GOK you replied to my question(s):

With the following:

>No-one is asking that Maharaji should be "the subject of such a mystical understanding". That's the whole point of what I have been saying here many times. You are not required to believe that Maharaji is "Lord" or "Satguru, or anything like that. There is no requirement to believe anything about Maharaji, other than just to trust him enough to give the practical experience of Knowledge a fair try in your life. And if you don't trust him enough to give Knowledge a fair try, or if you have given Knowledge a fair try and you don't like it, that's no problem either. You are not required to believe anything. And you are free to believe whatever you like, good or bad.<

This raises more questions than it answers so I'd like to try again at obtaining some understanding of your position.

Firstly, lets get rid of the 'should' from my final question - I'll rephrase it:

"Why is Rawat/Maharji the subject of such a mystical understanding ?"

Secondly, are you saying that 'trust' does not involve 'belief' or that 'trust' is a 'lesser' form of belief, or simply that belief is 'involved' but only until the 'experience' of Knowledge occurs ?

Thirdly - and taking your point about "That's why it's called "Knowledge" - it's not about belief" what does 'knowing' consist of ? Specificaly my earlier question "How does anyone 'know' that what they experience in meditation has anything to do with 'Maharaji' ?"

Fourthly - and in the light of the last question, do you object to my use of the term mystical ? You used the phrase "to realise and understand for themselves (through the experience of Knowledge) who or what Maharaji is" My characterisation of this is that the realisation and understanding involved must be 'mystical' because to achieve this realisation and understanding requires a practise (Knowledge) which entails no normal process of learning. Even if one accepts the 'reality' of the meditational experience, as there is no corporeal test of the understanding, nor process of independent affirmation of truth or accuracy then 'mystical understanding' or some cognate phrase seems entirely appropriate.

Fifthly - Why, when every other human being is subject to belief, should any reasonable person accept that premies are uniquely excepted ? Personally I happily admit to believing in many things of which t I do not have direct experience - for instance I've never seen a single atom in isolation, yet I believe that world I experience every moment is comprised of atoms.

As I wrote previously: 'knowing' is not an experience, it is a process that occurs in response to experience. If you are going to recommend an empirical approach to what Rawat offers, then you must honestly pursue the logic of empiricism which must require that knowing follows experience and can not be conflated with experience, they are (at least in common human experience), separate things.

Finally, do you not feel a touch discomfited by your own arguments in defence of, what I would describe as the 'Rawatite received wisdom', so much of which seems lodged in a thirty year time warp, unapprised of three decades of scientific and philosophical development ?

Yes I know it's about the experience - but really the explanations for such experiences - whether neurological, sociological, psychological, evolutionary, etc. are so much more complete than the semi ecclesiastical circularity that typifies 'premie think'. It's not my arguments that I think make you 'wrong', it's the enquiry and investigation achived by our species that forces me to conclude that the received wisdom of Rawatism is irrevocably flawed.

N