Below is an article from today's Daily Sun, "Nigeria's King of Tabloids" about their Satguru Maharaji whom we online ex-premies have heard of for some years now. Anyway, the article doesn't even mention how this guy got his start but it's all rather funny. Crazy is really what it is. He just saw Rawat in England in the early seventies and got it into his head that the torch had passed to him somehow and he was to go back to Africa and carry on being the new Satguru.
Here's a link to the page on EPO describing that auspicious beginning:
http://ex-premie.org/pages/offsprings.htm
So now look. As crazy and stupid a story of succession as that is, it worked and now the Nigerian Satguru Maharaji, a farce if there ever was, has nonetheless enjoyed rapid growth and a real propagation success story that puts even our own Prem Pal Rawat to shame!
Point is, it takes no particular charm, no particular skill, no particularly good story and certainly no particular "grace" to pull this bullshit off. Anyone can do it! Even a crazy, violent weirdo like this African guy.
Here, look:
Inside Guruland: The myth, the passion, the curious lifestyle
By Nnamdi Onyeuma
Saturday January 7, 2006
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Sat Guru Maharaji •Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Set in the hilly, natural habitat of Odo-Ono Kekere, a suburb of Oluyole Local Government Area of Oyo State and overlooking the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, its solitary ambience sets anxious minds on the roll. It is another world. Inside, Guruland, life is a routine. For instance, there is a time to wake up, bath, sleep, eat and cook.
But for the “Master,” who makes the rules and, as they say, determines the measure of punishment for lawbreakers, everyone is on his or her own. Yet the over 5,000 devotees of Guruland live as one family.
For everyone you meet, you find the passion to do the will of the “Master” and somewhat infectious optimism that every good deed attracts a reward. They also share one belief - that Sat Guru Maharaji, whom they refer to as the”Perfect Living Master”, is the creator come to live among men.
Located on over 30 acres of land, the One Love Family contrasts with its busy neigh
bourhood. As you walk the narrow bumpy path hemmed in by flowering plants and mango trees, your footsteps hit a dull thud. Tiny rock pieces litter the footpath. The time stood at 2 O’clock in the afternoon, mother sun was in full glow, blazing down on the hilly landscape and its residents obviously in celebration mood.
Golden Age Festival
It was the last day of the Golden Age Festival, a weeklong event, which devotees said ushered in a season without pains, deaths, lack, weeping and sorrow.
A few metres into the village, a gentle breeze wafted through tree branches, into the rough edges of inconvenience thrown up by the day’s scotching sun. A giant billboard of Sat Guru Maharaji stood imposingly overlooking the road, while a banner hanging like a pendulum a few metres away invited: “Welcome to the highest spiritual centre of the universe”. Suspicion set in and disappeared almost immediately. Yet another banner read : “This is the new Holyland”.
The commandments
About 15 footlights away stood an imposing brick-made notice board. Like the biblical Moses’ tablet, which carried the 10 commandments, this one also reeled out the several dos and don’ts. “No Smoking; no indecent dressing; no shoes and no electronic gadgets…”
A run-of-the-mill life of regimentation. The notice board played pointer to the main gate, opening your mental mind to the curious setting of the environment. No cosmetic treatment, everything is spartan. Barely furnished and lacking in any form of comfort, the main gate, about a quarter of a room, served as store house for shoes, bags and other items forbidden in the village.
Complete in itself and drawing from the special talents of devotees, the village according to premie (a devotee), Mrs. Ada Nwodo, a 1977 Bachelor of Arts degree holder in English Education from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State, has various professionals who respond to structural needs in the village without having to hire anybody from outside. There is a school where French, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba languages are thought. Ada, who is married to a former Trade and Co-operative commissioner in the Old Anambra State,Chief Emmanuel Igwe, has spent 15 years in the village.
“I am happier today. I have discovered myself through the manifestation and knowledge of the master”, she said.
Ada who speaks impeccable Queens English has three children – one, a veterinary doctor; the others are still undergraduates. She told Saturday Sun that she also holds a post-graduate Diploma in Education from UNN and another post-graduate Diploma in Public Administration from the Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT). A relish to watch, she could make a convert out of doubting Thomases.
When this reporter reminded her that she had lost the shine, she said, “To do the will of the father requires sacrifice. This flesh”, with a soft tap on her left hand, “must be disciplined”.
Vegetarians
Saturday Sun learnt members of the sect are purely vegetarians. Soya bean and fruits are chief foods. Egg, meat, fish and milk consumption is forbidden, except milk extracts from soya beans.
The security checks over, the three eagle-eyed gentlemen at the gate ushered this reporter into the inner chambers of the village. A hard court lifted above the ground linked the over a dozen buildings in the village.
