Hi d!  Thanks for posting your honest thoughts about where you are with all of this currently.  It can't have been easy being brought up in the the cult and still dealing with parents who are still giving their resources away for this!  It's more to sort out than even the most intelligent and caring person can imagine, and my guess is that you wont be able to be clear until you make a clean break.  It's kind of like a marriage that just isn't working, but the partners cling on out of fear, familiarity, avoidance, who knows what?!

I was struck by this part of your letter: 

"I'm not sure at this stage why I keep going back to watch videos. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that no-one else talks about life in these terms, and I like having someone that charismatic talk about life for an hour a week. I think I'm smart enough to not get caught up by the surrounding nonsense."

I remember having similar feelings, back when I was a premie: that no-one else out there is talking about Life in these terms.  In actuality," no-one else that I knew about"  would have been a more correct thought.  As has been noted, many many teachers and gurus talk about life in these terms--it's just that I had latched onto the knowledge path and had been told it's the best, it's the one true way, this is IT!  And it was IT because I wanted it to be!

But now that I know a lot about the shadow side of all of this, I question the definition of "life" in Rawat's terms, and know now-- it's far more beautiful and honest and gut-wrenching and REAL than anything he talks about, far less actually lives!

But it takes time to sort this all out.

Give yourself time, and remain open to all possibilities, because it's not pretty, what happens to people who shut themselves off from parts of themselves to make everything "fit" into a particular sceme.

Best of luck!

~Shelagh