As in the heyday of the counterculture, hopes were high in the early 1970s for a spiritual revolution realizing the dreams of rebellious youth-of a world of peace where people cared for each other. With the rapid expansion of the various spiritual movements which had sprung up across the country, there were visible and dramatic signs that what the counterculture had failed to achieve the new spiritual revolution had well in hand. Now these movements are coming into leaner years, as the number of people interested in joining their ranks has fallen off sharply. Even Transcendental Meditation, which probably demanded the least from its thousands of initiates, has shown a decline in the number of new meditators. More bizarre ideas, like levitation, are being advanced in somewhat desperate attempts to attract public attention and new members.
Divine Light Mission was affected by the decline in public interest as early as 1974, when the number of people asking to receive the Knowledge was but a fraction of the crowds which had packed the Knowledge sessions in 1971-72. The charismatic revival of 1977 helped renew premies' hopes for expansion, but given the general apathy of the American public, I doubt if it will live up to their expectations.
What changes since 1971 lead me to this pessimistic assessment of the future growth of Divine Light Mission and the broader spiritual revolution in the United States? To answer this question we need to understand what was behind the phenomenonal successes of the early years, when young people were filled with enthusiasm for their gurus and for God. Drawing on the earlier analysis, perhaps we will see why the spiritual revolution took the dramatic form it did and why, today, it seems to be losing its mass character.
In 1971, a large number of young people were available for a spiritual solution that involved obedience to a guru. They had been well prepared by their psychedelic and counterculture experiences to adopt the view that many problems could be solved through spirituality, and they had been spiritually awakened either through drugs or as a result of the social climate.
Many had actively pursued other ways of achieving happiness and fulfillment, only to find them inadequate. Politics had failed. Therapy had not freed the more emotionally disturbed from their personal problems. Drugs and the counterculture had reached the limits of their potential. With commitment to the counterculture coming to an end and with few meaningful career opportunities, these young people were ready for a turn toward spirituality.
It is understandable why they became interested in eastern mysticism. Through their psychedelic experiences, many had come to a view of God which was more compatible with the eastern than the western perspective. Involvement in an eastern religion was also sufficiently counter to mainstream American life that they could leave the counterculture while preserving their symbolic opposition to society and the life-styles of parents.
Watching the exodus of so many hippies from the drug scene into eastern spirituality, many other young people were curious to find out something about Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the various saints and gurus whose names they could hardly pronounce, but who were attracting so much attention. Many read spiritual literature, which recommended having a guru in an atmosphere where an increasing number of hippies were looking for gurus to follow, so they wondered if they needed one too.
When various eastern gurus arrived in this country at the start of the 1970s, hippies left the counterculture by the thousands to follow them. The phenomenon produced a dramatic effect and there was much speculation about a spiritual revolution sweeping the country and the world. However, the large reservoir of young people who were available for conversion was fairly well dried up by the close of 1973. With the end of the counterculture and the diminishing use of psychedelic drugs among young people, there was no longer a means of replenishing the number of potential converts. Full of millennial zeal, however, these young people believed that conventional people of all ages and classes were destined to join them in their world-changing efforts. What they did not understand was that the vast majority of people in this country are unwilling to develop a consuming spiritual commitment, while an even larger number would be unsympathetic and even hostile toward eastern movements which encourage surrender.
When we stop to consider that the vast majority of people are not free to become spiritually converted and committed, the future of the new spiritual revolution looks bleak indeed. First, we would have to eliminate from consideration those who are entrenched in conventional careers. Their resources are already heavily invested and, if successful, they would be unlikely to turn to religion as an alternative. Then, we could omit the mass of people who are already active church members because they would resist taking a different spiritual course. The elderly can be excluded as potential converts on the grounds that, as various studies have shown, they tend to be more cautious about innovation and thus less receptive to change. And the bulk of the poor are bound to be somewhat unsympathetic to the idea that a spiritual rather than a political or economic solution would give them relief from their problems. After all, the poor are still trying to get what affluent, white, middle-class youth who joined the spiritual revolution have largely rebuked.
Beyond the general aversion of the American public to spirituality as a solution to problems and as a way of life, there is a strong cultural bias against eastern movements. There is a general suspicion of anything as "foreign" as eastern spiritual practice, as well as a persistent appreciation for what is genuinely American. There are also habitual feelings of loyalty to the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths. Many premies discovered from the hostile reactions of their parents that these religious preferences are as deeply rooted as political party affiliations, even among those who seldom attend church. Finally, with the idea of individualism so prevalent in our culture, the thought of anyone giving up personal autonomy to a guru offends many people. In fact, the generally unfriendly attitude of the news media toward the eastern movements may have largely reflected the attitude of the public, although I am sure it played a part in shaping it as well. It was no surprise that Transcendental Meditation fared better with the media and the public, for it self-consciously eliminated religious overtones from its approach, Americanized its appeal, and played down surrender.
If most Americans are opposed to movements which encourage the abandonment of individuality, then who is left for Divine Light Mission and the other eastern movements to recruit? There seem to be three major sources at the moment, one being the group of youth who are disillusioned with conventional religion. It may not be easy, however, to convince them that there is more to religion than what they found in church on Sunday. For the experiences of these premies revealed that, after their disenchantment with the church, it took a heavy dose of psychedelic drugs to counteract their mistrust of religion and to awaken them to the importance of spirituality. Potential converts might also be found among college students, for they are traditionally more willing to explore the esoteric and novel, but even in that group the appeal might be limited to those who are strongly discontented and are not opposed to surrender. The third source of possible converts is to be found among those who are disenchanted with other eastern movements. The fact is that some of the growth of various movements in the last few years has come about by the defections of people moving from one spiritual community to another, as we saw in the accounts of the three who left Divine Light Mission to join other spiritual groups.
Unless a major catastrophe occurs in our society to increase the level and scope of public discontent, or psychedelics again capture the interest of our youth and turn them in a spiritual direction, there is little hope that the new religions will re-experience the success of their early days, at least not in the near future. They will, however, probably continue to be viable alternatives to conventional forms of religion.
These may be sobering thoughts for premies who still entertain world-saving fantasies. Yet, at this stage, such fantasies are a threat to the survival of the Mission as a spiritual alternative - a fact Guru Maharaj Ji seems to have grasped, for starting in 1977 he has encouraged premies to be realistic as they face the task of spreading the Knowledge. His current emphasis on the need to take stock of reality may check the unrealistic hopes of some premies and save them from disillusionment.