Gwen Herrington is (or was) a long time premie. In 2000 she was reported as being Marilyn's part time backup Flight Attendant. In 2002 "Richard" reminisced about his favourite meal in India in 1971: "Gwen Herrington (another Tallahassee premie) and I had grilled cheese sandwiches and fries at a fancy hotel on Connaught Circle in Delhi."
It has been so incredible for me to have a chance to serve Maharaj Ji, to spend time with His children. Often, people ask me, "Well what does Maharaj Ji do, how does He discipline His children?" It's really easy to know. We're all Guru Maharaj Ji's children. He relates to us and takes care of us the same way He does His own children. I guess it's easy for me to see that because I see how He is with Premlata and Hansi, and then I see how He is with me, how He relates to my moods, my fears, my own expectations of Guru Maharaj Ji, how He pulls me out of myself and helps me grow. If Hansi or Wadi gets hurt, Maharaj immediately distracts them - "Don't cry, don't cry." He doesn't want them to cry, He doesn't want them to be unhappy. He just wants them to be happy.
And that's how He is with us. He keeps awakening us to our real self, which is Guru Maharaj Ji. When we see Guru Maharaj He doesn't remind us of our mind and tell us, "You're in your mind, your concepts, your ideas." He takes us so far away from that and tells us, "This is what you are. Doesn't this feel wonderful? Isn't this beautiful? Don't you remember? Now isn't this what you want?" He doesn't want us to get into bemoaning, or complaining, or just not seeing the beauty that we have.
Everyone is being confronted with surrender and the lack of it. There isn't anything for us to do except to open ourselves by doing satsang, service and meditation so that Maharaj Ji can do everything else, so that Maharaj Ji's Grace can move us however He wants us to be moved. I don't know in particular how that applies to children. I don't have children. Even though I spend a lot of time with Premlata and Hansi, I'm never really conscious of what I'm doing because I'm always going through so much surrender even then. I'm just doing my service. It's hard even to say that being with Premlata and Hansi is a service because they're just people. We have a relationship. That relationship with them is just like any other relationship with a premie or anyone else. They ask things of me, and I ask things of them. They teach me things, and I'm sure I probably teach them things. It's hard to isolate anything about that service and apply it to something else. In one way, it's not applicable. We're all in situations where we're being shown how to grow, open up, how to leave so many of our concepts behind.
Once I had satsang with some parents in Miami. It was really beautiful. All their kids were there. It was like walking into a big livingroom.
Everyone was trying to work together on childcare, and provide assistance for each other so that everyone could practice Knowledge, so that their children would be consciously cared for. To me, parents are devotees and I feel that their children are Guru Maharaj Ji's devotees just waiting for the chance to know. We're all in our learning stage, and children are in their learning stages. They aren't at the point where they know they want Knowledge, but we are. The only way I can be of service to anyone is if I try to have that deep connection inside with Guru Maharaj Ji. I have nothing at all to say about children. I'm so inside my own experience. If I'm in a situation where I'm having satsang with someone who has children, and in that situation something flows out…
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So many people come to me and ask what would Maharaj Ji do in this situation, or has this situation ever happened. I just don't see that we get any real guidance externally. In every situation the guidance can come from inside. The situation that Maharaj Ji is in with His children - there isn't another family in the world that is in that situation. And so how would any of those instances really apply to the situation that another parent might be in. The basic meaning of all this is the love that Guru Maharaj Ji shares with us and shares with everyone, it's the Grace that can allow anything to manifest, to happen, to stay in that flow.
Usually Guru Maharaj Ji doesn't deal with us externally. Even if He does, it's only to push us into an internal experience. We go through the darshan line and Maharaj Ji looks at us a certain way. There's no way to describe the depth of that look and what it might move down there. We know that that's what He does to us and we know that that's our relationship to Him. It's the internal connection we have, where we're always in communication with Guru Maharaj Ji and we always see His hand moving in our lives. When we're in a place of experiencing Maharaj Ji, we can see everything He does so clearly. That to me is our life, to be able to be with Guru Maharaj Ji so we can see what He wants us to see. It's not really a learning process; when I experience surrender, no amount of back-tracking or wondering, "Now how did I do that," will give me a magic formula. I didn't learn anything from it - Maharaj Ji did it for me. In the same way, I could sit and have very specific satsang about children, but we wouldn't go away with a memory of that satsang. It's the overall experience that we get from the satsang that affects us and changes our life. It's such a deep internal thing that affects our life.
