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Oops.
What d'you mean, oops?
Just that. Oops.
Now wait a minute. I asked you a simple question. Will you give me an answer? Just what exactly does oops mean?
Hey man, you're too much. I told you what I meant. What d'you want me to give you, a short lesson in the life and times of Zen Buddhism?
Would that help me understand you?
Oops.

Dammit, answer me. Would that help me understand what you're saying?
Alright, I'll cop to it. What I'm saying is, you can't put it in words.
Well, what are you trying to do, then?
Oops, I blew it. I tried. Sorry.
Will you two break it up now, people 'round here are trying to meditate.
See what I mean? The experience of understanding is what counts, not the words you program it into. I'm just saying, we experienced something at the conference that you've probably experienced too, but if I try and explain what it is, you'll just get into your head trying to figure out what it means.
Yeah?
Yeah. I could explain, for instance, that understanding isn't just another catch phrase for Denver to throw out and the rest of the community to pick up and run with. It's more real than that. It's something we all have already, like common sense. The only trouble is, we're often too paranoid to express it. That's why it seems so uncommon, understand?
Yep. And I'll go right back and let them know.
This is dynamite.
Oops. Did it again.

I

"All the premies will have to truly understand." For a couple of months now, Guru Maharaj Ji has been stressing this one word to us. Understanding. "It's very 'instrumental' to our system here that every premie understand and share that beautiful secret that we have amongst each other." "… All the premies will have to first mature, seriously applying themselves to satsang, service and meditation: if we do not apply ourselves and have the real understanding of who we are and what we are supposed to do, I sincerely feel this makes the premies quite incapable of doing my service properly."

What is Maharaj Ji asking us to do is he saying that he knows we haven't been applying ourselves to satsang, service and meditation? Or, if that's not the case, then what does he mean by seriously applying ourselves?

How do we go about having a "real understanding of who we are and what we are supposed to do"? How do we understand? And what do we understand? Do we even really know what satsang, service and meditation are? Or are they just three convenient concepts we've developed to bludgeon each other with? Surely not. Whenever we begin to question anything with a real attitude of sincerely wanting to know, a thread of our own, pure experience and understanding begins to shine through. But what can we do - practically - in our lives to help that experience and that understanding along?

If I understand something, every thing about it makes sense. Yet there are parts of this path that still don't quite make sense to me. I don't mean to give the impression that I've found an easy answer either. I haven't. We're all as much in the process of trying to come to an understanding of our life and the way itfits in with Guru Maharaj Ji's plan as anyone else. But this is what Guru Maharaj Ji is asking us to do now: he wants us all to have that understanding of our lives and of the process he is bringing us through to realize Knowledge - an understanding of who we are and what we're doing here; so that we can once and for all get together in a practical way and help him do what he is here to do.

II

Some time ago I tried an experiment, and began a process of re-examining my life - a process that has continued ever since. For the first time in my life as a premie, I began to examine some things in an ordered and calculated way. I wanted to understand: who Guru Maharaj Ji is, what my relationship with him should be, and really, what is he trying to do in this world.

I tried to look at Maharaj Ji in a different way than I was used to. At first I looked at him as my Lord, as a "devotee" would; then as my best friend, loving me enough to share his greatest treasures with. I tried to see him as someone would if they didn't know him at all, and then I took another step and tried to see out of that person's eyes while he stood there listening to me tell him all about it.

Somewhere along the line I began to climb down off the high horse of the concepts I have about who Maharaj Ji is, and begin, for the first time with real earnestness, to try and see Guru Maharaj Ji for who he really is. Try, I said.

Each time I changed my perspective, my attitude and awareness changed too. Each time I tried to see Maharaj Ji in a different light, I became aware that he was actually much more than the view of him I was able to get from any particular mental stance. He wasn't the Lord, nor was he an ordinary person: he was neither and he was both; and he was more than all the possibilities combined.

For the three years I've had Knowledge, Guru Maharaj Ji has done nothing but travel around the world trying to knock some sense into people about this experience we're calling "Knowledge." Yet until I began this self-examination I shrugged all this off with a concept: "Yeah, but that's easy for him to do, he's the Lord. He's got the infinite energy to do that; he's got the patience, and besides, it's what he came here to do." This time, though, (having just got some fresh air), I couldn't believe how blind I had been. Somehow I had missed the real dedication of Guru Maharaj Ji even though it was right before my eyes: Guru Maharaj Ji gave 64 programs in 1974, Maharaj Ji held 5 festivals in 1975, and this year he plans to tour the world again, visiting more countries than ever before. And why? Why is Maharaj Ji doing all this? For me. For you. It doesn't make any difference. Whether you're in East Africa, Soviet Russia or the United States, Guru Maharaj Ji has the same loving eye for each one of us. And he wants each one of us to realize and understand this Knowledge for ourselves.

III

Understanding just means seeing things for what they really are, and then having the courage to begin to mold our lives around the real things that we are able to see. But seeing things as they really are is a very, very difficult thing to do.

All our lives before we were initiated, we never really had any contact with reality, with the way things really are. Our "world" was little more than a working conglomerate of our habits, concepts, and fears. And now that we do have Knowledge, it's only by really applying ourselves to that experience, and by making sure we apply that experience to every aspect of our lives, that we can possibly hope to touch that real world that Maharaj Ji wants so much to make us a part of.