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“Listen, the one who has the power is going to satisfy everybody. Relax and watch what happens."How about we change 'Relax and watch what happens' to 'Rolex ... watch... happens' Sorry, couldn't resist it!! Anna
Modified by Anna at Fri, Jan 27, 2006, 17:07:47
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I realise that current premies could use it to confirm their beliefs, in that the wee fat one got on stage with handkerchief on head and proved it to 'all who had gathered' (now there's science in action), but the idea that there should even be a question like: >who would become Master after the 13 days of mourning were over? More or less shows what a ricidulous, keep-it-in-the-family cult trip it has been from the outset..
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bihari singh is a man with doubtful character and was always the major example of somebody who murdered somebody and still received the knowledge by hans in spite of this. He came back in the late 80's or so.
toby
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The seem to be a very disproportionate number of criminals among the original Indian mahatmas. Maybe going to the West was a good way to escape those who were on to them in India.
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Maybe going to the West was a good way to escape those who were on to them in India.
I heard that Bihari Singh was a bandit who'd seen the light courtesy of Shri Hans & had become a reformed character. Of course the inevitable hype made him out to be a Bandit Chieftain made good, which may or may not be true, but is essentially irrelevant, though not to those who are disposed to be dazzled by either social position or its inverse, the romantic glamour of the powerful criminal.
I'm sure that Bihari's conversion was genuine, & I doubt very much that anyone who would've been onto him in 1965 or whenever it was, would bother trying to track him down after he'd given up & repented.
India doesn't work like that. There are too many other bandit clans still operating in Bihar for the authorities to bother pursuing those who've got religion.
Rhadasaomi cults, like the one started by Rawat's father, offer a way out of the stifling conventions of the traditional Hindu class system, by their very emphasis on the equality of all before the feet of the Guru. This must've been a powerful attraction for individuals of an independent & ambitious cast of mind.
There was Prakash Bai, a middle-aged widow who back home would've been a ghost waiting for death, Mohani Bai, in her 30's ditto, but who set herself up as a guruess after walking.......smart move.
I don't think we know enough about the social background of those who were sent West, to really appreciate just what a liberating flash it must've been for them. Or a nasty shock.
What we don't know & certainly never will unless one of them explains, is just how, & by whom, they were chosen to be the missionaries of the divine light to the benighted heathen of the wild west.
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She was a definite exception to my theory. When I was 14 my mother let me stay under Prakesh Bai's care in Denver in the Ashram. Prakesh Bai took her responsibility to me really seriously and was very maternal and even a little strict. She left the cult before I did and married an ex and they ran an Indian resturant ( Maliks?) next the the satsang hall in Coral Gables. I was utterly appalled then she had left the cult and became afraid to talk to her. I would just stare at her and she looked very sad when she saw that look on my face. I feel very badly about it now because she was nothing but kind to me ever. And here is another funny story. I was 13 and I reached my adult height of 5,9 at 12. So I looked older than I was. One night we were all eating dinner at the Ashram and someone commented on my looking older than 13, and Pakesh Bai's daughter, Sunita( ?) says "yes she looks 20 till she opens her mouth then you know she's 13" and I swear everone started to laugh so hard ( but me ) that there was chai and dahl and chapati spat all over the table.
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Hi, this became a mental healer here in Germany. She sings bajans and cures with healing hands, she once was in a TV show here. She left Rawat after the marriage, why I don't know. She got married with the former ashram secretary. I liked her even she was quiet
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Hi Wolfie, I remember Mohani Bai from when she was in Israel. She was very popular there. I was her driver. As far as I know Rawat kicked her out when she commited the sin of 'falling in love' with a 'person'. The same happened to Gitanand, who also dared caring about others rather than Rawat. I am glad she is well. All the best Jethro
Modified by Jethro at Mon, Jan 30, 2006, 06:51:32
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Jethro,
What happened to Gitanand? He gave me Knowledge in December 1973 but I don't remember seeing him again after that visit.
John.
