Hi Tempora.  Your post reminded me of a program I went to sometime in the 90's--wish I could remember which one, and where, but I don't now.  It seemed to me that Rawat had been talking all evening about how beautiful we premies were, and was encouraging us to acknowledge our own strength and ability to glow and have such a good life and such a powerful effect on others, and how excellent we can be with knowledge, and on and on...and I came away from that feeling pretty chuffed up!   Then somehow I was in a line waiting to exit the hall, and in front of me was an instructor I knew well, and she was saying how completely humbling M's satsang was, and how we are such nothings, and what a privilege for us to even be within a mile of him, etc etc---and I thought--were we at the same program???!!!!!  I was so stunned at the difference in interpretation!  And I suspect this is how it always is.  He says so many things you could put almost any kind of a spin on, and find what you're looking for, just because you're looking for it!

(What's that law in Physics that says something about how reality can be changed just by virtue of how you go in there, investigating it?  Which suggests there is no absolutely objective reality?  Forgive my ignorance here--I've spent far too much time in the arts and humanities!)

Anyway,  whatever Rawat says or has said, it's pretty good spin-doctoring, I would say now.  And that's why we all "remember" such different things, I'm guessing.  But then there's lots we agree on too.  And thank heavens there are documents around to prove some dates and statements that absolutely can't be retracted, no matter how you interpreted them at the time.

The ambiguity and interpretive nature of this whole enterprise is exactly what makes it so easy for him/them to get away with the duplicitous revisionism, of course.  So it comes back, really, to how honest is this man?  He will have to live with that question for the rest of his life, or spend an awful lot of energy avoiding it.  Just as we have to ask ourselves, in any given moment, how honest am I being about myself and the way I live my life?  That's a guide, not a statement of perfection.  Perfectionism is a killer.

Just some thoughts before I go look for my teddy and sleep...

~Shelagh