That is a well-turned phrase, JM, and I think you are right.

I have had the opportunity to talk to two premies I knew from my ashram days who are still valiantly hanging in there following Rawat but both are about the most cynical people I have talked to when it came to Rawat, and they both seemed miserable when it came to trying to recconcile what Rawat has done and not done over the years.  This couldn't be done and still be a premie, so the solution was just not to do so.

One premie was very critical of Rawat, saying that Rawat is the Perfect Master, but also a very flawed human being who has done a lot of stupid and selfish things, much to the dismay of this premie.  But here is how it is rationalized:

This premie didn't quite use the word "lila," but the premie did talk about how it was necessary to focus on the path of practicing knowledge, that Rawat wasn't much help, if any, in helping the premie do that and in fact was usually a distraction, and that most of the other premies had a really screwed up idea of what the path of knowledge was all about, and the premie didn't go to Rawat "events" unless Rawat was in the area where this premie lived. 

So, the convoluted -- also self-destructive and very sad -- way this premie dealt with it was to basically isolate from the other premies, and to some extent Rawat.  The basic rationalization was that Rawat was the Perfect Master that the premie happened to be stuck with, and there wasn't really any choice in the matter.  So, the premie tried to make the best of a bad situation.  It was a kind of bear down and get through it strategy.  Listening to this explanation made my grind my teeth.

I did notice a certain spriitual ego from this premie,  in that this premie thought this was an understanding that most of the other giddy, childish premies didn't have, mostly because this premie really practiced knowledge and had survived all the "tests" of the living Perfect Master to continue to follow him.  Maybe not like him too much, but follow him.