I've never been to Unity School. I don't know anything about the school. In one sense I feel a little awkward because I have no idea who I'm talking to, what I'm talking about, or anything. I'm only having my own experience at this very moment with Guru Maharaj Ji. My association and service to Guru Maharaj Ji seem so far away. The experience I'm having right at this moment has nothing to do with Guru Maharaj Ji's children, has nothing to do with any children anywhere in the world. It has a lot to do with me being a child of Guru Maharaj Ji's. It has everything to do with me being a child of Guru Maharaj Ji, and my desire to want to completely be His child so that I don't have any false ideas of being an adult.
There are so many stories about Maharaj Ji's children and how He is with them. It's really beautiful. And sometimes Premlata really is like a Granny. She's so wise and intuitive… or how can you say it. I don't know how you say it. I don't really feel I could say anything about anyone, whether they're Maharaj Ji's children or someone else's children. I have no powers or ability to see the real nature of anyone. But I know that Premlata teaches me so much and I am not able to look at her as just a little girl. Most of the time I am unable to see her that way because I'm serving her. I'm serving Guru Maharaj Ji, but I'm serving Wadi in the moment, trying to serve her needs, what I can do for her. In that relationship of service, the things that I'm shown, and the things that she puts me through - it's really funny sometimes. She can make me cry. She can say something that will touch me so deeply, and show me something about myself so deeply, a point where I need to be conscious and I'm not.
Rather than operating from a concept that "Oh, this is a little girl and little girls like this, and little girls are this way," I see she's a person just like me. She has likes and dislikes just as I do. Maybe something about Wadi is that she really expresses it very well. She expresses very well what she likes and what she doesn't like. She's very clear about it, for the most part. She knows what she wants to experience and she knows when you're not in that place to experience it. She'll allow you to come in to her whole experience only if you're in the right place to be within it. If she's playing a certain game, or doing something, you can't just crash into what whe's doing. Definitely there is an aura around what she's doing. If she has created a whole playtime scene, you have to be careful. If I'm in the middle of working on an assignment, and I'm really concentrating on it, you have to be really sensitive when you approach me. Wadi and Hansi teach me consciousness in that way.
We all have so many concepts about children. We think all kinds of things about them - how they react, what they feel and how deeply they feel. Sometimes we don't give them their rights or allow them the room they deserve as just being another person. Often I experience with other people that, because they don't conform, or perform in the way I want them to, and I resist that, I go through a lot of changes. I know with our children that we have to allow them that freedom
There is no point for us to pretend that we are adults, when in our real life we are babies! I mean, it's like so incredible. Wadi, Premlata, pretends that she's a mama, and she has a baby. And she has to take care of this baby. And the baby is sleeping, and baby is this. And I mean, she is very intelligent. Sometimes I call her "grandmother," you know. I say, "You're like a granny, Wad!" And then, all that pretending, all that intelligence, all that learning, goes right out. And it's just like, "Mama!"
GURU MAHARAJ J1, LONDON, 3/5/78
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so they can grow and get the guidance from us that they need, so that they can have satsang from us. Durga Ji gives Wadi satsang, they have satsang together, satsang that she can understand, that she can relate to.
It's not the words, ever, in satsang. It's the vibration that comes across. It's the security and trust that's shared. Then you can open up and also share how you feel. You can come to that true place inside yourself. You can surrender to whatever it is that you're not surrendering. The only way that we can keep from infringing on another person is by experiencing Maharaj Ji ourselves.
