This is from the Ex-Premie.Org Best of Forum at http://www.ex-premie.org/best/bof10282000210911.htm

Dear Joan,

I'm the ex-premie who called you this past summer to discuss Maharaji. Do you remember? You were busy getting ready for a dinner party but were able to graciously give me about ten minutes of your time nonetheless. As I I explained, I called you because I thought your high profile in the cult, indeed your status as a 'Super Premie' if you will, made your opinion about Maharaji inherently interesting to someone like me who'd never been more than a rank and file ashram premie.

You seemed somewhat bemused by my call. It was as if there was nothing to discuss, you certainly had no regrets or issues to resolve. As for my 'ex-ness', your advice (unsolicited) was to leave the past behind and simply get on with my life. If I wanted to follow Maharaji, fine. If not, that was cool too. But to try to understand, discuss or analyze the whole phenomenon, forget it, you weren't interested. Instead, you urged me to avoid 'victim consciousness', something that's apparently never plagued you. After all, like I said, you had no regrets.

I have to say that you were more than civil on the phone. Really, it's not as if you even know me and you WERE busy, I'm sure. In that respect, I have no complaints.

What does bother me, though, is that you personally seem to have engaged in some of the very revisionism I was objecting to when we spoke. I have in mind your recent entry in 'Perspectives' section of Elan Vital's website:

When I talk about Maharaji and the gift of Knowledge that he gave me, I always use the analogy of my treasured pearl necklace, each pearl being a person who has brought huge value to my life. These are the teachers, mentors and inspirations who have helped me identify important areas of my life that were still unexplored. When I meet these people, something clicks. Maharaji is a rare Tahitian pearl on that necklace of great gifts in my life.
I met Maharaji at the end of 1969. I was a hippie wanderer, traveling overland to India. I had a keen awareness of 'something missing', but would not have been able to tell you what was missing. I was not searching for a spiritual master or a technique of meditation. It was not until I met Maharaji and heard him speak that I began to feel pieces of the puzzle fall into place. It all started when I heard him address his huge audience as 'dear seekers of truth.'

Maharaji spoke to the importance of having a practical connection to a part of myself that is connected to…… whatever I call that life-force that is keeping me alive. His message shocked me because it was so different. This was not an intellectual pursuit. This was not a lifestyle. This was not an external practice, like rosaries or mantras. This was an offer to learn the 'how to' of practicing an inner focus on a daily basis.

The other thing that fit me perfectly about Maharaji's message was that he was not just offering a 'how to' and then leaving me on my own. I definitely needed support to be able to shift from a purely external focus to a more balanced menu, which included internal nourishment. Maharaji helped me see things differently, and opened up new possibilities in my life. I loved spending time with him, my heart bursting with the joy of what I was discovering!

I wouldn't call myself a disciplined person. I am an emotional person; more comfortable following my heart than making an action plan to make my dreams come true. This is another reason a competent teacher is such a treasure in my life. He reminds me where the rubber meets the road. If I really want a life where I feel a connection to something that I can always count on, then it is up to me to organize my life accordingly.

I call the time I practice Knowledge my 'quiet time.' It's the necessary break-time in my life that is increasingly filled with places to go, people to see, and things to do. I feel sincerely fortunate that Maharaji has offered me a method to find that quiet place, one that works for me.

I wouldn't say it's easy to practice Knowledge. It's daunting to be aware of the motor mouth of the mind. But it is simple. Even I can do it. The rewards? Maybe just that little inch of separation between my worries and me, which makes a huge difference in my life!

Joan, with all due respect, this account of how you got involved with Maharaji and who he is to you flies in the face of your earlier such account in the book 'Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji?' In fact, Joan, this seems to be the very kind of revisionism I was complaining about.

For example, whereas you earlier wrote:

This is a testimony. But really, without exaggerating, it is a scripture, for I have been graced and the Living Lord has found me, and so my experiences with Guru Maharaj Ji are the eternal experiences written by every soul in the past and will be written by every soul in the future who meets the embodiment of truth, pure consciousness, and bliss, receives his Knowledge, and lives under his universal shelter.

today, Maharaji, you suggest, is just one of a series of 'teachers, mentors and inspirations who have helped me identify important areas of my life that were still unexplored.'

See the difference? See my problem?

Even more troubling, in my opinion, is the discrepancy between your accounts of what you were doing in India at the time, how you came to Maharaji in the first place and how he initially impressed you. On EV's site, you say that you weren't 'looking for a spiritual teacher or meditation technique'. However, in the book, you explain, in great detail, how completely obsessed you were, then, with spirituality:

I had been walking from ashram to ashram, weeping quite a lot, reading scriptures and mourning.

Indeed, you detail the excruciating, perhaps even life-threatening spiritual malaise you were suffering and your desparation to find some relief. Your story is nothing if not the story of a young woman preoccupied with spirituality and relentlessly searching for spiritual guidance. It sounds like you haven't looked at what you wrote for the book in quite a while. Perhaps it's worth another look when you get a chance. After all, they're your words, not mine.

The disparity that struck me the most, however, in the two stories is how you deal with coming upon Maharaji and how he first impressed you. What you wrote for EV:

It was not until I met Maharaji and heard him speak that I began to feel pieces of the puzzle fall into place. It all started when I heard him address his huge audience as 'dear seekers of truth.'

is entirely at odds with what's in the book. There, a series of different 'spiritual seekers' including one of Maharaji's own mahatmas, tell you about Maharaji over a course of many months. Your interest is piqued a little further with each encounter. Then, after suffering what sounds like a severe emotional breakdown, you finally get packed off to see Maharaji with a letter of introduction from his mahatma stating that you 'would die' if you didn't get Knowledge. Finally, you arrive and are such a basket-case that you can do more than huddle, frightened, on his front lawn watching everyone else prostrate at his feet.

The point is, Joan, like everything else in Maharaji's world, your account for EV seems to be no more than a whitewash, a pack of lies tailored to sidestep the true nature of this cult. Here's how you ended your entry for EV:

I wouldn't say it's easy to practice Knowledge. It's daunting to be aware of the motor mouth of the mind. But it is simple. Even I can do it. The rewards? Maybe just that little inch of separation between my worries and me, which makes a huge difference in my life!

And here's how you ended your entry for the book:

Guru Maharaj Ji is pure and perfect. We can experience this purity and this perfection only from the divine manifestation of the soul, the Perfect Master. When I understood that Knowledge was the way that I could be constantly connected to him, internally and externally, I begged for Knowledge. And he gave me that entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

See my problem, Joan? Think about it.

Anyway, I should let you know that you've been the subject of some discussion over on the ex-premie forum:

http://www.ex-premie.org/forum5/main.cgi

Many people there think that you, personally, should be accountable for the part you played in rallying the troops. I, for one, think that, while that may be true, the real issue for you must be one of honesty. Wouldn't you like to come clean with your past, etc. etc.?

Trial by fire, Joan. It's the only way.

I'd add more but I'm running late for a wedding!

Sincerely,

Jim Heller