Hi Gok,

You said:

"Maharaji never said that I must feel gratitude towards him before I could receive Knowledge, or before I could receive and continue to receive his guidance. On the contrary, it took a long time for me to really feel gratitude towards Maharaji, though I found it a lot easier to feel gratitude towards the life within me from the day I received Knowledge."

You have got to be kidding!  Either you haven't listened much to Prem Rawat at all over the years, or you listen to him so much that it has become part of your thinking process.  I don't think that you realize how much you've incorporated what Rawat says as your own belief-system.  Face it, GOK, Rawat has embedded himself into your mind to such a degree that you are saying something that is completely opposite to the truth (that Rawat never asks for gratitude! LOL!).

He talks about gratitude to himself all of the time, always has, and still does talk about it, like all of the time, GOK!  That's one of the major features of his speeches.  Thirst, gratitude.  Gratitude, thirst.  Quenching the thirst, feeling grateful.  Feeling grateful and quenching your thirst.  Participation, service, gratitude, repaying. 

Rawat is a broken record on the subject of gratitude.  How can you possibly say he NEVER told you to feel gratitude?  That's got to be one of the strangest things I've yet to hear a premie say on this forum -- and I'm not kidding!

Here are four quotes of Rawat on debt.  And that's just four.  I would venture to say that he has almost never spoken without using the word gratitude, thanks, debt, appreciation, and all of the other synonyms of gratitude!

Here's a round of  for the best mischaracterization of Prem Rawat by a premie yet!!!!