COMPANY OF TRUTH:
MEDITATION AND SACRALIZED INTERACTION AMONG WESTERN FOLLOWERS OF AN INDIAN GURU

Lucy Gwyn DuPertuis

Abstract

Chapter I: ??? Page 3 (missing first 2 pp)

Chapter II: Worldview The Threshhold Stance Page 30

PART TWO: THE PRACTICES

Chapter III: Formal Meditation Page 57

Chapter IV: Informal Meditation Page 109

Chapter V: Formal "Satsang" Page 138

Chapter VI: ??? Page 188 (pp186 & 187 missing)

PART THREE: ???

Chapter VII: Festivals Page 201

Chapter VIII: Informal "Satsang" Page 239

Chapter IX: Reflections On Hinduism in America Page 309

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

Chapter X: Premies and the "World" Page 275

Appendices Page 333

References Page 335

COMPANY OF TRUTH:
MEDITATION AND SACRALIZED INTERACTION AMONG WESTERN FOLLOWERS OF AN INDIAN GURU

Lucy Gwyn DuPertuis

ABSTRACT

This study presents the worldview of Western followers of Guru Maharaj Ji, who came to the West from India in 1971 at the age of thirteen to spread his teaching through the Divine Light Mission.

The study sees a multi-leveled religious worldview coming alive as the ground of social life. It first shows the detailed methods followers use to control and concentrate their minds in meditation and devotional practices, and the tailoring of their activities, both within and outside of their group, toward religious and meditative ends.

Next the study explores the social dimension of religious awareness. The meditative state is regenerated in group context in daily "satsangs," or testimonial rituals, and in "festivals" where thousands gather to experience their Guru's presence and bow down to him in the "darshan" ceremony.

The group's continuing survival is examined by looking at its volatile power structure, its cycles of insulationism and conversionism, the marginal economic niche assumed by its members, and its periodic attempts to proselytize its teaching. Intertwined with this analysis is an exploration of how members maintain their meaning system in all its symbolic and meditative dimensions; not only officially by organizational decisions, official practices and sanctions, but also unofficially by common members in their day-in day-out life routines,

2

in their attempt to sacralize their interaction with one another and thus live out their common life in a sacred reality.

The introductory chapters describe the "threshold stance" taken by the researcher, a former Divine Light Mission member who seeks an objective rendering of the insider religious reality to the outsider, a rendering which embraces neither insider beliefs nor the sort of academic posture which reduces away religious experience.

The study concludes with a look at Divine Light Mission's Indian origins and a critique of the American popular adaptation of Hindu beliefs, practices, and social forms.

Robert N. Bellah
Chairman, Dissertation Committee

Chapter I

******************* Unfortunately Pages 1 & 2 were left behind in a Berkeley motel *******************

3

who take considerable pains to defend their objectivity.1 I not only took no pains, but gave full reign to religious passion.

Physical hardships consumed my remaining energy. 3,500 Westerners were crowded into army tents on a few acres of dusty land in Hardwar, North India in late November, when the sun still roasts at midday but the nights nearly freeze. Twice a day we all stood in line for an hour or two waiting to eat. Then there were long tramps to the latrines, to the Ganges to squat and swish dirty clothes about in the water, and to the outdoor "showers," where women had to wash fully clothed (in the tradition of Indian modesty) from sporadically flowing taps. I hardly talked to anyone except a few friends from California who seemed to moan in their sleeping bags sick with dysentary for the entire month. The rest of the time when I was not wandering aimlessly among the market stalls of "Divine Sales," I sat quietly in meditation along the banks of the Ganges, or listened to "satsangs" (spiritual discourses) by the Guru and his "Mahatmas," or tried to sneak up to the Guru's rooms on the ashram roof, past ever-present guards, in hopes of "darshan" - a glimpse of him.

Several disconfirming events did not shake my initial enthusiasm. The friends I had come with gradually got fed up, and some other acquaintances from California left for Nepal in disgust. Then the reputation-conscious Mission, worried about customs,2 offended my counter-culture sensibilities by conducting a heavy-handed "dope raid" - in my tent among others - to confiscate hashish. Another time I even left the ashram with my parents, coincidentally in India on business, for a visit to New Delhi.3 For a day I enjoyed the warmth, food, and cleanliness of hotel life, but then began longing for the ashram's

4

"spiritual vibrations" and soon returned eagerly to the dusty little corner of my tent and the prospect of my Guru's "darshan."

Conditions improved along with my sociability when the 3,500 Westerners left. I and a few diehard hippies stayed on for a few weeks. We lived more like the Indian monks now, digging in the garden with them, cleaning the kitchen, book-binding, eating "chapatis" and spicey "subjee," and sitting through interminable "satsangs" in Hindi. I thought of staying there for good but permission was hard to come by, my return ticket would be running out, and dimly remembered commitments awaited me in Berkeley.

All along I had hardly noticed the conversion process. I enjoyed the meditation and a new perception emerged but it was subtle and continued rather smoothly the trajectory of consciousness exploration which, I suppose, my first puffs of marijuana had launched years before. Everything felt different, wonder built upon wonder, but so had it on other adventures in exotic continents. Only back home did I feel myself to have changed much and suddenly:

On arriving back in Berkeley after my two-month absence, encounters with my old friends shocked me. Seeing incredibly more in them than ever before, I found myself just watching the various acts, ploys, lies, and fears which swept over their faces. I was able to sense how I had formerly reacted to them with my own acts. My own projections and defenses seemed to have been swept away. As I would ride busses or stand in line at counters I incredulously observed humanity for the first time, watching through faces into minds and feelings. Others' emotions would affect me almost physically. I began to feel moods of people and of situations much more intensely than before. (DuPertuis, 1973, p. iii)

This transformation awed me; if I was not literally someone different, I was at least literally "coming from a different place." It felt stronger, clearer, surer. I had become a "native."

5

THE NATIVE AND THE SOCIOLOGIST

From then on until my gradual deconversion seven or eight years later I saw sociology from the point of view of a native whose interest- group has little power but enormous ambition. How I saw and related to sociology mirrored the way the Mission saw and related to the public and especially the press, progressing through phases of a "naive offensive," a "defense," and a "calculated offensive."4

The Naive Offensive

Converting to a religion resembles falling in love in the conviction that you are the first human being ever to discover its radiance, its boundless hopes. It seems that you need only hint toward this unfathomable secret for others to catch the glow and drop everything in amazement just as you did. You never think others will be on guard against people like you.

Early converts to DLM really thought their non-stop, wide-eyed superlatives would arouse their parents and friends, and then their parents and friends, detonating a "peace bomb" of conversion which would engulf the earth in just a few years.5 Mission public relations types harangued the press to come to "Millennium '73" in the Houston Astrodome - "the greatest event in the histroy of the planet" - and, during the festival, tried to initiate them. One press member later wrote,

In a bunker at the very top of the Astrodome, the press will be given "knowledge." …

… It's the kind of room they use to break down counterespionage agents. … They wait in silence. Each of them in their own way is as lonely and unsure as any person who comes to receive "knowledge." There's no reason to think the Divine Light method won't work for them. They've been harangued, satsanged, and treated like machines. Give them just a bit of real attention and they'll openlike flowers. There isn't a person present not capable

6

of surrender. All the activity of the past few days has led to this. This is the moment. (Greenfield, 1975, pp. 90-1)

In the same spirit earlier that year I had zealously dashed off a hundred-page paper on the Divine Light Mission (DuPertuis, 1973) for a Berkeley sociology course in hopes of converting the professor, and sent xeroxes to half a dozen former teachers.

The blind enthusiasm of the naive offensive sees only its own zeal. It cannot discriminate between people; it addresses the "everyone" in people which "has an aching heart" or "needs God," and ignores the individual, the parent's sensibilities, the newsman's scepticism, the sociologist's analytic bent. Unaware of the danger of the other's power to strike back, this zeal dismisses with a flick of rhetoric his background, perceptions, and competence because it literally cannot see them. In my hundred-page paper I wrote condescendingly,

All of what social scientists have studied so far as religion is the mere outer form of it after the 'spirit' has been lost. … Social scientists may study it as they study any other institution of society based on one of man's unsatisfied longings and find in it hypocrisy, delusion, oppression, meaningless variation between cultures, endless contradictions. As long as they believe that this is all there is to religion, study of the outer forms of various religions will only confuse them more, especially if they have ideas about what religion should do and be. (DuPertuis, 1973, p. 47)

If people turn away from the naive offensive, it is "their problem." They are "not ready," or "not open." One never blames oneself at this stage.

Grim reality reacts quite quickly to naive offensives. Parents harrassed shocked devotees - who had only wanted gently to nudge them toward the "light" - with tears, threats, psychiatrists. The press devastatingly panned the DLM, Guru Maharaj Ji, and the Millennium '73, to the premies' utter surprise:

7

One news story caused me great personal embarrassment. It was written by the woman from the "Village Voice" who had seemed so sweet … The things I had told her, hoping to explain how fanaticism and genuine spirituality coexisted in our movement, were misquoted. Other remarks, which I had made jokingly and in high spirits, she presented as my serious beliefs. …

… The article went on and on as if she were being paid by the word, no matter how trivial or inaccurate, obscuring and misrepresenting my actions and beliefs. I consider it libelous, and worse, it shows a lack of sense of humor. This was only one of many such articles about the festival. (Collier, 1978, pp. 177-8)

And the professors, being gentlemen, suspended hostility and wrote on my paper indifferent, lame comments about my "theoretical model."

After my lack of successs with sociology professors and the greater Bay Area population, I became bored with sociology and the San Francisco branch of DLM and moved to the DLM headquarters in Denver. There I moved into an "ashram" - the official monastic order which enforced poverty, chastity, and obedience - and a position as staff writer for the Mission publications. I stayed two years, witnessing "Millennium '73;" a subsequent year of deep debt when the Mission occasionally farmed out writers, artists, and even vice-presidents to bus tables,clean suburban homes, hawk flowers on street corners, and work temporary at Kelly Girl (Yudell, 1976); and an ensuing super- bureaucratic phase at the headquarters. (Collier, ch. 15-17)

The Defense

In the face of the reaction which our "naive offensive" had caused we defended ourselves with a low profile and a more modest image. For a long time no one solicited the press, and we handled inquiries with the expertise of a former public-relations professional turned devotee who wrote official press releases and instructed devotees on how to handle reporters. Interviewed in our newspaper, he said,

8

When Guru Maharaj Ji met with the directors last November, he stated that the press is like a sleeping tiger, and we shouldn't wake it up. …

When a premie talks to a press member who has approached him as a press member to do a story, that premie should not try to give the press member satsang, at all. …

… there is a professional way of handling these things. Because although that premie may know something about the story, he may not understand the best way to present it. ("Divine Times," 4/75, pp. 10,12)

I dealt with sociologists who tried to research DLM. I saw them as deluded but powerful because they could produce "scientifically true" statements against us quotable by other social scientists, the press, parents, even courts of law. Like the Mission public relations people I too affected professionalism, critiquing their sampling, pointing out our "routinization of charisma," trying to interpret our reality according to the way I remembered that sociologists saw things. And I also tried to tell researchers how much we'd changed since they had collected their data - now we balanced our budget, stopped pamphleteering on the street and thinking of GMJ as Messiah; we ran a school, a clinic, a "World Welfare Association," and even hinted at a mature self-criticism in our publications.

The defensive posture affected the Mission in three ways. First, we reacted to criticism by eradicating our most flagrant eccentricities.6 We admitted the mistakes of our "naive offensive:"

To be fair, we must admit that much of the bad publicity stemmed from improper and inept handling of the press at Millennium. …

… Most of the reporters noted that the premies were radiating love, but they also noted some gaudy commercialization. As Carole said, "We took something subtle and sacred and tried to market it to the public." …

… Carole remembers, "We used to think we could go on TV and the whole world would wake up. Now we understand that you cannot change a person until he wants to change." ("Divine Times," 6/1/74, pp. 10-11)

We tried to revamp our approach to the public:

9

Propagation has now gone grass roots. Premies are going out into their communities and serving people. Programs have been established in hospitals, prisons, drug centers and convalescent homes so that premies can share the joy they feel. "When we go to serve people, our happiness is contagious." ("Divine Times," 6/1/75, p. 11)

And we tried to mellow our zealousness:

Our attitudes are often rigid. … We have to practice what we preach … We have to see ourselves as universal citizens. ("Divine Times," 6/1/74, p. 11)

Maharaj Ji is giving every premie an opportunity right now to be upfront about the fact that Maharaj Ji never says he's God, and about the fact that the only thing we should really be giving satsang about is Knowledge - not about Guru Maharaj Ji. ("Divine Times, 4/75, p. 12)

As a second reaction to the defensive posture, our self-consciousness tended to create factions within the organization. The top executives wanted us to look like an established corporation, the social activists wanted us to look like a liberal, community-oriented church, and the pious types saw us as a puritan introversionist or conversionist sect. (Wilson, 1970)

We writers were instructed to appeal our pamphlets to our department head's archetypal middle-aged, middle-class, polyester-pant-suit mother - bland, cliche-ridden, inoffensive, conservative pieces. We, on the other hand, wanted the Mission to appear as an intellectual avant-garde. If we writers wanted a new image to defend, which social commentators would not ridicule, we felt we had to help create it. So we used commentators' opinions to manipulate the Mission toward our own freethinking attitudes.

We would tell our superiors that press reporters and sociologists respect divergence of opinion and would continue to write that we were a bunch of fanatical robots unless independent thought emerged. Collier described anew publicity campaign which the writers and artists tried

10

to work out during the spring of 1975:

The main idea of it was based on C. S. Lewis's concept that you could lead people into higher awareness ("God," in his words) through art and beauty, which he said were imitations of the supreme. We wanted everything DLM did . . . to be light, beautiful art objects. We wanted them to be full of fun and not to take themselves too seriously. (Collier, 1978, p. 210)

Perhaps this divergence of opinion and factional struggle over how to proselytize and what to be eventually helped generate the reaction phase of 1977,7 when most members retreated to a unanimously religious and devotional viewpoint. But the story is getting ahead of itself.

The third and most shocking effect of the defensive phase was the realization that we and our observors saw each other as worlds apart. All too clearly we surmised that to them we were wierdoes, inhuman and fanatic "guru people," the natives everyone feared, gawked at, and tried to capture for their journals. Observors didn't want to learn something from us; they wanted to see a show.

In turn we saw journalists and sociologists as "ignorant," in the Hindu sense of unaware, naive, unenlightened. "Ignorance" explained hostility, fascination with irrelevant facts of our life, blindness to relevant ones. "When an ignorant person sees a precious jewel," according to one of our Indian adages, "he throws it away thinking it a useless rock. "When a thief meets a saint he sees only his pockets." And when "ignorant" writers saw us, they saw only a scandal, a joke, a rip-off, at best just another "new religion."

Informed "ignorance" proved the most mystifying, the kind of account which abounded in detail, correct argot and language yet still utterly missed the point. To us the most perceptive writers only caught caricatures, never the real us. They wrote about what we believed but

11

not what we knew; what we did but not what we lived; how we felt but not how we loved:

[One journalist] noticed that premies are nice people who love each other and have learned how to cooperate. But [he] couldn't see the one thing that tied the premies to Maharaj Ji and so he filled the gap with his own ideas. ("Divine Times," 6/1/74, p. 11)

Such a blindness to the obvious made the worldview of journalists and sociologists incomprehensively alien to us. I remember seriously wondering "where their heads are at," how they could know so much and yet fail to see as we saw. I must have felt like the "Jesus Freak" commune member interviewed by Robbins, Anthony and Curtis,

She couldn't understand how I could understand what it was like to be a Jesus Freak and not be a Jesus Freak, since to her being a Jesus Freak is a very unique kind of experience - no other religious trip is like it. She can't understand how anyone can understand it and not become it. (1973, p. 265)

Robbins at al go on to suggest that such accurate understanding by outsiders threatened the Jesus Freaks, but the sociological and journalistic counterfeit of our life hardly treatened us. If anything, it reinforced the notion that we had a "Knowledge" beyond the grasp of uninitiated minds, which lent us a special, subtle, and exciting uniqueness. This sense of our own uniqueness in turn helped us detect within their "ignorant" alien mode of thought the laughable ruse of "ego," the gargantuan arrogance of a blindness which insisted it saw us better than we could see ourselves.

* * * * *

During the defensive phase the Mission cut down on outreach and special projects, streamlined and consolidated the organization, and stabilized followers' lifestyles.8 The gulf between "us" and "them" now defined, our ideological position clarified, and our organization again stable, we began once more to take a proselytizing offensive.

12

The Calculated Offensive:9

The difference between the original "naive offensive" and the later "calculated offensive" is symbolized by the difference between the poorly-selling book Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? (Cameron, 1973) which appeared just before "Millennium '73", full of first-person conversion stories, fantastic scientific claims, and many, many of GMJ's speeches, and the best-selling The Inner Game of Tennis (Gallwey, 1974)10 written by a tennis professional in new-age consciousness style which mentioned meditation only obliquely toward the end and GMJ only in the dedication. Some of us writers wanted to accomplish a similar coup in social science.

But we knew that in academia tiny interest groups like the DLM seldom succeed in imposing their paradigm of social reality on a large portion of an established field. Even the Catholic Church with its established journal "Sociological Analysis" influences only a portion of the sociology of religion subfield. Their thought is otherwise confined to their own seminaries and colleges; conservative Protestants have done the same. Buddhist viewpoints appear in a few obscure Buddhist Studies departments or Asian Institutes; Hinduism and Islam are represented still less powerfully; but the New Religious Movements11 have yet to penetrate established academia at all. They have had to establish their own, usually unaccredited institutions like the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi University, the Unification Theological Seminary, and Naropa Institute.12 Those academic subfields which were partially influenced by new-age or occult thought, like transpersonal psychology or parapsychological anthropology (Long, 1977) had to found their own journals and scholarly meetings and enjoyed much derision from their parent fields.

13

The Divine Light Mission had no intention of founding a University or an Institute; it was having enough trouble with its grade school. No one wanted to outlay thousands to lure respectable academics to conferences in exotic settings as the Moonies were to do (Shupe and Bromley, 1979); even the idea of circulating a quasi-academic newsletter among Mission intellectuals never materialized. In fact, the Mission higher-ups so distrusted us writers that only a few strained, watered- down versions of our brainstormings ever filtered through their censorship into print.13 How, then, were we (or any powerless interest group) to introduce our world-view as a major new basis of social thought?

Our only practical possibility lay in taking academia by storm with a book so spectacularly true that social science could not possibly ignore it. One of my ideas for such a bombshell book was entitled "The Sociology of Unity: A New-Age Approach to the Search for Knowledge of God," whose purpose was:

To reach out to struggling new-age scientists and searchers of truth by showing them scientifically that: 1) man's strongest drive is toward super-conscious awareness of truth; 2) this drive can only be satisfied by direct experience of God; and 3) practicing the Knowledge and following the Commandments of Guru Maharaj Ji is a most excellent, and perfectly-designed method for reaching this satis- faction.14

Utterly blind to the fact that such a book would have resembled the worst of the pop "I found it" genre which populates bookstores' Christian, diet, marriage, health, and psychology shelves, we felt we were discreetly disguising our propaganda in "scientific" language. For example, our conviction that "secretly every human heart longs for GMJ's Knowledge" because a "scientific theory" we called the "unity drive." Citing Jung, Maslow and Weil (1972) to authenticate our idea, we suggested that this "unity drive" was,

14

The human urge to experience and merge with infinite consciousness. The unity drive is the basic human desire, but we often experience it disguised in limited forms, such as desires for food, sex, excitement, comfort, security or power. ("Divine Times," 3/75, p. 12)

Meditation on GMJ's Knowledge would satisfy this "unity drive" by breaking through limiting conceptual patterns to unfettered perception of "the true reality." Extraordinary creativity would result, like the paradigm-breaking scientific insights which Kuhn suggests follow reveries and intuitions (1962, pp. 121-2). Through meditation one would act in tune, forever in an experience of "flow." (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975)

Though we now saw social science in more detail than during our "naive offensive" when we had sought simply to strike for the "hearts" of social scientists, we still perceived the field according to our logic, not theirs. Ignoring the structure and development of the field, we rubricized sociologial concepts to suit our views, gleaning out of context findings which, when strung together (in a social scientific non-sequitor) successfully underpinned our theological argument.

In "Readers' Digest" fashion we would present gloomy social predicaments and then artfully solve them. In the article in which we introduced the "unity drive" we went on to note that Ralph Keyes in We The Lonely People suggests

Americans are at once searching and wishing for community, while avoiding it as best they can. They are victims of "ambivalence" -the simultaneous attraction toward and repulsion from an object, person, or action. They are pulled away from community by the desires for anonymity, privacy, convenience and mobility. ("Divine Times," 3/75, p. 12)

This argument, which proceeded through Rosabeth Moss Kanter's (1972) analysis of community, Carlos Castaneda's notion of "erasing personal history," (1972, p. 27ff), and 60's consciousness-raising groups methods, concluded that "through meditation we already know who we are.

15

So we are freed from both halves of Keyes' 'ambivalence'" - we no longer want either isolation or the appearance of community, but the "true community" of people practicing GMJ's Knowledge together.

We also used optimistic, new-age literature, for had not GMJ secretly inspired the writing of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Bach, 1970), Be Here Now (Alpert, 1971), The Greening of America (Reich, 1970), even the Beatles' hit "Here Comes the Sun?" For of course we believed GMJ was the sun dawning after a long age of darkness. So we gathered evidence from Indian legends (Cameron, 1976; DuPertuis, 1975) and from modern science (Massey, 1974,1975) that the whole world, even social science, was about to turn a monumental corner. Utopia would finally dawn when universal understanding of GMJ's teachings would finally transcend the nauseating social see-saw between human cravings for excitement and for stability, as outlined in a light-hearted article called "Is Peace Boring?"

Peace is the experience which appeases both the anarchist and the reactionary in man's character. Peace offers excitement as well as tranquillity. Pure meditation offers the perfect marriage of the two extremes. Try it; you'll see that there is no greater security than realizing that you are infinite and there is no greater thrill than witnessing the creation of the universe within yourself. This happens simultaneously in meditation. This is peace. ("Divine Times," 2/75, p. 9)

* * * * *

As we thus toyed with social scientific and new-age ideas we felt something of the anxiety which sociology visits upon conventional religionists:

In some colleges training people for the Christian ministry, Durkheim is spoken of with a reverence which would have bewildered and shocked him; in others, all brands of sociology are still dismissively banned altogether. (Mills, 1980.)

From such anxieties we protected ourselves in three ways. First, as in our defensive stage, we still thought of sociologists as alien not

16

those who researched us, but now too those who wrote books and articles. For example, I secretly wondered if "professional sociologists" were capable of understanding something written "from the heart:"

I have certain notions about the book. The two main ones are possibly contradictory: 1) It must come from the heart; but 2)it must be acceptable and comprehensible by professional sociologists (personal notes)

Second, more than ever we believed in our uniqueness, especially in relation to other religions. Marx and reductionist sociologists were perfectly right about every other religion, new or old, for other faiths without exception based their thought on long-dead and dangerous distortions of Truth, which caused selfishness, greed, fear, and the desire to exploit and destroy one's neighbor. We were not a religion; we were "knowers of Truth."15 We could even use social science to keep an eye on our own tendency to degenerate into unenlightened, dogmatic religiosity:

Durkheim's book states that beliefs, when shared, become even more powerful … so pounded in by social means that it dare not be contradicted. … This is happening in DLM, if there is any premie who reacts irrationally and uncontrollably to some contradiction to a precept of the Knowledge, then he is guilty of belief. Belief is not Knowledge. Beliefs can be very close to the truth and still not be the truth. (personal notes)

"New-age" social scientific writing, like the "Journal of Transpersonal Psychology," proved especially threatening to our sense of uniqueness. We carefully purused this literature for contradiction and dogmatism, telling ourselves that it is easy enough to talk about truth but quite another thing to know it. For hadn't GMJ once (allegedly) said that practitioners of Transcendental Meditation might just as well be "going around mugging people"? But we had to be careful, for GMJ also would quote the Bhagavad-Gita in reference to followers of "other paths:"

17

Even those who worship other deities, and sacrifice to them with faith in their hearts, are really worshipping me, though with a mistaken approach. (Prabhavananda and Isherwood, 1944, p. 83)

Someday they too would become "premies," or "lovers" of GMJ. They were simply less advanced on the "path," like Richard Alpert/Ram Dass whom one of our number felt was articulating things we had already realized several years before. Our duty was to respect them as the "honorary premies" they were and to guide them when appropriate, like the premie psychologist who attended an Association of Transpersonal Psychology meeting and reported "blowing them away" with his analysis of the "guru-disciple relationship."

Third, our isolation protected us from both traditional and new- age social scientific thought. As in theology seminaries we read their ideas but addressed replies to each other. No genuine dialogue emerged. While in Denver we rarely talked with anyone outside the DLM, let alone professional social scientists. Those who lived in ashrams worked in the DLM headquarters or DLM companies during the day. When I quit the headquarters and moved into a non-ashram communal house I worked here and there as gardener, housecleaner, waitress, carpenter, junk mail distributor. But I still lived within the Mission world of perhaps a thousand premies who by 1976 lived in Denver's Capitol Hill district, operated a grocery, school, clinic, laundry, hostel, a new-businesses cooperative and job training center, and formed bands, writers' and artists' groups, parents' groups, garden and welfare projects and a community newspaper. From this comfortable community it was easy enough to address our "calculated offensive" to mythical aliens in the stilted language of what we thought was their view of life.

DECONVERSION

All this changed when the premie communities began to disintegrate. I grew tired of odd jobs and moved back to Berkeley in January, 1977 to re-enroll in the sociology department. Still bent on our "calculated offensive" bombshell book on the DLM, I was immediately confronted with the inadequately thin scientific disguise of our propaganda and its enormous straying from conventional social scientific thought. I realized that in order to argue against sociology competently and ferret out loopholes for my "native" views, I would have to establish myself as an impeccable professional.

I began to write conservatively, imitating the journals, footnoting extensively. But in so doing I ran the dismaying risk of "cooptation" already discovered by radical and minority students, in which despite oneself one begins to covet rewards the enemy provides for internalizing his thought and accepting the established view of one's "native" group. Two factors protected me for awhile.

First, 1977 and 1978 saw a phase of intense "charismatic renewal" (Downton, 1979) in the Mission. Though the Bay Area DLM community was small and uninspiring and I found myself associating more and more with other sociology graduate students, every few weeks GMJ would announce a national "festival" in some distant city. By plane, by Greyhound, by van or car, I would find myself trekking to Portland, Denver, Montreal, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Tuscon, and many times to Florida. At the festival I enjoyed once again the sight of my Guru, the loving embraces of old friends, and wondrous excitement; back in Berkeley I drudged through debts, jobs, sociological theory, grinding out papers. I clung to the ups and dreaded the downs but then, toward

18

the end of this period in the fall of 1978 I married a devoted premie.

Second, my religious commitment remained intact because my marriage and other premie commitments kept me apart from the sociology graduate student subculture sufficiently that I could maintain the view of sociology as just another "cult." The practitioners spoke far less eloquently than they wrote; they repeated themselves,thought fuzzily, flatly denied criticism, spoke with buzz words, hung around in cliques, disagreed self-righteously with everyone else, and claimed the only, the true, the profound view of life even more seriously than premies did, but with less humor and joy and far more bitterness. ¹⁶ Without them even knowing it I would bait them, get them to react predictably, and chuckle to myself. Functionalism, Marxism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, even feminism became ways of life for these people in much the same way that devotion to GMJ had become a way of life for me, yet these philosophies provided no transcendence. The sociologists looked unhappy; they never glowed. I tended to agree with what Richard Alpert/Ram Dass had once said of his psychology colleagues at Harvard, "Their own lives were not fulfilled. There was not enough human beauty, human fulfillment, human contentment." (Alpert, 1971, p. 3)

Sociology played an indirect part in my eventual deconversion. Doubts did not emerge from theories and ideologies, for no amount of reductionistic, analysis could deny my meditation experiences (until much later when I reevaluated them in the light of Buddhist thought, which of course was not reductionistic). But facts did threaten my beliefs and thus the interpretation of my experience. Study of other religions and "New Religious Movement" gradually convinced me that no DLM phenomenon - neither the Guru's claims and charms nor the meditative

19

experience - was unique. If we were not unique, then how could GMJ be the one and only Living Perfect Master; and if he were not the Living Perfect Master then what other of his claims might be false? And if he were false, what might he do to my life? And why couldn't I just as well go ahead and meditate and attain realization without having to believe in him?

During the period when these doubts were creeping into my mind, the DLM was turning further and further away from the style of life I had now chosen. The "charismatic renewal" of 1977-78, with its renewed emphasis on the person of GMJ and its frequent festivals which wrenched premies once again away from careers, school, stable jobs and family lives, was pulling the Mission once again inward toward itself, resurrecting the ashrams, again championing what looked to me like puritanism, isolationism, conformity of opinion, a return to testimonials and GMJ's speeches in propaganda publications and inhibition of the individuality and creativity which had flourished during the 1975-76 era. Feeling I had already been through all this and that once was enough, I felt less and less comfortable with the Bay Area premies.

But theological doubts and disenchantment with fellow premies were not sufficient to break an elemental devotion to the Guru; many other premies have managed to harbor questions and avoid premie communities and yet still follow GMJ "in their hearts." My final disillusionment followed specific actions by GMJ himself which I suddenly could not rationalize in a holy light, which suddenly looked to me manipulative, deceitful and greedy. From one day to the next the attitude of guilty, grudging sarcasm which my doubts had fostered turned to intense repudiation. From then on I could not meditate in the old way, for the

20

meditation was inextricably bound up with the Guru, and eventually I came to regard the meditation as misused and the interpretation misleading and possibly harmful.

With deconversion my urge to proselytize vanished. As an ex-native writing about the DLM I would have to take an altogether different stand.

THE EX-NATIVE AS SOCIOLOGIST

In the twentieth-century United States one defects from a "cult" not into a vacuum but into a world eager to save one's soul and condemn one's past. Craving intelligent and sensitive exchange during the tremendously disorienting post-deconversion period, I found myself preyed upon most ruthlessly by Christians of all sorts but also by a Sufi, two devotees of the Goddess, a Humanist, a Nicheren Shoshu Buddhist and a group of psychic healers. Thankfully I at least eluded "anti-cult" groups and networks of hostile ex-members who bombard the defector with an anti-cult ideological package nearly as rigid as the "cult" views he has just left. (Bromley and Shupe, 1980)

Even ordinary people made demands. Few could understand ambivalence:

Returnees often want to talk to people about positive aspects of the cult experience. Yet they commonly feel that others refuse to hear anything but the negative aspects. (Singer, 1979, p. 80)

Some people wanted me to confess my former weakness, gullibility, immaturity, lack of discrimination and to show positive change, like a conventional religion and renewed career interests. Others simply wanted dirt and horror stories of "brainwashing" and victimization by the "cult'" cruelty and treachery. Refusal to repudiate the DLM in this way would convince them I was still "hooked:"

21

Family and friends are on the alert for any signs that the difficulties of real life will send the person back … [they] trigger an ex-cultist's feelings that people are staring, wondering why he joined such a group. (Singer, 1979, p. 80)

As do ex-junkies, ex-convicts and other stigmatized persons, I learned to "pass" (Coffman, 1963, p. 73ff), affecting nonchalance when religious topics came up, creatively disguising lost years for resumes and the nosey.

