I believe that is what they are doing, and so does anyone who seriously considers their methods as they correspond so well to established patterns for totalist or "high demand" groups (cults).

But I just find it a fascinating topic. We here at this forum are able to see what they do, and ascribe to those actions the presumed intentions. In Maharaji-land, they have a whole other vocabulary and in fact a whole other set of presumed intentions.

We talk about recuitment and various psychological tactics to enhance recruitment, and we speak about recruitment as though it were a defacto strategy for gaining wealth and the raw materials for the other kind of wealth rawat hungers for - uncritical and absolute adulation. But I doubt those things are thought of the same way even by people at the highest levels. Well, maybe some of those guys get nervous when they look at the books and wonder how Maharaji's latest indulgence is going to be financed, but essentially, most if not all premies, high ranking and low, and even Maharaji himself do not see themselves as a cult or cult leader.

How is it then that their strategies and activities, viewed by themselves as serving the highest possible good, resemble so closely and in fact ARE something else entirely?

How can this be?

Maharaji is not trying to recruit followers, he is trying to bring to humanity a great message and possibility of peace. It just so happens that the outflow of this process is his personal enrichment, and the validation of his breathtakingly mistaken view of his own personal value as savior, messiah, avatar, satguru or whatever you want to call it.

There is no point in belaboring the confusion between the identities of "Inspirational speaker" and "perfect master" because it is obvious to anyone that the veneration he accepts as his due in less than open circumstances far exceeds that accorded to someone making the lecture circuit with an upbeat message.

On that level, Maharaji must know that he is participating in a subtle subterfuge - but I have no doubt that he reconciles this deception as a necessity of the times - a nod to the Kaliyuga - a trick of white magic that allows him to get past the barrier of peoples mistaken pre-conceptions.

But I wonder how much deeper than that goes any awareness of duplicity or deception on his part. Let me put it another way - how can you be duped by someone who believes his own con? No question the damage is the same, and the thing is what the thing is, regardless of whether or not the perpertrator is aware of the nature of his crime. But still, it remains a puzzling question.

It seems to me that were the opportunity to bring Maharaji in front of a jury of his peers to present itself, the appropriate way to address him and his confederates would be in very patient and simple language - to start from the beginning and explain very slowly that it is not okay to take advantage of other people for your own personal gain, no matter what they taught you in India when you were a little boy. And that as human beings we have laws that hold that no one person is innately more valuable than someone else, and that humiliating ones employees and "students" is an abuse of position and not a marker of personal greatness.