Now we're getting somewhere. You handed over the keys expecting to be chauffeured for the rest of your life, and one day they were handed back and you were told you had to learn how to drive yourself. This a common bug up some ex-premies' arses. Well sweetie, I did the same thing. But on learning to drive, I discovered that was the best thing for me. Not only am I happy now to drive for myself, but I am grateful he took the time to drive me around before I was able.

Dear Jonx,

Please don't call me sweetie or mate. I have a name that I like. Karen Kirschbaum. I only like to be called sweetie by people I am far more intimate with than I am with you. Thank you.

I couldn't even get close to getting into the ashram unless I declared that I was making a lifetime commitment. Was it the same for you? Were you sincerely totally committed to surrender to the Holy Lotus Feet? We were ALL told that was the only way. Did you not hear this or were you insincere? I never heard him say that devotion and surrender didn't matter any more. Did you? When he closed the ashram doors, he never said..."Ops, sorry folks. I was wrong about surrender and devotion. The real way to realize K is to forget everything I said and go live in the real world." He never said a thing.

So after the ashrams closed down, and we were given our own "car keys," when did he explain all this transition? If he was the perfect teacher, why did so many people have SO MUCH TROUBLE making the transition. A lot of people were very damaged by this and still haven't recovered. I really don't see that he made any effort to help premies transition out into the world when the ashrams closed. From where I sit, it looks like he didn't give a rats ass about us. Show me please where he stepped off his golden throne and reached out to a confused and hurting premie in a real way to help them re-enter the world after 10 years of seclusion in a monastic life. Remember there was no meat, no money, no media, no sex, and no free thoughts. Only Sat Sang, Service and Meditation. No chit chat, no music ( thank God I mostly missed the disco years). I still find myself telling friends that I never saw this TV show or heard that song, or watched that movie, because I was in the ashram.

I walked by Chez Panise (sp?) every day in Berkeley to go cook at the veggie restaurant on Shattuck Avenue owned by Hebiba (a premie) and never once ate there. Anyone that knows me, knows what a great chef I am and that is pretty much unthinkable. I just wasn't in the world. And this wasn't by my direction, but rawats. I wasn't hiding from the world. I was OK before I moved into the ashram. It was 10 years of indoctrination by rawat and his certified representatives that had me in such a brainwashed state that I couldn't function in the world. What did he ever do to help the ashram premies learn  and re-learn how to navigate in the world?

As for the concept that rawat was handing back to us the rains of our life.... I never heard him say that. I heard premies use that rationalization. It didn't come from him. We needed something to justify our being thrown out on the street. Some way to still believe that he cared.

You know, as a badge of your sincerity, I wish you would tell us who you are. I have told you who I am. I am not afraid. When I exed, I took back my power and I love it.

Karen

burning brightly