I soon found that social science was no haven from these sorts of demands. At one extreme, some social scientists belonged to what others called "cults" and were furtively trying, as I had, to further their views. A proponent of Parapsychological Anthropology lamented, "Anthropologists, in an abysmal ignorance of the vast literature of parapsychology, have almost totally ignored the paranormal dimension." (Long, 1977, p.10 ) I even discovered among the sociology graduate students at Berkeley closet devotees of assorted gurus.

At the opposite extreme, other social scientists had leaped to the aid of the anti-cult movement. After 1977, organizations which debated about "cults" at annual meetings included:

The American Sociological Association, the Religious Research Association, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the American Academy of Religion, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association. (Bromley and Shupe, 1980, p. 192)

At these meetings, Shupe and Bromley noted,

The effectiveness with which anti-cult movement groups set the agenda for the discussion of new religions. Rather than focusing on the new religious movements' concerns about moral decay and alternative visions of the future, the anti-cultists managed to shift the debate largely to questions of brainwashing, financial exploitation, and political conspiracy. (1980, p. 192)

This debate, which raged in court as well as in meetings and journals, ¹⁷ exhibited a wide range of views,

22

A continuum of psychiatric attitudes toward the viability of the whole mind-control-in-new-religions argument ranging from the total rejection of brainwashing as a value-laden metaphor, to a middle position acknowledging the existence (and efficienty) of a brainwashing proceedure but only under extremely controlled, coercive, and rare conditions, to the opposite extreme where brainwashing was unquestionably assumed not only to exist but also to be a stable operating procedure in new religions. The latter spoke freely in terms of "ego regression" and "mentacide." (Bromley and Shupe, 1980, p. 194)

Sociological studies also displayed a great range of views, including great sympathy (Downton, 1979; Sontag, 1977; and Judah, 1974), the hint that we may have something to learn from the New Religious Movements (Needleman and Baker, 1978; Robbins, Anthony and Richardson, 1978), and also ridicule (Foss and Larkin, 1978), and labeling:

Bainbridge and Stark (1980), for example. have argued recently that the beliefs and claims of Scientologists are "impossible" to validate and therefore seemingly incredible. They thus raise for "investigation" "the question of how thousands of individuals could be seriously mistaken about their beliefs"(Bainbridge and Stark,1980, p. 128 in Snow and Machalek, 1982, p. 16)

As Donald Stone has observed, "The new religious movements often serve as spiritual inkblots: reports of movements may tell us more about the observors than about the observed." (Stone, 1978, p. 142)

* * * * * *

This array of views led me to perceive that sociology, like many a new religion, strays in practice incalculably far from its stated ideals, from Durkheim's "first corollary" of sociological method that "all preconceptions must be eradicated." (1938, p. 31) Gunnar Myrdal asks,

How can the student of social problems liberate himself from

1) the power heritage of earlier writings in his field … influences of the entire cultural, social, economic, and political milieu of the society where he lives, works, and earns his living and his status; and 3) the influence stemming from his own personality?" (Myrdal, 1969, p. 5)

And he recommended, with little suggestion as to how, that we "raise the

23

valuations actually determining our theoretical as well as our practical research to full awareness." (1969, p. 6) In my view, not only did sociologists fail miserably to do this, but they had not the faintest idea how; they didn't even grasp the nature of the problem.

"Liberating oneself" from the "entire influence" of one's culture and one's personality and reaching "full awareness" of anything, after all, were generally the goals of Eastern religions, including the DLM. I had quite painfully learned that one does not accomplish such things with a little meditation, much less a flick of the pen, the questionnaire or the computer. I perceived sociologists who actually believed they had reached "full awareness" or "objectivity" as at least as naive, pompous, and self-deceptive as GMJ's most dogmatic followers and, because of their greater influence, potentially more harmful to others.

To me, social science was simply reacting in divergent ways to alien worldviews, much as the DLM had. Mannheim (1936) suggests that certain historical factors force people to reflect "about thinking itself and even here not so much about truth in itself, as about the alarming fact that the same world can appear differently to different observors." (1936, p. 6) This happens in stages. First, "horizontal mobility … shows that different people think differently." But as long as one's power and tradition remain intact,

one remains so attached to its customary ways of thinking that the ways of thinking which are perceived in other groups are regarded as curiosities, errors, ambiguities, or heresies. At this stage one does not doubt either the correctness of one's own traditions of thought or the unity and uniformity of thought in general. (1936, p. 7)

If conventional, positivism-inspired sociology - and much of "anti-cult" social science - seemed to me to exemplify this stage, Marxist and

24

phenomenological sociology, which challenged the worldview and assumptions of positivist sociology, exemplified the next stage, of "vertical mobility," the "decisive factor in making persons uncertain and skeptical of their traditional view of the world." (1936, p. 7) At this stage,

Previously isolated strata begin to communicate with one another and a certain social circulation sets in … the forms of thought and experience, which had hitherto developed independently, enter into one and the same consciousness impelling the mind to discover the irreconcilability of the conflicting conceptions of the world. (1936, p. 8)

Though appealing, the phenomenological critique of sociology puzzled me because it never seemed to go far anough. Though it perceived the necessity of stepping aside from one's accustomed world- view, it provided no adequate method. Not only did its various factions squabble among themselves like so many religious sects (though perhaps sectarian squabble is typical of the uncertainty of the "vertical mobility" stage) each claiming that one need only "first do X … to carry out a truly scientific, objective, self-reflective study without presuppositions." (Attawell, 1974) - but each "X" was after all only a theory, only a conceptual and not an existential act.

Phenomenologists were learning to see as if they had bracketed their usual seeing or even as if they were seeing through the eyes of another. But for themselves, existentially, they still perceived the "paramount reality" of their own taken-for-granted worldview, to which they inevitably returned from phenomenological excursions. Pilarzik and Bharadwaj explored this limitation of phenomenology in the course of their research on DLM, contrasting "actual abandonment" with "temporary suspension of the preconceived, pragmatic motives of the modern scientific worldview." (1979, p. 30)

When applied to Schutz' outline, the mystical experience is conceived,

25

As an unsuspecting "shock" to the foundations of everyday life and therefore remains dependent upon it as the "paramount reality." But what if mysticism is an integral part of an entire esoteric worldview in which devotees are socialized by the experience? Schutz was not concerned with this latter situation. It would have undermined his entire program for a phenomenological sociology by relativizing the assumptions upon which it was based. (1979, p. 29)

No phenomenologist, it seemed to me (except possibly Garfinkel), had actually lived through the withering away of that "paramount reality" to the point where one can return to it no longer. They just grew overwhelmingly anxious over the possibility. Of all of them, only Berger and Luckman had even remarked about the "nightmarish terror" and "howling chaos" of the "nightside reality" (1967), that region beyond our taken-for-granted ways of seeing.

Early 1970's Berkeley leftists had been driven existentially much closer to this "howling chaos," as a radical critic of Rennie Davis' conversion to DLM suggests:

Nothing is what it has seemed; the stability of the American economy, our concepts of maleness and femaleness, the limits of consciousness, the nature of man. The plants, the whales, the stars, institutions, sanity: all call on us to discard our old impressions of them. Our friends make strange transits; an awesome chasm of possibilities and impossibilities gapes wide; black signals of death hang in the sky. A world is ending; intimations of the event penetrate our private being, and few can confess the extent to which they feel lost within it. (Rossman, 1979, p. 23)

Yet even they could still salvage enough of a worldview to provide a consistent orientation (which their academic counterparts then energetically fortified, often by aping the assumptions and methods of their more conventional rivals). Rossman continues:

To be able to go on we pull the appearances back together around us, even as we are trying to disassemble them and reassemble something truer; we shut out what we cannot explain or account for, even as we try to grasp what lies beyond. To not know who we are, to not know what is, is totally terrifying; and Rennie reminded us of this. (1979, p. 23)

Meanwhile, I felt that while phenomenologists had just dabbled theoretically and leftists were teetering on the brink of terror and chaos, I had blundered out of Middle America and sociology, out of the counterculture and the DLM world and finally over the brink. I had had to learn how to swim through a no-man's ocean dotted with the island mirages of a thousand "paramount realities," among them phenomenology, Marxism and all the social scientific schools. Anyone who still could cling to one of these islands and think it real inhabited a world I had fallen off of and could not clamber back upon because it began to crumble the moment I tried.

In this state I could hardly convince myself into some stable scientific, sociological, or phenomenological viewpoint. So I had to dream of another stage of phenomenology, or of sociology, or of "thinking about thought" which arose from circumstances at least as drastic as mine. Perhaps the Vine Delorias, the Franz Fanons, the Albert Memmis had already pioneered it; those who had been whitewashed or forced out of their worldview at gunpoint and could neither return home nor embrace the mentality of their oppressors. Perhaps even before them the Madhyamika Buddhists had pioneered it, learning somehow to penetrate through each successive absolute until finally they made no ultimate claims at all. In the face of these thinkers I felt like a naive beginner; perhaps my chaos with its islands of unreality was but another island of unreality in another chaos, which in turn was but an island in a yet grander chaos, and on and on through countless levels, each of which looks absolute until some terrible urgency forces one through its confines, transforming terror into something utterly unanticipated.

27

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1) Goodman (1972) inadvertantly slipped into glossolalia during an early morning service and had to "intentionally block subsequent occurences." (p. 72-3) Once during her research on the Unification Church, Barker (1974) reports having "slipped without being at all aware of it into a completely alien kind of language," when talking with followers.

2) GMJ had been caught allegedly smuggling jewelry and money into India before the festival began.

3) In no sense was theirs a "deprogramming"mission; they simply happened to be in India at the time on business. They liked the devotees, who struck them as clean-cut, clear-eyed and polite compared to the dragged-out Western "freaks" who roamed the streets of Delhi.

4) My terms. Price (1979) documents analogous "conversionist," "recessionary," and "introversionist" phases in the DLM's development in England. My interpretation of the third phase suggests a less extreme introversionist outlook, but perhaps the English situation differed. Also, my personal experiences of these phases does not coincide completely chronologically with the general trend of the American Mission.

5) The term "peace bomb" gained currency as the name coined for a dramatic "satsang" GMJ delivered in New Delhi, November 9, 1970, printed in the 11/73 issue of "And It Is Divine."

6) For an analysis of secondary deviation and religious movements' reactions to criticism and persecution, see Wallis (1975).

7) Downton's (1979) term of "charismatic renewal" (p. 187, 201-3) for this phase eventually gained currency among DLM members.

8) Many observors during this period felt that the Mission had fallen apart for good, but membership actually stabilized during this period and remained the same for several years; ten to twelve thousand people would come to most nationally scheduled festivals, and a record twenty thousand came to an international week-long festival in Orlando, Florida in November of 1978.

9) The devensive and calculated offensive phases overlap to some extent; some parts of the Mission were still engaged in defense while others were concerned with offense; no one event demarcated a change from one to the other.

10) Gallwey wrote the book independently from the Mission publications but with GMJ's approval.

11) Needleman (1970) coined this term to refer to the movements, mostly of Eastern or syncretic origin, which have sprung up in the West since the late 1960's.

28

12) The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Theological Seminary was founded by proponents of Transcendental Meditation; the Unification Theological Seminary by the Unification Church ("the Moonies"), and Naropa Institute by followers of the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche.

13) Though we did eventually manage to produce an underground mimeo sheet ("Times Two") which surreptitiously circulated through the headquarters and, we liked to imagine, helped ferment a debacle in 1976 when the headquarters collapsed and everyone left the ashrams.

14) I submitted this on a "DUO Project Proposal Form," to the Mission executives who approved new projects. 2/14/74.

15) This was premies' reaction to the Jonestown mass suicide; they did not buy the implication that we were a cult capable of similar actions, but instead stressed how different we were from them.

16) Snow and Machalek have written, "All conventional religions, professions, and academic disciplines, including sociology, have their own specialized languages that fucntion in a manner similar to Scientology's argot. That is, they help to distinguish between insiders and outsiders, they function to extablish and maintain the boundaries of the system, and they support the validity of its claims and practices." (1982, p. 18)

17) Intense battles have been fought over the legality of "deprogramming" and the granting of temporary conservatorships to parents of cult members over twenty-one. (Shupe and Bromley, 1980)

29

30

CHAPTER II

WORLDVIEW

THE THRESHOLD STANCE

To steal a metaphor from C. S. Lewis, religion is a room bigger on the inside than on the outside. Most generally, this study intends to render how the people inside this religion understand and act within their "world."1 In Redfield's (1952) terms, I seek to describe their "worldview;" how they experience the inner vastness of the room. But I seek to communicate this insider worldview to the outsider, to those disinclined to cross the threshold and lose sight of how the room looked on the outside.

The study takes a stand, therefore, at that threshold. It avoids the exclusively "etic" or scientific conception taken by those social scientists who have already written about the DLM and virtually ignored that which fascinates the insider. Yet it avoids as well an exclusively "emic"2 or insider conception which cloaks the DLM world in a veil of secrecy, esotericism, and propaganda, the sort of view- point Pilarzyk and Bharadwaj (1979) concluded could never be penetrated by phenomenological analysis.

The staunch insider and the staunch outsider both view a true threshold stance as impossible; to them, one who claims it is merely trying to disguise his allegiance to the alien side. For each has taken a stand for or against religious experience, identifying with

31

only one side of the intuition/reason dichotomy redefined again and again over the years as "primitive" or "modern" thought (Levy-Bruhl, 1925); "being-cognition" or "deficiency-cognition" (Maslow, 1968); "stoned mind" or "straight mind" (Weil, 1972); and "right-brain" or "left-brain" mentation (Ornstein, 1972).3 To each side, the other's mode of thought is at best immature, exemplifying a lower evolutionary or developmental stage and at worst demonic, identified now and again with Hitler - the anti-reasonists stressing his regimented, machinelike efficiency and conformity and the pro-reasonists his murky occult fantasies.

Scientific Criticisms of the Threshold Stance

Scientific critics standing outside of religion seek reasons for the impossibility of the threshold stance. Robbins, Anthony and Curtis, for example, suggest that under certain conditions one can stand at the threshold:

Operating simultaneously in a given set of "multiple realities" is feasible only if the various realities or meaning systmes do not overtly contradict each other.

But when one can't the religion - in this case that of "Jesus Freaks" - is to blame for its closed-mindedness:

One cannot be both a devotee and a sociologist of religion if one's religion definitely condemns a sociological analysis of religion as irreligious. One cannot be a symbolic realist if the esoteric meanings whose "reality" one is affirming deny the reality of symbolic realism. (1973, p. 279)

Some who repudiate the threshold stance tend to separate sociological and religious camps completely. In Reviewing Damrell's Seeking Spiritual Meaning (1977), a loosely phenomenological account of the author's dabblings in Vedanta, Danzer (1978) labels the author as

32

as a non-scientific religionist:

This book then is not a sociological analysis, nor a standard ethnographic work. … It is written from the perspective of one who has found religion. The author is articulate and informed and provides us with a useful document by a believer. And perhaps that is what he intended. (1978)

It makes no difference to the reviewer that Damrell has remained an established professional sociologist; he has "gone native" and therefore his version of science is no longer valid. Pilarzik and Bharadwaj (1979), who researched the DLM, likewise suggest that the threshold stance is impossible:

The phenomenological researcher who undergoes the conversion process of rejecting one paradigm and accepting a drastically different one (incommensurable with his/her own) cannot existentially stand with one foot in each worldview and in a non-reductionist manner, understand both of them. (1979, p. 27)

They defend this view on the grounds that conversion might undermine one's scientific commitment. According to them, an existential (rather than the researcher's phenomenological)surrender to the esoteric world- view might well "necessitate the abandonment of social scientific purposes and principles as well as the 'need' to report 'findings' to the sociological community." (1979, p. 30)

Castaneda may have proved them right but others have returned to report their findings to the scientific community. Seeing social science not as an unchallengeable and unique reality, but as a malleable construct, they tend to innovate it in several ways.

First, the returned insider innovates social science by correcting the outsiders' previous impressions of his "world " and its inhabitants:

From the outside, deviant persons, like members of racial minorities, tend to look alike. From the inside, there is bound to be assortment and variety, observable, known, and usually designated by those who inhabit that world. (Matza, 1969, p. 28)

33

The returnee from a religious world attacks the stereotype of the "irrational" religionist by displaying the ability to observe, discriminate, analyze, and reason, as another evaluator of Damrell points out:

By having become the phenomenon, Dr. Damrell has demonstrated that authentic experience needs no protection from analytic understanding. Like an instant replay in a football game, he "slows the spiritual machinery" so that we can see its constitutive processes. The description of it strikes a blow against mystification by making things plain. (Berger, 1977, p. 13)

Second, these innovators look at social phenomena scientifically, but from a new angle: Nels Anderson (1923), of the Chicago naturalist school, saw from the point of view of the hobo he had once been; and Howard Becker (1963, p. 59 ff) examined the way the marijuana user views the controlling society's judgement of him.

Third, the returned insider expands his field substantively. He scientifically analyzes phenomena previously thought to be nonexistent, silly, impossibly elusive, irrelevant, even dangerous to study. Anthropologist and self-proclaimed mystic Agehananda Bharati, A German who had wandered for years as a Hindu sadhu, proposes the social scientific scrutiny of mysticism:

Ego involvement in a discipline does not cancel the duty to analyze and criticize that discipline, nor does it jeopardize the skill of analysis during periods of discursive detachment. There is no reason why a composer should not also be a musicologist… From the fact that very few mystics have been anthropologists studying mysticism critically, it does not follow that they cannot or should not be - and vice versa. (1976, p. 18)

Thus we find that Hood (1975) has invented a "Mysticism Scale," Greeley has surveyed populations to find the incidence of mystical and paranormal experiences (1975), and numerous psychologists have undertaken the study and measurement of brainwaves and other physiological phenomena (Pelletier, 1978, ch, 5). Tart (1980) even wants to invade altered

34

states of consciousness with scientific intention to create "state-specific science," in which the observor would somehow distrust the "obvious perception of truth" typical of some altered states, and resist the "immense emotional power of mystical experiences" for the sake of observation and hypothesis-testing. (1980, pp. 208, 210)

The returned insider innovates scientific method as well. He acknowledges part of his "method" to be serendipity and accidents of fate, quirks of biography and personality, the inevitable overlap of social science and private life which, it seems, insinuates into the work of all social scientists but surfaces rarely, generally only in reflexive accounts. While studying the Apostles of John Maranke in Central Africa, Jules-Rosette, for example, decided to undergo baptism, where she unexpectly "saw" a huge copper star "flash three times like a neon sign" (1975, p. 80). From that time on, she found herself "discovering a potential point of access to [a very different] awareness," so that "once the specific intent of certain rituals became known to me, the possibility of attaining multiple forms of awareness and flowing easily fromone to another emerged." (1975, p. 63) Had she not had these experiences she could not have entered into the Apostles' symbolic and visionary world, the Apostles would not even have let her attend their rituals. But her conversion brought on the possibility sensed by Pilarzik and Bharadwaj that religious experience would undermine her scientific aims:

[I wondered] whether membership would simply serve as a tool for me as a researcher, or whether I would reach a point of abandon where the experience for its own sake would become more important than reflection on it. (1975, p. 72)

It turned out that her return to academia, like her conversion to the Apostles, happened unpredictably, not according to preplanned "method"

35

but as part of the unexpected turns of her life as she lived it.35

Like art, social science has a tradition of demanding, if not serendipity, at least certain penchants in its practitioners. Durkheim, for example, recommends religiousness to the student of religious phenomena:

Whoever does not bring to the study of religion a sort of religious sentiment has no right to speak about it! He would be like a blind man talking about colors.4

Kurt Wolff recommends "surrender" to one's object of study, or "cognitive love," a "total experience." Like phenomenological bracketing, Wolff's "surrender" involves "suspension of received notions," and "pertinence of everything," (1978, 237-9), but it calls not just for an intellectual act but for a movement of the whole person, learned through one's own life, which yields not just a technique for obtaining data, but a vehicle for genuine human relations as well. This sort of "love," according to Maslow, actually enhances objectivity:

My finding is that, that which you love, you are prepared to leave alone. … We do not wish it to be other than it is. … Which is all to say that we can see it more truly as it is in its own nature rather than as we would like it to be or fear it to be or hope it will be. Approving of its existence, approving of the way it is, as it is, permits us to be nonintrusive, nonmanipulating, nonabstracting, noninterfering perceivers. (1971, pp. 16-18) 5

Finally, we find that Bellah's position of "symbolic realism" demands first the conviction - and this is undoubtedly a biographical, existential one - that religion is a "reality sui generis," nonreducible to anything else, and second, a certain "empathy," which "requires that one subjectively have a sense of what it would be like to believe that one, and only one, view of the world is true:"(1974, p. 487)

It may be a counsel of perfection, but I think the ideal field worker should have the capacity to entertain the possibility that

36

even the wild-eyed young man living with thirty others in the fields who believes the apocalypse is almost on us might indeed be right. That the field worker has to actually share that belief to understand it seems to be clearly mistaken. (Bellah, 1974, p. 488)

"Method" thus conceived blends fixed, willed intention with circumstance and personal tendency, creating a link to the "method" of he who approaches the threshold between social science and religion from the inside.

Insider criticisms of the Threshold Stance

The staunch religious "insider" is also opposed to a threshold stance. For to him the esoteric experience compels belief; alternate interpretations of the experience limit its claims and undermine the belief structure. Even benign pluralistic interpretation of esoteric experience can lead to several kinds of confusion. First, it can unwittingly support heretical tendencies within the insiders' camp. Second, it can lead to imitation, which can destroy the religionists' claim of special uniqueness. Third, pluralistic interpretation reduces, distorts, and misinterprets the insiders' experiences to both potential converts and persecutors, sidetracking the former and adding fuel to the fires of the latter.

As sociologists vary in their acceptance of the threshold stance, so do religionists. Insiders' tolerance for ambiguity varies even at the center, as I saw for myself in the DLM, while life at the periphery, rubbing elbows with outsiders, demands it. Some insiders, comparmentalizing their lives, have "the sense of living in two worlds." (Divine Times, 4/75, p. 15) Others are able to deal on two levels of reality at once, as Rennie Davis had to do when planning housing for the "Millennium '73" festival in Houston and having to deal with GMJ's

37

brother's insistence that up to 400,000 people would come. He bowed down to the brother but "would then quietly reserve hotel rooms for only 22,000:"

"From my tours to promote this festival and my previous experience organizing this sort of event, I know 22,000 is all we can count on. …If others come," Rennie continued almost whimsically, "it will be the grace of God, so then the grace of God can house them, too." (Collier, 1978, p. 159)

Still others syncretise, not only justifying a continuing love for Jesus with the notion that GMJ teaches what Jesus taught, but justifying an interest in scientific scrutiny of their religious practices by insisting that GMJ is, after all, the "master scientist." Science can even help further insiders' religious aims: "Transcendental meditation" is advertised with charts and graphs which purport to prove its physiological benefits; and for years parapsychologists have undertaken painstaking experiments to prove the scientific validity of extrasensory perception.

The apostate who adopts the threshold stance poses a special threat to insiders. Pluralistic interpretation renders him untrustworthy and unpredictable. Out of new-found ignorance of what is important he may reveal special secrets; out of indifference he may find himself or his report manipulated by the group's enemies; and finally, out of his own bouts with hostility he may himself inadvertently muckrake, attack, distort, betray the inside group. His newly-found freedom of opinion renders him "crazy" and dangerous in terms of insider reality. Such fears are not always unfounded; apostates from many New Religious Movements have gone to work for deprogrammers, and two former high officials of the DLM announced to the press after the Jonestown mass suicide/massacre that GMJ was just like Jim Jones and

38

DLM would surely be next. Ms Dupertuis appears to be mistaken or relying on DLM gossip, they made no such claim

The apostate who attempts the threshold stance faces special problems. With his religious perception, interpretation, feeling, even identity and biography so drastically changed how can he remain balanced at the threshold, speaking undistortedly to outsiders about the insider's view of reality? If he loses the ability to enter the religious mode of perception he thinks the insiders are lying or grossly fooling themselves; if he keeps the mode of perception but alters the interpretation, as I have, he has lost the original, full multidimensionality and cannot help but distort or reduce to some extent in his attempt at reconstruction. If he relies on memory, he has to realize he has rewritten his biography, as all converts do. What was once "the 'thing that saved my life," or "heaven on earth" becomes "a learning experience," or "youthful folly." Deconversion demotes him from chosen initiate to frequenter of the occult fringe, from one who dedicated his life to one who has perhaps wasted it. Then there is ambivalence; nostalgia alternates with bitterness. How does the apostate who is basically disinclined to muckrake prevent explosive attacks of anger from flaring up in print; how does one's perception of the ex-guru as stupid, greedy, exploitative, or power-mad ever soften; how does one honestly hide, as do other students of deviant behavior, certain seamy backroom doings?

To rely not so much on one's own experience but on the testimony of those still inside offers one solution to these dilemmas, but then again which insiders, which topics, which quotations? Between adoration and disdain, where is objectivity, and how does one ask old friends about something that seems to one's new viewpoint no longer to exist?

39

This study uses three means to resolve the dilemmas of the apostate taking a threshold stance. First is simply to take the mundane advice given to all participant observors, to explore and explain one's biases as honestly as possible. Second, I have chosen a topic which does not demand certain sorts of value judgements; I need not try to determine whether DLM is good or bad for followers or for society, whether it is real or bogus religion, whether people are "brainwashed" or "liberated," whether they grow or regress, or the extent to which the organization is or is not authoritarian, exploitative, dishonest, greedy, badly run, or even dangerous. Third, my theoretical assumptions are spelled out in detail, in the remainder of this chapter.

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WORLDVIEW

My topic involves the part that alternative states of consciousness play in worldview and the clash between worldviews, the way politically powerless worldviews are maintained, the interpersonal dynamics which both generate and protect the alternative states on which religious worldviews are based. My task is to reconstruct that worldview, relying on my experience with it to ask the relevant questions. But first "worldview" must be defined.

A "worldview" is simply a people's view of the world. The parts of someone's "worldview" the researcher chooses to describe depends on his unwritten assumptions about social worlds or social realities. Saliba's article on the DLM worldview, for example, "concentrates on … the place of the guru in the thought and affection of the devotees." (1980, p. 71) He finds that "Any outsider is bound to conclude that GMJ is actually worshipped in the same sense in which Christians

40

worship God or Christ." (1980, p. 77-8) In a sense his perception, based on gleanings from DLM publications, is correct. But it is very one-dimensional and emphasizes "thought" over "affection," attitude over intuitive, symbolic, or bodily comprehensions of the Guru. Presented as dogma, this finding is static with no allowance for change, and monolithic with no allowance for individual variation. It does not admit that a follower's view of GMJ can be mediated by DLM social experience, and slights the fact that GMJ is a person with whom followers interact. One might argue that a researcher must at least start with this, but one might argue as well that to start with this imposes qualities on the DLM woridview that do not exist when seen from another angle.

Foss and Larkin, approaching much the same task, found in contrast to Saliba that "Guru Maharaj Ji was deified as the mirror of an incomprehensible, meaningless universe." (1978, p. 157) Here the Guru is a vivid, acting person: "GMJ is aware of his preposterous image and skillfully manipulates it." (160) He emerges as a personification of the absurd because he is viewed through the lens of change, contradicting himself, reacting unpredictably to Mission crises which themselves emerge from the complex interaction of the end of the Vietnam war, the demise of the 60's counterculture, the downturn of the U. S. economy. This worldview was not conceived in a vacuum. Yet it completely denies cognitive, affective, or intuitive dimensions of the DLM world- view, which Saliba at least tried to include.

In contrast to both these studies in DLM woridview, Pilarzyk and Bharadwaj who, like Saliba, isolate their subjects from history and change, stress the mystical, transcendental, inscrutable nature of the followers' experiential world: "An enhanced spiritual life was not obtained through the cognitive abilities of the potential convert but

41

through a 'surrender experience' of the total person."(1979, p. 21) They utterly overlook the dogma on which Saliba concentrates and any sense of the Guru or followers as active participants in social life, and conclude that this particular worldview is sociologically impenetrable. In other words, they mystify it completely.

* * * * *

These examples show that, whether stated or not, assumptions about worldview help shape what one sees in another's worldview. The assumptions I use in this study emerge in part from Berger and Luckman's (1967) notion of "socially constructed reality."

Berger and Luckman's thesis revolves around a dialectic of "externalization," "objectification," and "internalization," summarized by the statements, "Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product." (1967, p. 61) They tend to emphasize "objectification" of society (through institutionalization) and "internalization" of social reality (through primary socialization), perhaps because they write mainly about broad, macro social realities, taking a stable "culture" or "society" as their unit of analysis. But a culture whose reality does not seem such an established fact - small, deviant movements like the DLM - calls for more emphasis on "externalization," or the ongoing human construction of "reality." For the "reality" of such a group is still being created and must constantly be differentiated from the larger social reality, which confronts it at every turn, ultimately provides its members' physical support, and lurks within each person's memory as the "massively and indubitably real" world of childhood. (1967, p. 136)

42

My approach to the dialectic of the social construction of reality, then, will emphasize "externalization," or the process of its human creation. The assumptions from Berger and Luckman's theory have, in addition, been modified to fit the special case of a small, deviant religious movement. These assumptions are that a people's perceived "reality" is a) humanly constructed, b) ongoingly constructed, c) dynamic, d) multi-leveled, e) socially constructed and shared, f) variable from person to person, and g) varyingly opaque.

a) Humanly Constructed. Berger and Luckman emphasize continually that social order is an "ongoing human production," (1967, p. 51) and that "symbolic universes," or vast, cosmic meaning-systems are humanly produced (p. 97) - and, of course human language, institutions, all the elements of "society." They stress this seemingly self-evident point in order to ponder the fact that for most people some elements of their humanly-produced world come to assume the same fixed, objective reality as the natural world. One could take Berger and Luckman's insistence on the human construction of reality as the basis for a dualistic assumption which implies that on the one hand socially constructed reality is always somehow fake - a "reification," or a "false consciousness" - to be unmasked or reduced by sociological analysis, and that on the other hand somehow a real reality, a fixed absolute, pure Truth, exists immutably above and beyond it. The people in question, then, are invariably "wrong" or misguided in their perception of reality.

Insistence on the human construction of "reality," however, need imply neither judgement nor a dualistic stance. Symbols, after all, are human constructions in that they originate in the human psyche, yet they embody transhistorical meaning; they tap into it and make it accessible

43

to human understanding. As a link between the human and the trans- human, a symbol cannot be meaningfully unraveled into its constituent parts; its unmasking destroys the interdependent revelation of the human and of the absolute realms which leaves both intact. The destruction of another's symbols, then, is in itself a humanly constructed reality, with no more claim than any other to "objectivity," or "rightness" or "wrongness." And the projection of a pristine "truth" untainted by human imagination is itself a symbol.

