyone else, and may be retained after involvement with Prem ceases.

Some still find this through the techniques of K, others through different meditational practises, others again perhaps by abandoning meditation altogether, according to their individual preference.

I myself continue to feel a positive benefit from K meditation, while having a full life generally post M involvement.

I guess we all find our individual way.