Thank you Eileen for your kind words.  Don't worry, I'm a tough old bat, as the people here who know me will know.

Having just read most of the posts above I do now realise that spending years in a cult is probably more damaging to an American than a Brit - less chances to make up for lost time.  So yes I do see the reasons for prolonged anger, but how long is it good for anyone to be gripped by anger?  Surely there comes a point where it's healthier to move on, put it down to experience, and grab whatever years we have left by the scruff of the neck...

When I first read EPO and took it all on board (it resonated too painfully with unexpressed feelings I'd been having for a long time), it came as an immense shock all the same.  I went through a period of numbness, grief, denial, then anger - lots of it.  The anger when I realised what could have been, and what I could have perhaps become and done, but didn't - was immense.  I felt intense guilt about the people I had brought to M and what it had done to their lives too.. and just generally felt a lot of fury towards him and the whole thing.

Nowadays, though, I feel much better, and have thrown myself into work at a time in life when a lot of my contemporaries are slowing down.  Yes it's all the wrong way round and I should have done all this years ago, and would have doubtless have achieved so much more.  But on the other hand, if I tell anyone "I spent years in a cult", their eyes widen and they often say something like "Ooh that sounds interesting - my life's been quite dull in comparison."  And come on, do you really not think we gathered some valuable experience along the way?  About group living, about group dynamics, about the perils of hero-worship, about religion, about eastern philosophy, about meditation experiences?  We didn't spend those years in a coma - things happened.  We had friendships - often very intense friendships.  We travelled.  We saw each other at close quarters and learnt all sorts of stuff about human nature.  We learnt to see people as fellow travellers, not a bad thing in itself.

I've come to the conclusion that it's best to try and draw something positive from those years and put it to good use in the years we have left.  That's my conclusion, and I have a right to it.  You don't have to agree, and that's your right too.  We can't turn the clock back, and yes we may well have wasted some of those years  - I know I wasted the years from 1977-1983.  Horrible, desultory years, and I should have got out then.  Six whole years being made to feel bad by M a lot of the time, when I should have been going to college and getting a degree, or finding a useful job. 

But hey - I can remember a very devoted premie at that time in my community, even living in the same premie house as me for a while - who spent some of that time at university getting a degree!  I distinctly recall him saying one say at upper "I've just had to write an essay about concepts!  How ridiculous is that!" or words to that effect.  But he did it, he got through it, he got his degree and then he got himself a good job.  And all through that time he got up at 6.00 to sing arti, did his time under the blanket, had supper with us all, went to satsang every night, went to all the programmes to see M etc etc etc.  I don't hear him blaming M for his messed up career.  And although I thought it was odd at the time that he could live this sort of double life, I never doubted his sincerity re M.  In fact he still follows M now as far as I know.

It's because of people like him, and other premies I know who somehow managed to combine being a premie with doing all the other stuff, that I get a funny feeling when people keep trying to cast the blame for wasted lives outside themselves.

I didn't do a degree because I thought it'd be a waste of time, but was that because of M or because of me?  My graduate friend didn't see any conflict.  Was he less devoted?  Looking at his life back then, no I don't think so.

I can think of premies with sad, neglected lives but I can also think of other casualties of the 60's with sad, neglected lives.  Perhaps M became a convenient thing to hide behind for many of us, while we refused to face up to our own demons - I don't know and I'm still trying to figure it all out.  But please, this time, lets allow each other to figure things out in our own way, unlike back then, when we thought we knew all the answers.

Livia