The very use of the term "construction" in the notion of "the social construction of reality" may also limit understanding of the process. For "construction" implies building, adding on, creating something ex nihilo; but many social realities are involved as much in "destruction" as "construction." Modern science, for example, destroys the apparent reality of nature's appearances, just as religious "Christian Science" tries to feel the unreality of disease at such a basic physical level that in fact it disappears. Sociology's attempt to point out the unreality of human meaning-systems parallels the Hindu's penetration of "illusion" and the Buddhist's attempt to cut through the web of language. As Berger and Luckman themselves suggest, a minority's counter-definitions of reality often involve the destruction of prevailing social understandings. (1967, p. 166 ff)

b) Ongoingly constructed. Berger and Luckman stress that the dialectic of human reality construction, objectification, and internalization is an ongoing process, maintained not only on the macro level through the self-perpetuating nature of social institutions, but on the micro level through ongoing conversation. (1967, p. 152)6 Human input does not withdraw after some initial mythical construction, but continually maintains social reality which, Berger and Luckman imply, would

44

collapse without such concerted ongoing "reality-maintenance." Stress on the role of conversation allows one to conceive of the active, ongoing participation of everyone in the project of reality-construction and maintenance.

This study deals with the ongoing maintenance of the DLM "reality" largely through conversation, but the "reality" thus maintained is an esoteric, transcendent one based on perceptions derived from a meditative state. Conversation becomes in fact a consicous tool, carefully refined to promote a sense of the esoteric reality's validity. It includes specific gestures and attitudes as well as words.

c) Dynamic. Social reality conceived as an ongoing human project becomes dynamic, undergoing constant change. A snapshot-like list of "customs" or "beliefs and practices" reflects only one moment of a people's history and binds them to a static image which, if widely publicized, they must subsequently deal with. A dynamic conception is especially important with unstable marginal movements like the DLM which, as the above chapter and Pilarzyk(1978) and Price(1979) show, change drastically over a few years or even months, their beliefs and worldviews as well as social structure varying according to circumstance.

d) Multi-leveled. According to Berger and Luckman,

The theoretical formulations of reality, whether they be scientific or philosophical or even mythological, do not exhaust what is "real" for the members of a society. Since this is so, the sociology of knowledge must first of all concern itself with what people "know" as "reality" in their everyday, non- or pre-theoretical lives. In other words, commonsense "knowledge" rather than "ideas" must be the central focus for the sociology of knowledge. It is precisely this "knowledge" that constitutes the fabric of meanings without which no society could exist. (1967, p. 15)

This concern corrects the tendency of the sociology of knowledge to concentrate on intellectual formulations and of theology on formal dogma;

45

it points to what Schutz called the taken-for-granted "world of daily life," a "what everybody knows" general knowledge of things. But this focus is still too narrow when applied to a religious culture because the authors insist on the "paramouncy" of this "world of daily life," which Schutz has defined as the "world of work," of adulthood, wide-awakeness, "standard time" and "standard space." They demote to secondary importance other realities, or "finite provinces of meaning" such as dreams, aesthetic and religious experience:

Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves within the paramount reality marked by circumscribed meanings and modes of experience. The paramount reality envelops them on all sides, as it were, and consciousness always returns to the paramount reality as from an excursion. (1967, p. 25)

In many forms of religious understanding, "What everybody knows" includes the religious "province of meaning." Religious consciousness envelops the "world of daily life" on all sides; it is the paramount reality, to which one again and again returns. Mystical or trance states seem to be more vivd, more wide-awake than mundane consciousness, and the eternity and infinity they reveal impress the sensibilities as far more "real" and stable than the day-in-day-out time which seems now to lag, now to pass in a flash, and space which seems now to confine, now to overwhelm, and to fade when eternity and infinity are once again perceived. The fear of death disappears, and with it the "fundamental anxiety" which according to Schutz underlies the "world of daily life."

In a later article Berger does explore the possiblity of a paramount reality arising from religious consciousness:

In the context of religious experience, the reality of everyday life is dramatically deprived of its "paramount? status. Instead, it now appears as the antechamber, the "outer court," of another

46

reality, one of drastic otherness and nevertheless of immense significance for man. In the course of this shift in the apperception of reality, all mundane acitivty in everyday life is radically relativized, trivialized. … Despite this relativization, the individual must continue to act in everyday life, and to this end must somehow continue to behave "as if" its reality still had its hold…

This paradox of being in two realities more or less simultaneously is the fundamental problem of the religious life. … And even when the other reality is not "at hand" to consciousness, it is copresent with the reality of everyday life - lurking in the background, so to speak. … Religion introduces an additional dimension to experience; once this has happened, there continues to be the awareness that the stage of everyday action is "hollow," that there is another level "beneath" it, and that the figures located there may "surface" at any moment. (Berger, 1974, p. 131)

But he does not pursue the implications of these insights for a study of the social construction and maintenance of religious realities, especially religious realities heavily influenced by alternative states of consciousness which, according to I. M. Lewis (1971), tend to flourish among downtrodden and otherwise powerless and deviant groups.

e) Socially constructed and shared. Berger and Luckman's insistence on the "world of daily life" as the "paramount reality" stems partly from the assumption that only this reality is intersubjective, or shared with others:

This intersubjectivity sharply differentiates everyday life from other realities of which I am conscious. I am alone in the world of my dreams, but I know that the world of everyday life is real to others as it is to myself. (Berger and Luckman, 1967, p. 23)

Again, they are imposing assumptions about people's understandings which do not necessarily apply universally. Just because contemporary middle- Americans find themselves "alone in the world of their dreams" does not mean that everybody is. Black Elk's aloneness with his vision nearly killed him; only when the whole tribe enacted it could he feel right again. (Neihardt, 1932, p. 131 ff) When the pilgirm Nicholas Motovilov asks Saint Seraphim of Sarov, "I do not understand how I can be firmly assured that I am in the spirit of God. How can I myself recognize

47

His true manifestation?" The Saint inspires him until they share a vision of blinding light, of calm, of fragrance, joy, and warmth in the midst of a Russian snowstorm. They go on to discuss the shared vision at length (Jones, 1973, p. 51-6). Castaneda even presents an account of "dreaming together" (1981,chs. 7 & 13). Indeed, Geertz assigns ritual a uniquely important role in establishing "powerful, pervasive, and longlasting moods and motivations in men" as "uniquely realistic." (1966, p. 643) The power of religious realities lies precisely in the fact that they can be shared, experienced together, communicated; and this very sharing magnifies their relevance.

Berger and Luckman's concern with shared social reality departs from psychological methodology which explores a person's mind and ideas in artificial isolation from the social environment. But when they insist that dreams and "other realities" are experienced absolutely privately, the limitations of the psychological perspective sneak in again from the back door. A truly sociological approach would explore the intersubjectivity not only of the "world of daily life" but of religious and other "realities." Just what perceptions are shared in a given culture, and how? How do practitioners verify their intersubjectivity, and what are the cultural limits of such verification?

Becker (1963) and Matza (1969), who implicitly assume that the "other reality" of marijuana intoxication is intersubjective, explore the possibility that the perception and enjoyment of marijuana effects are learned and not automatically inherent in the drug's purely chemical effect. Jules-Rosette (1975) has explored how ritual occasions are used not just to "reinforce meanings," but technically to teach and share visionary states.

48

The present study, which also explores the teaching of an alternative state of consciousness, discovers that this learning is not a unique event like learning the alphabet, but instead involves constant relearning. Converts guide one another again and again into the forgotten mode of perception, where they explore the novel possibilities in everyday communication, the changed significance of words, the non-meaning of habitual gestures, the new meaning of eye contact, the significance of silence. The ongoing drama in a religion like DLM lies precisely in the fact that the intersubjectivity of religious states comes and goes.

f) Variable from person to person. The assumption of intersubjectivity on whatever level must be qualified, as indeed Berger and Luckman do:

I know that my natural attitude to this world corresponds to the natural attitude of others, … I also know, of course, that the others have a perspective on this common world that is not identical with mine. My "here" is their "there." My "now" does not fully overlap with theirs. My projects differ from and may even conflict with theirs. (1967, p. 23)

But they tend to gloss over this qualification in their insistence on a "common world," an "ongoing correspondence between my meanings and their meanings." Despite this qualification they take intersubjectivity for granted rather than seeing it as problematic and worthy of further exploration. But this leads to an exaggeratedly monolithic view of society. The ethnographic focus on "beliefs and practices" - or "the world of daily life" - glosses over not only changes over time but variability between people, imposing a caricatured conformity which does not exist. Deviant religious movements like the DLM are peopled, in fact, by members alienated in varying degrees from the surrounding society, understanding the insider reality in varying degrees and

49

committed to it over varying lengths of time. As in every grouping, like attracts like, rival cliques form, enclaves of opinion group and regroup, zealousness or cynicism electrifies now this, now that linkage of friends. But unlike non-religious groupings, these divisions can form around differing perceptions of the nature of reality - of practicality, time, space, those elemental things Berger and Luckman are sure people together take for granted - as well as religious doctrinal questions. Rivals' struggle for power emerges from mutual incomprehensibility, and explodes when key people suddenly "see" reality differently and switch sides. To assume a high and stable level of intersubjectivity between all members of a given group is to flatten and obscure the tremendous variability.

What needs study is the negotiating of intersubjectivity, the way people work out what they will take for granted, what they understand in common, what it is that absolutely divides people who cannot understand something in common, and how it is they sometimes suddenly come to share an understanding. How do people establish a working commonality while preserving the possibility of leaping in and out of religious realities? Or is there even such a "working commonality?" Ought one to think in terms of shifting scaffolds of "as ifs," shared hopes of possibilities, shared memories of those firey, ecstatic sharings of religious reality which allayed mutual incomprehensibility and "made us all one?"

g) Varyingly opaque. The final assumption about social reality to be used in this study is that to insiders themselves, social reality is varyingly opaque. Marginal groups in particular continually question the taken-for-granted realities of the larger society, and develop

50

subtle and specific ways to see through and deligitimize it, constantly poking and testing for inconsistencies and loopholes. For those not born into such groups, but who drift into them as adults, the possibility that something once taken utterly for granted can be unconcocted bit by bit is a fascinating, eye opening discovery, once a person sees that this can be done, he then has the potential to do it again to the social reality of the new group. The group can deal with this potential in varying ways, erecting massive sanctions against it on the one hand, on the other hand incorporating, even encouraging it, so that members come to see the daily life reality of their own group as shifting and insubstantial, accurately congruent with the rapid changes endemic to marginality. This changeability of ordinary social reality can be presented against the backdrop of some supermundane Absolute or superior person who essentially legitimizes the obvious precariousness of everyday reality. Taken-for-grantedness thus retreats to another level, so to speak, allowing rather than surpressing doubt and continual radical questioning of everything else - and paradoxically, the seeing- through of the taken-for-granted strengthens the taken-for-grantedness of the supermundane Absolute.

The DLM vacillates in and out of this extreme position, and one can follow with interest the varying "opaqueness" of the DLM social reality - sometimes the power structure is completely legitimated by the Guru, other times completely undermined. As with the power structure, so with daily life habits, jargon, values, what might be called the DLM culture. To picture some sort of evenly opaque taken-for-granted "reality" is to miss this vacillation and the complexities which underlie it.

51

UNDERSTANDING A RELIGIOUS WORLDVIEW

Having used the above assumptions to delineate a theoretical model of social reality, the next step involves defining this study's task of elucidating the insiders' world, their "worldview." Robert Redfield defined "worldview" as

The picture the members of a society have of the properties and characters upon their stage of action … "world view" refers to the way the world looks to that people looking out … especially to the way a man, in a particular society, sees himself in relation to all else. It is the properties of existence as distinguished from and related to the self. It is, in short, a man's idea of the universe. It is the organization of ideas which answers to a man the questions; Where am I? Among what do I move? What are my relations to things?" (Redfield, 1952, p. 30)

Redfield elsewhere expands upon this definition beyond the ocular and cognitive emphases suggested by the terms "worldview" and "idea of the universe." "Everyman's worldview"

Includes among other things recognition of the self and others; grouping of people, some intimate and near, others far and different; some usual ways of confronting the inevitable experiences of the human career; a confrontation of the Not-Man seen in some ordered relationships of component entities, this Not-Man including both some observed features such as earth, sky, day, night, and also invisible beings, wills, and powers. (Redfield, 1953, p. 94)

He is describing how people see concrete things, people and actions as they live through day-to-day existence, yet he does not definitionally impose a necessary opposition between self and other, man and not-man. "Folk peoples," he goes on to show, conceive of "the hardly separable interpenetration of man, Nature, and God …" (1953, p. 104) Their attitude toward the "not-Man" is not one of confrontation, but of "mutuality."

Redfield's concept of "worldview" does not contradict the assumptions about social reality discussed above, but a few points need clarification. First, the idea of worldview may include the idea

52

of ongoing construction and maintenance of that worldview, in the sense that people feel certain obligations and responsibilities toward doing their part in maintaining traditon or family, pleasing supernatural powers, taking care of the earth, planning for posterity. They see not just what is around them, but themselves acting in relation to it. The "properties and characters upon their stage of action" includes, in other words, the actors themselves and their own actions. The "worldview" idea can, in other words, lend itself to a sense of being-in-the-world, acting-in-the-world, as well as seeing-the-world, offering something of a broadened existential flavor to this approach. Existentialists, says Aron Gurwitsh,

Do not so much concern themselves with the "world of common experience, the world of daily life," but rather with man and his existence, his ways of existing in the life-world. (1970, p. 39-40)

Such a "being-in-the-world" approach to "worldview" allows one to consider a person as a "psycho-somatic unity," to include in one's analysis "the somatic body as it is experienced and 'lived' by us in our very involvement with it." (1970, p. 39-40) One looks, in other words, at the difficulties involved in making a living,eating a special diet, undergoing tiring rituals, living communally or monastically, trying subtly to change the mode of everyday communication - all those necessary bodily activities which invariably accompany a religious worldview, and to some extent condition it. The focus on life lived as well as conceived automatically suggests a dynamic concept of worldview, variable on the one hand from person to person, shared socially on the other hand.

The assumption that worldview is multi-leveled needs further discussion. Multi-leveled implies that a religious worldview comprises not

53

only certain theological contents, but certain levels of consciousness, what Schutz calls "cognitive styles." Redfield suggests,

There is the relative emphasis on knowing and understanding what he confronts as against feeling about it - the affective attitude that Margaret Mead says characterizes the Arapesh as contrasted with the more cognitive way of confronting which I should say characterizes the Yucatec Maya. The cognitive way of confronting it is necessary, or comes into development, insofar as the worldview gets to be expressed informatively, even reflectively. Where there are people who can tell the ethnologists … of their worldview, there are people who more than feel about things; they know about them. (Redfield, 1953, p. 98)

"Knowing" about things implies experiential knowing. In a religious culture which emphasizes the frequent or daily experience of visions, trance states, lucid dreams, extra-ordinary perceptions, or meditative concentration, a kind of "knowing" will arise which greatly colors world- view and the activities which support it. What is unseen to the ethnologist is seen to the "native," seen and obvious, reproducible in a quasi- scientific sense, verified by tradition and by one another, expected, counted upon - even, one might say, taken for granted.

This special knowing - special to the ethnologist - may not be special to the people involved because it intertwines so with daily life activities. They may set aside specific times and places for one religious ritual, the attaining of one special state, but let other ritual events, other states (equally impressive to the outsider) come and go by happenstance. If they divide the special from the nonspecial in their lives at all, they do not necessarily do it in a way which fits others' notions of special and nonspecial.

Alternative states of consciousness, after all, are subject to varying interpretations. A certain startling dream may give a person in one society a new high status, in another heightened psychiatric concern, in another an imposed exorcism, in another a good yarn for the campfire.

54

The outsider must know which special states are considered special by the insider, feared or exalted, and which special states are ignored, unnoticed, or considered mundane. Otherwise he may make much of what seems to the insider routine, and distort his rendition of the insider worldview.

* * * * *

This study proposes to see a multi-leveled religious worldview coming alive as the ground of social life. It concentrates much attention on special meditative states of consciousness not only to counteract other researchers' tendency to ignore them, but also because the insiders are so all-consumingly involved with these states. This study sees these states both individually and socially. That is, it shows in detail the lengths to which individuals go to control and concentrate their minds, channel their activities toward religious ends, pray and meditate; it shows the difficulties of meditation, and its uses on social as well as solitary, special as well as ordinary occasions. But the study also explores the social side of religious awareness; learning how to do it, the accompanying language and interpretation, morality and lifestyle and above all the continued effort in ongoing conversation to promote and maintain it in one another.

This focus addresses the question of why people involve themselves in such a group by suggesting that, along with alienation from the larger society, need for community, ego-weakness, the need for a father-figure, the cooling-out of 1960's radicalism, and all the other explanations that have been put forth - along with all this, the members find in their meditative experiences something they enjoy and value and find meaningful which they could not find in their ordinary life.

55

The state affects them powerfully and they want to feel it again and again. This study also looks at the question of how the group continues to survive by considering not just economic, political, and social-psychological explanations, but also by exploring the mechanism of how the meaning-system, which intertwines with the meditative state, is maintained not only officially by organizational decisions, but unofficially by common members in their day-in-day-out life routines, in their attempt to sacralize their interaction with one another and thus live out their common life in a sacred reality.

56

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1) For a discussion of a deviant "world," see Matza, 1969, p. 26 ff.

2) For a discussion of "etic" and "emic" approaches, see Harris, 1968, pp. 571-575.

3) Most new-age mystics and social scientists, counterculture adherents, and of course DLM followers - and even some theologians and historians of religion - accepted for themselves the "intuition" stereotype, relegating "reason," "straight" or "linear" thinking (and by implication uptightness, macho self-centeredness, the urge to destroy nature, and so on) to the U. S. government, capitalists, "vulgar" Marxists, Judeo-Christians, white Western non-counterculture males in general, physical and social scientists. Non-new-age social scientists, on the other hand, set up "reason" as both right and true, an absolute ontological and moral standard. Ignoring that which fell short of "reason" in themselves, they labeled that which fell short in others as "prelogical," "anti-intellectual," "hallucinatory," "pathological," or else they denied unreason by excavating the psyche or the social situation to expose underlying, obscured "reasonable" motives:

"Academic social scientists, who were now among the last serious defenders of the rationalistic world view common in the nineteenth century, often became deeply hostile to the counterculture, branding it a new 'dark age.'" (Veysey, 1973, p. 420)

4) Lukes (1975, p. 515) quoted in Stone (1978, p. 146)

5) Cited in Stone (1978, p. 149) Stone goes on to caution, "If researchers are realistically aware that love of the object of study produces certain kinds of blindness as well as certain kinds of perspicuity, then they are sufficiently forewarned. Maslow here is referring to research on monkeys.

6) Berger and Luckman drew this notion from Mead.

57

PART TWO: THE PRACTICES

CHAPTER III

FORMAL MEDITATION

Guru Maharaj Ji has defined meditation as "perfect concentration on a perfect thing." "Revealed" at an initiation ceremony, called a "Knowledge session," 1 this "perfect thing" is known as "Knowledge of God," or simply "Knowledge." "Knowledge" is said to dwell within everyone, but the touch of a "Perfect Master" or one of his loyal "initiators" 2 is needed to awaken one to its presence within. Once one has been thus awakened through "receiving Knowledge" one "realizes" it through meditation upon its four manifestations:

1) "Divine Light," an inner light;

2) "music," an inner sound;

3) "nectar," an inner taste, and

4) "Holy Name" or "the Word," an inner sensation or "vibration" relating to the breath.

"Formal" meditation practice involves concentration upon one of these four things. Premies typically meditate "formally" for an hour upon arising and an hour before retiring, concentrating one by one on "light," "music," and "Holy Name" (in any order), while sustaining "nectar" practice through the whole session. 3 The techniques do not involve visualization, imagination, imaging, chanting, or any form of mantra, sound, or syllable repteated orally or silently. Thus one does not "imagine" or "visualize" the "light" or the "music;" rather one concentrates upon the light one sees or the sound one hears until it becomes subtler and finally reveals the ineffable "Knowledge" as its essence.

58

Premies learn concentration through their own practice. After the "Knowledge session" they may request "Knowledge reviews" or interviews with "initiators," but each must discover himself how to use his own mind's tendencies to promote concentration.

* * * * *

An analysis of concentration reveals two overlapping phases - active and passive - experienced but not explicitly labeled by premies. Passive concentration is the goal, the state in which one makes little active effort because the "music," "light," or "Holy Name" attracts and compels, drawing one's attention despite oneself. But usually one arrives at passive concentration only after considerable struggle. This struggle entails active concentration, the conscious effort of switching the attention again and again away from distractions to the object of concentration.

ACTIVE CONCENTRATION

Remembering to Meditate

Even veteran meditators will sometimes find that they have sat for a whole hour without even once trying to focus their attention on the "music," "light," or "Holy Name"/breath. They just forgot about it and daydreamed, worried, or snoozed. How, then, does one remember to concentrate the attention? And how does one remember again and again and again to concentrate each time the attention wanders?

Remembering to concentrate involves noticing that one is not concentrating. The initial forgetting of concentration goes unnoticed. Beyond one's choosing or control some passing thought or feeling attracts the attention. A related thought then attracts it further and

59

leads to another and another, in a chain of associations which perhaps halfway through is broken by a different thought followed by its own chain of associations. These other shifts of the attention also go unnoticed. One has lost track of the play of attention, the way it moves, how it is pulled from one thing to another, and what pulls it.

Losing awareness of the play of attention, one then loses awareness of the faculty of attention itself. The attention and its object merge. One no longer understands that one's attention is focusing on a certain thought or mental sensation; one merely perceives that thought or sensation. And one sees that thought not as a discrete entity - a thought as a thought with a certain content - but one becomes absorbed in its content. One accepts and believes what it says, and one reacts to it. If a thought or mental sensation is disagreeable or offensive, one begins to feel gloom or else one produces counter-thoughts, arguing against it. If a thought categorizes or labels some perception or memory, one accepts and agrees with that categorization. If a thought commands, one obeys. it. If a thought seems to be prefaced with the notion of "I," or the feeling of oneself, then one identifies with it and feels that he is that thought.

A Mission artist once related to me a dream which, by analogy, illustrates this process of losing concentration. He dreamed he was watching a splendidly inspiring scene, like the fairyland landscapes he often paints. A road ran crosswise between him and the scene. Lots of little vehicles - outlandish and comical vehicles like tomatoes and cucumbers with little arms and legs - whizzed back and forth along that road. As long as he watched that splendid landscape the vehicles on the road didn't particularly distract him. But the moment he really

60

looked at one of the little vehicles he suddenly found himself dragged along the road with it and lost sight of that beautiful scene.

To begin concentration again one has to recognize, clearly and even startlingly, that the attention has strayed and that one is not directing it. One must notice the unbroken absorption of attention into thought-chains, even as they shift from subject to subject, from sensation to sensation, from reaction to reaction. Only awareness of this process allows one to break it and regain control of the attention.

But what brings this moment of recognition? Perhaps a door bangs, or one's back suddenly itches, or one remembers about a disturbing appointment or simply that one is not meditating. The shock interrupts the daydreams or mental wanderings long enough for one to remember what one was about. Suddenly one can see thoughts as thoughts. No matter how intense and beguiling, they appear now separate from oneself, one sees that they appear, disappear and change much like physical sensations. In the analogy of the artist's dream, one sees that the vehicles that have dragged one down the road are, in essence, only vehicles, no matter how outlandish and amazing they seem and no matter how entangled one has become in their traffic. Recognition of thought as thought breaks absorption of the attention in much the same way that a dreamer who recognizes that he is dreaming generally wakes up. Like a movie-goer clutching for dear life onto his popcorn bucket during the scariest moment of suspense who suddenly realizes he can eat the popcorn and disregard the screen if he wants, one realizes that one can drop a thought or thought-chain completely, or "let it go" as the members say, and concentrate entirely on the "music" again.

61

Awakening From

This first inkling is like an awakening, an awakening 4 from acceptance of absorption in thought as one's only possible mental reality. Yet this is only an awakening from, not an awakening to. One has not yet felt the meditative state at this point, one has merely perceived the possibility of perceptions outside of ordinary thought.

Many of the guru's stories deal with awakening from one's limited conception of reality, like the story he told about two frogs:

There were two frogs, one frog was from the ocean and one frog was from this small well...this ocean frog was the guest for one night at this well frog's house. And so they both jumped into the well, and just started talking about many, many things, and this frog from the well said, "How big is the ocean?" And the other said, "Very big." So this frog from the well took a small circle and said, "Is it this big?" He said, "No, very big." He took a bit more circle and said, "This big?" "Very big." So he took a bigger diameter circle and said, "This big?" He said, "Very, very big." He took a bit more circle and said, "This big?" "Very big." So he finally went to the edge of the well and said, "This big?" The other said, "Still bigger than that." So he said, "Come on, not bigger than that, my well is the biggest thing, this is it, this is the ultimate." ("And It Is Divine," 1/73:45)

This moment of awakening from absorption in thought seems like magic, a gift; one doesn't understand how it came, and one didn't make it come. However, practice in concentration seems to make moments of awakening from come more readily. One can recognize thoughts and mental sensations more quickly by learning about their variety, qualities and habits, just as one can learn more about the qualities of any new and strange terrain.

One can, for example, perceive some thoughts as thoughts because they seem to affect the body as they come: they might be felt as little darts of energy, tensing here, tightening there, or passing through one's limbs like little arrows. In the same way that anger

62

tightens the stomach and sorrow chokes the throat, one comes to recognize the far subtler physical effects of even unremarkable and nonchalant thoughts. Sometimes watching one's body for thought-sensations seems easier than watching one's mind for thoughts. One might recognize a certain "bursting" quality as a thought appears suddenly in the mind/body, startling the apparent equilibrium.

Some ways of recognizing thought as thought are more mental. Sometimes one thought follows upon another in a non-sequitor so incongruous it startles, or the simple factual "wrongness" of what a thought "says" stands out recognizably. Or perhaps a fantasy comes to the end of the story with a certain jolt, like the end of a movie. Sometimes the sensation of thought coming packaged in words gives it away. Just by catching the fact that actual words or a voice-like thing is coming into one's consciousness out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, or perhaps in response to the previous mental sensation, one can distinguish the thought as a thought without letting one's attention become absorbed. Sometimes a certain word associated with a thought gives it away; just the sensation of "you" or "I" prefacing a thought appears like a red flag saying "this is a mere thought." And suddenly, instead of identifying with it, one can let it go. Strong emotion with a thought can have a similar "red flag" effect; the image of one's boss brings fear, or the image of a loved one desire, and the sudden, compelling impact of fear or desire awakens one to the awareness of thought as thought. Other times one becomes aware of the process of creating one's own thoughts, as when a vague mental sensation or perception becomes articulated a split-second later as an intelligible thought. The slight effort of will expended to create that thought alerts one to its nature.

63

The ability to "see" the "thoughtness" of a thought instead of identifying with its contents increases with practice. Yet practice also reveals that mental activity is far more complex and subtle than one first supposed. Less articulate thoughts, for example, emerge as vague feelings or moods - unease, fear, depression, agitation, pleasure, elation - which entrap one's identity, making one think 'I am anxious, upset, elated.' No verbalization strikes the attention, no single distinct thought flashes into consciousness or stands out incongruously and easily recognized. The thoughts and mental sensations of "moods" are so tightly interconnected and compacted that one has to deepen concentration, like taking a magnifying glass, to see a mood dissolve into its discrete components, thoughts distinguishable from one another, swirling together in dull clouds. One hardly thinks to do this with habitual moods, especialy those habitual moods 5 on which one tends to depend.

Subtler still than habitual moods one senses habitual mind-sets, patterns of mental activity taken so for granted that the possibility of alternative patterns never occurs to one. As with habitual physical posture, one recognizes a mind-set only when it becomes uncomfortable, and discomfort usually appears only with new activity. The new activity of meditative practice can slow the mental stream or give one a new angle of vision which can show up a habitual mind-set as inadequate or inaccurate. But for this recognition to last it must be clear and strong; one slips back into habitual mental postures as easily as the body lapses back into a habitual slouch.

Thus the quality of one's recognition of "thoughtness" is important. Often when a dreamer realizes he is dreaming, he only half wakes and soon sinks back into another dream. When one recognizes

64

that he has been absorbed in thought and concentrates for a moment, the momentum or pull of the thoughts reabsorbs him almost instantly. Thus "awakening from" must occur again and again and again, as the following account, which I wrote after a few minutes' meditation, shows:

I am caught in a tumult of revenge and jealousy inspired by a certain enemy. For awhile, meditation is entirely forgotten, and when I hesitate, wanting to get in a few more imaginary jabs at my enemy, only in the back of my mind am I vaguely remembering about meditation. When I finally do focus on the "music," almost instantly my enemy screams his insult at me, I am screaming back, and the battle begins again. A few moments later I focus again and at once another scream, another wild argument. The scene absorbs me. I participate. I generate thoughts myself. I take imaginary actions. When I switch attention to the "music" again for another fraction of a second, the thought "I'll fix him" interrupts, with a vivid plan for my revenge, his humiliation. A feeling of hateful gladness wells up within me. I love it and I believe it.

When I stop and catch another glimpse of "music" my anger wells up again and I insult my enemy loudly. But this time somehow I notice the thought, how it came, how it pulled on the emotion, how it darted so quickly into my awareness. I switch my attention back to the "music." Another thought comes: deep self-pity, how he has damaged my fragile self-image. And again I notice the quality of thought, how it grabbed me, how it appeared and quite suddenly commanded my attention, beyond my control. I do not fall immediately back into thought, but watch with interest how the thought-chain unfolds. Self-pity leads to an uncomfortable dwelling on my faults; then to my pet fears. I notice and feel the tug as this thought-chain tries to involve me, but somehow I can watch as well as feel it.

As rapidly as it came that thought-chain disappears, only to be replaced by another: "Wow, I'm beginning to get detached from my thoughts." A little burst of pride follows, with fantasies of long and fruitful meditations, enabling me to rise in the hierarchy of other meditators. This time I lose my attention into the fantasy. But then I remember to switch my attention to the "music," feeling a touch of sheepishness. The sheepishness in turn starts off another chain, leading to fantasies of failure and hopelessness. But I recognize the sheepishness as another thought-feeling, let it disappear, and keep my attention on the "music," this time a little longer. Another kind of thought interrupts, suggesting a feeling of "Gee, this is nice, meditation is so pleasant. I am beginning to feel more calm. Gee, more

65

people ought to know about this meditation because it's so wonderful. I wish the Mission would think of more clever ways to advertise. But look who's running the Mission, people like that turd 'X'! What do you expect?" And I am back into hating my enemy again. Then the fact that my thoughts have gone full circle back to him again startles and amuses me. I remark to myself about the ingenuity of thought, and while in the process of thus remarking I notice that this too is a thought, with the same insistent, cocksure quality of the other thoughts which have absorbed my attention. (DuPertuis: personal notes)

The "Mind"

Despite heroic efforts, one falls back into thought again and again and again. Premies come to see this tenacious power of mental habit as a force, almost an entity with a will of its own with which they must struggle in meditation:

And meanwhile all the time on the sides of what you're seeing and doing the mind's saying 'oh I want this or take a look at that'or you know, it's always taking you and dragging you into something other than what you could be. (DuPertuis; interview notes)

The "mind" limits awareness:

See the mind is imperfect the mind is limited, the mind is like looking down a tube, like you can see some parts of the world, but the other parts will completely pass you by … (DuPertuis; satsang notes)

The "mind" is like the road in the premie artist's dream, the place where the little vehicles whiz to and fro; when one is caught on that road one has no awareness of the beautiful scene beyond it.