I feel so much that we are being moved by Maharaj Ji. When we allow ourselves to relax and trust Him, and follow His agya, I feel that Grace does everything that has to be done. By being there, we can serve so much, so many other ways that we would never be able to consciously serve. If we were trying consciously to remember to do all these different things for different people, maybe we'd never accomplish them. We'd never be able to take care of the needs of the children. If we are in that place of surrender to Guru Maharaj Ji, then Guru Maharaj Ji can do everything through us. We can just be that channel through which Guru Maharaj Ji can accomplish everything that He wants to accomplish. That's what I want to be. I want to be that clear channel so that I can experience Guru Maharaj Ji's Grace coming through me. I want to be surrendered, more than anything. I want to be completely surrendered to Guru Maharaj Ji.
I don't know how to do anything. I don't know how to take care of His children. I don't know how to take care of anybody else's children. I don't know how to take care of myself. I really don't know anything. The only time I really suffer is when I think I know something and try to manifest my knowledge. And when I meet resistance, I don't surrender. It seems like the answer to everything is surrender, surrender to Guru Maharaj Ji's Holy Name, surrender to that real process of satsang, service and meditation.
If I sit down and try to share with you something that I know, it's not going to be anything about children. It's not going to be any stories about Waddi or Hansi. It's going to be my relationship with Guru Maharaj Ji. I just want to feel Guru Maharaj Ji's love in my life. If I can feel that in service, if I can feel that in meditation, if I can feel that in satsang, then there's nothing else that I could want.
So I have had the opportunity to live with Guru Maharaj Ji. But how much of that time was I with Guru Maharaj Ji in His true residence. The time I have right now is so precious to me because I am able to try to experience Guru Maharaj Ji inside myself with the hope that when I see Guru Maharaj Ji, I'll really recognize Him and be able to serve even more.
I have a concept that I'm supposed to give satsang about Hansi and Waddi, but I don't feel it. I feel my own life, a miracle taking place, that I'm able to have the perspective I have right now. I never had it before. It didn't come from being with Guru Maharaj Ji. It came from not being with Guru Maharaj Ji. No one wants to not be with Guru Maharaj J: There isn't any security in this universe that says because you live on the same premises as Guru Maharaj Ji, that you are going to be with Him. There's no guarantee. But there is a perfect guarantee, a flawless guarantee that you will be with Guru Maharaj Ji if you stay inside. Maharaj Ji said before going to Europe, I'm going to have a lot of residences in this world but I will never be there. If you think that My residence some town -- Malibu, or Denver, or Miami, or New York or Paris, if you think in those terms, you'll never find me. Guru Maharaj Ji's residence is in the hear of his devotees. That's exactly how He said it to us fact to fact. It's such a clear invitation to us.
Maybe parents with their children wonde why sometimes it's difficult. We're all in situations which seem completely rooted in the world. If we're householders, if we have children and two or three jobs, it almost seems like there's no escape. I experience that our situations are completely designed to be a crusher if we don't surrender, if we don't stay in Holy Name.
We only have one option. We don't have a couple of options. We don't even have two choices. Therefore, what is in front of us isn't a choice. There isn't an either-or for us even if we wanted something else than that devotion, than that love from Guru Maharaj Ji - but especially since that is what we want, because we want to experience His Grace moving in our lives.
From that point of surrender we can accomplish anything. We will see manifesting in front of us everything that we want. Everything that needs to be done will get done. And we'll also be having the experience that we want to have. Our service won't infringe upon that experience. It will enhance that experience. Grace will guide us in every aspect of our lives - from our schools, to our children, to our relationship with Guru Maharaj Ji, to everything.
Who are we anyway? What is our individual power as people in this world? What is our ability to accomplish anything? Maharaj Ji said if you are trying to accomplish anything in this world besides realizing the purpose of your life, you can't accomplish it, you won't accomplish it.
We need more satsang all the time about the perspective that we have to have. In the past, we had so many projects that made so much worldly sense, but they were just great conceptions on our part. We haven't yet really tried to see what Maharaj Ji could do if He had every single one of us at His disposal, completely at His disposal. I can't think of a more incredible opportunity in this life than to be completely His in every way.
If our service is children, or schools, or whatever our service is, then that's our service. But it's in service to Guru Maharaj Ji, and He is going to give us instruction on how to serve. I can't see that it's going to be a verbal direction that He's going to give us. He is going to make us servants. He is making us, designing, forming our whole being.