A busy afternoon to feed a curious mind. Just a distance away were devotees clad in gowns of choice colours. In one quick glance, there were white, understood to signify peace; yellow – for wisdom; green – for fertility; red - for love and; black for purity. While some had the luxury of a red coloured headband to pep their attires and moods; others, clean shaven, came geogeously dressed in conventional attires.
One thing was common - passion for their master. They spilled out from the worship hall, which oddly defined the non-hedonic obsessive lifestyle of the devotees. No classy furniture, but white plastic chairs, long benches and mats in which some devotees lay plaintively in meditative postures facing the alter.
Expectation
One could cut with a knife the anxious expectations of Sat Guru Maharaji’s appearance. In the hall were eight giant photographs of his on a table supported with corner pillars, and nine lit candles with base filled with oil. But for banana leaves, flower pots and balloons strategically placed between the long benches, there was no further attempt at beautifying the hall. Clean-swept to pin visibility, no rug carpet, just banal and the devotees seemed to like it.
The stage was set - the choir, like songbirds in their best elements, churned out somewhat incomprehensible songs, except that the choruses made no pretext at elogizing Sat Guru Maharaji. The hall was filled to capacity. Looking around, one could notice different classes of devotees - the well-heeled in the society, businessmen and women, youths and those for want of words,who add to the number, having resigned to fate.
Seated in rows on a mat in yellow and red stripes spread on the budding grass just before the hall, were children and youths aged between four and fourteen. They were all clad in red gown. Taking positions of convenience in the blazing sun, some buried their faces in the grasses, while others apparently weakened by the baking sun, sat disorderly while the wait lasted.
Soon, the tempo of the drums increased. Devotees raved up and down in menacing dance steps and clapping to high heavens. The master of ceremony had announced that Sat Guru Maharaji would soon appear at the alter. A sweeping look on the faces of devotees met an uncommon frenzy. Babel of voices rented the air and temporarily made the atmosphere suffocating in the milieu. Maharaji emerged from his solitary harbination, neck decked with flowers; a flower bouquet in left hand and microphone on the right-hand.
Devotees stood cheering. His face lit up with a fever-pitch wattage. Waving and acknowledging cheers, he let a smile play on his lips. Clad in a red robe, a somewhat far-miss of the papal robe, he gently walked to a king-size upholstery chair beautifully crafted that it mocked everything that represented seating tool in the village. The chair made of multiple colours of red, yellow, green and white leather material was also decked with flowers.
Lunch with Maharaji
Further scrutiny revealed a grisly map of raw brimful passion and father-figure. Seated after a mumbled recitation, he listened to testimonies. Shortly afterwards, the celebration inched to lunch hour. He blessed a six-feet size soya bean-cake and also took turns to scoop a spoonful from other delicious food varieties specially made for the occasion.
The ushers moved in and lunch started.
Unlike last year’s celebration where in what could pass for a spasm of sudden gift galore, he docked out sweets to devotees, this year’s was different. At 2:49 pm, in both Yoruba and English languages, he made random comments on the state of the nation, particularly on resource control.
“ I have power to make things happen, states without oil can invite me. Any state I step my feet will have whatever they asked for”, he said, with some tinge of authority laced with pride.
Aging master
Obviously, Maharaji is aging, though his devotees would not agree. “He cannot die”, Ashrampremie Babalola Eludoyin, a devotee declared with some measure eof finality. Eludoyin from Ile-Ife, Osun State, has lived in the village for 17 years. He revealed that the oldest person in the village has put in 20 years and still going.
That is the level of their love, belief and passion for him. An indigene of Ibadan and a prince from Akinbami royal family of Adeoyo, Guru Maharaji will be 58 years this year. Born on December 20, 1947 in Ghana, he returned to Nigeria in the 60s. At the turn of the 80s, he began his movement.
In 1987, he started the Guruland and on May 29, 1993, he declared Nigeria the New Holyland in the Universe. Maharaji had his primary education in both Ghana and Nigeria before travelling to London in 1976 for a certificate course in Marketing.
Interestingly, he teaches his devotees hate for Western civilization. “The white painted us black and gave the impression that we (blacks) are evil”, he said.
With 30 branches in Nigeria, a growth rate seen as rather at snail speed, no doubt, the movement lumped alongside the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star is seen by many as satanic, is perhaps, the most misunderstood and disaraged by churches. The crime, as Saturday Sun found out, was that Maharaji was blasphemous by equating himself with God and referring to himself as the father of creation. However, when Saturday Sun put the question across to him, he retorted: “I am not God. I am a link to God”.