The "mind" is not seen as thoughts and responses, but as the maker of the thoughts and responses. Sometimes it is conceived as the faculty which judges, labels, and classifies, other times as the "I," or "ego," or the thing which makes one think in terms of "I." The Guru has called the "mind" an "absence" - not one's "brain" and not one's "memory." Sometimes he playfully refers to it as "Mr. Mind."

66

Premies say the "mind" traps one in "sleep," "darkness," "craziness," "unconsciousness." It plots and plans, deceives and tricks:

I would wake up in the night thinking myself to be in the city I had last left behind. Remembering the bathroom to be where the closet was, I would search at length in the dark to find the toilet in it. Reality was not what my mind thought it to be and neither was time … I was forced against my will to realize that my mind did not, and never would, have the answers for me; that it was not always to be believed … (Cameron, interviews)

Sometimes the "mind" becomes devilish and perverse. Dangerous and insidious, it "takes" a person, as in this account from a premie who had stopped meditating for awhile:

I got to the point where I'd be walking down the street and my mind would be saying, running like this tape, 'Listen you, I'm in control here, and don't you ever think you can get away from me again because I'm your master, and I'm the one who runs your life, and I'm the only thing you have, and I'm it, that's all there really is.' It was really saying those words. It was really scary because I thought I was flipping out, that I was having hallucinations hearing this voice telling me all this stuff. But it was really showing me that the mind really is some sort of entity and it's really crazy. I'd never experienced my mind like that before receiving Knowledge, never like that, never something that was within me. (DuPertuis, interview notes)

The "mind" is seen as the perpetrator of one's incessant internal chattering, and to "be in one's mind" or "listen to one's mind" or "follow one's mind" means to take this stream of inner chatter seriously and to see it as logical and rational even when it contradicts itself:

Can you imagine somebody walking down the street just talking to himself, non-stop? We'd call him crazy. We'd want to lock him up. But each one of us is talking to ourself as fast as we can, all the time. Only we just don't let it out of our mouths. (DuPertuis; satsang notes.)

A person "in his mind" will believe that the "mind's" thoughts are his own, that the "I" it speaks of refers to himself, and that whatever it says is unquestionably right. Such a person, say the premies, is "lost"

67

in his "mind," lost because he can perceive nothing except what the "mind" tells him and has access to no other means of perception. He is lost because what the "mind" can imagine, conceive, perceive, remember or fantasize has become his reality, and "mind" defends that reality as everything.

To awaken from the "mind" is to recognize that one is different from one's "mind." One has a "mind," but one can ignore or laugh at its thoughts as easily as one might ignore the ravings of a senile old grandfather at a family dinner. Further, awakening from the "mind" is knowing that one can control it, stop its chatter whenever one wants, and use it to figure out useful things when necessary, but only when necessary. The Guru illustrated the proper use of the "mind" with a story about a poor man who wanted a genie. A saint managed to procure one for him, but left him with the warning that if the genie were not constantly occupied it would immediately devour him. The poor man saw no problem in this, for he could think of endless ways to occupy the genie. First he asked for a scrumptuous meal, and in a twinkling a fabulous dinner on gold plates was spread before him. But before the man could even take one bite, the genie was glowering before him saying, "Another task, Master, or I will eat you up." Quickly the man requested a mansion and took a bite of his meal. But while he was still chewing, the genie was back demanding another task. The man quickly demanded stables, fine horses, gilded clothes, servants, a full treasury, but the genie fulfilled these wishes so quickly that the man hardly had time to think of another request, let alone take another bite of food. When finally the man could think of nothing more and the genie was about to grab and devour him, the saint happened by. Hardly able to restrain his laughter, the saint told the genie to get

68

a very tall pole and to climb up and down it again and again until he was needed for another task. n this tale the genie is the "mind," useful for many things, but liable to "eat one up" with its activities, demands and anxieties if one can't control it and set it aside at will. And the pole is true meditation, which tames the mind.

Choosing to Meditate

One initiator from India had a favorite metaphor:

If a baby is hungry and you just feed him dry bread and more dry bread and when he cries you just offer him dry bread again, then the baby has to eat it. The baby has no choice. But if you offer him dry bread in one hand and candy in the other then the baby can choose which one he wants to eat. The baby has a choice. (Satsang notes)

"Dry bread" is the ordinary thought-process of the "mind;" "candy" is meditation. Only when one has recognized the "mind," or thoughts as thoughts, can one choose between meditation and further unfocused "thoughts." Given that one sits down specifically to meditate,that meditation is the foundation of all premie spiritual practice, and that most premies who meditate regularly are intensely committed, it seems that the moment one recognizes "mind" one would always instantly choose to meditate. Why then, after recognizing "mind," does one so often choose to go back "into" it again?

One continues to remain in one's "mind" simply because its activity fascinates. A fantasy is all too intriguing, a daydream too pleasant to just drop in the middle. Or one might be busy making plans, puzzling out problems, even writing poetry in one's head. Or thoughts about problems of ill health, the economy, nuclear war, seem to demand one's attention as necessary for their solution. And then the strongest emotions, like anger and fear, practically compel one to keep

69

noticing them; they have a sort of momentum, an intense vitality compared to which the notion of meditation seems supremely boring. After one attempt at meditation I wrote,

So I kept thinking about it more and more, getting angrier and angrier. My anger was all-consuming, and the notion that I ought to meditate, which occurred to me periodically, seemed like a nice little moral maxim which was shallow and meaningless compared to the intensity of my anger. (personal notes)

For many a premie the most enticing "thoughts" of all, and the hardest to recognize as "just my mind," are daydreams about GMJ. One imagines the rewards of long and diligent service, an invitation to his residence, an intimate interview, long, soulful looks, unspeakably subtle teachings, wild new realms of awareness and love. Positive thoughts of GMJ's beauty and wisdom are not only enticing; they are also socially acceptable among premies. A criticism of GMJ will quickly elicit a retort from others that you are "in your mind," but a positive comment will bring nods of agreement. Yet positive thoughts about GMJ during meditation are still "mind," just like any other thoughts; they not only prevent meditative experience, but they lead to other more seamy thoughts, as GMJ frequently notes in his "satsangs." In one particularly funny "satsang," GMJ pictured the "mind" as approaching an innocent, diligent premie, and saying, "Jai Sat chit anand, Premie Ji!" The premie, responding automatically to the premie greeting of "Jai sat chit anand," begins to listen. The "mind" continues, "Isn't GMJ beautiful, and isn't Durga Ji beautiful, and aren't all the premies beautiful." To which the premie agrees. And the "mind" continues,"and you're such a good premie, doing so much satsang, service and meditation" - and again the premie agrees - "but you need a break, just a little vacation, just a few months, a few years off in the Caribbean somewhere." Because the premie listened at first, he agrees, and now he is lost.

70

Choosing to meditate requires motivation. Sometimes one makes a little deal with oneself: "OK, I'll just think about my boyfriend for another ten minutes, and then at 10:30 I'll forget it and I'll really start to meditate. That'll give me a full half hour of meditation, and that's enough time to get into it." When 10:30 comes one glances at one's watch, heaves a sigh, and begins meditation in earnest. Some premier motivate themselves by simply feeling they "ought" to meditate, for meditation is one of GMJ's foremost commands, and it is their duty to obey him. Others find motivation in fear; either they imagine that refusal to meditate will bring dire consequences - and premie rumor as well as GMJ's satsangs give ample reasons for such fears - or else they simply remember how "scattered" they feel and how badly things go when they don't meditate. Others let inspiration motivate them. They dream of wonderful meditations or remember somebody's account of a good meditation or half-remember some past experience of their own. To be effective, one's motivation must be strongly felt at that very moment, stronger than the tendency to slide from one thought to another, stronger than one's desire to daydream, to sleep, to worry, or to get up and do something else.

Moment to moment the cycle repeats itself: recognizing "mind," remembering to meditate, choosing to meditate, focusing attention in meditation, and then letting the attention wander until one remembers once more. So one must choose again and again to meditate, and in order to choose to meditate again and again one must be motivated again and again, one must somehow sustain a virtually constant motivation. GMJ's wife Durga Ji once related an allegory about the boat of Knowledge whose captain is GMJ, which concluded, "and you have the choice, every second, to

71

stay in the boat or jump out of the boat." Motivation, then, is sustained by rechoosing to meditate every moment.

Making Effort

Once one chooses to meditate, one begins to "make effort" in meditation. But there are two kinds of effort: "wrong effort," which doesn't work, and "right effort," which does. "Wrong effort" is struggle, will power, trying too hard; "right effort" is discrimination, "letting go," "surrender." It is as if the "mind" is a big, heavy ball, GMJ has said: "wrong effort" is trying very very hard to heave it away from you, and "right effort" is just leaving it and walking away.

One version of "wrong effort" entails willful, determined forcing of the attention onto the "music." 6 One grits one's teeth so to speak, steels oneself and "stares" at the "music" tensely, trying to get into it somehow, all the while turning one's head away from potential thoughts and trying to hold them at arm's length. When the attention wanders, one grimly musters up still more determination and starts again, pitifully clutching at the "music."

Such avid determination to force it usually brings frustration, for meditation requires tremendous patience. With frustration one might lapse into a fear of failure or perhaps pep-talk oneself into a sneering over-confidence. The ensuing self-pity or self-congratulation usually overwhelms the attention once and for all. And even if determination does not bring frustration, determination itself is already a mental posture, which catches one up into the idea that one ought to control the attention, that one ought to struggle. With the attention already intensely focused in the thought-posture of determination and will power one can hardly switch it to the "music," which lies outside

72

of all such postures.

"Fighting the mind" is another version of "wrong effort" in which one assaults the thoughts directly and tries to force them to disappear or slow down. Like the mythical Hydra which grew two heads when one was cut off, the "mind" reacts to these attempts by producing even more thoughts. Sometimes "fighting the mind" comes when one is sickened and disgusted by the "mind's" tireless chatter, endless preoccupations with self, constant agitation and anxiety, grandiose schemes which fascinate and then vanish into thin air, and the shackled, suffocating feeling of "being trapped in the mind." Hatred of the "mind" and the desire to get rid of it overcomes all one's patience and one tries all the harder to repress the thoughts, push them away, not look at them, ignore them. But the hate itself and the desire to get rid of "mind" are already "mind."

Alternatively one tries to manipulate away unruly thoughts. One argues against negative thoughts, for example, trying to convince oneself that one's case could be differently conceived. One dreams up strategies of self-improvement and fearfully barricades against further disturbing thoughts by ferreting out reasons for self-congratulation. Forgetting that one had intended to abandon thought altogether and enter meditation, one tries to think positive thoughts and create a pleasant mood.

Commonly called "positive thinking," this strategy is criticized by premies, among them Timothy Gallwey whose best-seller The Inner Game of Tennis suggests that one approach tennis with meditative quieting of the mind and non-judgemental awareness:

Before finishing with the subject of the judgemental mind, something needs to be said about "positive thinking." The "bad" effects of

73

negative thinking are frequently discussed these days. Books and articles advise readers to replace negative thinking with positive thinking. People are advised to stop telling themselves they are ugly, uncoordinated, unhappy, or whatever, and to repeat to themselves that they are attractive, well coordinated and happy. The substituting of a kind of "positive hypnotism" for a previous habit of "negative hypnotism" may appear at least to have short-range benefits, but I have always found that the honeymoon ends all to soon. (1974, p. 42)

Gallwey goes on to quote a student who discovers, "Compliments are criticisms in disguise! Both are used to manipulate behavior, and compliments are just more socially acceptable!" (1974, p. 42) The argument applies equally well to a tennis instructor complimenting his student and to compliments one's own "mind" directs to one's self. He concludes,

Clearly, positive and negative evaluations are relative to each other. It is impossible to judge one event as positive without seeing other events as not positive or as negative. There is no way to stop just the negative side of the judgmental process. (1974, p. 44)

"Positive thinking" is such an anathema to premie views that a small cluster of premies who became involved in 1974 in a positive- thinking practice called "Science of Mind" were seen as virtually heretical. They preached that "positive thinking" is the key to meditation and that one must repeat "positive affirmations," such as " I can do anything," or "I am God." In the orthodox premie view, affirmations make one merge completely into a thought created by "mind." In such a state one has no hope of ignoring the "mind" and transcending it in meditation. Further, an affirmation such as "I am God" makes actually merging with God/GMJ, who is beyond all thought, impossible. n fact, one begins to feel less need for GMJ and less inclination to obey him. And this is what actually happened. The leading proponent of this view began to conduct his own well-attended evening "satsangs," outside of

74

DLM's authority. Soon he was attracting premies from the Denver DLM headquarters and robbing official "satsang" of newcomers. For a few months the headquarters lunchroom echoed with intense discussions of "mind" and "thought," "positive thinking" vs meditation. When this heresy clearly began to gain independence from GMJ and the Mission in organizational as well as spiritual matters, GMJ squelched it. (But a new heresy emerged a year or two later comprised of many of the same people preaching yet another alternative to premie meditation.)

* * * * *

What, then, is "right effort," the effort of "discrimination," "letting go," and "surrender"? Premies see "discrimination" as a keenness of inner perception which suddenly notices, and notices over and over, moment by moment, that one is about to be lost in thought. As thought becomes more subtle one senses more thoughts per unit of time and time may seem to slow down, but "discrimination" must increase vigilance and precision even through slowed time. "Discrimination" also implies non-judgment of thought, the ability to see every thought, no matter how endearing and pleasant or violent and horrible, in precisely the same way, as a thought which should be allowed to appear and pass without undue attention.

Allowing thoughts to appear and pass is called "letting go" of thought. With every thought one does nothing; one does not accept it, resist it, push it away, judge it, agree with it, or admire it. One lets it go of its own accord withoutforcing it to disappear. One does not try to alter it, contradict it, or react to it in any way. One sees it as powerless and false - a meaningless, unreal idea screaming alone in the void which merits no attention, no effort of any kind. One lets

75

it pass through one's field of vision, but that is all. It comes and it goes, and one pays it neither attention nor non-attention.

Even the "right effort" of "discrimination" and "letting go" may not make thoughts disappear or even slow down for a long time. But sometimes the practice of "right effort" builds patience enough to continue until one finally reaches the point of not caring whether or not thought slows down, not caring about one's experience with the "music," not caring at all about the outcome of the meditation, but yet caring in another way, caring in the way of vigilance and dispassionate focus. This not caring is what premies call "surrender."

This not-caring "surrender" can work effectively to calm the mind rapidly and bring one ever more deeply into concentration on the "music." In turn, that deep concentration further facilitates the "right effort" of "surrender." But how does one start this virtuous circle in motion? Where does one muster up the patience, the "discrimination," the "letting go," the detachment, the razor-sharp clarity? How does one extricate oneself from the passionate chaotic struggle of "wrong effort?" How does one "surrender" and not care?

Surrender and Begging7

A premie sitting in meditation "fighting the mind" and feeling more frustrated and hopeless by the minute does not just calmly decide to "surrender." Like a defeated army he is driven to it. He has no choice. He "surrenders" when he can't try any more, when all his trying goes nowhere, when he begins to forget how to try. He gives up, he abandons everything, even his effort, his confidence that he can do it, even his desire to meditate. This "surrender" is a passionate act whose only intention is desperation. As one initiator described it,

76

It's like you're swimming, and you're pretty far out from the shore, and you realize you're in trouble. You start swimming desperately and put all you've got into it, and you still aren't getting anywhere, you're getting further from the shore, you're struggling, you're getting tired, you're really in trouble. And then you remember that lifeguard you saw on the shore, and you can barely see him, but you just reach up and scream HELP! (satsang notes, 1978)

A person cannot make himself "surrender," but then again he can't prevent it. "Surrender" comes spontaneously. Very often he doesn't even want it, because he wants so to meditate, to quiet the mind, to make effort, to try. "Surrender" comes as a surprise, even a shock. Without trying to, suddenly he stops, or is stopped. He stops everything. Then, in surprise, he looks up at a new landscape. Everything has changed. The game is different, the task is different, the whole point of everything has changed. In that moment he can finally notice the "music" as it is, and meditation begins.

"Surrender" is very often mixed with begging. At the moment of "surrender" one's whole intention switches. One no longer cares about meditation, "music," concentration, or anything; instead one simply, spontaneously, passionately, humbly begins to beg. One latches onto begging, like a lifesaver. Begging knows where it aims, and premies will say that its aim is GMJ. But the truest begging does not imagine GMJ the person sitting on his throne, nor does it address him in spoken or imagined words. Begging comes from a point so inward that it hardly feels like part of oneself. Begging points uncompromisingly toward its purpose, not at some self-created image but rather into a void, into the universe, into one's own deepest depths. One begs to the "inner guru," to a felt reality, to an essence, to a terrible liveness which one does not dare name. Begging comes from a sense of wholeness and of nothingness crying out for a sense of wholeness, and in its

77

aim it is complete. For in the end the thing one begs to and the thing one begs for are one and the same.

The deepest most effective begging arises from the feeling that this is one's last hope. A life-and-death plea that knows no shame, it clings urgently to the final shred of possibility. The power of begging sucks up all one's angers and frustrations, one's desires and pretentions, one's failures and one's fears. One sacrifices everything into it; nothing can be held back, for in a flash every thing of oneself seems irrelevant, trivial, or a tiresome obstruction. Thus one also pours into begging one's worn-out wishes for peace, deep meditations and spiritual accomplishment. With this pouring the passion of begging grows still stronger. But finally the violent intensity of feeling which begging gathers to itself begins to subside, and one feels as if one has given one's sorrows and longings, angers and frustrations, until they have finally gone. Yet if begging disappears with them it loses its purpose and turns out to have been a mere temper tantrum which dissipated with no direction.

After the emotions have spent themselves, begging must refuel from more fundamental longings, from a more steadfast desire almost like an elemental sense of knowing. GMJ once said,

You have to pursue that one thing without reservations, without why you should have it; without any desire, any anxiety, any curiosity, you have to pursue it as it goes, as it flows, you have to become a part of it. (Satsang given 7/29/77 in Miami)

In one's desperate call into the vast emptiness of one's inner universe, in one's sacrifice of everything one has known, one wants nothing that one has, nothing that one can imagine or even hope for. And yet something in that begging knows just what it wants. Stronger than one's ordinary will, that something generates its own energy and pinpoints its

78

own focus toward the hope of finding in the furthest depths of inner emptiness a spark of life or of reality. This most fundamental begging becomes intensely sincere, neither pious and solemn nor excited and melodramatic. And it never wavers from its direction.

When this happens, begging finally becomes "discrimination," because the vitality and immediacy of begging shows up ordinary thoughts and emotions as non-immediate, ephemeral, and even boring and irrelevant. By sucking all distraction into itself begging rivets the attention. A random thought now seems so tiresome and lifeless that it has no power to attract; one would almost laugh at it if one could waste the energy. Attention has now become passive, effortlessly attracted by begging. One need no longer - indeed one can no longer - consider or resist; one simply gives the attention and oneself entirely into the rushing flow of begging.

This sincerely steady begging becomes one's motivation in meditation. Each time one must choose again to focus attention in meditation, begging provides an unflinching purpose for that choice. Begging sets and in some sense is the goal, and meditation provides the means toward or the realization of that goal.

Yet in another sense begging achieves its steadiness through meditation. Its point of focus comes to merge with the point of focus in the "music" (or "light" or "Holy Name"). And as one begs to that "music" one concentrates intensely. Thus, as begging generates discrimination and motivation and as its focus becomes the meditative focus, begging and meditation become one.

* * * * *

"Surrender" and begging interrelate. One surrenders one's

79

mistakenly "wrong effort" and begins to beg. Or one begs to be able to "surrender," maybe even to be able to beg more sincerely. Sometimes "surrender" and begging are even considered the same thing for, beyond the technical aim of meditation, they both achieve one's aim. Neither "surrender" nor begging can be deliberately planned, chosen at a certain moment. One can only hope or beg for them, and when they appear they bring one into the awareness which one wants.

GMJ once spelled out the relationship between desire, begging and "surrender." Ordinary desire doesn't work; it turns out to be "wrong effort;"

And it's not the desire to meditate constantly that is going to bring you constant meditation. You see it just doesn't work that way. You have to be away from that desire - as I said, you cannot desire! You don't just go around desiring things.

One must turn instead to begging:

You go beyond desire and you have a real thirst, you have a real cry. But begging is not desire, it does not choose a limited and specific claim. To beg one has to surrender one's desire:

How do you desire by not desiring to be able to get what you want? Well when it gets that tricky the only thing, the only solution there is, the only solution I guess I apply and I guess you have to go through, is to surrender. Let go. Don't try and pull the stunt, because it's just hard and impossible to do. (Satsang given 7/29/77 in Miami Beach)

Summarizing his thought on "right effort," GMJ said another time, "Your effort has to be: sit back and relax and watch what happens." ("Divine Times," 4-5/78, p. 11)

PASSIVE CONCENTRATION

Awakening To

Guru Maharaj Ji is fond of relating the story of King Janaka,

80

who once dreamed that his kingdom had been conquered, reducing him to a beggar who manages to cook a handful of grain only to have wild bulls trample it into the mud. Weeping, he wakes to find himself lounging in his royal golden bed, asking himself,

"What is true? Is the thing I was seeing in the dream true or is what I am seeing here true? Which is a dream? Is this a dream or was that a dream? Which is real?"

After much confusion, finally he finds Ashtavakr, the "Perfect Master" of his time appearing as a crippled boy, who explains to him,

"Oh Raja, what you saw in the dream was false, was not true, but what you are seeing now is also false, this is also not true. What you saw in the dream was a dream and what you are seeing now is a dream, too. … What you are seeing now is all a dream because this will finish one day. But what is the one thing? That is within us. That is what all the sages have been teaching you." ("And It Is Divine," 2/73, p. 47)

The entire effort of active concentration - redirecting attention again and again back to the "music," seeing thoughts as thoughts, awakening from "mind," choosing to meditate, "wrong effort," and finally the "right effort" of begging or "surrender" - all this yields not a moment of meditation. One has seen what meditation is not, but one has yet to see what it is. Practice which goes only this far feels "dry," mechanical and unsatisfying to premies; they probably would not meditate if this were all. Begging and "surrender" may lapse if the "experience" of meditation does not arise. For premies want more than just awakening from the bad dream of ordinary existence; they have to awaken to a new reality.

For the most part awakening to the meditative "experience" follows the efforts of concentration, begging, "surrender," and "right effort." But not always. One can awaken to the "experience" even before one starts trying to concentrate:

81

I got home really late from work, and I was super tired, I hardly knew what was happening. Then when I sat down to meditate I just closed my eyes and there he (GMJ) was. (notes)

One can awaken to the "experience" even when one's mind is furthest from meditation:

I was really down, just completely bummed out, and I went on this long, long walk. I hardly cared where I was going, I was just completely off the wall, out of it. And then suddenly I was doing the Nectar, and I'd never experienced Nectar before. It was this amazing taste, this electricity, and I looked around and felt like I was on acid. I ran home as quick as I could and just meditated for a long time. (satsang notes)

The intention, the effort, the begging - all these seem not to influence the exact moment of awakening to. For awakening to comes independently of one's efforts. A premie once compared awakening to meditation with falling asleep. "You don't know how to fall asleep," he said. "You don't notice the moment, you can't make it happen, but you just sit there and meditate, and pretty soon you just fall into superconsciousness. You suddenly come into that superconscious state, and it just happens."

In many cases, "surrender" is awakening to. 8 For awakening to is the first moment of new awareness, a sudden fresh angle of perception. It takes one by surprise. Awakening to resembles the moment a steady crescendo of sound which started inaudibly suddenly breaks into awareness. But it is more than a simple switch of attention from thoughts to the "music" or "light," which one accomplishes over and over while trying to concentrate. Rather, the "music" steals the attention until one cannot help but listen more and carefully; it fascinates and comes alive. Sometimes one awakens to "experience" when, after much effort to concentrate, one spontaneously drops the effort and lets the attention wander a few moments. Then, just as spontaneously, one awakens to the "music," and it begins to attract. The spontaneous

82

letting go of meditative effort is a "surrender" and, like all "surrenders," unplanned and unpredictable.

An initiator once distinguished the effort of active concentration from the spontaneous, passive concentration of meditation:

What's this thing of concentration? Sometimes I sit there and say I'm going to do it, I'm going to concentrate and I sit and try to concentrate. But that's not it. Then I just sit there and follow the technique, do what GMJ said to do, and then I begin to feel the experience coming, and then I'm concentrated. Automatically I get concentrated. When Maharaj Ji is there, do you have to try to concentrate? (satsang notes)

When the object of meditation comes alive the effort required to concentrate is more like the effort of nudging a large piece of driftwood into the center of a moving stream rather than the effort of dragging that driftwood over rough ground hoping somehow to be going in the same direction as the stream. One can now use one's effort to propel the attention more deeply into the "experience." For the "experience" lures one on and on. A premie poet once rendered the "music" "experience" something like this:

You're in an Arab market, donkeys bray everywhere, men hawk their wares, women haggle over prices, a pile of pots crashes to the ground, horns honk. And then, in the midst of that wild bedlam you hear a lonely flute which you didn't even hear at first. As you listen the other sounds fade and you find yourself in a section of the market where thousands of men in long robes are playing flutes. The melodies weave in and around one another, crying and laughing. After awhile as you listen more closely the sweetest and purest of the melodies begins to stand out and compel you. You follow it until you can no longer hear the other melodies and you reach a part of the market where thousands of birds are singing that same sweetest melody. Then you notice that they all sing it differently, some more throaty, some chirping, some more sweetly, and then as you listen you begin to hear just one bird whose melody is so sweet it reminds you of beautiful bells, and you follow the song of that bird until you reach a part of the market where thousands of bells are ringing … (satsang notes)

Awakening to is always a surprise; not only is it unanticipated at that moment, but the new mode of perception seems novel. Though one

83

may have been in meditation many times, each time seems like the first time again. Of course one recognizes the state, and that the switch to it has occurred, but one of the state's characteristics is a freshness from moment to moment. One enjoys it. And one enjoys it because one loves it. The "music," "light," or "Holy Name" inspires love. In The Inner Game of Tennis Gallwey uses this principle to instruct in the art of concentration:

As silly as it may sound, one of the most practical ways to increase concentration on the ball is to learn to love it! Get to know the tennis ball; appreciate its qualities …

Concentration is not staring hard at something. It is not trying to concentrate; it is not thinking hard about something. Concentration is fascination of mind. When there is love present, the mind is drawn irresistably toward the object of love. It is effortless and relaxed, not tense and purposeful. (1974, p. 92)

With meditation, the object of concentration is not an inert thing like a tennis ball which one must learn to love; it is alive and lures one, it seems, into infinity:

When I meditate I feel like I've found that place to start in infinity and that I could keep going, and I don't even have to stop. All you need to do is practice the meditation that Maharaj Ji shows you and through that practice you eventually come in contact with infinity, with Love, with what I call God. (interview notes)

The Meditation "Experience"

The "light," the "music," and the "nectar" all yield perceptual experiences but underlying all of them, and "Holy Name" as well, one feels what premies call "energy," or "vibration." One feels hyper-alert, jumpingly alive. The body senses a hyper-stillness, or a caress, or darting sensations of energy, or generalized tingling:

Meditation is like floating, it's like being lifted up and elevated, you're just light; you're tingling and you just feel like you're being carried away and dissolved into the universe.

Sometimes one feels the body more intensely than usual, balanced, relaxed,

84

healthy, feeling every cell alive. Other times one forgets about the body in the depths of concentration and directly senses only the "vibration."

In the mind this "vibration" sensation creates a pinpoint of concentration; everything is drawn specifically to one point. There the "vibration" originates, and that point opens and draws one in until one feels a supreme state of freedom, like seeing forever:

Experience tingling, happiness throughout body and soul, feel lightness, absolutely everything right …

… the valley of astonishment (Crozier, 1974)

Though felt during all the techniques, this "vibration" is the central experience of the breath or "Holy Name" technique. "Holy Name" can be soothing, peaceful and still:

He touches me in this stillness.
His Name carves
A steady path within me,
And I am His
In this gentle breath. 9

And yet this stillness does not lull one to sleep; it fascinates. It inspires a sense of knowing beyond images or words or understandings,

He sat for many hours in stillness … He realized that the quietness that he found inside was what he had been looking for and that in such quietness he could at last be one with Truth. 10

In this "knowing" one has finally come home to a sure place to rest at last, which one sees as the inner center of one's self. There everything comes into balance, and on some basic level oneself and everything in one's world is finally O.K. The mind is empty, but the "vibration" fills that emptiness and seems to pervade one's whole being until one feels utterly in tune with it.

Sometimes this "vibration" of "Holy Name" becomes extraordinarily intense - as one premie said, "like an atom bomb." It overwhelms, as a premie song-writer expressed it, "in wave after wave of wonder."

85

One feels surrendered to a powerful force far beyond one's own control:

I sat down to meditate and what happened to me was that my breathing got more rapid, and I just got taken into … It was the breathing, overtook me - I don't even know what it was I haven't experienced it since. The whole experience just completely washed - filled me completely. It was such a powerful experience, it was so intense. I just didn't know what was happening to me, I felt I was going into a - I just don't know - and after about two and a half hours it just completely washed and just took my whole being completely and I came out of it …" (Interview notes)

Another premie reported that when his roommate meditated the "vibration" made him stand up and sort of dance or jerk around the room like a puppet on strings.11

The "nectar" technique yields a certain taste along with a vibrational sensation:

Suddenly at the tip of my tongue I felt a sweet yet electric sensation which spread throughout my body as an intense feeling of joy and well-being. It was as if I had been transported into a new realm of consciousness where deep happiness reverberated at all times. (interview notes)

More even than "Holy Name," premies feel the effect of "nectar" throughout the whole body, bringing energy and increasing vitality.

The "music" is known to calm the nerves and quiet the emotions. One can be drawn into a subtle world of sound which seems to surround, enfold, and stimulate:

The "music of the spheres" or "sound of sounds" appears in all scriptures … The sounds devotees report hearing range from water sounds - similar to, but richer and more varied than, those heard in a seashell or conch - to crickets in the grass on a summer night to stringed instruments and choirs. (Messer, 1976, p.54)

Others hear flutes, or "angels singing."

The sensation of "music" is more than just an inner perception of "hearing." The body, especially the head, "feels" the "music" to varying degrees. When one concentrates intently on the "music," one feels as if one's entire being resonates in harmony with it. It

86

inspires a sense of joy:

And the music resounding
Deep in the well of my soul
Is enough to fill the universe
With love.12

Like "Holy Name," the "music" draws the attention into it, until one feels immersed; the "music" is everywhere, creating its own world.

Though premies practice the "music" technique only during "formal" meditation they sometimes begin to hear it during evening "satsang," in nature, or in any quiet moment. Such an experience brings them quickly into the meditative state. The "music" suggests stillness, and stillness suggests the "music." Premies have also reported hearing "music" when they sit listening to streams: "wild, operatic voices, a whole chorus arose from the bubbling sound of flowing water." (personal notes)

"Music" seems to comfort, to reassure, to enliven, to refresh. "Light" may prove a challenge; one can see more or less of it, one can worry about not seeing it, one can be afraid to see it, one can be seeing it and then experience a thought which will make it disappear instantly. But "music" poses no test. With half one's attention one can begin to hear it and gradually let it draw one into its increasing richness.

