I agree, Jim is right. I have no idea what premies believe now.

Devotion was a job-description at DECA.  Btw, I think the Poconos program was in  '77 or '78.  I was there, but I'm too busy to look up the year right now.  I know it was quite some time before I moved into the ashram.

The other thing about that period was that many of us DECA premies were much too tired to meditate and that never seemed to be an issue.  He had to know that we were working so hard, and lots of premies attempted to do it, but it didn't seem to work because we were too tired to meditate. Service, in all forms, was the priority, everywhere, it seems.  The only way to obtain that dedicated service from premies was to emphasize him as Lord and devotion to him.

The captain came down with an edict at one point that everyone had to attend satsang at DECA, and leave DECA by midnight(!), unless, of course, our service required us to pull all-nighters.

I'm cynical about this though, because I think all that devotion stuff, specifically and in general during that period, was directly related to the captain's desire to have his jet.  Pure greed.  The focus was on him, him, him, and the reward for all that wreched work we did was the darshan, and all the programs.  Devotion.  Period.

Cynth