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The last time I saw him was at a European festival (maybe Dortmund?) in the 70s.. He had already been de-mahatamized, sent to Coventry(conventry?) and had grown his hair and sported a nice moustache. I think, like Mohani Bai, he also fell in love with a German premie and Rawat refused to see him(for being unfaithful). I have to say that he looked really pained and wouldnt engage in conversation. I think he was hoping that he wouldn't be recogised. I know he was made a mahatma by mattergee when he was 15. I hope he didnt disapper in despair as so many people have. So Kumar(I think that's his name), if you read this , please drop us a line here. Take Care Jethro
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I think I'm right in saying that not only did he receive K at age 15 but was sent to the West at a young age too. 19 ish? By today's standards, in Western society, I guess 19 isn't that young. Old enough to have left home and finished a first year at Uni or to have left school and got a job etc but back then, for Gitanand, It must have been a big deal as I also think I'm right in saying he certainly wasn't an Indian middle-class " sophisticat" with a wider knowledge of the world. Didn't he come straight out of a " cow & a mud hut" Indian village environment? Back then the cultural differences would have been even more accentuated. Ok, he walked straight into the weird and " wonderful" environment of the PoP and must have been sheltered from a lot of stuff but once out in the big world it must have appeared to him as being " a long strange trip". I guess his German girl-friend / wife( ?) must have helped and all that, but still, it comes across as a poignant tale of crushed innocence.That's just the outsiders view, though, but who knows ? That was then, though. By now, I suppose, there's every chance any cultural shocks and sorrows are a thing of the past and he could well be fully adapted and content with his lot. Let's hope so, anyway.
Modified by Dermot at Tue, Jan 31, 2006, 08:54:32
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I received Knowledge from Mahatma Umesh Dhar at Bry-en-Marne just outside Paris in November 1973. It was a beautiful setting - a large villa with expansive garden and a large marquee in which seemingly all the beautiful spiritual travellers came together to crash and find truth, and to be doled out brown rice and vegetables by the long-dressed house-mother and assistants, while chestnuts plopped from the trees and split gracefully onto the grass and tables in glorious conkers. We would attend satsang during the day then swap yarns at night in our sleeping bags. One guy who I remember clearly was a Breton, living in the outback. He told a story of how he and his friend had been chopping wood, and were suddenly called to in musical voices by two beautiful girls in white standing on the outside steps of their semi-ruined farmhouse. They went to find them, but there was no trace of them. Who were they: We never knew.. We were the flotsam of the international communities, it seemed. Some of us were the rejects from London POP because we hadn't been able to knuckle down to totally debase ourselves to the org in London to be deemed ready for K. No - we had a bit of dignity and reasonably cool judgement. So we spent 4 quite luscious days in the attic with Mahatma Umesh Dhar, who looked the part of a perfect soul, clad immaculately in white shirt and cleany pressed trews. He took us through the philosophical background to Knowledge, explaining that, while humans were destined always to naturally continue their karma by commiting either good actions or bad actions, those who knew and practised the Holy Name were absolved therefrom because all their actions thereafter went towards God, and were freed from the cycle. When we received Knowledge it took 13 hours, and we took a break for a breather in the garden at midnight for fresh air and refreshments. Before that, however, I had had the very strange feeling of time stopping. After an hour or so of the session, time seemed to have completely stopped. After that I lost touch with my personal Mahatma, though I always retained a great affection for him. Years later I discovered that he had decamped from Maharaji in the middle of a western program, where a friend of mine had been doing security. He had suddenly learnt of Prem's marriage to Marolyn, changed expression and abandoned the stage. I asked Charananad years later what had happened to him, and he told me he had returned to India. Hearing of these various people now fills me with quite a lot of love and affection. At the time we would all have felt that they just couldn't cut it - hadn't what it took to be devotees. However now, when the dust has lain, it seems that Maharaji never had the sort of temperament to allow people to drift off and follow their own needs or paths with his 'blessing'. Everything had to completely remain fixed around himself as the ultimate manifestation. The system had to be maintained at all cost, to the present day. This is, of course where it breaks down for most free-thinkers. I remember several year back seeing a program on TV about India where certain young spiritual seekers were exiting exultantly from a darshan line from someone closely resembling Mohani Bai. I may have been wrong, but I was riveted. I hope by then, if it was her, that they realised it was something natural they were experiencing, or, if they reckoned it was to do with God, they saw her only as a channel, and not the source of the same.
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Bihari went with Mata Ji after the split in 1974, but he "returned" to Rawat in about 1980. One day, he just showed up in Miami when I was community coordinator there, and nobody knew what to do with him. Maharaji apparently wouldn't see him, and I recall arranging for him to stay with a premie Indian family in Miami. I guess eventually he was allowed to return. Frankly, I think Bihari just preferred living in the West, where he was revered to some degree by the Western premies, but that is just my opinion. I recall there were lots of stories about how abusive Maharaji was to Bihari in the early 70s, when Bihari was Maharaji's personal body guard/slave/play thing. I recall that Maharaji dumped cold water over Bihari's head on the roof of the ashram in the dead of Winter. I think he also made him sit in a tub of water in below freezing temperatures on that same evening.
Modified by Joe at Mon, Jan 30, 2006, 13:55:49
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