NATIONAL

PROGRAM OF LOVE

"We have an energy. We have something that we have experienced and realised in this lifetime, but it's all scattered. All we have to do is bring it together and it'll be one energy. The potency, the power of that energy brought together by the premies, by premies just getting together, would be so incredible that I assure you it would make my work in this world, in this lifetime, three quarters easier. And it all depends on premies. Because they have realised it. They know it. And they know how incredible, how peaceful, how blissful that experience really is."

- Guru Maharaj Ji,
Orlando, 9 November, 1975.

We have all been given an incredible opportunity in helping Guru Maharaj Ji propagate his Knowledge, but first of all we have to realise that Knowledge is the answer for us. In bringing people to Knowledge, we can only take them as far as our own understanding but fortunately Guru Maharaj Ji is here to bring us to the full understanding of Truth itself.

Last year Guru Maharaj Ji was saying that "the very first thing we have to do is get the community together." and this year he is telling his DUO Directors to "really focus on a program for the premies that facilitates their understanding so that they can become helpful instruments in spreading Knowledge". Maharaj Ji also once explained that the Knowledge is nothing because everyone has it but nobody knows it, and it's the Grace that's incredible, for by Maharaj Ji's Grace, the Knowledge is revealed.

So Guru Maharaj Ji depends upon his premies to introduce his Grace into everyone's lives, "to take and put up signs all over the road, 'Wrong way! Wrong way! Do Do not enter!' Because somebody, somehow, is finally going to read the signs. They are going to understand that this is one way and they should not come this way, they should turn around and go the right way". (Hong Kong, 1 June, 1975).

For this reason, the Aspirant Program has been developed to help the "man on the street" come to an understanding of what it is that is missing in his life and know that missing piece can be found. What we have to do, as Guru Maharaj Ji put it last year, is to provide the perfectly tailored suit for each person who comes to Divine Light Mission.

But first of all we have to learn to sew, first of all we have to clean the shop and polish the windows, first of all we have to see that our

Prem Rawat aka Guru Maharaj Ji suits are fitting us just perfectly. And this is why Guru Maharaj Ji, as always, is directing as back within ourselves, and into our communities.

As Guru Maharaj Ji said in Caracas last year "maybe I have been graced to experience this Knowledge all the time, and graced to have this agya to continue giving this Knowledge to people. It's so beautiful; its just very blissful. I have got every Grace, I have got everything, and to some people I am their Perfect Master; I am their Lord. But still premies are my hands. Everytime I have to do something, I have to go through premies."

Propagating Knowledge means so much more than someone receiving Knowledge. From our own experiences and observation the drawbacks of being a "premature premie" are pain- fully obvious. Guru Maharaj Ji is making sure that each aspirant is being properly and adequately taken care of. The Aspirant Program continues into the weeks following the Knowledge Session, to ensure that each new premie is alive and well in the experience of life itself.

The Consciousness Continuum is the term coined to describe the series of programs to help develop the understanding of the importance of experiencing Truth.

The Aspirant Program is designed to inform and prepare people for Knowledge and to provide the means to receive and practise Knowledge. If you could chart the steps through which a person's consciousness is opened up to the experience of Knowledge, it would look like this:

a. Public/Introductory Program
This confronts the aspirant with the limitations of the world and man's mind as the means to experience complete fulfilment and lasting satisfaction in life. It then presents Knowledge, experienced through the meditation revealed by Guru Maharaj Ji, as the means to experience complete peace. From the Introductory Program, the aspirant is invited to the:-

b. Introduction to Knowledge Series
This is a four week, eight session program which explains, in more depth than one program will allow, why man is searching, what he is searching for, how to get there and how to stay there. From the Introduction to Knowledge Series the aspirant can go into Knowledge Seminar or into Pre-Knowledge Satsang.

c. Pre-Knowledge Satsang
This is an unstructured satsang specifically for sincere aspirants who are wanting to find out more about Knowledge, Guru Maharaj Ji and what it takes to practise Knowledge. It serves as extra preparation for all aspirants.

d. Knowledge Seminar I
This is an eight week, sixteen seminar program and the main tool to help the keen aspirant prepare to receive and practise Knowledge. Satsang is given on all aspects of Knowledge, Guru Maharaj Ji and the importance of following agya. The aspirant is also helped to plug into the community. From Knowledge Seminar I the aspirant may enter the three day intensive Seminar or continue in Pre-Knowledge Satsang until an Initiator comes to town.

e. 3 Day Intensive Seminar
This is a three day program with morning and afternoon seminars as a condensed version of Seminar I. It is held when the Initiator comes to town. In this seminar, the importance of Knowledge and the consistency necessary to practise Knowledge is really laid on the line. From the three day Intensive Seminar the aspirant may go into the Knowledge Selection and finally the Knowledge Session with the Initiator.

f. Knowledge Seminar II
This, like Seminar I, is an eight week, sixteen seminar program which simply means a lot of satsang to encourage and inspire and nurture the new premie through the delicate time immediately after receiving Knowledge. Opportunity is provided for the new premies to give satsang themselves.

When the Initiator returns to town the new premie will be given the opportunity for a Knowledge Review and by this stage he should have a firm determination to practise Knowledge and be completely assimilated into the community life.

It is this way that we aim to meet the responsibility Guru Maharaj Ji has given us "to protect this seed from just being scattered on top of the road and to make sure it goes to the right soil where it can be planted right and taken care of right and bloom the best" - Holi Festival, Miami, Florida '75.

"Only if he has pure devotion for me, pure love for me and for the true Knowledge will he receive it. If you come with true devotion and true love and ask for true Knowledge of true self which you are seeking in relative forms, I can give it to you".

- Guru Maharaj Ji,
Glastonbury, England 1971.