Propagation in the 80's more or less began with the closure of the ashrams and the ending of community satsang (83?). Thereafter, everything was to be done through the local (maybe part-time) initiator.

At that time, aspirants were actively discouraged from discussing with 70's premies. The broad idea was that these guys had a load of concepts and the newbies should isolate to a large extent and just receive things according to the new approach.

The oldsters believed this to be a necessary ploy, that the new generational intake were not ready for the 'truth' about things (less aware than ourselves) and had to be treated with kid gloves, until they were ready, as we saw it, to understand the real stuff about the LOTU.

Consequently, we had a new infusion of people some of whom were very blissed out, and who sometimes came to dominate the local scenes. It was quite annoying for the old guard, because you couldn't necessarily satsang them, because they had been immunised to being suspicious of us.

As time went on in the 80's and 90's (during which latter time propagation seemed to dwindle dreadfully), this situation came to be an accepted in premie circles - blissed out newbies and extremely pissed oldsters who were never able it seemed to regain some original respect as the founders of the movement locally, because the 'truth' never ever seemed to come out again.

It seems to me that the local scene which I don't really inhabit any more has never recovered from this scenario. We have the oldsters who look aged and suppressed, while the diminished scene seems reasonably dominated by 80's types, still fairly blissed out.

All in all, it seems to me that we are talking two separate scenarios in which the originators still believe in the LOTU, while anyone after 1983 just sees him as an exceptional man, who is capable of channelling through something exquisitely beautiful, and are trained not to think any further about how and why.

I deduce from attending Ally Pally 2003 that this latter is the ongoing story. I imagine the Keys are the same. Really, just suppressing original thought and seeing the Master as an exceptional person needed for the illumination to work.

The irony IMO is that the techniques still seem to me to be valid. Personally, I love the techniques and meditation. I perceive the Guru Maharaji inside that I was originally taught as being identical with Prem is nothing like this but my own soul, very real, usurped by a belief system, but still very absolutely meaningful.