The "light" yields the most dramatic experience, sometimes combined with visions. Even premies who never see light still find that the technique gathers and intensifies their concentration. Some see just a pinpoint, "the size of a seed," and others, psychedelic visions of light and color. n an account of my initiation I described a "light" experience:

I was nervous and bewildered, but when [the Mahatma] came to me and

87

touched me I was as if suddenly sucked into another realm. It was as if a surprise happens, and one is expecting something ordinary, so one is forced to stop, and gasp, and exclaim, "Oh!" I saw swirling patterns of black and white, like a zebra's skin constantly turning and interweaving about itself. Very bright. Then colors, then a bright, bright ring of fire. Then the sun, burning radiantly. Then he went away from me, the sun began to fade, and soon there was nothing left but stars twinkling. It was a complete surprise. (personal notes)

Collier recounts quite a different sort of experience:

I was sitting in the woods meditating. My eyes were closed, and in front of them I saw only a luminous haze of slowly swirling golden light. … Then something touched me. Slowly, I opened my eyes. A chickadee was sitting on my shoulder with its tiny, delicate legs holding the hem of my sleeve ever so lightly. I looked deep into its eyes and it began to sing. (1978, pp. 119-120)

The most dramatic report of "light" meditation I heard from a premie who -lad not been practicing the specific "light" technique for a long time. An initiator scolded her mildly and told her to go home and practice it for an hour. When she did,

My whole head, my whole body, the whole universe became light. Bright, blinding light. Opening my eyes made no difference. Still all I could see everywhere was that brilliant, radiant white light. I couldn't see anything in the room. 'Blinded by the light!' I thought, and I wondered what my husband would do with me. (satsang notes)

Many premies see visions in the light, especially of Guru Maharaj Ji:

I wanted so much to see Maharaj Ji, to be with him. So no matter what I experienced, no matter what I saw I just kept going. I was seeing this incredible light, like ordinarily would have blown me away, but I just sort of ignored it, I didn't really even care, I just wanted him. So I just went on and on, sort of through the light until finally I saw his face. (satsang notes)

Or, as a premie poet rendered it:

in the space that arises
when eyes are closed,
i have seen love's face
peering from behind roses
- Charles Cameron

Yet not all premie visions are of the Guru:

I had an incredibly beautiful light vision, perhaps because I had

88

asked Christ to show me if this Knowledge was really against Him. Jesus had been the only one in my life that had given me strength. n this vision during the light meditation, Jesus came to me. I saw a beautiful cosmos and in the middle of that center there was a rose and in the middle of that, a crucifix made of really white pure light. In the middle of that there was a tiny black spot that formed into Pegasus. Its wings started flying. Pegasus is the symbol of Jesus Christ, so I knew it was all right. (Cameron, interview notes)

An Indian Initiator related this vision:

With His Grace, I saw Maharaj Ji and Durga Mata Ji (his wife) in meditation. And in between them, Shri Maharaj Ji (Maharaj Ji's father) … And Jesus Christ also - in the sky! In the sky! And this is reality, this is reality to me. (interview notes)

Perhaps even more than visionary experiences, the sensation of "merging," of losing one's self completely typifies the deepest meditation "experiences." Once I was talking casually with a premie friend about meditation and he asked, "haven't you ever merged?" and went on to tell me about the "music" waking him in the middle of the night and "dissolving" him. According to another premie,

All of a sudden you just merge with everything that is and you realize that you're just a part of it, that there is that power, that energy that sustains the entire universe and it sustains yourself and it sustains me and in the experience of that, in the power of it, in the beauty of it it's just a very uplifting very enlightening a very freeing experience and a humbling experience because it's so vast, it's so overpowering, yet it just feels so so beautiful because you're merging, you're completely connected to the entire creation and in that realization you experience freedom, you experience joy, you experience the infinite. (O'Brien, interview notes)

Premies sometimes call this state "Samadhi," a Sanskrit term for the deepest meditative state, but they use the term loosely: "I go into this deep, deep place. Everything is still; I'm completely at peace. It's Samadhi, I guess." (satsang notes) Lacking a precise vocabulary for exact discussion and categorization of meditation experiences, premies rely on graphic descriptions of visions, drug culture words like "rush," "zap," "stoned," "blown out," and superlatives, of

89

which "Samadhi" is one. Yet the term "Samadhi" has a certain mystique, applied sometimes to bizarre states of consciousness, especially in rumor. One fanatically devoted Indian Mahatma, for example, was said to have greeted Guru Maharaj Ji once at an airport, prostrated at his feet, and gone instantly into "Samadhi." "He was stiff as a board," I was told. "They had to carry him away like that." Another premie was rumored to have sued a hospital for injecting some powerful drug to arouse him from an inert state he later called "Samadhi." And GMJ himself is said to sit in a chair in a special room of his Malibu residence looking out over the Pacific "for days and days" without leaving the room, without moving.

Premies' image of deep meditation does not always imply uncanniness, stiffness, or inordinate spans of time. More usually, it simply implies profound inner peace, as suggested in this premie poem:

lost in something beyond thought
at last, wrapping her cloak
about her as if to guard some rose
she sits, rapt: as if her skin
were thin as rice paper, softly
candle lit from within, she glows. 13

Children and babies often exemplify the image of meditation:

If you are having difficulty learning the ways of meditation, watch a baby at sleep. He is completely relaxed, abandoned to all save the God who holds him in his arms. His face bespeaks the pure calm of one who knows he is loved. His lips are peacefully relaxed. His little nose takes in quiet streams of Holy Prana (breath). His tiny ears are closed to all but the Sweet Harmony which dwells within. And his eyes are serenely closed in blissful contemplation of the inner Divinity. (Cameron, interview notes)

The Significance of Meditation Experience for Premies

Most premies have the "experience" of meditation from time to time, many do daily, and most have had at least one very extraordinary, "mind-blowing," "dynamite," or "trippy" "experience." Many have had

90

several of these, and some have them frequently. Extraordinary "experiences"reinforce the power and significance of average meditation "experience" and help maintain an ongoing sense of a different level of awareness.

Profound meditation "experience" also has significance for everyday life. One premie reported having an "experience" after which,

I just realized from that point on to only remember Holy Name because I couldn't remember anything else. I wasn't given to experience "mind" for another year and a half. (Interview notes)

One premie who was dying of cancer said for awhile that he used to cry every time he thought of Maharaj Ji or looked at his picture. At one point he longed so much for Maharaj Ji and begged for him so hard in his meditation that Maharaj Ji "materialized:"

I saw him talking to some other people. I saw his head and ear up close, and Maharaj Ji brushed his hair back away from his ear so I could speak into it. I told him all my problems and troubles, and it completely changed my experience and made everything OK, and made me feel that Maharaj Ji knew me. (Satsang notes)

Some premies have a meditation "experience" which reminds them of an experience or way of seeing they had forgotten and reconnects them to a primal feeling of self. One woman said the "light" reminded her of a similar light she used to see when she was a little girl. Her mother had discouraged her from trying to see it, saying she would hurt her eyes. When she persisted her mother sent her to a psychiatrist whom she told about the light and the "other world" of her visionary experience. Caught wanting to support her visionary experiences, which he saw as valid, yet wanting to deny them because to support them would compromise his professional reputation, the psychiatrist killed himself. Whether or not his suicide was prompted by other factors as well, the girl saw it as a confirmation of her "other world" visions but, as she

91

received no other confirmations, memories of them gradually began to fade. Only upon receiving "Knowledge" did she reenter her "other world," and soon her meditation revitalized her former visions. Premies reconfirmed both this and her childhood experience as "real."

For another woman, an intense meditation on Holy Name reminded her of a childbirth experience:

Somehow during that experience of labor, it was like I was breathed - and it was very deep, like riding on the top of a wave. I wasn't worried, I wasn't scared, I wasn't afraid. I had no experience of resistance. I remember the pain, but I remember that there was something more than that, there was something regular. It was interesting to me, because I hadn't ever had an experience of any such regular power that way. I experienced at once this other power and also this ability to go through it with the breathing. It was reliable. Pain wasn't taken away, but there was a way to experience it that made the pain secondary, completely secondary. This experience was so involving, so consuming, that I couldn't concern myself with these external "realities." It was just a wave, I was being carried, and I went with it, and I saw that it was magnificent, that it was overwhelming, but I wasn't lost, I was just overwhelmed …

… After I received Knowledge, one time this meditation experience was like giving birth, the experience just filled me completely, and I realized that what had borne my son was Holy Name. It had happened through me, but it wasn't me, it was that power …

… A couple of months after I had my son I was just filled with this longing to have another child - and now, looking back I see that it's the desire for that kind of an experience that would make you want to have another baby, or have drugs. It didn't seem practical to get pregnant and have another baby right away, but it was a real longing inside of me, because of the power of that experience. But now I see that it was the longing for that experience of Holy Name - I had thought it was the child, but it was really the longing for the real experience inside my own self of Holy Name manifesting. (Interview notes.)

For some premies "trippy" or "flashy" meditations do not have deep meaning. Shortly after his initiation one man told me that he saw so much "light" he started crying and had to grab hold of the (Indian) Initiator's dhoti to keep from falling over. But later he told me it was no different from a peyote experience he'd had - there were all sorts of colors swirling around and around, but then it was over and

92

that was that, so what?

Others find that the effects of profound "experiences" wear off after a period of time. For example, many premies have a "high" after initiation which lasts weeks or even months. According to Collier,

After my initiation into Knowledge I found myself in an uncompromised state of bliss that lasted almost eight weeks without pause for a tear or sad thought. Day after day I woke up to discover I was still overjoyed. The smallest things - walking to the Good Day Market with the cold on my face; drinking a cup of hot tea, smelling the steam; or seeing a tiny place where the ice on the street was melting, making beautiful colors as the light came through it - all were rich, precious experiences for me.

The Knowledge was turning out to be everything that it was chalked up to be, and more. For the first time I understood Laotzu's remark, "Those who say don't know, and those who know don't say." There was no way for me to "say" the tremendous feeling of steady-state ecstacy I knew in my heart. It was simply past the reach of words or even understanding. (Collier, 1978, p. 118)

But even this joy eventually subsided.

Some premies report simply that the novelty wears off. One woman unhappy enough to spend most of her time wandering from therapist to therapist once said in "satsang," "I've been in Samadhi many times, but you come out of it. It's more than that." The man who told me about the profound "nectar" experience which made him run home to meditate, and whose friends reported that meditation made him jerk around the room like a puppet on strings, told me that those experiences are wonderful, but after awhile you don't seem to want them so much. "You still have to live your daily life," he said, "and when the meditation experience goes you still have to go work and pay the bills and try to get along with people."

Sometimes a premie will have an experience in meditation which he feels did not come from Guru Maharaj Ji at all:

Really frequently now when I meditate I go into this place where I'm in the bright bright sun and I'm flying over this infinite ocean. But I don't think it's the Light, I don't think it's Holy Name because I'm not meditating on Holy Name when I'm there, and

93

I'm not feeling Holy Name. I'm just there. (notes)

While at GMJ's ashram in India in 1972 one premie told me that before coming there she used to experience "astral travel," in which she "left her body" and flew around like a free spirit through space anywhere she wanted to go. But when she tried it there at the ashram she ran into a vision of GMJ's mother14 who held her hand up like a policman at an intersection and stopped her so she couldn't get past. Since then, she said, she has stopped "astral traveling," because that experience taught her that GMJ doesn't want her to do it anymore.

The Guru has even occasionally suggested that "mind" can counterfeit meditation experience, and that premies usually can't tell the difference. Hearing this, one initiator became so frightened that he immediately fell at Maharaj Ji's feet and begged and begged to be saved from "mind." Other initiators warn premies to keep concentrating on the meditation technique every moment, no matter what should happen during meditation, no matter what enticing experiences should appear.

Then again, counterfeit or not, sometimes meditation "experience" can be unpleasant:

Sometimes, especially if I wake up in the middle of the night and meditate, it's weird. Just this blank. I can't think; it's unfamiliar. Sort of boring but very powerful. A blank. A second takes a minute. (Personal notes.)

And sometimes meditation "experience" can be scary:

I begged Maharaj Ji to really show it to me, give me that meditation experience, all the way. And he did, and I started to go into it, and I was scared, terrified. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to go into it, it was too intense, and so I just begged him to please please stop, I'll be satisfied with what I get. (satsang notes)

Premie culture fluctuates in its evaluation of "trippy"or powerful, big meditation "experience." The earlier years especially emphasized

94

it, and the popularity of satsangs reporting such "experience" reemerged from time to time, alternating with periods when such reports seemed almost bad taste or an "ego trip." In more recent years premie "satsang" has tended to recommend a degree of detachment from meditative "experience." One would hear that all "experiences," good or bad, meditative or otherwise, are a gift; Maharaj Ji's "grace" bestows exactly what a person needs at any particular time. So one should neither crave "experience," become discouraged over lack of it, nor pride oneself over attaining it. Steady effort should absorb one's entire concern without undue attention to "experience." Yet still, despite all this, premies maintain that the "experience" is everything. After all it shows one the limitations of "mind" and the new "reality" beyond.

"Guru Maharaj Ji's World" and "Illusion"

Awakening to the meditation "experience" opens premies to what they call "Guru Maharaj Ji's world." "GMJ's world" sometimes refers to premie culture in general but in relation to meditation it means the new mode of awareness. Sometimes they simply call this awareness "reality:"

This world here seems real enough, but sometimes it just begins to feel shadowy, like it's not quite there. And then I feel Maharaj Ji, and it's another reality. (satsang notes)

And sometimes they call it "another world:"

The world stops
When I look into your eyes
Always takes me by surprise
Feels so familiar
Like I've already been there,
Another world -
So still,
No place I'd rather be
Feel your gaze, just melt me
Free me from all my fantasies --
Just disappear,
Leaving me here --15

95

Premies often refer to the "reality" of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world" in spatial terms, as a "place" where one "goes." Often they refer to that "place" as "inside," or, in GMJ's words, "within inside:"

This world is completely inside. It's a whole other world that's not touched by this outer reality. I'm glad it isn't. When you have thoughts, you're not there. (notes)

In contrast, then, the world of thought, of "mind," of "ego," of everyday awareness becomes "illusion," "unreality," or "maya" (a Sanskrit term for "illusion"). Premies see the world of the "mind" as changeable, unreliable, unstable, always relative:

This reality of the world makes sense to us, because we're used to it. But actually it doesn't make sense. I used to work at a mental hospital and it didn't make sense at all, there was no point in anybody doing anything, and they made up these schedules, everybody got up at a certain time, and they had occupational therapy - they had closets full of this useless stuff people made, strings of beads, tile-work. And that's the way the world is, too. Senseless.

Nancy said to me, 'what did you tell that person you talked to on the phone?' And I said, 'what person?' She said she'd handed me the phone to talk to someone, and I didn't remember it at all. In my reality, it didn't happen. Who's to say we all live in the same reality? (Satsang notes)

In meditation, the "reality" of the "mind" disappears in an instant when one awakens to meditation. Coming back to the "mind," premies can sometimes take it with a grain of salt, as if they only half believed it. When thoughts appear one now recognizes them instantly, as I tried to express after one particularly inspiring meditation:

I meditated several hours on a mountaintop, sometimes looking at the view, most of the time meditating with closed eyes. I remember how the thought 'what about dinner?' startled me and made me laugh. What possible meaning could 'dinner' have when the meaning of these mountains had come alive, when I felt I had become a part of them, when my inner stillness felt so vast it included them. And then, trotting along through this vast stillness, this magnificence of inner and outer creation, like cartoon characters in a TV add, came 'What about dinner?' The clutter, the irrelevance of such imposters, when I had fallen into the sea of stillness! (personal notes)

Even a mild awakening to, though it may not slow the stream of

96

thought appreciably, still enables one to see thoughts clearly enough to identify not with them but with meditation:

I feel confused sometimes when my mind is wandering around, but I never really feel down 'cause I know that's just my mind. There's no reason to be crazy, because that's just illusion. …

… Like, I'm not totally devoted myself, 'cause when you are your mind can be going "yakkie yak" and you're not even hearing it. It's just something you can look at and laugh at, it's something that doesn't really exist. (Downton, 1979, pp. 27-28)

One's center of viewpoint, one's "ego" or sense of "I" has switched. Thoughts continue to rally around the old center, but since one no longer dwells in it the thoughts seem silly and have no relevance. The self they pertained to, which recognized them, has gone. One's new viewpoint seems inside the meditation, fully involved, even a part of it. The "experience" has invaded one's very self. The account of my mountaintop meditation continued:

Then I lost my identity. My awareness became pure human awareness; I was seeing the same thing any human could see, nothing was according to my private individual perspective. Thoughts of my self were only lies trying to induce me back to an unreal world. At one point I remember idly wondering what sort of body I would see sitting there when I opened my eyes. I knew factually I was my self, with my own body, but I also had that pure human awareness where it was possible I would look around and see I was an old Chinese man, or maybe an African kid. (personal notes, 1974)

The "ego" then, the individual perspective of "I" emerges as a supreme example of the "unreality" of "illusion." Going back and forth in and out of meditation, premies get a sense of two realities, one somehow more "real," and inside the other one:

i wear a monk's hood,
prefer the inner
to the outer sight,
awake to the celestial day
within terrestial night;
while the frosted moon stalks
through this world's wood,
my hands are warmed at the sun fire
of my creator's light.16

97

Whether one sees "reality" or "illusion" depends on one's angle of vision, one's perception, one's identity with "thought" or with meditation. Several of the Guru's analogies have to do with angle of vision or mode of perception. In one story17 a man sees a snake which turns out, on further inspection, to be a rope. n another example GMJ compares being in a maze unable to see over the top to being above the maze looking down, seeing exactly which turns to take. Premies echo this theme in their own words:

I still have friends, I still have a job, all the things that people are doing in this world, but that thing that's so radically different is the attitude toward life, how do you approach it. It's like a caterpillar sees a flower and says, 'oh, I don't even know if I want this thing, man, it's going to take me half a day to climb up that stalk and take a look at that stupid flower, and I don't even know if there's anything there,' and it's like a butterfly just opens up its wings and it's right there. That's just the way that this meditation has transformed me, from a rather yucky caterpillar to perhaps a mediocre butterfly, but at least these days I've been flying. (Cameron, interview notes)

But "illusion" does not easily give way to "reality." Even after they have experienced "Guru Maharaj Ji's world" in meditation many times, still premies are fooled by "illusion." Though they know it is "unreal," still it deludes and threatens because they take it to be "real" and act accordingly. In one satsang a premie tried to explain the nature of "illusion" with an analogy of a faulty compass. If you head true north and your compass says you are heading due north everything is fine. But if you start heading a few degrees off, then the faulty compass changes and starts saying that your few degrees off is still due north. So you don't know you're off. And then you go a few degrees off that and the compass readjusts again, so you still think you're going due north when you're even further from it. And so you keep on getting more and more off until you're going completely the

98

opposite direction, and your compass still says you're heading due north. The compass is "real," but it is faulty and because you believe it, it is an "illusion."

The essense of the "mind's" "illusion," according to premies, is its belief in its own existence. To the "mind," lack of thought, lack of itself, means completely nothingness, or nonexistence. Therefore it pulls every trick to protect the "illusion" of its existence. The "mind" tries to convince a person that if "mind" should go, "mind" which creates and supports his sense of "I", then he too will go; he will cease to exist. Premies say that is why the "mind" is so hard to recognize, to control, to "get beyond." GMJ explains:

Mind is a very weird thing; mind is a very strong thing, and we have to understand the characteristics of our own mind. … It's like an absence, it doesn't exist, so what do you chase out of in your lives? … Almost one way of looking at is "what is it, can you touch it, can you feel it, can you grab it?"

No, it's there, you can feel the presence of it; you can't touch it and it is haunting you, so how do you get rid of it? (GMJ speaking 9/29/77, Miami)

The "mind" is "illusion" also in the sense that it clouds or obscures one's vision, without one ever knowing that it is doing so, or that another kind of vision is possible. Premies say that the "mind" convinces a person that the clouded vision it allows is clear vision. People take for granted the clouding process because they are used to ordinary mental activity and don't know how to stop it:

We place limitations on ourselves and in doing so we try to place limitations on that life force and we block it and in blocking it we start a whole reasoning logical categorical process that doesn't allow that life energy to flow through us. We tend to relate to our lives through ideas instead of the pure experience of life and letting that take us wherever it will - this is the ability to stay young. (O'Brien, interview notes)

But the meditative awareness makes one aware of the conglomeration of

99

taken-for-granted mental processes and allows one to see beyond them, in "real" unclouded vision:

This Knowledge, to an adult life, is as ammonia to a grease and nicotine coated glass pane. It cuts through that dulling coat of grime which stifles our awareness, opens the windows to light and meaning for our souls to once again breathe. (O'Brien, interviews)

FORMAL MEDITATION AND DAILY LIFE

When they "receive Knowledge" premies are instructed to meditate "formally" - sitting alone, undisturbed - for an hour in the morning and an hour before going to sleep. The ashrams built this practice into the daily schedule, enforced with varying strictness over the years. Non-ashram premies meditate according to their inclination, work and family life. The majority of the sixty or so premies I shared non-ashram housing with at various times did regularly attempt the two hours of meditation daily; most premies probably meditate at least some of the time. But sitting to meditate regularly does not guarantee serious meditation practice. Many obstacles intervene, the most serious of which are sleep, habit, and self-righteousness.

By far the biggest obstacle to meditation is drowsiness. The ashram schedule generally allowed six to six and one-half hours of sleep per night. A non-ashram resident who works full time and attends "satsang" most evenings probably fares worse. Even if he manages to get home and start to meditate by 10:30 he won't finish his hour before 11:30 and he must rise by 5:30 or 6:00 the next morning to meditate for an hour, have breakfast, and get to work by 8:00. While in the ashram I was plagued by chronic lack of sleep. The then-official premie view, preached often to me by "housefathers" and others in power, stated that meditation causes one to require less sleep than normal, and that sleepiness in meditation merely indicates that one's "mind" is in control. "Don't let 'mind' convince you you're tired," they would tell me over

100

and over and repeat in "satsang" for all to hear. "Mind is just playing its tricks. Keep on trying and mind will go away and you'll wake up and meditation will be beautiful."

For some premies this is true. "Meditation wakes me up," one premie told me. "It gives me so much energy I can't possibly feel tired." Another said meditation relaxes tension; therefore, since tension causes fatigue, when tension goes so does fatigue. An ashram roommate I had always meditated for half an hour in the afternoon instead of napping, claiming that meditation rested and refreshed her far more than sleep.

Occasionally premies have tried to replace sleep with meditation altogether. For a few months in 1973 the Mission sponsored all-night meditations on Saturday nights. Though nobody was required to participate, many did - some, it seemed, just to see who could stay awake the longest. Sometiems somebody would even bring a squirtgun to prevent others from nodding out. The morning light would inevitably reveal a mass of blankets and bodies sprawled on the meditation room floor, but also two or three people still sitting in meditation. One of these once told me that she had to really struggle for the first few hours, but then she found herself "just sitting in Maharaj Ji's lap. So tranquil, so much love. I just rode, I just coasted, and before I knew it the room got light. I was so surprised." Even since that period some premies frequently meditate most or all of the night. One premie told me he and his roommate meditated all night every other night for nearly a year. Another woman told me that anytime she had a little problem she would simply sit in meditation all night, reestablish her "connection," and feel refreshed and free of problems the next day. An ashram mate

101

who sat up most of the night, most nights, told me that he just hated not being conscious. "You don't need much sleep," he would say, "your body gets used to it." In a 1975 "Divine Times" article, however, a premie doctor said substitution of meditation for sleep would undermine health; this suggests that the practice was then still common enough to elicit his concern.

But most premies don't meditate all night and many spend their meditation time fighting with sleep. Anecdotes about "nodding out" and snoring in the meditation room are frequently heard in "satsang." n my years of living with premies hardly a meditation hour passed without at least one person relaxing against the wall to snooze, curling up on the floor, or slumping over and starting to snore. To prevent drowsiness many premies drink coffee before meditation. Others readjust their schedules by skipping "satsang" or taking flexible jobs to allow meditation as well as sufficient sleep. Most most will not or cannot do this and sleep, for most, continually challenges meditation. "Satsang, service, meditation and sleep" was the theme of one initiator's satsang, and essentially he offered no solution.

Rote habit can also impede meditation. One can fairly easily learn to sit comfortably for an hour twice a day, especially if everybody else is doing it, and never even try to meditate. One need only adopt the attitude of a commuter on his long daily bus ride. A mild self-congratulatory attitude can even render the experience pleasurable. Premie culture accustoms one to waiting: premies are chronically late; events never begin on time (premies even speak of "premie time"); and festivals inevitably entail long long lines for food, transportation, seats, restrooms. Waiting for the end of the meditation hour twice

102

daily fits comfortably into the general pattern.

Finally, self-righteousness hinders meditation. Some premies feel guilty if they stay up late at night talking or reading until they are too sleepy to meditate, or if they sleep through the morning meditation hour. They see meditation as a virtuous act or moral obligation whose opposite, "spacing out," damages one's reputation. Playing "holier than thou" with one another, they refuse an invitation to go out for coffee, with a slight put-down, "No, I'm going to meditate." And all through the meditation hour this type of premie notices who sleeps, who leaves early, who never appears at all. This concern, coupled with self-praise, renders meditative effort difficult.

* * * * *

Despite the continual impediments of sleep, habit and conformity, and self-righteousness, premies perservere in "formal" meditation. Except for those who find meditation to be only an irritating ritual to be avoided as much as possible, each premie finds a viable stance. Even those who find meditation intolerably uncomfortable and boring find they can continue to meditate if they cling to it with a stubborn sense of duty. More than duty, some see meditation as sacrifice, an offering to the Guru. They practice in the spirit of giving him their time, attention, preoccupations, fantasies, giving him their "mind." The sacrifice can become an unloading or unburdening of sorrows which leaves one feeling lighter and clearer. Sacrifice can also be hard, compelling one premie to lament, "Oh Maharaj Ji, why do you make me do this?" Either way, one aims not at that light, clear feeling and not at groveling lament, but simply to please GMJ, to communicate with him, to give him one's all', to express one's devotion.

103

Some premies see meditation primarily as a discipline. Like those who think that to crave or value meditative "experience" too much will somehow lead one astray, they conceive of meditation as one portion of a continual effort to carry out the Guru's instructions:

We went on this ashram retreat, and the initiator gave satsang the first night and said, "We're here to practice. We're just going to practice satsang, service, and meditation because through this practice, through doing what Maharaj Ji says, then he can give us his grace." So I began just to look at everything as practice.

I'm practicing this meditation, and it doesn't matter what I get out of it, the grace will be there. (Satsang notes)

The "grace" they conceive not only as a pleasurable meditation "experience," but also as a whole trend, a turn in one's life, a feeling of one-pointed purpose, of meaning, of the Guru's presence. Individual meditations are small segments of a smooth, integrated, ongoing effort which culminates in the "grace" of a life of devotion.

Duty, sacrifice, and discipline are attitudes which compel one to meditate. But some premies need no such attitude because they come to depend on meditation. Without it they become tense, irritable, depressed, or confused, and perhaps they can't sleep because the "mind" is too active. Some find they can't concentrate because distractions affect them more than usual or because moods become more intense. Premies who become miserable without daily immersions in the meditative state explain that meditation not only wakes you up to clearer perceptions of yourself, the world, other people, but also centers and calms you so you can tolerate those perceptions with equanimity. But when you don't meditate you lose the equanimity without losing the new perceptions, so you "see too much" in yourself and the world and it overwhelms you. To tolerate your new perceptions you must meditate, but further meditation deepens those perceptions still further, so you must

104

meditate still more, and on and on. Meditation thus catches you, and you cannot do without it.

"Formal" meditation is said to affect one's attempt to remain in meditation during daily activities. You cannot hope to meditate during the day unless you have really "focused" during the morning meditation, many premies feel. And you cannot focus in morning meditation unless you meditate the night before, because the residue of the previous day's activities, intensified by restless dreams, vastly increases the difficulty of morning meditation. Missing "formal meditation" may not make some premies tense or irritable, but they still depend on it to reinforce a vivid sense of the presence and "reality" of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world." Without this they feel existentially disoriented without knowing why:

Sea of illusion
I'm lost in confusion
If I forget Your Name
I fall back in the game.18

Meditation, or Maharaj Ji via meditation, "saves" them, "wakes them up." When they break out of everyday "illusion" into "Maharaj Ji's world," they are horrified that they had been "asleep" and forgotten about it. But regular meditation wakes them into that reality often enough to make it the primary reality toward which they orient their lives:

Down in the city
Amidst the roar
An old city man smiled
"what we living for"
And beneath a cherry tree
He takes his hat
And then he takes his breath
And he turns his head
And he looks around
As if to hear a distant sound.19

These premies meditate in order to be aware of that "distant sound," and

105

to live for it.

Finally, some premies meditate not out of sacrifice and discipline, nor even dependence, but out of the extreme pleasure it yields, and an intense feeling of love with or for their Guru. They look forward to meditation; they long for it because for them it feels like home, the whole point of the day: "Then I can just go sit down, close my

eyes, shut the world out, and be with my Lord." Meditation means meditation on Guru Maharaj Ji, and GMJ means the "experience" of love and devotion:

Meditating on your love,
Nowhere else I need to go
Meditating on your love
Nothing else I need to know
Just to let this feeling flow
From me to you -
From you to me,
Eternally20

No approach to meditation is foolproof. Again and again premies must face the fact that they cannot fully control meditation or their motivation to meditate, their sense of purpose, their ability to concentrate and stay attentive, their experience, or their feeling of being in touch with their Guru. Despite the most heroic efforts all these things come and go, and sometimes one undergoes wild swings from ordinary, everyday "reality" to the "reality" of "GMJ's world." If suddenly meditation yields no peace, no love, no pleasure, no sense of the Guru's touch, and if one had depended on these, what then? What happens when "mind gets you?" GMJ has suggested that a premie can seriously devote himself to "satsang, service, and meditation" for ten years, and then in a tenth of a second let "mind" come into his awareness and engulf him for good. The truth of these warnings is confirmed by the numbers of premies who continually drift away from the Mission. So premies

106

stand forever in danger of being "swallowed up" by "illusion." In the face of this danger they supplement "formal meditation" with other practices.

107

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

1) By 1982 or 1983 attempts were made to drop the name and refer to the ceremony merely as the "initiation."

2) Before 1975 "initiators" were referred to as "Mahatmas," which means "great souls."

3) Sometimes referred to in the early 1970's as "raja yoga" ("royal yoga" or "mental yoga") by GMJ, these sorts of techniques are fairly common in contemporary Hindu sects, especially the Sant Mat tradition, from which GMJ's lineage derived. (Lane, 1981) For a description of some similar techniques, see Reiker (1971).

4) "Awakening" is a commonly used and even hackneyed spiritual metaphor. But my inspiration for using it came from Matza's (1969) phenomenology of marijuana intoxication. (Perhaps he was inspired by Schutz or Kirkegaard.) "Awakening from" and "awakening to" seems to be a crucial distinction perhaps not necessary in the case of marijuana because marijuana intoxication is less subtle than meditation.

