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Every so often I muse on the fact that Rawat in all the time I was a premie was an affront to aesthetic sensibilities.
From the awful clothes he wore once rich (explained by his fascination with New York gangsters) to the poetry he recited in a hall in Sydney (someone near where I was sitting suffered such affront that he got up and left after a few soulsearching groans).
When I started to evaluate Rawat as one of us - just a simple human being as you or I - there was nothing attractive about him, a sow's ear tricked up as a silk purse indeed.
I was commissioned once to build a stained glass window for his house in Brisbane. I was given some money for glass and he had drawn up the design on his computer...which meant of course that there would be no conferring.
There were a few problems with the design. One being that it was 4 x 6 instead of 6 x 4 leaving me with the question of whether to stretch the design out until it was the right shape to fit the window or set the design as is into the centre and add panels on either side, which is what I did (it was large enough to need to be made in three sections with rods anyway).
The design was abstract and remarkably unattractive (not one person who saw it no matter how taken they were with 'Maharaji' could find anything nice to say about it, it got dubbed 'banana lips' due to the shapes in the middle. I solved the dilemma by simply refusing to judge it, just bond and build it).
And it was very colourful. This was the second problem - he had sweeps of grading colours without lines meaning I would need to translate the design into something doable in glass and lead.
What is the sound of one foot going nowhere you ask?
Listen on...
Warren installed the window. He was no premie, he clearly didn't like the set up and he loved his glass which I had used because being old and handblown the colours graded with the varying thickness of the glass, lovely stuff. So he was a bit curmudgeonly about it - nonetheless he gave me a nod with a smile and said he hadn't thought it possible to make that design good to look at but I had. Looked good to me too.
After Rawat had seen it I was graced with a comment - he liked his design but was unhappy with the panels on either side...
(Very rude don't you think? and I had returned the money that was given to me - but completely routine for him from what Ive seen.)
..so I stand and look at the window, that mutinous thought what does he want, the wind blowing through on either side? wafting off into the distance as I contemplate the window through the eyes of his comment. A viewpoint from which everything that is not Rawat is wrong.
In the life of a bi-ped however, every cloud has a silver lining. And the next time I sat down to design a window I thought to myself well if Rawat (er, Maharaji would have been what I called him at the time) can do it so can I and went a little wild with the colours, which has had a good result.
PS Is this helpful? 
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Ah Lesley,
No wonder you failed as a premie and have been cast aside as dust from the Lotus Feet, not fairy dust but real dirty dust. If Maharaji (BTW are we talking Fig Tree Pocket or Amaroo?) gives you a 4x6 design for a 6x4 window you're supposed to understand that the Perfect Master is perfect, so his design is perfect, it was your concepts and the window that needed to grow in synchronisation. He was carrying you along the beach which is why you only left one set of footprints but you squirmed, turned into a dog, jumped off the boat, barked and the caravan moved on ...
So the window needed to be removed and replaced, at least, that's what a normally devoted premie would have done and at their own expense too. That premie would have ended up with service at Amaroo, close service at the Windmill site.
But that would have left some evidence that the wall had been altered so a truly devoted premie would have had the house razed, and rebuilt by premies who were delivered to the site in blindfolds (and buses) and meditated each day as if they were going into a darshan line, to the original plans, except for the new stained glass window design by the Speaker. And all at their own expense.
That's why you're living in Mullumbimbu and not Malibu!
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Now Ocker you can call me a crap premie but not infinite fortunately. (Really any premies reading out there I can thoroughly recommend dumping his largeship.)
Yes I bet you're right - if I had redone the window, good grief, I might have been given the opportunity to clean his electronic barbecue with a toothbrush...
No never Ocker, preferred to do a bit of gardening really - prefer Mullum to Malibu too, hoping for a spot of good rain though - no May floods yet.
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It seems an obvious possibility that he had the drawing on it's side; or was lying horizontal when first presented with the project and none at hand had the temerity to correct him or ask him to sit up. A simpler solution might have been to rotate the rest of the world 90 degrees.
LP
Modified by Lp at Wed, May 30, 2007, 07:37:58
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I did insist on measuring the window myself, even though it meant entering the portals of his divineship's office, that's how I discovered the conundrum... if I hadn't perhaps the world would look like this
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my neck seems to prefer this way
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At least he did a computer design and not a hand-drawn one. I'm sure your window contained the impeccability imperative required for the holy lardness, side panels nothwithstanding. Great story.
Modified by Cynthia at Wed, May 30, 2007, 10:21:24
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oh lesley, was it not possible to discuss the size problem with maha? (of the window, that is) gee, i was never in that position. had my "mind" been confronted with that scenario i might have left a lot sooner (after a reasonable period of further self-delusion, of course . shereelove
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Really, I thought stained glass windows was all to do with churches and Popes and stuff like that. Who does Prem Rawat think he is? God's representative on Earth or something? Oh no, I remember, Guru is greater than God. Great story Lesley, lots of colour in there (pun intended!). T
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"I thought stained glass windows was all to do with churches and Popes and stuff like that."
I think you might be right!
But you can do other stuff with it..
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You are very talented Leslie.
Almost totally OT: I helped a bit on the finishing stages of a stained glass gazebo to stand over Shri Hans's statue at the Malibu Res. (unskilled) in the late 70's or early 80's.
The morning it was complete, a huge canyon fire swept through the canyon and over the res. destroying his also just completed Motor Home with all gold fittings.
We parked the stained glass dome, cradled in wood, on our garden lawn below the hill, and split. When we came back we found our house along with the trees and Hansji's gazebo dome had only just been saved by the kids next door, dressed in wet sacks and leaping from roof to roof to save their own house.
(Something about a recent canyon harvest hanging in their garage spurred them and their local friends on, we learned at their subsequent party) On our shaken return from the shore line we were informed that we owed them a case of Molson Light (Something Canadian) for saving our house. Fair dues.
Modified by Lp at Thu, May 31, 2007, 10:50:58
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My oh my, that's nice work. Very!!
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That one is so nice with the open glass in the center. Sooo nice.
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Thanks guys, I've got one of those irrepressible smiles now.
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But you can do other stuff with it.
Yeah, I can see that churches & Popes wouldn't be too enthused about the notion that Eve could fertilise herself without Adam, but theological nitpicking aside, that is a work of art to be proud of.
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Thanks Pat - for the compliment and the giggle.
I might be remembering aright that it was in the 12th century stained glass windows started being made for churches - before the advent of electricity they must have been extraordinarily impressive, splashing all that bright colour around.
It's around the back areas of cathedrals that you find all those wonderful stone carvings of a nature that would be entirely at home in the grass amongst the trees and mossy rocks, not too much in the way of stained glass - though I do remember one passageway I found; no paint on the glass, no etching, no biblical scenes or coats of arms, just a play of colour and light stretching down the corridor of stone. And lots of stone carvings - it must have been a warm and sunny place at the right time of day.
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