Hi Bryn
I met a premie from way back a couple of days ago after a five year gap. I am still digesting the conversation, but it seems we have very different relationships to our past. He said he was cool about my exing, but somehow he wasn't really real- I don't think.
I know this reaction well, and saw it in myself in the past.
With most premies, however cool and open they are, and however normally they relate to their situations and interactions, there is nevertheless a layer of PR conditioning in there somewhere that you find sooner or later. It is like digging in soft earth, and you think 'this is fine' but then you suddenly come across a hard layer of rock.
I think their past actually remains unaddressed-abandoned. I suspect the past is only cool for them because He says it is. It is uncomfortable to feel all this unprocessed past in a person.
My own opinion is that lots of ex-premies have moved on too quickly, and not grieved or processed their past sufficiently. Of course everyone is different, and you cannot generalise, but if you invested your heart and soul for many years in Maharaji and his work, then just walking away and saying 'ciao' is not enough.
And of course the same is with still current premies, who have had K a long time, having to deal with the current revisionism as you say. There must be pain, frustration and bewilderment at what is happening now compared to how it was.
I suppose the root of the problem is that sooner or later PR's personal contribution to our biographies would have to come under conscious scrutiny like everything else in an adult life and dare I say-criticised,compared, laughed at?
Yep, that compounds the problem, you cannot just talk about this with anyone - being laughed at is probably the kindest reaction you will get from most other people.
What is it that premies have sacrificed their past for? Whats the trade off?
That's a good question, and being able to answer it, at least to oneself, is the hallmark of moving on, I think - whether a still-current premie living with the new version of things, or an ex-premie trying to come to terms with it all.
-- Mike