5) Walsh (1977, 1978) describes these same "moods." He suggests that emotions actually are nothing but tightly entwined thoughts, which one can distinguish when one looks carefully enough. He was practising "Vipassana" meditation, which involves nothing but a continual observation of the flow of thought. One does not desire to view a beautiful scene, as in the artist's analogy, but one just continually watches the vehicles on the road, realizing that they are merely vehicles on the road, and never getting swept away by them. Thus his meditation involves a similar "awakening from," but not the "awakening to" of DLM or other meditations which aim at a particular state; in fact, an "awakening to" experience in Vipassana is observed as just one more vehicle passing along the road.

6) In this discussion, "music" will be used as the example; premies meditate on the "light" and the "Holy Name" in a similar manner.

7) In this discussion I have deliberately used the word "beg" instead of "pray" - though premies use both interchangeably - because "beg" connotes more adequately the urgency and desperation involved, and "pray" can connote repeated formulas, piety, solemnity, boring and empty ritual, hypocricy, ineffectiveness. Premies have only one ritual prayer, a devotional song calles "Arati," translated from Sanskrit and said to have been written by a Swami Brahmananda. They sing it after "satsang" and upon arising, at least in the ashrams during their more pious phases. One time premies began saying another prayer together after evening "satsang," but GMJ stopped the practice. Unlike formal prayer, premie "begging" can hardly be called a practice; one falls into it, or resorts to it, in the course of other types of practice.

8) Kurt Wolff's (1962) notion of surrender is very similar to premies', „though it is not defined religiously.

108

9) Poem by a premie from Phoenix, Arizona: excerpt.

10) From a short story by a premie from Phoenix, Arizona.

11) Followers of Baba Muktananda and other Hindu gurus have told me similar stories, though such jerkings strong enough to move the body like that are extremely rare among premies. Muktananda followers call the energy "shakti" and various jerkings and spasmodic movements in meditation are called "kriyas." Muktananda followers report them very frequently and take them for granted.

12) From a poem by Alan Thomas.

13) From a poem by Charles Cameron.

14) This was before the infamous split between Maharaj Ji and his mother.

15) From a popular premie-authored song, "Meditating on Your Love," played often by premie bands at festivals.

16) Poem by Charles Cameron.

17) This is a stock story in many Hindu and yogic writings.

18) From a song by Annie Bishop.

19) From a song by Mitch.

20) From the premie song, "Meditating on Your Love."

109

CHAPTER IV

INFORMAL MEDITATION

INTRODUCTION

"Informal" meditation during the day resembles "formal" meditation in many ways: one has the same struggles of concentration and distraction, effort and "surrender," "mind" and "experience;" and one undergoes the same oscillation between the "realities" of ordinary life and "Guru Maharaj Ji's world."

But the context differs. In "formal" meditation one retires from everything and sits alone, sheltered from distraction and demands. Having entered the meditative reality nothing external prevents delving deeply into it. But in daily life even monastics must work, eat, relate to others, keep healthy, appear sane and law-abiding. What is meditation like under these circumstances, and how do premies induce and maintain it?

Premies call their "informal" meditative effort being "on the Word," or "in Holy Name." They try to remember the "vibration" of "Holy Name" at least with every breath - approximately every six seconds during sedentary activity - and ideally through the course of every breath. In addition they try continually to practice the "nectar" meditation technique.

Being "on the Word" is a central preoccupation of premie life which premies constantly discuss in all seriousness:

My boyfriend really meditates a lot. We'll be walking somewhere, or

110

eating dinner, or just talking, and I'll look at him, and I'll just realize he's in Holy Name and it'll blow my mind. Because it just didn't occur to me to meditate, I had so utterly forgotten about Holy Name and there he was, remembering. (notes)

and in jest:

Some of us were clowning around in the ashram living-room waiting for dinner. One premie did a strange sort of flip off the couch and landed half on a pillow, half on another premie. Everyone laughed and one girl asked maybe only half-jokingly, "Were you on the Word when you did that?" (Notes)

One comical premie song went, "Life is so absurd when you don't remember the Word."1

"The Word" is a practice:

Sometimes I just sort of wake up, and I realize that hours have gone by and I haven't remembered one breath. And I can't get down on myself about that. I can't get mad at myself, because that makes me forget again, so what I have to do is just to drop everything and start remembering every breath from that moment on. (Satsang notes)

And "the Word" is a state of being:

I took my baby with me shopping, and had to change him in the rest- room and this lady helped me. Normally that's all such a hassle, but I was on the Word, and everything just flowed, it was beautiful. On the Word all day. (satsang notes)

As with "formal" meditation, when the "experience" comes the method is rendered superfluous and in a sense disappears, for the state maintains itself. The method seems almost counterproductive, for the very way it is conceived and practiced reveals a mode of cognition inimical to the meditative state. In no direct way does the method of "remembering Holy Name" lead willy-nilly to the state of "being in Holy Name." Sometimes one falls into the state almost by accident; other times hours of conscientious practice seem to yield nothing. As an extreme example a premie once told me that he had actually achieved the feat of remembering each breath all day long every day for some weeks. And yet nothing had happened, it was mechanical, and his effort never

111

brought that "experience of Holy Name" which he was now beginning to find. Nevertheless premies practice the method because something about it seems necessary and somehow tends to work.

THE METHOD: ATTENTION

When premies try to stay in "Holy Name" during the day they quickly discover that this practice demands one's full attention: distractions cause one to forget about the breath immediately. One of the Guru's more grisly Hindu stories compares this kind of attention with the attention required of a disciple of ancient times whose master made him carry around a full bowl of oil on his head and threatened to stab him to death the instant the first drop spilled.

For the breath to consume one's full attention one must, as in "formal" meditation, learn to disregard the "chatterings" of the "mind." But premies find that the "mind" chatters even more in daily life than in "formal" meditation. Along with the usual daydreams, worries, moods, and so on, they find that the "mind" continually "reacts" to whatever one perceives.

If I walk down the street, for example, seeing a dog might inspire a whole cascade of "thoughts" and related emotions: 'Will it bite?' (The welling-up of fear.) 'What kind is it?' (curiosity) 'It looks like Sweetie that dog Danny used to have - no, it couldn't be, that was ten years ago, wonder where he is now?' (nostalgia) 'It's lying kind of funny, is it hurt? Nancy's husband is a vet, maybe…' (urge to do good) 'No, it's just comfortable, it likes the sun. Such a warm day, I'd like to go swimming…' (desire) 'Ugh, look at that mess all over the lawn' (disgust) 'They should do something about these

112

dogs; everywhere you walk …'

In two or three seconds this whole cluster of thoughts and emotions can appear or disappear and spin off a hundred others like them. Then I might see a notice on a telephone pole, a car with a smashed fender or strange license plate, an unusually beautiful garden, an empty cigarette pack on the sidewalk - and each of these objects inspires reactions, comments, theories, categories, wellings-up of emotions of every sort. And most likely many of the reactions concern the sense of "I": "I" is comparing, planning about, fearing what it sees, all in relation to its "self."

Under these circumstances of a "mind" so much more active and "scattered" than when one sits quietly alone, how does one go about devoting full attention to the breath? As with "formal" meditation, premies often find that their first efforts in "informal" meditation often turn out to be "wrong effort," but ultimately that "wrong effort" can instruct.

Instead of concentrating the attention one quickly finds that the effort to remember the breath fragments the attention even further. With the attention already scattered between one's internal "chatterings," one's surroundings, and one's reactions to those surroundings, one remembers about meditation and includes the breath among the things one is trying to keep track of. The attention then divides not only between the breath and one's surroundings but also between ordinary mental "chattering," reactions to surroundings, and the extra "chattering" generated by the meditative effort of spiritual worries, self- congratulation, pep-talking, and morbid anxieties.

113

THE METHOD: CORRECT MOTIVATION

According to premies this type of "wrong effort" emerges from the incorrect motivation of trying to fit meditation in along with whatever one wants to do:

To live in Holy Name requires a wee bit of courage. It doesn't require a whole lot of courage to watch your breath while you're driving a car, watch your breath while you're eating ice cream, but to go in a little deeper - when you're doing a television interview, when you're playing in a tournament, when you're doing something where something sort of seems to be at stake … well, I better to this thing and then get back to meditation … how willing… ?

This is nip and tuck; we can fool ourselves by saying that while you're doing your actions in the world, that are so important, you can also meditate, but I have a feeling that ain't it. (recorded satsang, Denver, 1974)

"That ain't it" because, practically, insistence on a certain activity creates an inflexible mental posture which seems to hoard the attention. It is hard enough under these circumstances to direct any attention to the breath, let alone all of it. One either loses meditation completely or splits the attention between it and one's activity.

To avoid this dividing of attention premies try to give meditation first priority in their daily life, tailoring their activities to facilitate or at least not interfere too much with meditation. They stress "formal meditation" to tame the "mind," for example, if they find they can't tame it in the haphazard environment of daily life. Then they try simply to maintain the state they gained in "formal meditation:"

Don't get up from meditation quickly. Don't talk to anyone. Get up slowly, fold up your blanket and walk slowly from the room remembering with every step to focus on the breath. Finish up in the bathroom and get dressed, but do it consciously, don't forget the Word for a second. At breakfast don't let anyone take you out of Holy Name. Just breathe. Don't talk unless it's satsang. Just eat quietly, focus on the breath. Then if you walk to work, it's easy to make an association that every time I take a step, that will put me back in Holy Name. If you take the bus you can just sit

114

there and focus your eyes on one point so your attention doesn't wander. Then when you get to work and see your boss, good luck! (satsang notes)

In addition, sometimes premies take "meditation breaks" during the day, stealing away to the restroom or behind some boxes at work, or dropping everything and sitting quietly at home. But stopping to meditate all the time makes for inefficiency. Even the premie headquarters in Denver discontinued use of a meditation room in their offices because premies disrupted their work too much going there, and sometimes they feel asleep instead of meditating. But without meditation breaks and after awhile, if one is not careful, the effects of a solid "formal" meditation may begin to wear off.

To retard this wearing-off process premies sometimes go about their daily activity very slowly. Before any motion they seem to wait for another breath to be sure they haven't forgotten it. Simple, manual tasks lend themselves more easily to staying in meditation because little attention is required and one doesn't have to think or imagine anything.

Slowing one's activity in this way it almost seems as if one engages oneself not only with the breath but with a general feeling of stillness in the room, in the air. Wanting to stay with that inner and outer stillness, one acts so as not to disturb it. One goes at a pace which fits in with the sense of stillness. One doesn't let the activity become fast or important enough to distract one's attention from absorption in that stillness. It almost seems that one acts in a way so as to minimize one's own presence altogether, to let one's breath speak for one's presence but otherwise to remain unobtrusive, yielding to the stillness.

To maintain this sense of slowness a premie frequently will

115

pause in whatever he is doing and take a long, deep breath, perhaps closing his eyes. Some of these pauses have become ritualized, as when premies automatically close their eyes for a few moments before eating, starting up a car, or attempting any difficult feat.

Slow pace can facilitate meditation on the breath, but it does not always work. Slow-motion can be impractical, frustrating, or boring, and these very dissatisfactions may prevent meditation. Slow pace also looks calm and meditative. It has become something of a premie virtue; "slow down" has come almost to mean "meditate." But when premies use slow pace merely to appear meditative they forget about the actual process of meditation.

Finally, premies try to simplify their activities, often preferringsimple manual jobs and dropping school, hobbies, travel, or reading. They sometimes come to fear doing anything complicated or challenging for fear that "getting into it" or "losing one's focus on GMJ" will ruin their meditation. Yet a person can only simplify his life so far, and even the simplest activity can bring one out of meditation:

I was meditating during this one satsang. Like, I was really feeling Holy Name more tangibly than usual… and I was feeling it so that I could physically feel - every breath. Then satsang was over and I had misplaced my jacket… and as soon as I started looking for my jacket, that feeling went away… I mean, as soon as I really started looking, like where is my jacket, I've got to find my jacket - that feeling that I saw tangibly, right here, wasn't being felt. I was still watching my breath, but that really nice touch wasn't there. And I said "Wow! What do I want to do? Do I want to feel this or do I want to look for my jacket?" And it wasn't an easy question because you know, we need to be practical. (recorded satsang, Denver, 1974)

Further, the Mission, while insulated to a certain extent from mainstream American life, still yields a lifestyle often extremeley complex and involving. The organization is always in a state of flux; some

116

crisis or exciting event is generally at hand, limited funds and manpower keep everyone exhaustingly busy. One can't "slow down" and simplify one's life too far and still participate in the Mission; those who try get the reputation for being "spacey" or absent-minded and unreliable.

On a practical level then, premies have a hard time "putting Holy Name first" and relegating activity to secondary importance. Strategies such as meditation breaks and slow or simplified activity only go so far. Activity seems always to try to take over, and the struggles to assert Holy Name as one's primary motivation lead to endless fears, guilts and anxieties over one's activities. Ultimately any activity at all tends to divide the attention.

One comes finally to see that the mistake lies in conceiving of meditation and activity as two separate things somehow competing for attention in a zero-sum game in which attention to one steals attention from the other and one cannot gracefully coordinate the two.

But just seeing the nature of this zero-sum game does not necessarily change the situation, for one knows of no other way to try. At best the practice of trying to coordinate meditation and activity leads one to awakening from the "mind." One comes to see the "mind's" efforts to meditate, the "ego's" little triumphs and disappointments when meditation or activity seem to come first, the dividing up of the world into activities and situations which either foster or threaten meditation, the preoccupations with trying to appear meditative to others and to oneself, the self-judgement for having these very preoccupations. And seeing this one gradually learns not to identify with these inner dramas. But, as in "formal meditation," recognizing or

117

awakening from the "mind" does not necessarily bring awakening to the meditation "experience."

THE METHOD: STRATEGIES FOR AWAKENING TO

Premie culture offers many methods of awakening to so that one may undergo daily life in the meditative state. The sacralizing of interaction through "satsang" practice, for example, often brings one into the meditative state more efficiently than does "formal" meditation. Just a few minutes of "satsang" between sincere premies can reorient them into meditation.

GMJ's picture, which hangs everywhere, also helps premies awaken to the meditative state by reminding them of the powerful experiences they sometimes have when seeing him personally in "darshan." Premies try to understand meditation itself as something divine, deeply meaningful, intimately connected with the Guru. The term "Holy Name" as opposed to "the Word" helps them in this. They will sometimes say that its "vibration" "is" God, or the Guru, or perhaps "the thing which is keeping me alive." They adopt a reverential attitude toward the breath, feeling that God or the Guru is breathing them, dwelling actively within the body in this intimate way, always vigilant, never leaving, always caring. Remembering "Holy Name," then, is remembering Guru Maharaj Ji, or "the Lord." In "satsang" a premie once recommended that one imagine "that you are laying each breath at His Feet." For him every breath became almost a sacrifice, a directing of his life energy toward the Guru.

This use of the guru-symbol can certainly facilitate awakening to the meditative state, but just as slow pace and simplicity become

118

ends in themselves and "satsang" becomes social life, the Guru symbol can trap one into itself, obscuring the very thing it symbolizes. One becomes involved in wishing, imagining, pretending. Over-indulgence in the "love" of the Guru or in other religious aims can bring on an emotional excess which seizes the attention away from its subtly poised orientation within the breath.

Just as with "formal" meditation a strategy for awakening to the meditative state may or may not work, and sometimes one awakens to without having used any particular strategy. But however it comes, the moment of awakening to is not a quantitative change in the amount of attention devoted to remembering the breath but a qualitative change, when one spontaneously drops one's preoccupations, leaps out of strategies, and lets seeing occur differently, dwelling in the precise quality of the moment. This is "surrender," the basis of all the strategies, and yet independent of them all and effective only when one "lets go" and starts seeing non-strategically. The premie who was looking for his jacket after "satsang" eventually "surrendered" and found the right way to look for it:

There was a certain way, though, of looking for that jacket that didn't require losing that feeling of Holy Name; it's hard to describe what it was, but I found it. It was like, you don't look too hard for it. Mostly what you're doing is staying in Holy Name, and while you're staying in Holy Name you're sort of checking out for your jacket. And I found that if I did that, that feeling kept happening. And yet, if I were looking for my jacket, and while I was looking for my jacket I was attending to Holy Name, there was none of that feeling. (recorded satsang, Denver, 1974)

In this switch to new seeing, attention, meditation, and activity suddenly become as if one and the same; they fuse. No longer does the attention divide, for it is absorbed by meditation, or through meditation into the immediacy at hand. Once this switch happens, meditative

119

perception and meditative activity can emerge.

MEDITATIVE PERCEPTION

In the meditative state one controls reactions to perception or qualifications of perception, not perception itself. When the reactions and qualifications subside the perception remains and, in fact, sharpens. The immediacy of the breath exposes extraneous thoughts and reactions as irrelevant to the moment at hand. Awareness of the breath seems to tie the attention to the present situation. One feels the breath here, now. As the breath fascinates, pulling attention into itself, so too surrounding objects fascinate. One sees them as if through the breath, and they come to radiate with something of the same "energy;" they entice with their very freshness.

The undistractedness of effective meditation seems to change the quality or intensity of perception. A can of soup at the market absorbs one's entire attention. The colors on the label stand out vividly; one notices little scratches on the paper, the interesting patterns of letters and background. When one looks up, the aisles and other shoppers are almost a surprise, for that can of soup had been everything and one had nearly forgotten where one was. When one comes out of a store or a building the change of scene can make one do a 'double-take,' like the jolt one feels in coming from an intense movie into the light of day outside the theater.

Sometimes in meditation one seems to see from a different angle. It is as if the center of one's self, the thing which sees, has shifted slightly, perhaps to higher up in the head or to a generalized point of head and torso together. The eyes still see but one senses almost that

120

something sees through them, from a different point.

This "something," this new and perhaps larger center, seems to see more and differently. It does not seek to compare or classify but looks for something within an object, or looks to a different point within it. It almost enters into the thing it sees, or becomes part of it, or flows into it, or allows the object to flow into itself. One becomes immediately involved in the thing one sees. The breath and the breath's "vibration" fills it, and one seems to enter into its meaning.

An object seems to mean something or to convey, by its very being in that place at that moment, something more than its bare existence.

It stands for something, it is connected to something, it is something more than it appears. Yet this existential meaning is not the mental process of labeling or association; it is a total impression, a sense and almost a sensation which fills one with a sense of knowing, which rounds out and completes the bare visual impression. The can of soup, for example, rests complete in one's hands - round, smooth, with a certain weight,a certain sense of finality. The words, the picture, the color on the label complement one another, form a pattern in whose inner relations a kind of completeness rests. One could almost say that it seems to satisfy, or that one knows it fully. With this absorption one doesn't lose the breath, pulling it out, enlivening it. And the enlivened breath enhances absorption, the meaningfulness, the aliveness and completeness of the can of soup.

Yet one doesn't stay indefinitely with that can of soup. Back on the shelf or into the shopping cart in the next moment, it is forgotten. One pays at the checkstand, goes outside, and experiences the same kind of absorption into the process of walking, the rhythm of the body, the relation to the breath within it. And as the eyes travel this

121

way and that, surveying the sidewalk for uneven places, glancing about from fence to driveway to telephone pole to parked car, one feels an evenness toward these various things. One takes them all in, one not less than the other. One by one objects stand out and absorb, but together they fall into place along with one another, forming a pattern or a meaningful relation. One feels compelled to say "yes" to the arrangement of tree and yard, parked car and sign. In the angles of the sign, the shadow of the tree, the glint of sun on the car's windshield, one senses a statement or a message that this is so in this way because it is so in this way - unique but standing for and related to every- thing. And any small part of the pattern reveals its meaning more fully. Whatever object one looks upon seems to draw one infinitely into it: the car, not only with its shapes, glossiness, colors, and lines, but the variations in that glossiness, the depth of it, the intensity of color, the placement of this scratch, that speck of dirt, this slightly faded spot. Each level of depth brings another level of meaning, another understanding that stands by itself and yet rounds out ever more subtly the understanding of it all, the relation to the breath, and one's own place in that whole.

This new angle of seeing, the shifted sense of self, the sense of immediacy, the new meaning of things provides that same sense of new reality which premies discover in "formal" meditation. Only now that reality is not separate, to be reached by retreating from the world in private contemplation. Now that reality pervades and includes the everyday world. Ordinary objects speak to one differently and seem to hold deep implications about the meaning of existence, the relationship of one thing to another, of one thing to everything of one's seeing-breathing

122

to one thing and to everything. This other reality, this "Guru Maharaj Ji's world" is nothing but the ordinary world, but it is that ordinary world differently perceived.

One now senses that one sees it entirely or in essence, that one sees "Holy Name" vibrating within everything. Premies often speak of how bright and clear things seem when one meditates, or how things seem to scintillate or "vibrate." Sometimes they talk about "seeing light everywhere." Many times I have had conversations with premies about how the quality of light seems to change when one is in meditation, especially when one sits quietly in the ashram. Some premies actually have thought something wrong with their eyes, and I occasionally have wondered if somehow an unusual sort of lighting had been installed at the ashram. Thus the "inner reality" of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world" does not merely appear within oneself, it appears within everything. It exists within oneself only in the sense that one comes to see it by going within oneself in meditation to the point where the new angle or way of seeing emerges.

How does one act, then, within the "reality" which appears when one views the world through meditation? Even when a can of soup at the market "means everything" one still knows that one must pay for it, carry it home, open and cook it to feed the folks at home. And to get more cans like it somebody has to go to work.

MEDITATIVE ACTIVITY

If one does both meditation and activity yet does not divide the attention between them, then in a sense one feels as if one is doing neither. One's motivation is neither toward doing meditation nor doing activity but toward something common to both of them, from which both

123

arise. Premies have a feel for this something, which can seem like a point, an essence, or an energy. Usually they call it "Guru Maharaj Ji," but often they will call it "that place," "that thing," their "inner self," their "true self," "inside," "the thing which is keeping me alive," "who I really am" or even "God:"

There's no such thing as "the path," the long weary way that the devotees are treading on, and someday we'll reach there. There's no such thing. It's just us and that timeless, endless, infinite, incredible experience. That's all there is. Just that infinite, endless wonderful thing. We think we're spaced-out premies, but actually there's this unshakable, uncrushable thing inside, when you see it you know it's there and you know you're a premie. (interview notes)

Though "that place" is like a specific center or point of origin premies do not generally associate it with a particular bodily location. Still, they know "where"it is, how it feels, and when they are motivated toward it.

Motivation toward "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji" in one sense focuses attention on it but in another sense makes it the origin of attention. "That place/Guru Maharaj Ji" becomes that which attends, that which sees - and then further, that which does.

If "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji" is the thing which sees and does then, according to premies, one's "self" "or" "ego" or "mind" or the sense of "I" is not the entity which sees and does. In fact, when "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji" is seeing or doing, the sense of "self" or "ego" or "I" can seem to disappear altogether. Usually it does not completely disappear, but it loses its appearance of centrality:

It begins to seem like this little framework of chicken-wire that you used to think was like big structural steel and now it hasn't actually changed, but your perceptions have changed to where you hadn't actually realized that what you thought was structural steel was actually chicken-wire, so that it really is still there, but this other thing is just going up in the middle of it. After awhile the chicken-wire is just there, but there's this great big strong

124

thing that's Knowledge. The other thing's still in the same place, but its relative importance has changed tremendously. (interview notes)

From the point of view of "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji" or "inside," the "ego" or "I" appears hopelessly unstable and relative, coinciding with whatever moods, thoughts, or motivations happen to arise from moment to moment in the "mind:"

I got so irritated with my ego because first of all it kept saying I really ought to go out and get an ice cream; I love ice cream so much. And then after I went and ate the ice cream, it started to say, I really shouldn't have gotten that ice cream, it's full of sugar and I'll get fat. Slowly I'm learning not to take it seriously any more. (satsang notes)

Usually premies vacillate back and forth between this sort of distancing from the "I/ego" and a complete identity with it once again. In relation to activity they experience a struggle over "who" is doing it - one's "ego" or "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji." The sense of "ego," or "I", it seems, is reinforced when it has the sense of doing something. The "ego" seems to hate to do nothing; perhaps the sense of its reality starts to fade if it is not "doing" anything, or originating action from itself. Premies' struggle with this "ego" is the struggle of keeping it inactive and letting activity originate instead from "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji."

Even the simplest walk down the street should be done not from "ego" but from this other point: in "satsang" once a woman explained that at a distance she had seen a truck blocking the sidewalk, and for three blocks had wondered how she would get around it, only to have it pull away just as she reached it. All this busy "'thinking" of the "mind" could have been saved had she been content to remain in "Holy Name" and trust the other point, which knew without worrying ahead what to do.

Gallwey illustrates this principle in sports. In The Inner Game

125

of Tennis (1974) and sequels he speaks of a "Self 1," more or less the "mind" or "ego" which premies speak of, which one ought to "shut off." "Self 2," on the other hand, seems to be something, at least in sports, like the body's natural wisdom. It can act unhampered only when the mind is stilled.

Attention to the moment of the present, he says, allows one to "let it happen." In tennis one trusts the body to know how to hit the ball correctly without continual "advice" from the "mind." But in life one trusts something more intangible - something, premies would say, which is "inside," and which knows:

One cold winter evening, I drove from New Hampshire to a small town in northern Maine. On my way back at about midnight, I skidded on an icy curve and spun my Volkswagen gently but firmly off the road into a snowbank.

As I sat in the car getting colder by the second, the gravity of my situation struck me. It was about twenty degrees below zero outside, and I had nothing other than the sports jacket I was wearing… . I had no map and no idea how far ahead the next town might be.

I was faced with an interesting existential choice. I would freeze if I remained in the car, so I had to decide whether to walk forward into the unknown in the hope that a town might be around the very next corner, or to walk back in the direction from which I had come, knowing that there was certain help at least fifteen miles back. After deliberating for a moment, I decided to take my chances with the unknown. After all, isn't that what they do in the movies? I walked forward for about ten steps and then, without thinking, pivoted decisively and walked back the other way. (Gallwey, 1974, p. 137)

Gallwey's "ego" or "mind" suggested he walk ahead into the unknown like in the movies, but the intuitive "place inside" made him turn in the other direction.

A premie songwriter explained to me that the same thing happens in the arts. Once, he said, GMJ had embarrassed him. His usual songs were quite good and people enjoyed them, but one in particular was expecially smooth and lyrical and became a favorite "satsang" song. He

126

said, "Maharaj Ji came right through me; he wrote that song and I had nothing to do with it. It's like he showed me up, it's the best song I ever wrote, and he showed me that he could write better then I can when I just get out of the way." For this musician, GMJ doing it for him was different from ordinary creativity, because even this was to him a manifestation of his "ego." When GMJ "wrote the song," a different quality of expression emerged.2

One premie explained this in "satsang" with the theory that the breath can work in two ways. Either one consciously controls its movement or one lets it go of its own accord. It is easy enough to let the breath go of its own accord while sleeping or thinking about something else. But the trick is to let the breath go on its own while giving its movement full attention. On very subtle levels, he suggested, one might want to prolong an especially pleasurable moment of the breath cycle or feel slight alarm about the length of the pause before a new inhalation. Thus one might tense certain muscles against the normal flow, controlling it oneself almost unconsciously. To breathe spontaneously with full attention one must completely trust in the power that controls the breath.

In the same way, he continued, one can let either oneself or that other power control one's everyday activities. Refraining from one's own control is difficult because the "mind" operates on such a subtle level, and one can easily mistake some aspect of the "mind" for that other power. Incredible trust is required to let the other power run one's life, but that trust is practical because ultimately that other power will take over anyway. For example, you cannot hold your own breath indefinitely; if you try, you will faint and automatically

127

exhale. And if you are on your death bed and your last breath is rattling out, all your efforts will not make another one come in.

Similarly, he said, when one's "ego" controls the actions to get what one thinks one wants one can only succeed to a certain extent. One's vision is partial and unclear, one's desires fickle, and one's powers limited. Sooner or later events will revert in the direction that the ultimate other power has taken. Far better to "surrender" right away to the other power than to do what one wants, fighting against the current so to speak and having eventually to reach defeat anyway. Therefore, he concluded, for one's own good one must refrain from letting one's "ego" act. It must "do" nothing. If one "does" nothing, even in important circumstances, then one must trust that that other power - "that place/Guru Maharaj Ji" - will act. Of course that other power may end up acting in a way which seems counter to one's momentary interests; but one must trust it anyway.

THE EXPERIENCE OF MEDITATIVE ACTIVITY

When one "lets Guru Maharaj Ji do it" then doing just happens; it moves and motivates itself. But still, somehow, one must act. When first appointed to a high-ranking Mission position a certain premie once gave a series of "satsangs" in which he described how he just sat back and "allowed things to happen." "You don't really have to do anything," he would explain, "just stay in Holy Narpe and 'go with the flow.'" He was reacting to a period of intense planning activity in the Mission leadership during which many felt the spirit of meditation had been lost. All went well for awhile and people relaxed and stopped worrying so much about planning. But after awhile he reported in "satsang," "Well

128

I thought I had it together, just to meditate and go with the flow, but Guru Maharaj Ji just told me, 'How do you like that, I've got a Mission leader who takes no initiative.'" And so he learned that intentioned passivity was not quite what GMJ had in mind when he suggested that meditation should guide one's actions.

In fact one does act; one does not sit passively and expect the body to move despite oneself. A premie champion chess player tried to explain the relation between meditation and playing chess. On the one hand, meditation changes his perception:

Concentration is everything in chess. When I'm concentrated I just see the chess board and the pieces in a much clearer outline. You sit there and focus your whole attention on the board and the pieces, and the more you fix your mind on it, the more you're in tune with what's really there.

But on the other hand, meditation does not actually do the action of moving chess pieces.

I try to meditate, but at the same time, I've found that I can't just sit there meditating on the Word and looking on the chess board and then a move will suddenly appear to me. In other words, I have to initiate the process of thought. There's just a board there and the pieces, and in reality, there's no relation. You might know that a queen has different moves than a bishop, but when it's on the board, it's just a piece of wood, standing on a square. … The actual moves aren't laid out, so you have to use your imagination a lot.

He finds himself studying his thought process so as to be able to use his mind in a certain way:

You look at the way you're looking at the position and you try to look at that objectively. You look at a position and think about it and then make a decision about what kind of move you're going to play, and then if you can actually look back at that, or see that as that's happening - how that process is working - then you can see really how your mind is working.

His thought process turns out to involve limiting fixed patterns:

It's only the old method of thinking, the old habits, that come back, that I have to fight against. There's something like an automatic habit. When you're writing, you don't think of how the letters are

129

formed - you're just writing it, because you've done it so many times before, but there was a time when you had to learn A, B, C, D, and all that. These automatic habits and ways of thinking about a certain position might be good for a certain level, but when you go on to another level you want to do it in a different way, a better way, but you still have the way your mind works. You don't have a new approach, a spontaneous approach, it's just the old thing that comes up that you don't want to use, so you just have to really make a conscious effort to go beyond that.

