Divine Times - January 1977 Volume 6, Number 1

A weekend meditation retreat/ Birthday Celebration for 750 Jersey/ Philly/ New York area premies turned into an old fashioned, all-out, puja festival with Maharaj Ji's Birthday Celebration and "casual satsang," as he prefaced it, Saturday night; a satsang program to be internationally distributed, Sunday night, as well as the opportunity to do pranam and later watch Maharaj Ji (shining in Krishna outfit and crown) and Durga Ji play and dance and laugh to "Take My Love."

Guru Maharaj Ji's World Maharaj Ji's birthday party, Malibu, California December 10, 1976

A lot of people suddenly decided to move out of the ashram. Well, that is up to them, but a lot of people also started to feel stranded in this world, because maybe they weren't quite ready to move out of the ashram. Besides the fact of ups and downs and highs and lows, there's only one very important thing that we all have to understand and recognize, and that is that we have to come back home again. If we cannot come home again, if we have gone too far off, it's just not worth it. We have to come back home again, we have to come back to satsang, service, and meditation, and we have to come back under the shelter of Guru Maharaj Ji, because that's about the best shelter there is.

Unity

In a manner characteristic of his terse instructions on many things in that period, he told her simply, "Start a school." The details were up to her, and to the small circle of brothers and sisters who quickly gathered around her as the project began.
In fact, a key quality of Sharon's young faculty at that point was its gritty determination to avoid the pitfalls which were being experienced by many projects in Divine Light Mission at that time. Like skyrockets, some of these grand schemes soared into the sky with great expectations. Every couple of months, premies would find another bold way to change the world overnight. Maharaj Ji never got swept up in such things, and he usually just smiled as his devotees watched the rockets fizzle and learned the appropriate lesson which went with each one.

Communities

About a year ago we were into workshops and had an encounter night. Many of us realized then that we needed to see and know each other as whole individuals. Some of us had fallen into playing "premie roles" with each other and related only in situations of formal satsang and service. One of the nice things about being premies, however, is that with Knowledge we suddenly have a basis of relating to other people on a level more fundamental than the interplay of personalities.
All of these things make it very easy to get distracted from our main priority - practicing this Knowledge. So what I have realized is that I am happier and my life flows the smoothest when I do meditation, service and satsang. To be made aware of the center of my being is such a beautiful gift.