Maharaj Ji Speaks At Capital Luncheon
On February 22, Guru Maharaj Ji gave an address at a luncheon hosted by the United States Citizens Congress, a conservative political group organized by Rabbi Korff (who was widely publicized last year for his outspoken support of former President Nixon).
1IS Knowledge a portable experience? Can it be taken, practiced and integrated into a person's life, no matter where they are, regardless of how many premies there are around them, trying to achieve the same goals? When Guru Maharaj Ji spoke to the North American community directors after Hans Jayanti, last November, he spent a good block of time explaining his understanding of community to them. Community, he said, is a friendship among premies dedicated to Guru Maharaj Ji; community, he said, is something few people know the meaning of … Community. Since the time Maharaj Ji first came to the West, and even before, he has repeatedly expressed his desire to see that people not only become initiated into Knowledge, but also have the opportunity to practice it, to take their experience and try to incorporate it into their lives. But if we take an honest look at the way we have approached the experience of Knowledge in the past, we can see that we spent most of our time propagating Knowledge sessions, and we spent very little energy attempting to build an environment that would help a person practice that experience in his life. The inevitable result has been that the numbers of people who have been initiated, but have since stopped practicing Knowledge, have been very large - some three out of every five in this country alone.
2Rain And Roses - A report on community workshops in Portland
The development of the workshops in the Portland community was no less a surprise to those who put them together than to those who participated in them. The basic motive for the entire enterprise was sincere, even if at first a little misguided. We started out with definite and specific goals in mind. (You've spotted our mistake already, haven't you?) We wanted to see our efforts on the understanding front immediately rewarded with obvious, visible improvements in the community and programs of the mission.
4Strawberry Shortcake and After - An old-time premie's views on community and keeping it together
A fellow came to Denver from the Western Slopes of the Rockies and he was asking me what he could do to receive Knowledge. I didn't know what to tell him because it's almost like now, to get the full experience of satsang, service and meditation, you have to live in a community of premies because you need that support - you need that constant interchange to help you develop. I didn't want to tell him, "Move to Denver," but I didn't want to encourage him to learn the techniques of meditation and then let him go off by himself without that support to grow.
5Community Excerpt: Meeting with the North American community directors in Orlando, Florida, November 12, 1975
it's very easy to give Knowledge to premies who have been listening to satsang for a long time. And then there is one more premie, and one more premie, and one more premie. It's like boom, boom, boom, and it becomes very hard for the organization to catch up with it. Finally, we realized - of course, through grace - that we needed something like community. We needed a community, a group, an association, a bunch of people who would then participate and focus their energy. Otherwise, it would have been totally impossible for five people who received Knowledge in Los Angeles to go out separately and try to propagate this Knowledge in the right way.
6Satsang For Mothers Durga Ji speaking in Denver, Colorado, December 18, 1975
There's an incredible thing happening. Maharaj Ji's really, really manifesting himself in this world. I see it happening and it's so beautiful the way he's doing it. He could have just come on so strong, or just done anything he wanted. Instead, he's working miracles so subtly, within our own hearts. It's really such a miracle, he's coming to this world in such a beautiful way.
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10Next to her on the right is Diana Stone, New England debutante and socialite turned nun. Her aunts, Auntie Louisa and Auntie Barbara, in their '70's and very proper ladies both, have often dropped in to have dinner with us when their world travels have brought them through Denver.
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