Perhaps if the old thought patterns are seen for what they are, spontaneity can appear:

I've noticed that sometimes I can see that concentration happening, and it just flows, because you're not attached to any idea of winning or losing or how much money you're going to get, or what this person is going to say. I can see that previously I was attached, because I had all these ideas about what should be happening. When I get attached now, I know that my mind is doing that trip; I've seen it do that so many times before, and so it's just a question of doing meditation until it goes away.

There's also the thing of intuition - just looking at a position and knowing what the right thing is. But you have to get rid of the old things that keep coming up… . If you could just sit at the chessboard and not think about anything, then it will all start to happen… . I've experienced that, but it's Grace to be at that point. (staff interview notes)

In a sense this poising to "let GMJ do it" requires the most painstaking attention, for one's entire habit and impulse dictate otherwise. One must let all one's habitual responses and urgent action-related thoughts pass quietly and simply wait, in meditation. To do this one must adopt the same utterly passive stance that one takes in "formal meditation." One has to do nothing. But then doing nothing does not mean fixedly deciding to do nothing, or trying to do nothing, or willing oneself to do nothing, for these are all types of doing, inspired by "thoughts" which one must let pass. In other words, the conception of "doing nothing" is simply a conception which gets in the way of actually doing nothing. This sense of doing nothing means something like doing or at least originating no action from the point of view of conceptual

130

thought. One must be attentive to the myriad ways one can try to mimic or force this "doing nothing," for generally one tries to "do nothing" in the way one habitually goes about doing anything else - in arrogance or in hesitation, to triumph or to find relief, diligently or haphazardly. But one's own version of "doing nothing" will teach one nothing, for actually "doing nothing" feels quite different from one's fantasy or imitation or concept of it:

No, I can't imagine what it would be like just to let Guru Maharaj Ji unfold my day for me, and me do nothing. I can't imagine not taking control and planning everything for myself. And yet that's what he's asking, just to let go and let him live my life, let him run my life. (Satsang notes)

And yet a few days later she was describing how while job-hunting she answered an ad which her "mind" had suggested was not worthwhile pursuing. She had pursued it anyway and at the interview had ended up giving the lady "satsang" for three hours. No job came as a result, but she felt that GMJ had led her to that lady, and that her "mind" had tried to dissuade her from answering the ad.

The "doing nothing" of meditative activity only begins, of course, with awakening to the meditative experience. When one becomes aware of the "energy" of "Holy Name" in the breath or the sense of perceptual vividness and clarity which it provides, one must let the attention be pulled into it and away from the "mind's" proposals for action. Then, though in a sense to remain in meditation requires the utmost mental precision, in another sense the meditation takes over and captivates, and one spontaneously surrenders, abandons oneself, disappears. One now has meditative perception, and one's actions unfold in precise attunement with the breath-centered world which one now sees. One does not decide to do anything, but the situation elicits one's actions and

131

one responds spontaneously as everything else responds, as another ordinary part of a balanced whole. Meditative perception allows one to see differently from one's habitual seeing and to feel as if one were acting without one's usual limitations. One sees both the situation and one's self differently and one responds to that newly-seen situation in a seemingly unlimited way.

In meditative activity one may feel slowed down because the breath focuses one's attention precisely in the moment and events do not jumble hastily one after the other but seem to follow along precisely and clearly. One does not have to act in haste, and frenzy disappears. And yet one is not trying to act slowly or to pause deliberately until the next breath comes. The world simply appears in a way which allows one's actions to come in an unfrenzied, precise manner. Subjectively this feels less slow than orderly and in place. And objectively it may not appear slow at all. One does not appear to others to stand apart in self-conscious meditativeness or solemnity. Rather one appears fully in a situation and yet, in a subtle way, unexpectedly slipping through its holes unharried, acting so much in accordance with it that one surprises. Somehow one merges so fully in the situation that one comes out the other side, so to speak, in a sense independent of it. One does not separate it from oneself and try to mold it in some way, but lets it carry one along, intact, until it unfolds itself however it will.

Premies are apt to describe meditative activity as a flow, a dance, a feeling of smooth, effortless energy. Things mesh perfectly and one need never hurry. One's body works efficiently with little strain, one is relaxed and does not tire so easily, one feels happy,

132

calm, concentrated, contented.

One's action has an indescribable meaning. As with meditative perception, the total picture seems to come into balance. One's actions unfold in relation to that greater picture and one senses in one's activity an attunement with other activities. Not feeling oneself in one's actions one does not separate them off from the sense of a harmonious universe; rather, the harmony of that universe pervades oneself.

Meditative activity has an exquisite sense of timing; coincidences come alive with meaningful significance. Indeed, when Rennie Davis was running the harried and half-organized Mission preparations for the "Millennium '73" festival, he often joked about "the incidence of coincidence." Premies seemed almost to count on coincidence to get things done. They feel that meditation increases coincidence, or perhaps that moving "in tune" makes one able to see coincidence or meaning, makes one have the sense of arriving just at the right time at the right place, or makes one trust that arriving at the wrong time will, in time, turn out to have its own reason and significance. Then when things don't "flow," when one continually seems to just miss, when one's timing seems to be off, then premies feel they aren't in meditation:

We were supposed to deliver this engine part to the airport so it could be flown to Maharaj Ji that day. There was a huge traffic jam on the way to the airport. Of course there was that lane on the shoulder where we could have driven to get past everybody else, but I thought we'd get a ticket. So we waited for about three minutes stalled in the traffic and then we just looked at each other and I just zoomed up that lane on the shoulder past all that traffic to the airport. And you know what? We were exactly three minutes late for the plane. Just the time where I had hesitated, listening to my "mind;" we missed the plane by that much. (satsang notes)

But this "flow" does not necessarily always bring the "best" results, or the thing that one had most wanted or expected to happen. The "flow" in itself becomes the relevant goal, and one becomes "detached

133

from the results of one's actions." One is pervaded by a sense of all right-ness, of trust, of knowing that one is "in synch." And the timing of one's thoughts, the thing one glances upon, the appearance of other people or unpredicted events reinforce this "synched-up" feeling.

One conceives the eerie suspicion that somehow things are arranging themselves according to one's consciousness. When one "surrenders" things work out, and when one doesn't things don't:

That day Guru Maharaj Ji was in the office building, I was just praying and praying so much, oh Maharaj Ji just let me see you, I just have to see you - just one little glimpse and I'll be satisfied but please I've got to have that one little glimpse of you. And as long as I was into that I never saw him. But then Jim came over and said look, we've got to get this mailing out and you've been spacing out all day and he gave me a little satsang. And I got into getting the mailing together so completely that I didn't want to be interrupted, and I was almost irritated when Jim came over and touched my shoulder and said "look." But then I turned around and there was Guru Maharaj Ji, smiling at me from across the room. (satsang notes)

But then again when one is "surrendered" the idea of "working out" has a different meaning because it doesn't really matter how things work out and one can accept the unexpected:

I was really sad. The festival was over, and I called Jan to get together one last time before she went back to England, but she was too tired. I didn't push it, but then I felt I had lost everything - the festival was over, everybody was leaving and I would be alone. It even seemed that Maharaj Ji had abandoned me. I was just walking around in a daze, but somehow I started to feel Holy Name, it was really beautiful, I felt at peace. Then all of a sudden this guy came up to me and it was Claude, my favorite person from my high school class whom I hadn't seen in ten years, and I had no idea he was a premie. He'd even been at some other festivals but I hadn't run into him because it seemed that my running into him had been saved for this very moment. I just stared at him, and now it seemed like Maharaj Ji was telling me that even though the festival was over still he would, through this Knowledge, bring me together with everybody that I had ever loved. (notes)

Premies come to value enormously this feeling of being "synched up" in meditation. Sometimes they call it complete freedom, because one

134

can act spontaneously, because one's mental "concepts" of how things should turn out are gone, because one feels open and need hide nothing, because one can relax and not defend, trust and not fear. One feels oneself here, attention pinpointed into the present. And that instant of the present opens out into an infinity of meaning, energy, joy. Sometimes they call it "being in love" because they feel love in themselves, they feel GMJ's love behind the "synching" of events (for it was he who first talked of "being in synch" in the manner of automobile gears), they feel love with other people and love for the whole creation.

* * * * *

The bane of premie life is that the "experience" of meditation comes and goes, and when it goes the love, the freedom, the peace, the harmony, the beauty, the spontaneity all go with it - and one is left "in confusion," in the "mind." Nothing goes right. The whole struggle with "ego" must begin again and once again one is caught in a myriad of "concepts," each more entrapping than the last.

The "other reality," the well-oiled world of meditation, then, is unstable. One enjoys it only for a time, and when it goes one longs for it, mourns for it, prays and struggles for it. But when it is gone it is really gone, and memory is unreal, cruelly vague. It serves only to make everything seem out of whack in the nonmeditative reality, as if nothing fits or has meaning. One cannot help acting according to one's "ego" and "concept," even while seeing them as "fake." The past and the future loom like giant ghosts and start tearing one apart. One knows not which thought to trust, which idea to pursue. The mind races, a hundred impulses conflict, the world looks menacing and full of gloom.

135

Premies say that practically anything can pull one out of meditation; another person, an enticing or hopeless situation, a lack of trust when things look as if they will go wrong. And one gets pulled because one takes just one thought seriously. Just one fleeting moment of doubt - "maybe he's right after all," or "what if they don't show up," or "boy, surrender really works, I'll try it again and see what I can get" - if one "listens" to it, interprets it as one's reality, then another thought will come which one takes all the more seriously and then more thoughts appear in a chain and with them emotions start gripping the sense of "ego," which suddenly seems to be "real," to have power, to be oneself once again. And the "ego" wants things its way.

Premies can hardly control this lapsing from meditation, just as they can hardly control awakening to meditation. Helplessly they seem to bob from one to the other, bliss to dispair, calamitous confusion to serenity. And from one "reality," the other seems utterly impossible. "When the light comes, darkness disappears," they are fond of saying. But unfortunately, something invariably blows out the "light" and "darkness" swallows them once again.

Premie life thus oscillates between the "worlds" of Guru Maharaj Ji and ordinary everyday perception. Their days are marked by a series of little conversions, or awakenings, and deconversions. And though all their efforts go towards facilitating conversion, preventing or putting off deconversions, still the oscillations continue.

This oscillation in and out of the meditative reality is the most disturbing fact of premie life, constantly disrupting one's sense of security, one's confidence in spiritual achievements, threatening even one's very faith in the paramount reality of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world."

136

In trying to deal with it, premies have developed the art of conversion to an extraordinary degree, learning how to bring one another back into meditation. They depend on one another enormously to remind each other of the meditative reality and to awaken each other to it. Thus though they have evolved an elaborate philosophy and various beliefs and modes of conduct, the practice of "satsang" has become the central element of their culture. It is through the living communication of minds in and through various states that their shared understandings and perceptions of reality emerge, and the other religious paraphernalia only accompany this primary focus.

137

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

1) From a song by Doug McGinnis

2) This quality of expression is not nessarily more artistic or aesthetic. It often seemed to me that when I was in a strongly meditative state I couldn't write as well as usual. One time in particular I was sitting in a delightful backyard in Arizona enjoying palm trees and their shadows flickering across a little fish-pool, in an almost sensual feeling of the breath. Nothing came to mind to write about but a silly analogy comparing "Holy Name" to the feeling of eating a sweet, cool bite of watermelon. At the time this analogy seemed exquisitely accurate, but later I saw it in a more realistic light.

138

CHAPTER V

FORMAL "SATSANG"

When encountering others premies use "informal" meditation to generate a specific interactive mode they call "satsang." Through this mode they continually help one another reawaken to the meditative state. A primary characteristic of Mission social life, "satsang" has impressed outsiders as nonstop dogmatism:

Weird premies unable to discuss anything but the party line, no matter what turn the conversation takes. (Greenfield, 1975, p. 81-2)

You discuss nothing that isn't directly related to the "Knowledge." You are censured if you discuss any topics of the world. [Quote from a disaffected premie] (Marin, 1979, p. 43)

But "satsang" has also impressed outsiders as a feeling, a mood, perhaps a charged-up or at least novel sort of atmosphere:

Yet if you get talking to these kids, you realize that there's definitely something going on here, they're all spaced … no … blissed out, the word they use. It's like they're all on some new kind of dope. (Greenfield, 1975, p. 68)

And many premies remember that "satsang" - not the meditation, the Guru, the theories and the promises - but the atmosphere of "satsang" first hinted of new awarenesses:

I was very amazed by the people. I could relate to them as I did to my closest friends. I could feel a complete openness from them. Their eyes didn't have dark shades rolled down over them, so that no-one could see what they had inside. (Cameron interview notes)

It was just a big blanket of light, just really nice and everybody felt really comfortable. Incredible. (Cameron interview notes)

"Satsang," like meditation, implies to premies both an experience and a specific practice, Successful practice reaps experience.

139

The "experience" of "satsang" resembles meditation "experience" in that premies feel the Guru's "vibrational" presence within themselves. But they also feel it in and between one another and then within themselves more vividly, as if communication or sharing of the "vibration" somehow intensifies its energy, clarifies its presence. Something special happens in "satsang;" the "reality" of "GMJ's world" manifests more obviously; his presence reveals itself more intimately; he is there. Jesus, premies feel, had to be describing "satsang" when he said, "When two or more of you are gathered in my Name, then I shall be there among you." 1

As with meditation, premies "practice satsang." They schedule nightly gatherings of "formal satsang" where individuals testimonialize before the group, and they practice "informal satsang" by trying to bring the Guru's "vibrational" presence and a deep, numinous meaning to their everyday casual encounters. They aim thus to sacralize or make holy their day-to-day human world, to make their social reality a vehicle of religious experience. Any human interaction, then, presents the opportunity and even the obligation to "practice satsang." For to forget "satsang," to abandon meditation, one loses not only the awareness of the religious reality but even the possibility of that awareness. Further, one loses these not only for oneself but also for and with others, so that together premies find themselves standing against or without their very purpose. So they encourage one another to "practice satsang;" they make "satsang" their norm, their statement that the meaning of their life together flows only from their shared satsang "experience."

140

THE PRACTICE: LISTENING

Developing a love for listening to satsang and giving satsang is an art. And, like any art, the art of satsang needs practice. It means constant effort. … Being in satsang … should be a consciousness that grows within us, just as we grow to realize the consciousness behind meditation. ("Life with Knowledge, a Premie Guidebook," 1975, p. 9)

Listening is central to the practice of both "formal" and "informal satsang;" perhaps listening is the practice, for one even speaks, in a way, by listening. In GMJ's commandment, "Never delay in attending satsang"2 premies understand "attend" in two ways: 1) "be physically present" or "go to the satsang program" and 2) "be attentive," "be there fully," "listen." In the second sense the commandment implies "never hesitate to listen completely concentratedly; drop other pre- occupations." "How can you listen to satsang," an initiator once said, "when you're wondering what to say when it's your turn to speak?" (sat- sang notes)

Ordinary listening, according to premies, sees only on the surface; but "satsang" listening sees despite or through the speaker and his reputation, looks, voice, sincerity, and words, and despite or through the literal or symbolic meaning of the words, their flow, their sound, their allusions. One cannot listen properly, premies say, if one is not meditating because meditative perception revals that inner "thing inside" in the speaker. One must be inside one's own breath in order to enter inside the speaker's breath.

Listening through meditation means letting "that place/GMJ" within oneself, within one's breath, do the listening. And "that place/GMJ" does not listen, like the "mind," by stepping out and probing around in the speaker, investigating, picking and choosing for something. That place/GMJ" receives and absorbs the fullness of the speaker. It intently

141

accepts his clothes, his shape, his posture, his expressions, his eyes, his tone of voice - everything evenly, as part of one harmonious whole. No aspect stands out separate, one cares about nothing, one merely receives:

To really listen to satsang, to really hear and experience it, we must be open, humble, and attentive - to let satsang calm our minds and envelop our hearts. ("Life with Knowledge: a Premie Guidebook," p. 9)

Breath-guided concentration draws everything into "that place/GMJ" within oneself. And yet through this drawing in, this absorbing, this accepting, this receiving, something does probe in a way, something does insist. For one wants to receive everything, even that which is hidden. Behind the speaker's face one finds his expressions; behind his expressions his eyes; behind his eyes his feeling; behind his feeling his energy; behind his energy his very being from which the energy, the feeling, the eyes, the expressions and the face came, the thing which makes him tick. As one premie expressed it, "I'm meeting the soul of other persons." And this is what premies want to see.

More than just seeing, "satsang" is communication, for premies say that "satsang" in Sanskrit means "company of truth," or "holy company." The "company" is other premies, specifically the "truth" or "holiness" of Knowledge which appears when one fully receives them. "Company" is also oneself with others; listener uniting with speaker:

I feel that every person I meet has that same center, and the only thing I try to do when I meet someone new is try to make a connection with that center. (interview notes)

"Satsang happens" for the listener when "that place/GMJ" within oneself merges with "that place/GMJ" within the speaker, creating an unbroken circuit between them, a fusing of energy and experience, and "Beyond all the different stories and examples, you begin to feel that experience

142

the person is speaking from." (interview notes) At this point, premies say, the speaker has become a "channel" for GMJ. Eventually both lose themselves in the ecstatic stillness of "GMJ's presence." During an initiator training program, during which candidates attended "satsang" all day long every day,

Guru Maharaj Ji was with us in that room every single second in all but the flesh. It was as if he walked into the room every morning with us and just didn't wear his flesh, so that we could understand what is Guru Maharaj Ji, so that no matter where we were in the world we could have the experience of him. ("Light Reading," 4/77, p. 13)

"Getting Beyond" the Social Situation

Such ecstacy hardly comes easily. "Formal satsang" "happens" in the evening gathering of premies in a Mission center or rented hall. They straggle in from work in the 20th century "world," their minds racing with paychecks, appointments, arguments, traffic jams, dinner. To experience the "vibration" of "satsang" a premie must settle his "mind" and concentrate exactly as in "formal meditation." But, unlike "formal meditation," now he must settle it in the midst of a gatheirng which continually engages it and compels it toward involvement in an ongoing drama. He must "get beyond" the situtation without leaving it, find within its turmoil the center where the "vibration" of GMJ dwells. Sepcifically, a premie must "get beyond" first, the social occasion of satsang; second, the personality and person of the speaker; and third, the speaker's words. 3

Social and religious life coincide at the "formal" evening "satsang" and intertwine, but a premie does not try to separate them by transcending the social and entering into the religious situation. Rather, he must transcend or "get beyond" both, for both distract him.

143

Getting Beyond Social Life: For an active premie the premie community - a family-like, semi-closed group of people who see or hear about each other daily - often constitutes nearly his entire social life. 4 Many community members live together in ashrams or "premie houses;" 5 further, they move around so much between these houses that after awhile it seems everyone has lived with everyone else. As the same people work, argue, relax, play, and practice "Knowledge" together, very intense and complex relationships develop.

When a premie arrives at "satsang" after a day apart he wants to see his friends, shun his non-friends, deliver messages, discuss organizational matters. But he also wants to experience "satsang," which requires ignoring everyone and saving his eyes only for the Guru's invisible "vibration presence. Others help him by keeping their gaze riveted on the speaker, greeting him if at all with a quick grin, refusing to socialize. He settles himself unobtrusively amongst the listeners, perhaps bowing his head to the floor in the direction of the altar, 6 and waits for that human communication which will come only when he watches for that spark in the speaker which will unite him, through the speaker's inner presence, to everyone there.

A premie may, however, find someone willing to "space out" - whisper and exchange glances, never trying to concentrate. But "spacing out" in "satsang" not only prevents the "experience;" it is bad form. Others notice and one's reputation suffers (unless one takes part in a faction which tries to make its point by challenging authority and piety in "satsang.") Prestigious opportunities, responsibilites and friendships will elude one's reach. One may meditate all one likes, but only proper attendance at "satsang" will publicize one's devotional stance. And "good premies" require this stance of one another. 7

144

The lures of prestige and reputation, then, tempt a premie to make sure he appears to be listening properly. He will deliberately refuse to turn his head when someone coughs, snickers, or leaves the room. He might wear a glowing half-smile, even letting loose an overly devoted sigh or muttering "Oh Maharaj Ji" every so often. Perhaps he secretly peeks around to make sure others are paying proper attention and to make sure they notice his proper attention.

But all this distracts him as much as the simple desire to socialize. Effective "satsang" practice demands that he "get beyond" himself as "good premie," himself as "bad premie" as well as himself as friend

or himself as non-friend. He must "go beyond" being someone who listens, he must not be seeing or experiencing himself listening; listening must take him over completely.

For this to happen he has to blind himself to premie social life; he has to know a way to enter that room and just see the people, just see the room, just see the ground of stillness. He achieves this blindness by watching his "mind" as it imposes goodness and badness, highness and lowness on people; his "mind" as it remembers insults and others' opinions and as it imagines what others will or ought to do. If he can watch his "mind's" conjurings keenly enough he can catch its inconsistencies - its seeing another as happy, threatening, bland, all in one moment. He can catch the darting, disconnected, haphazardness of his "mind's" conjurings which cannot sustain a smooth impression. And eventually he can glimpse moments of non-conjured silence between the "mind's" dartings, when his own attitudes disappear.

He gradually realizes that his "mind" tends to obscure these moments of silence by making sense, by make-shiftingly connecting one

145

conjuring meaningfully to the next. The making-sense comes from taking the conjuring seriously, or "holding onto" it, and "reacting" to it with another conjuring, until each part of the nonsensical inner dialogue appears importantly "real," "really" peopled by himself and others. If he can break in at any point upon this "reality" and catch himself making himself "real" within it by "holding onto" or "reacting" to particular conjurings, or catch their disconnectedness or the tiny silences between them, or catch the gross inconsistency between his conjurings about people and their simple presence before him - if he can catch any of these he will spontaneously stop trusting his mind's rambling, stop taking the busily-thinking "self" acting within it for granted, stop seeing the whole frenzied mental world as "real."

When he has broken through his "mind's" conjurings' apparent reality he can become bored with it an come to not see it at all, but see only the empty simplicity of a room full of people and stillness. He still knows the peoples' names, what they have done, what they usually think, how they are apt to treat him, but their mere simple presence seems immediate and novel and overrides his self-consciousness which, with its busy concerns over what these people imply, seems static, out of touch, disjointed and no longer able to fascinate. In such a blindness nothing social engages him into involvement and he becomes free to step from trying to listen undistractedly into being only listening.

* * * * *

To bypass the difficulties of "satsang" as a social situation, premies sometimes try to "trick the mind" by setting "formal satsang"

146

apart from daily life. One accustoms oneself to "letting go" on schedule, stepping back from habitual social entanglements the moment one steps into the "satsang" hall. This special scheduled time becomes a time out of time where one knows one can safely let oneself be transformed and release others into their transformation:

I love to watch my husband give satsang, because I see him in a fresh way. It's like he's a different person, he's got this whole other side to him that I'm not used to looking for in our daily life together. (notes)

One convinces oneself that no consequences will arise from merging with others and with "reality," for here time takes a different turn. For once time does not threaten to tear the intimacy of "experience" from one's grasp, leaving only the burdens of anguish and responsibility. "I only feel safe in satsang," a premie once said. "It's the only time I feel free; free of the context." (satsang notes) One is drawn to an inward rather than an onward movement, stepping through the moment further and further into deep stillness, nearer and nearer to that magical center of things.

But a complete setting-off proves difficult because one can hardly forget that the end does come; "satsang" surely will have consequences; one will carry insights and shared delights back into social life. Too precise a clarity gained in "satsang" may, later that evening, reveal the hollowness of one's marriage with its indulgent bickerings, its collusions to skip meditation and watch the late show or use money for a ski trip instead of a donation to the Guru. Or new insight may reveal that one's devoted upward wormings in the Mission bureaucracy are inspired not by love of GMJ but of power. And one does not lightly leave marriage or a high post in American or even premie society

147

(though by comparison premie commitments seem much looser and more easily broken).

To jump instantly and completely out of oneself-in-society into oneself-completely-merged-in-"satsang" reality, and to let the "power of satsang" alter one's viewpoint forever, one must be jumping finally and for good. And one just does not jump like this flippantly and superficially day after day; rather, one jumps like this only when one is shoved so hard one has to "let go." Something outlandish shakes one's being so hard that oneself-in-society is wrenched from one's clutches and falls clattering to the ground. The experience of "satsang merging" shakes and surprises.

But how can one turn an unchosen shock, which one happens to idealize, into a deliberate practice? As a daily method, one simply can't. The setting aside of "satsang"-time which premies try routinely is not a final but a limited setting-aside, which secretly suspects that after "satsang" one will have to walk back into ordinary life. One manipulates one's perceptions of "reality" just enough to dabble in images of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world," not enough to undercut the non"satsang" world and one's firm foothold within it. This way the end of "satsang"does not threaten, for one can adjust quite easily back to an ordinariness one never quite left. But then of course this not-quiteness produces a not-quite "satsang experience" as well. One shoves one's usual self under the rug, so to speak, imagining and congratulating oneself that one has leaped beyond oneself forever, but sooner or later that usual self slithers out from under the rug and lurks into the background, into entanglements with the lurking usual selves of others. If these usual selves resist such easy thrusting-aside and insist on

148

obscuring one's "satsang" experience of GMJ's presence and if one really really wants to see that presence and not a counterfeit one must somehow deal with them.

Thus aspects of "satsang" listening must carry over into daily life, just as daily life invades the "satsang" situation. "Satsang" as a social situation, a religious situation, a confrontation with individual speakers and their words - all these are one's daily life condensed, so to speak, and presented in "satsang" as the obstacles of self-transcendence which must be dealt with thoroughly. One "practices" "getting beyond" them in "satsang," but one knows that getting beyond them "for real" will happen only when one has dealt with them outside "satsang" as well.

Getting Beyond Religious Life: A premie must also "get beyond" the religious aspects of the "satsang" situation. The community may give him prestige for attending "satsang," but GMJ will give him enlightenment and salvation. Faulty practice will not only ruin his reputation, it will doom him to the "darkness of illusion, confusion, and delusion." This very notion may tempt a premie to practice "satsang" too self-consciously, knowing all too surely that he is correctly doing what the Guru wants, that his devotion is increasing. Such sureness may produce rigid listening, a clinging to the literal words, an orientation toward only familiar, preconceived dimensions of "experience." He can never "let go." Or perhaps his aim at perfect listening reveals his imperfection and makes him constantly fret over failure and GMJ's wrath.

Either way he will keep his focus on himself performing a practice, himself following or pleasing the Guru, himself performing well or badly: "Why are you looking at yourself in satsang? Wondering

149

what kind of experience you're having? Just look at Guru Maharaj Ji." (satsang notes.) "Satsang" will remain an object rather than a means, and the Guru will remain an external person rather than an "experience."

To concentrate, a premie must relax and let GMJ entice him out of himself, out of his efforts and aims and into the endless boundlessness of "merging." But to do this he must "let go" of these images only when he can catch the way his "mind" simultaneously creates "himself" and "the Guru," and the gulf between them. He must catch, for example, the moment when he clings onto a clutching sensation coursing through his body instead of letting it pass. He must catch his recognition of the sensation as "fear" or "hate" or whatever, and of the cligning as "fearing" or "hating" "self." At the same time he must catch the simultaneous appearance in his "mind" of the heavy, authoritative opinion that this "fearing" or "hating" "self" ought not or would prefer not to be fearing or hating. And, finally, he must catch his conjuring of this opinion as coming from something vast, final and definite - the inscrutable and omniscient Guru, above and beyond, come into being. If he cannot catch and deflate and see through this conjuring process he will not be able to stop looking at himself in relation to this vast Guru.

The "Guru" he must watch, which can entice him into self-forgetting ecstacy, must not be an imaged "Guru" of his own making; it must be the pulling, alluring, flirting alivenes which can only be sensed, which cannot be held and solidified and thus can only captivate when the fixing of images and sensations stops. To follow this Guru he must not know him, not imagine him, and for this he can only wait.

Resisting "Getting Beyond"the Situation: Then again a premie may "resist" the practice instead of aping it One resists the theory that

150

"satsang" is indispensible to the spiritual goal, the actuality of listening seriously hour after hour night after night to the monotony of one's community-mates. One could be playing music, reading, walking in the park with a friend. But one has given these up, and anything -movies, parties, classes, hobbies, even TV - that might interfere with commitment to "satsang" every single evening of the year8 is a taboo "desire." The dedicated premie tries to counter the tendency to second- guess or avoid this sacrifice by reframing the problem: he says to himself that actually this is no sacrifice because only my "resisting mind" sees it as a sacrifice, sees "desires" - the image of friends, hobbies, parties - as more real and full of fun than the image of sitting bored in "satsang." He tries to penetrate his thought-process to the point where he can see that his "resistance" stems from the faulty perception that his desirous imagination is "real," and that the apparent reality of its enticing images has completely blocked off an engrossing way of perceiving the people, the room, the stillness immediately at hand.

If he can do this successfully he will spontaneously forget his "desires" and become fascinated by the "satsang experience" in the immediacy of

the present.

In addition to "desires," boredom in "satsang" presents an ongoing problem. An imaginary sore throat lures one's thoughts toward bed and sleep, or the sudden conviction that an important phone call cannot be postponed propels one out of the hall. Anything to avoid just sitting and listening, looking for the Guru where he has promised to reveal his presence. The Premie Guidebook says,

Sometimes we will not "feel like" attending satsang, feeling too tired, or bored, or that we have too many other things to do. This is the time that satsang is most important, because it is just the subtlety of the mind persuading us to stay away from that thing

151

which inspires us and diminishes the power of the mind in our lives… . It is not always necessary to be "inspired"to go to satsang. (p. 10)

Premies deal with boredom - or doubt, irritation, and other distractions - exactly as they deal with "desires." They suggest to themselver that boredom, like "desires," actually "exists" only in one's idea, in one's way of seeing, which when extremely tenacious utterly blankets out awareness that one could see in any other way. The idea of boredom creates boredom in the body - restlessness and fatigue - which reinforces the idea of boredom until it becomes painfully, intensely, overwhelmingly real. One must break into this cycle by close watching until something immediate so entices the attention that one forgets boredom in a trice.

The challenge of "getting beyond" social and religious life recurs nightly. Over-zealous urges and efforts prod one toward a religious slavishness which, proving impossible or dry, promotes frustration, desires, doubt, guilt and finally over-zealousness again. Every night as one patiently tries to settle into a simple watching of the breath and the speaker one must watch and live with these struggles until their "reality" breaks its hold, the breath experience takes over, and absorption frees one beyond oneself into simple listening in a still room. And if absorption does not come one must keep watching in quiet agony.

"Getting Beyond" the Speaker: Though he may "get beyond the social and religious situation still a premie must listen to a person, a person with multi-leveled implications which constantly agitate the "mind" and "ego:"

I was sitting there in satsang listening to Mel speak and thinking

152

that he's always on such a businessman trip, like he's addressing the board meeting instead of giving satsang, and I just can never hear GMJ coming through him. I was judging Mel, considering even the cut of his pants unspiritual. I wondered if GMJ approves or knows or even cares that such bullheads have taken over the Mission. (personal notes)

What method would a premie use to see Mel neutrally and without "reacting," avoiding projections, fantasies, associational entanglements, to see "beyond" Mel's name, pants, officiality, status, gender, his opinion of people like the listener? How does one remove a speaker from social context, in other words, and see him as no longer the person I owe money to, my ex-lover, my best friend, an attractive or cruel face, but see just his essence, as "GMJ's pure channel?" In premie terms, how does one "get beyond" "having concepts about someone?"

