Mick,

When Rawat broke from his mother and two oldest brothers in '74, he had a chance to do some real soul-searching (pardon the expression).  It was the perfect opportunity for him to come clean with himself and others.  Not just because he'd cast off whatever influence and expectations his family had for him but also because Millenium '73, the festival at the Houston Astrodome, which Rawat and his family had touted as the "most significant event in human history" where he promised to "inaugurate a thousand years of peace" had been a complete debacle.  A gross embarrassment of divine proportions. A flat bust.

So there he is, exposed to the world as an empty promise, just at that mid-way point in his teen years where he was starting to think for himself.  If he'd simply come clean then and explained that Millenium had opened his eyes and shown him that, in fact, he was not the "greatest incarnation of God to ever trod the planet" we could have all gone home.  Party over, no serious harm done.  Whatever.

But Rawat was greedy and weak.  He wanted something akin to honesty but not if it was going to rob him of his outrageously undeserved and unquestioning power base.  Read the Bob Mishler interview on EPO for a sense of the moment.  He approached the cliff but didn't have the guts to jump.  He's been hiding from that moment ever since.