One of the questions on the initiator application is, "What is the greatest relationship that can ever be between two people?" We know that it's truth, and a real depth of understanding - truth that comes from satsang, service and meditation, and from knowing Guru Maharaj Ji.
Surrender is not running around, wondering what to surrender or where to surrender. It's more the image of the white flag waving weakly on the battlefield - no effort, just completely let go, relax and…I surrender. We're way up high, and surrender is way down low. We're just getting rubbed down, and down, and down, and finally we'll be so low that we'll slither into that little crack where Maharaj Ji's Feet are.
I have the fear sometimes that I'm disappearing. I feel as if I'm going into another dimension; and there's no return. I'm just going to walk through that crack in time and space and it's going to close up behind me. And it's Guru Maharaj Ji's world that we're entering. We can never go back to where we were. We've come too far, we know too much.
PREMIES,
IF YOU ARE TRYING
TO ACHIEVE A GOAL IN YOUR LIFE
OF MANIFESTING SOMETHING OTHER
THAN THE REACHING OF THE GOAL
OF THIS HUMAN LIFE,
I CAN ASSURE YOU RIGHT NOW
YOU CAN NEVER ACHIEVE IT,
BECAUSE NOBODY HAS SO FAR
AND NOBODY CAN
AND IT'S ALMOST GUARANTEED
THAT ANY ACHIEVEMENT
THAT MAN HAS MADE
HAS NEVER BEEN
TO HIS SATISFACTION
AND IF IT HAS BEEN
TO HIS SATISFACTION
IT HAS BEEN
COMPLETELY CATISTROPHIC
FOR THE REST OF HUMANITY.
- GURU MAHARAJ JI
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Everything that we have to do comes first from a point of surrender. We listen for Maharaj Ji's guidance from that place of surrender. Somplace inside of yourself, you go to this little room to surrender. You just sit there and experience surrender. And you enjoy the experience. Then someone comes into the room with a tape recorder and says, "Gwen, your mission today, if you decide to accept this mission…" - and that's how Guru Maharaj Ji comes to us. I have to be in a place of surrender to receive those orders, to receive the Grace that moves me. We walk with Guru Maharaj Ji, and He points out every situation in our life - "Now see, that's the one I was telling you about."
I sometimes have this vision that inside there's a little room, a meeting place, a grotto inside. And sometimes I sneak off to meet my lover, to meet Guru Maharaj Ji in secret. Then we have so much fun. We have everything. We're just like two kids peeping out these peep-holes together He and I, laughing, pointing, seeing
together the world, seeing together from that place inside.
What could there ever be but that? What are we living for? What is it that is so magical about being with Guru Maharaj Ji? How is it that when we're not there, our lives are so empty we have struggles, fears, doubts. Our lives are burdens. Yet we're not so bogged down with these bodies, these lives. We don't even know we're alive because we're so alive. We're moving at such a beautiful momentum, such a beautiful flow.
I was never able to have this perspective before. I was scared to death of it. Now it's a hunger, a thirst to go all the way, not to look back, not to stop, not to slow down. The only thing that's meaningful in our lives is dead ahead of us, in this very moment. We are all getting these outrageious visions of where this moment is leading us. They increase day by day in their outrageousness. Maharaj Ji is teaching me so much to relax, and to trust Him - not to do servvice with concepts, not to burden myself. Being full of stress is just lack of surrender. You feel stress because you're not lettings go, because you're bucking up against something. Have you ever seen a baby in stress? You don't see very many babies who are suffering from stress, which is exactly what Maharaj Ji wants us to be. Babies don't have to try to be babies.
I always hate doing these interviews. I always feel that something is expected. And that doesn't mean that it is, was or anything like that, but I feel it. That's what we always do. We always go from our concepts. Anytime I'm asked to give sat-sang - "Oh my God, what will they think. I don't have anything to say. This is horrible. But I prefer to be in that simple, simple place where I don't know anything and yet I know everything. That to me is the beauty of Guru Maharaj Ji's Knowledge and how it actually works. It provides us the information and data to live our lives perfectly - not just to survive, but to live a radiant existence. The days when we really feel connected to Guru Maharaj Ji are our most shining days.