Although ex-premies often joke around here, most of the time we're quite serious about the things that we did while we were in the cult.  That may be why it's difficult for you to tell the difference between when someone is joking or not -- some of the things we did in retrospect can be funny -- but, it may be hard to get the joke because you weren't there.

The ritual of using holy water was accepted practice and went on for years.  Singing Arti was required of ashram premies twice per day.  During Arti, someone would hold a ghee candle and usually sway to the music, offering up the light from the candle to Maharaji's photo on the altar in the room.  After we were finished singing Arti and premies were all on the floor prostrate or kneeling down (doing pranam to his photo and his empty chair in the room, which constituted the altar) someone would go around the room with holy water or charanamrit (I think I'm spelling it right).  The holy water was often passed out by touring Mahatmas or western Initiators/Instructors who had been around Rawat and had a "fresh batch" of water.  We community premies would dilute it with bottled distilled water to make it last. 

Most often the holy water was kept in a crystal jar with a crystal spoon and each premie would hold out their cupped hands to "receive" the holy water, which we would then drink, and wipe off the rest on our foreheads (in the area where we focused upon to do the light meditation).  When we weren't having introductory programs at community halls, we also sang Arti after nightly satsang and did the charanamrit ritual.

Every premie I knew, ashram or not, had their own stash of charanmrit, and it was considered much too sacred to ever be sold.