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| Memories of Reggie Brown |  | ||
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I didn't know Reggie well, but in all my interactions with him, he always seemed thoughtful, caring and a very nice guy. I knew his wife, Emmy a lot better. I heard some time ago that Reggie had terminal cancer and that it was only a matter of time... Thanks for posting the obituaries, and I want to express my sympathy to Emmy and Reggie's kids and their families. Here is my main memory of Reggie: In 1979, I had been sent to Washington DC to be the community coordinator after working for a few months at IHQ for Elan Vital, which was then in the Broadripple Hotel on Miami Beach. When I arrived, Reggie was working in the Carter Administration in the Department of Energy -- his job had something to do with gasoline supplies and price controls on gasoline. If you recall, around the middle of 1979, OPEC shut off oil supplies and for the first time, Americans had to line up to buy gasoline, [which pretty much destroyed the Carter Administration and opened the door for Reagan]. I remember you could only buy gasoline on certain days, depending on whether your license plate ended in an odd or even number. Like everything else, Reggie seemed immensely capable and knowledgeable. I remember he recommended that the local community buy a (Datsun) Nissan station wagon for the community, one that burned "leaded" gas [Nissan had one that met EPA standards] because the supply of leaded gas was the most plentiful, and indeed that's what was done based on his advice. Anyhow, while I was there, Reggie left his government position and he and the entire family moved to Miami to be part of the DECA project, reconditioning a plane for Rawat's personal use, which was the top priority for Rawat at the time. I remember standing in the kitchen of the Brown's beautiful home in Potomac, Maryland as they were packing up getting ready to leave. [I think Reggie went first, and the family followed later, but I don't recall exactly.] Reggie told me then that he had been through Vietnam, and lots of other dicey things, but that this was the most frightening thing he had ever done. He really did look scared, because he was going to be directly serving the living incarnation of God. I knew exactly what he meant -- working directly for the all-powerful Perfect Master was considered the most confronting, freak-out, mind-frying, but also glorious, thing you could ever do. Reggie was also giving up his "outside world" career. I remember being very inspired by what Reggie was doing and how afraid he was -- because I was also indoctrinated in the Rawat cult to believe that your faith in the living incarnation of God would be tested, and Reggie was clearly being tested, and that surrendering was easy until these tests came along. I was preconditioned to believe this from my Christian background. Remember the biblical story of "doubting Thomas?" The apostle Thomas disavowed Jesus 3 times to, I think, the Romans or the Pharasies, or something, because he was afraid. I and many premies put Reggie's and Emmy's decision to abandon their very nice life in Potomac to go work for refurbishing a Boeing 707 in a slave camp for the Lord, in that category, although Reggie had come through -- he didn't doubt, he had faith and surrendered, for himself and for his whole family. He wasn't a doubting Thomas; he was a devoted premie. The devotion and surrender of Reggie Brown was a subject of much satsang and moralizing for sometime after that. Of course, the plane project was a secret at that time, even to most of the premies, and so the 707 itself was never mentioned in these little premie parables. Some time later, I, too, got sent to go work at the DECA plane project. Although I saw Emmy there all the time, I almost never saw Reggie. I talked to Emmy a lot, who is a lovely person, and very dedicated, caring and giving. She was always very helpful to me, in both a personal and a "service" sense. Emmy always said Reggie was off doing "special projects" for Maharaji, and I knew it was probably confidential and I shouldn't ask about it. By this time, Rawat had a new "residence" in Miami Beach, and all the operations of EV had been sent to Miami from Denver and Southern California. Emmy talked to me about how hard it was on her and the kids to be uprooted to live in substandard conditions in Miami, about all the financial issues that confronted them, all the stresses, and at one point she really doubted the people running the DECA project because of the way the premies were abused who worked there (how they didn't have time to go to satsang, and how they were exhausted, worked around the clock until they collapsed, etc.). But Emmy just tried to have faith, to surrender, to meditate and go to satsang. She and I both believed that we were too lowly to understand Maharaji's divine plan, so we should just not doubt and surrender. Anyhow, after DECA, Emmy tried to work as a real estate agent in Miami, and she worked with me to find ashrams for the Miami community in Coral Gables, because I was coordinator in Miami by then. She had done the same in DC. Emmy was a great person. Again, I rarely, if ever, saw Reggie. He was now part of the "other premie world," the world that wasn't part of a premie community. I'm sure if he was head of Rawat's security he had a lot to do, as Rawat seemed obsessed with security and apparently still is. By this point, there was a huge divide in the cult. There were the rank and file premies, there were the ashram premies, there were the initiators, and then there were the premies and initiators who did service directly for Maharaji, in OGM, the residence, and in Rawat's secretive "special projects," like DECA. The latter categories of people NEVER attended satsang in the community, or had anything to do with the community. It was like they were in a different world, and that seemed to happen to Reggie -- he was in that other world. After I left Miami at the end of 1980, I only saw Emmy at festivals and I don't recall ever seening Reggie again. After I left the cult in 1983, I didn't even have those opportunities. I had heard that both Reggie and Emmy went through their various periods of difficulty with Rawat and the cult. And I wonder what they thought of all the changes, ex-premies and the rest. I was glad to hear that Reggie had gone back to his career (even if it was for the Bush administration. My thoughts are with Emmy and Reggie's family, and I'm sorry Reggie had to go so young. Modified by Joe at Tue, Dec 27, 2005, 13:57:20 |
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