Premies try numerous strategies, like tricking themselves out of a set, dead, habitual view of the speaker with a conscious and deliberate perceptual shift into the moment. Sometimes one might watch literally from a new angle, sitting in a different place so that an unfamiliar profile will break one's habitual impressions of the speaker. Or one might stare at a tiny portion of the face or consciously notice and even try to love the gentle movement of breath in the speaker's shoulders and chest. Or one concencentrates so furiously on one's own breath and begs so intensely to GMJ that one hardly sees the speaker's surface. Premies especially enjoy "satsang" from outside visitors, for the automatic de-familiarization dispels the potential distraction of "concepts." Perhaps this accounts for the effectiveness of initiators, who travel continually and never spend long in one community.

This deliberate switch of focus tries, through technical means, to cause the spontaneous awakening from ordinary to meditative perception. One witches as if one were already seeing meditatively, on

153

another level. One brushes aside the ordinariness one cannot help but still see with the feeling that'even though this appears "real," I really know, or or ought to know, or some part of me really knows, that it is not.' Meanwhile one tries to imitate meditative, non-rubricized seeing by deliberately gazing into the glowingness of skin, the breathing chest, whatever one usually skips over, the gaps in "ordinary" reality where the "reality" of GMJ's presence ought to appear. Then sometimes, if one looks properly, it does.

This does not always work. Premies say that you can't "make it happen." Gazing through the apparent holes of ordinary seeing one may see nothing but a subtler level of ordinary seeing if one is not careful. The apparent holes, after all, are merely one's "concept" of holes, and one's "concept" of what seeing through the holes might be like. Thinking up any odd sensation into a strangeness which substitutes for real strangeness, one convinces oneself that one has already switched to meditative perception. A fixed, self-conscious gaze just at the speaker's eyes, for example, may dispel physical discomfort, boredom, dislike of the speaker, and even lull one into a passive, hazy euphoria.

The mistaken notion that this is "satsang reality" prevents further efforts at meditative listening. Much of "satsang experience" is only this. But everyone stumbles into an extraordinarily precise, lucid, and still "satsang experience" from time to time, often enough that premies know about it, talk about it, want it, and try to get it. Perhaps only this memory can alert one to the fuzziness of euphoric halfway "satsang" listening and awaken one to the clear perception that clarity has yet to appear.

"Getting Beyond" Oneself: The trick of seeing from a new angle,

154

like the trick of setting "satsang"-time aside as a special time-outof-time, can often work for a time, but really "getting beyond" the speaker usually involves "getting beyond" oneself.

Premies say that GMJ is a perfect mirror; when you look at him really you are seeing yourself. So if you see him as greedy or nasty or stupid actually you are just looking at your own greed and nastiness and stupidity.9 Similarly with the "satsang" speaker, GMJ's "channel." Even if the speaker really is stupid, conceited, power hungry and so on, one's judgemental preoccupations which after all distract the attention from "satsang" indicate that one's "ego" is also "hung up" on these qualities. They bristle with too many implications far too seriously and close to home.

If one decides that one's criticism of or reaction to the speaker comes from one's "ego," then one has to transfer the source of the problem from the speaker to oneself. One must examine the phenomena of criticism and "reaction" as they appear in one's "mind." Often one can do this quite matter-of-factly with a degree of detachment. With time, after all, one gets familiar with certain projections and their associated bodily sensations, just as in "formal meditation" one learns to recognize, disidentify with, and disregard certain types of "thought" as they flash through the mind-body. If a listener can remark to himself, "Oh yes, the power-trip again, I always see people that way when my boss has been giving me trouble at work," then perhaps he can just "drop it" without taking it seriously and return to breath-focused listening. With practice one learns to recognize and catch such a projection even the first moment it appears in the "mind," or in the body as a fidgeting of hands, a nervous shifting of the eyes,a tensing in the

155

throat and jaws.

Dealing with oneself and one's projections onto the speaker is not always so easy. Often one uncovers one's projection or viewpoint only to be caught in another and then another, and on and on, like Bartholomew who kept taking off his hat to bow to the king only to find that another fancier one had appeared miraculously on his head. For example, one may recognize or awaken from a certain "judgement" of the speaker but be unable to "drop it" or "get beyond it." One sees the source of the "judgement" clearly enough as one's own "mind," but one cannot stop seeing one's "mind" as one's "self:"

I still wasn't open and I remember going down to the satsang hall and it was a great effort to just go in there - I went in there but I was really in my mind and I was just judging everything I saw. (interview notes)

The "judging" goes on and on, all of one's efforts to stop it and listen meditatively rendered powerless. Then one starts to "fry," to feel a lot of pain. The listener cannot deny that he constantly defends and excuses himself, projects his absurdest tendencies onto others, sees in rigid and boring categories just like the conservative middleAmericans he hates, for it is all staring him in the face. Having opened himself to nakedly receive everything from the speaker he now also receives everything from himself, everything he has used to keep out the other person and his words. And he can hardly stand what he now sees in himself - a closed, proud unlovingness jealous of and yet perversely resembling whatever he hates in the speaker: "I couldn't listen to satsang from my brothers and sisters because I couldn't trust them." (interview notes)

The more the listener sees the larger it all looms, but he has to live with it, has to watch in humble dismay his own delight in

156

snickering at the speaker. Premies often say "satsang" "confronts" a person. One wrote that "satsang" is the "sword of truth." It

Pierces through the defenses of the personality, inspiring love and trust. But this trust is the very thing which begins to elim-inate the support systems of the personality. … Satsang inflicts a heavy blow upon the imperfect systems of the personality and mind. For satsang is perfect. (Crozier, 1974)

At any point the listener can stop "frying" by leaving, falling asleep, or ceasing to watch his mental activity until he takes it for granted completely once again, becomes self-righteous, and continues to dislike the speaker. But otherwise he must now examine "frying" itself; he must watch how dejections and hopelessnesses appear in the mind, how they cause pain and what pain is. But "frying" engulfs him so painfully and so intensely that he may inadvertently get "caught up" in it. Facing the fact that he can't even love his brother, GMJ's premie, his spiritual aspirations and accomplishments begin to evaporate. How can he hope to devote himself, let alone merge with his Guru if anger so engulfs him that he can't even remember "Holy Name" or concentrate in "satsang" as GMJ has commanded? Soon he feels hopelessly far from the "experience," from GMJ. At this point the problem of "getting beyond" the speaker merges with the problem of "getting beyond" the religious situation.

Then he may make the mistake of trying to "do something" about himself right then and there. He jumps into the mental fray, struggles to make his "thoughts" praise and encourage instead of lament and accuse, promises himself to mend his ways. Or he sets about proving to himself that he can improve; he forces himself to see the speaker as beautiful, not so obnoxious after all. And before he realizes it, he has completely left the "satsang" situation for the private world of his

157

own "mind." His eyes may be looking at the speaker, but he has completely forgotten him and the simple practice of listening to his words.

The Guru's advice cautions premies from "getting caught in the mind" in this way. One may think one is figuring out how the "mind" works in order to avoid its clutches in the future, he suggests, but such information will not help one to escape the "mind," it will only entangle one further, "mind" entrapping "mind" by trying to figure out "mind," trying to escape from "mind." GMJ has said for premies to stop trying to catch their shadows, but to keep facing toward the sun - in other words, just to face toward him and stop fighting with the "mind."

Facing toward GMJ in "satsang" means leaving one's inner turmoil and attending to the speaker in the physical actuality of "satsang." To switch out of the mental struggle one need only recognize it, not understand how it works, not rearrange or manipulate it.10 One just wants to get away that moment by seeing "mind" and "ego" as illusory. Again and again one must redirect the attention to the breath and to the speaker until, though one still "fries," one can watch oneself "fry" and see that "frying" stops during those split seconds when the attention hops into the breath. From experience one knows that if one persists these split-seconds will last longer and assert their quality as more "real" than the frenzied, "frying" "thoughts." The "frying" will gradually lose its grip on one's mood, and the despicable "ego" who "fries" will lose itself in the "satsang experience."

* * * * *

The "self" premies aim to "get beyond" in "satsang" and social situations is the ordinary social self, something like what Mead (1934)

158

called the "me." For they believe that beneath this social self lies a truer, enduring divine self, felt on some level to be identical in everyone ("like flowers on a garland connected by the thread of "Holy Name"), or even the same entity ("GMJ dwells within the hearts of everyone"). When these divine selves interact a social situation is trans- formed, obstacles to perfect communication melt away, and a qualitatively different level of human interaction comes into being, a complementary, sharing, loving communication which culminates in "merging." Having "experienced" this, ordinary interaction no longer satisfies; it irritates and grates, has no "energy," only "bad vibes."

This interaction of divine selves is what premies aim for in "satsang." When it occurs in "formal satsang," when one has finally concentrated enough to subdue the storms stirred up by the social and religious situation one then settles into an extraordinary perception of the speaker. One listens visually, gazing almost unblinkingly trying to enter into his eyes, into his essence. Open, fascinated, almost entranced by "Holy Name" meditation one sees as if for the first time or within another sort of time:

I was almost perceiving with or thorugh my breath, as if that was the medium of exchange or perception. I was drawing in or drawing on a quality inside the speaker. It felt sweet. At the same time my vision was changing. I was watching his face very intently, mostly his eyes and the way the light played on the planes of his face. What I was actually trying to look at was not exactly the contours and movement of his face, not even the sparkle of his eyes. I was looking for, or at, something that seemed spatially to be either just in frontof or just behind his face, but it was not his face. Something like the quality of the light playing on his face or even within his face. Then when the experience was stronger his face looked like clay, or dead matter, brought to life by this subtle thing. I marveled at how this energy or vitality thing could so thoroughly animate such a dead-looking thing as the features of the human face until that face glowed and shone with it and utterly fascinated me. Then it felt like this vitality thing I was looking at in the speaker had something to do with the energy I was sort of drinking in with my breath, and the more I was with that

159

energy in the breath, the more I felt connected to the thing that animated the speaker. (personal notes)

The listener's "experience" of the "satsang" speaker is charged with religious meaning far beyond the mere enjoyment of visual distortions reminiscent of psychedelic drug experience. 11 In the "experience" described above, I concluded that I was "seeing" the life-force, or "Holy Name" in action as it vitalized the speaker. More theologically, premies often speak of "experiencing" GMJ "coming through" the speaker. This perception occasionally becomes quite literal:

Sometimes GMJ humbles me quite a lot, like this time when I was listening to this brother give satsang and I was just a little bored. And this sister came up to me afterwards and said, "Did you see that?" And I said, "Did I see what?" And she said that when that one brother got up to give satsang, she saw GMJ walk into the room and up to the front and look at that brother, and just before he began to speak GMJ just sort of merged into him. If I had really been right there paying attention I would have seen GMJ too. (satsang notes)

In a similar vein, a popular "satsang" story around the 1977-78 period involved a child who lived next door to a Mission ashram. One day he asked a premie what they did there every night, and when the premie began to explain, he asked, "Well, what about that guy in the yellow pants and red jacket 12 who comes every time at 7:30?" The premie was "blown away" because he believed that the child's eyes were "pure enough" actually to physically "see" GMJ as he came every evening to satsang. Whether or not this incident every really happened, its popularity attests to the true meaning of "satsang" as an "experience of GMJ's presence."

"Getting Beyond" the Words: "Satsang," like any social situation, involves language, and language intertwines with every other facet of the occasion. A premie listener does not separate off the words from his whole perception of the speaker, just as he does not

160

separate off just the speaker from his whole perception of the "satsang" situation. The personality of the speaker which "confronts" a struggling listener expresses itself partly through words. The religious situation which one must "get beyond" includes the words, which can make a premie "fry" either by boring or exciting him, by contradicting his opinions or showing him up as a "spaced-out" devotee.

GMJ once described listening to his "satsang" on a tape recorder as "satsang at your leisure" - a cheating, inauthentic sort of "satsang" listening suitable to one's own mood and convenience, a listening devoid of "confrontation," devoid of having to travel to the festival, sit uncomfortably for hours, strain to see around people's heads, squint to see GMJ better, pray to hear every word but hear really his essence so that the physical distance will disappear with a flash of careful looking, loving, offering everything. One can hardly get this effect listening only to taped words.13

"Satsang" is paradoxical because one must "get beyond" words or "concepts" through the medium of words. And premies distrust words:

Words kill the sweetness of silence. Concepts dull reality. Thoughts interrupt the calm surface of peace. …

… we slip very easily from the wonder to the words, and only a faint aftertaste of the wonder is left. … Words, like maps, give us reality at second hand. ("Divine Times," 1/76, p.6)

Since premies want "reality" first hand, they must listen to the words in "satsang" through the words, and on the other hand they also "hear" the words.

"Feeling" "Satsang:" Listening only for the words even in the "satsang" situation misses the point. Initiators, for example, often instruct premies not to listen with closed eyes, not to concentrate only with the ears. "It's not the words," they caution again and again, "it's the vibration." But how does one "listen" for the "vibration?"

161

When premies say "listen" they also mean "feel," and afterwards they tell each other what they "felt." "Feeling" is like perceiving through an imaginary inner organ which uses ears, eyes, skin, emotional receptiveness, and so forth, to grasp an entire sense of being. Eyes and ears incorrectly used can distract from "feeling," as when one examines too closely the speaker's clothes or starts to argue mentally with his words. When one is really "feeling" "satsang" the eyes may detect a light and glowingness in people and things, the ears may hear the underlying meditational "music" in the room's silence as well as in the speaker's words, the muscles relax and perhaps tingle, the intellect feels lucid and empty, the emotions contented and even, the attention alert, the breath deep and energized with life. But of course the listener will not experience himself divided up like this: all of him - all of his body and all of himself - "feels." If it is not all of him, it is not "feeling."

The listener already "feels" GMJ's "presence" in the room before the speaker even sits in the "satsang chair." The words merely provide a point of concentration. Just as he rivets his seeing to the speaker's face, the listener rivets his hearing to each word as it is pronounced. As foci the face and the words hold the attention still, but in themselves, on the surface, they do not give what one is looking for.

The "meaning" of the words emerges when one has "gotten beyond" the words by "getting beyond" "reacting," boredom, association, "frying," and so forth. The "Vibration" of "satsang," which one already feels within the room and within one's breath, pulls a "meaning" out of the words which expresses that "vibration" according to its moment-

162

to-moment qualities. The words "mean" something about time's endlessness right at this moment, about the Guru's "love" hovering hereabouts right now. A "tuned-in" speaker, almost regardless of his choice of words, articulates by his "vibration" the "meaning" of the very thing the listener longs to "feel" and already knows within his own breath. One can even disagree with the literal meaning of the words and still "feel" the "satsang" "meaning:"

I went to the satsang at noon - they were just talking about getting into your mind and going out to the deli after satsang, and I didn't even want to hear it, because I was feeling so high on Holy Name, and yet I liked it, because I could feel the vibration of satsang there. (satsang notes)

Premies "experience" "meaning" as coming from communication, not communication coming from "meaning." In an article drafted for a Mission publication (but never published), one premie wrote:

Where does the meaning of a word lie within our collective experience? … We share the same language; we seem to know what each other means by the words we exchange; and we nod our heads yes, I see, I agree, right on; or no, I don't see, I disagree. Do we all share the same experience? Where does the meaning lie?

Is there any end to trying to trace the meaning of a word through words and through our experience? … The only end there is is the end that comes to an individual's mind when that mind is completely satisfied… . Satisfied that we understand each other's meaning, that we dig each other, that we are living in the same universe, understanding the meaning of our beinghere, experiencing the same world - satisfied that we are communicating.

The ultimate "meaning" of "satsang" regardless of which words are spoken, is "love:"

When we are communicating, we know it; we experience it; we feel it. When we really love someone, we don't look for an intellectual proof of our friendship. The people at Woodstock didn't need a theory to explain to each other that they were communicating, and how and why. They were simply One. And this was a spiritual knowledge. A knowledge beyond concepts … Love was the medium in which Woodstock took place. That's why it blew everybody's minds. 14

If the listener listens with and for "love," then, and the

163

speaker "says it with love," then the "satsang experience" will emerge. More than anyone else, GMJ himself "manifests" the "meaning" of "love" to premies while addressing the most mundane and unspiritual topics, much to the delight and disdain of carping journalists:

In his opening remarks alone, cars appear at least eight times, in a goofy juxtaposition to the fairy tales:

"I am talking about one thing - a car has four tires, and a car runs on four tires. And I can see that car runnin' on four tires. There are cars also run [sic] on three tires, of course… But I am talkin' about a car that's right there, it's on four wheels - not five, not six. There is a fifth wheel, but the car is not running on it, it's in the trunk. So there is a basic fact that I have understood …" (Kelley, 1974, p. 42)

Nevertheless, satsang does involve words, and premies as well as journalists listen to them and categorize them as "satsang" or not.

"Hearing Satsang:" "Hearing satsang" implies hearing and understanding every word clearly, not "spacing out" by half-listening. Paradoxically, one knows one is "getting beyond" the words when one has stopped "tuning out," daydreaming, or arguing, agreeing with, commenting upon the words to oneself and when one has settled into attentive concentration on the words' literal meaning. If one has acheived this and still cannot "feel satsang," then the fault lies in the speaker's choice of topic or style of delivery.

GMJ has suggested that topics like devotion, Knowledge, and Guru Maharaj Ji are proper for "satsang," and that others are not. Haggling over the price of a stereo, he has said, is not "having satsang." But incorrect delivery of even apparently suitable words - religious topics, spiritual terms, even Mission jargon - also misses the point of "giving satsang:"

How real or unreal is this world? There's an unreal way to answer the question, and there's a real way to answer it. Unreally, we can refer back to some theory, a dogma, philosophy, or creed. Indian philosophy suggests this world is a dream. Or, Christianity

164

emphasizes the realness of this world. Either way, we are looking on the map to find our answers, we aren't looking at "the real thing." So the real way to answer this question is to experience the answer, and then to put it into words. ("Divine Times," 1/76 p. 6)

Typical "satsang" style does not, like a speech, build points one upon the other to a concluding climax. On the level of ordinary meaning one train of "satsang" thought meanders free-associationally into the next, strewing non-sequitors as it goes. The words try always to point into the "experience," connecting to one another as the people in "satsang" connect to one another, by each connecting into the pervading "vibration" instead of directly to each other. Schwartz (1977), who analysed texts of two spoken "satsangs" recorded in typical "satsang" settings, found "a high frequency of the use of the conjunction 'and' to relate independent clauses, as well as the use of 'so' as a means of indicating transition." (1977, p. 55)

Talk which connects in sense and in logic but not in "experience" premies label "non-satsang." "Non-satsang" flies off tangentially to follow a pre-determined point to its reasonable conclusion, following logic-meaning at just the point where "experience"-meaning would be curving back into the ongoing immediacy of the breath and "reality" to which a "satsang" listener orients. Thus to one craving "satsang," "non-satsang" makes its own points but seems always to be missing the point, haphazardly touching the "experience" now and again instead of zeroing in on it, distracting the attention into one well-reasoned irrelevance after another. "Non-satsang" fragments the premie listener, pulling the thoughts into ongoing inner dialogue, the chest into the pushings and pullings of disconnected emotional spurts. No "energy" flows from "non-satsang;" it tires premies and gives them headaches.

165

The zeroing in on "experience" in "satsang" is achieved by two characteristics Schwartz noted as repetitiveness and implicitness. Even premies admit, often jokingly, that

Satsang is the same thing, the same words, over and over and over. Nobody ever says anything new. But we never get tired of it; the epxerience is always new. (satsang notes)

Schwartz notes the "continuing repetition of key words and phrases," and especially words which imply something special in premie language. He quotes several examples:

"It's like breathing the air we breathe, it's like breathing the air we breathe …"

"… and uh I would uh twenty-four hours a day think, think, think, and think and think."

… "I don't know why they call it Knowledge. I don't know why it's called Knowledge …"

"Knowledge requires practice; it requires a steady practice, a daily practice, a practice in meditation, a practice in - real meditation …" (Schwartz, 1977, p. 55)

"Breathe" and "think" have special meaningful implications for premies, as do "Knowledge," "practice," and "meditation."

Especially meaningful words like these seem to fall into two overlapping categores: those having to do with "Guru Maharaj Ji" and "the experience," and those having to do with the "practice of Knowledge." Words having to do with GMJ include those referring to his person, like "him" and "he," "darshan," "his feet" or "the lotus feet," extending to his family members 15 and even to his possessions - his "crown," "mala," 16 "Lambourghini," "helicopter," "airplane," the "residence." The same numinous power comes from references to the Guru's attributes, his "humility," "mercy," "caring," and his "power," "grace," and especially his "love," which "manifest" alike from his person and from the formless Guru, "Holy Name," the "superior power," "that thing," "reality," the "experience," even "Lord," or "God."

Whether they refer to the human or to the formless GMJ these

166

words carry the symbolic power of summoning up the "experience" of GMJ's "presence" in the "satsang" situation. When premies talk about GMJ, in other words, it is not long before they start to "feel" him, and perhaps this is why they talk about him so much, repeating the same words, descriptions and stories over and over and over. "Darshan" stories begin to feel like actual "darshan."

Premies also tend to repeat words having to do with the "practice of Knowledge," words like "devotion," "surrender," "concentration," "effort," "sincerity," "clarity," words for undesirables like "mind," "ego," "thought," "concepts," "spacing out." They repeat especially the phrase "satsang, service, and meditation," which refers to the three major practices expected of all premies, a theme GMJ himself also emphasizes repeatedly. Called "heavy satsang," these themes tend not to summon the "experience" of GMJ's "presence," but to "confront" the "ego" of the listener. Their use is controversial, and a speaker dwelling on them in an especially preachy style can be accused of "laying trips" on the listeners. GMJ, initiators, and Mission leaders tend to get away with these themes more easily than others; more lowly premies tend to excuse excessively preachy tirades by saying, "Of course I need to hear this more than anyone else, this satsang is really for me." Just as words referring to GMJ recall the "experience" of his transcendent beauty, so words referring to the duties of practice remind one of the imperfections and limitations of the listener. Premies seem to require both, to keep themselve from developing a deluded exaggeration of their own spiritual powers, to keep vivid the contrast between the "experience" of the transcendent Guru and the struggling limitations of a "self" which is not yet "pure." They feel, in fact, that "heavy satsang" "purifies." Early in the week of a nine-day festival in Orlando,

167

Florida in 1979, GMJ delivered an especially "heavy satsang" which roasted the premies over the coals, calling them unworthy, discouraging everyone. Rumor has it that a hundred premies actually left the festival that night in dispair. But the rest felt humbled, more open to receive the "love" which GMJ poured out in subsequent lighthearted, devotional "beautiful satsang." After the festival, the video of that one "heavy satsang" was the most popular and the most frequently requested.

This same theme of contrast between the divine and the ordinary, the "unpurified" self, emerges in an oft-repeated motif Schwartz calls the "conversion sequence," the story of "how I came to Knowledge," or the recounting of a momentary "space-out" and reconversion, which references all time "with respect to this central event: time before and time after." (1977, p. 56)

Space and social life are dichotomized as well by disparaging other groups and pre-Knowledge sorts of activities:

"… the other groups … They're so spaced out, they're so - they so - they're really hooked on mind …"

"But then drugs, sex, sleeping late, waking up late - all of these are related. It's like a chain." (Schwartz, 1977, 61,62)

Premies' bosses, families, and non-premie friends (or former friends) come under frequent fire in "satsang," often followed by lavish praise for one's premie community and the devotional lifestyle. This, as with "heavy satsang," which eventually culminates in GMJ-related "satsang" inspiring an "experience," "conversion sequence" and other comparisons of the premie and non-premie worlds, shows the divine arising in shining contract to the "worldly."

Besides repetitiveness, Schwartz shows implicitness to be another characteristic of "satsang." He refers, for example, to the "unreferenced"

168

use of the pronoun 'it' in such a way that its linguistic referent can only be discovered by means of a contextual analysis" as well as the "frequent use of 'you' and 'they' for the purpose of stating generalizations." (1977, p. 58) This, according to the theory of Basil Bernstein (1971) indicates a "public language" or a "restricted code:"

"The speech is played out against a background of communal, self-consciously held interests which removes the need to verbalize subjective intent and make it explicit. The meanings will be condensed … The major function of this code is to reinforce the form of the social relationship (a warm and inclusive relationship) by restricting the verbal signalling of individuated response…" (Bernstein, 1971, pp. 77-8 cited by Schwartz, 1977, p. 20)

Though the testimonials are from individuals, Schwartz suggests, "the so-called 'individual' experiences being related have in reality become group property by being cast in the testimonial form. The 'I' being described in the testimonial is also, and in more than an incidental way, a 'we'." (1977, p. 104)

For the listener this implicitness or the "we" character of spoken "satsang" allows for what he senses as an intimate, almost mysterious level of communication between himself and the speaker or between himself and GMJ via the speaker. If he is truly "begging" GMJ for "satsang," then he is "pulling satsang out of the speaker," appealing to him with his eyes, his "love," every ounce of his concentration. When the favorite words begin to be repeated and the meandering style emerges the words become numinous and the "experience" appears. Then again a listener may be bothered by something in particular. He goes to

"satsang" with his "head full of questions and doubts" but if he listens properly "GMJ will answer them all." Sometimes "GMJ answers" by so inspiring the listeners with the speaker's "darshan" stories and descriptions of the "beautiful" "experience" of "reality" that he forgets about

169

his doubts and problems. Other times, however, the speaker happens quite deliberately to address those very problems, not only general concerns such as "how can I become more devoted?" but often quite specific questions such as "should I quit my job?" or "what do I do now that my car has blown up?" One could almost say that the effectiveness of a "satsang" speaker is measured by the extent to which his "satsang" seems to answer such specific questions.17

An experiment during the 1976 period seemed to confirm that the "implicit" style and specific repeated words have an effect in "sat- sang" that premies want and need. This was a time of rampant questioning and restructuring when the ashrams emptied and the organization seemed about to fold. One premie wrote:

There is no party line. No more Rap #47. The Divine Light Mission of dogma is crumbling inside and out. …

… we see our task as a newsletter staff as both taking the pulse of the community and also lovingly and creatively sticking a needle in its collective butt. (Atlanta Community Newsletter, fall, 1976, p. 2)

In communities all over the country premies met in encounter-style "workshops" to express "where we're at and collectively discuss issues and aspects of our lives with Knowledge."18 One of these issues was the language of "satsang." In one workshop I attended we went around the room listing expressions we felt we heard too much in "satsang" - drug-related jargon, vague referents like "it," superlatives and hyper-superlatives, and the ever-present "you know" which most premies sprinkled quite liberally through their delivery of "satsang." We also listed premie argot which was alleged to mystify us and confuse outsiders. Someone later compiled a list of the words mentioned in many workshops and distributed it in hopes these words would be shunned in the future:

170

propagate or spread Knowledge (vs. educational process, process of self-discovery, etc.)
non-premie (vs. person)
receive Knowledge (vs. initiation)
premie (vs. human being)
Divine Light Mission
grace
Jai satchitanand
devotee (vs. dedicated individual)
Master/Guru (vs. teacher, guide)
Holy Name (vs. vibration)
satsang (vs. discussion, talk, real communication)
darshan
Lotus Feet
agya (vs. direction, guidance)
Knowledge
Lord 19

Free of its old style and cliches, the new "satsang" promised to be "real," to speak ordinary language and deal with immediate life problems, to be "relevant" to contemporary life. But premies soon lost interest and "satsang" attendance waned.20

This reformed "satsang" no longer compelled, confronted or allowed one to "let go" into the "experience." Premies later criticized it for lacking "devotion"or being too "intellectual." After a series of impromptu festivals in the early 1977 period when GMJ began wearing his "Krishna outfit" more frequently, premies started signing up once again to move into the ashram and "satsang" soon resumed its devotional character, premie argot and all, with the 1976 "space-out" period now receiving the disparaging remarks formerly reserved for pre-Knowledge life and the non-premie "world."

THE PRACTICE: SPEAKING

Giving satsang, as well as listening to it, is also vitally important as we experience that energy being expressed through our selves. ("Life with Knowledge, A Premie Guidebook," p. 10)

The "right words" - the divinity of "Guru Maharaj Ji's world"

171

and the efforts premies must make to escape the ordinary "world" - these themes delivered in the familiar, repetitive "satsang" style help give concentrated listeners their "experience." But how does a speaker speak the "right words?"

He must begin by waiting, listening and meditating so that he might be "in the right place," "tuned into GMJ" even before he begins to speak. This involves "getting beyond" the social situation, the fact that giving "good satsang" enhances one's status and being chosen to give "satsang" reflects it. After one speaker finishes, the "satsang monitor" 21 chooses the next speaker both religiously and pragmatically, on the one hand waiting for the feeling that GMJ is choosing some person "through him," and on the other hand wanting to call on a "good speaker" to please those who have appointed him "monitor." 22 The waiting listener who rarely gets called to speak may secretly wonder why he is failing both GMJ and the Mission officials, while the listener who knows he is a popular speaker may be eagerly trying to catch the monitor's eye, his mind racing with the devotion he yearns to pour forth in front of everyone.

Once chosen, the speaker has only a few moments to clear his mind of all this. He slowly prostrates toward the altar in a gesture of surrender and then, while the others quietly gaze at GMJ's picture or close their eyes in meditation, he makes his way unhurriedly to a chair beside the altar. 23 He sits, closes his eyes, and meditates fora few token seconds or as long as several minutes. If he is lucky something about the room's special silence pulls him quickly into meditation without the usual struggles. Premies remark about the intensely peaceful "vibration" of this moment; some say this is when they "experience" their best meditation.

172

The speaker's eyes finally open to a roomful of intent, glowing faces with huge, mellow eyes which seem to expect nothing, seem already to behold what they are looking for. They startle him out of anticipation, out of himself, lure him further into the stillness of the room, into meditative awe, into the breath. He relaxes, sometimes to the point where he almost forgets about speaking and just gazes back at the others, "I am beginning to feel like it's home sweet home sitting on this satsang chair." ("Golden Age," February, 1977) Or perhaps he just starts giggling and laughing, and then everyone starts laughing. The "satsang chair" feels warm and suggests the presence of GMJ.

To speak, he simply waits and listens. He waits until the silence and the presence within the silence slows down his "mind," until his own thoughts and ideas stop pestering urgently to be spoken; until he can recognize them clearly as "thoughts;" until he can disregard them, until he can "get out of the way." He waits for the breath.

If he is truly poised within the breath's stream and if he has really "gotten out of the way" then he can beggingly listen along with the other listeners, for "Guru Maharaj Ji's words:"

Every time I have this opportunity to share satsang, I really never plan anything. I never really know exactly what's going to happen. But I just say, always before I speak, before I give satsang, inside I just say "Guru Maharaj Ji it's all Yours, it's all Yours." ("Humdinger," SF Community Newsletter, 9/77)

He listens for GMJ to speak "his words" through the "channel" of his own voice.

When "satsang is really happening," or "satsang is flowing," one speaks spontaneously, un-self-consciously, with a joyous sense of peace, of release: "You open up your mouth and your heart sings." One feels comfortable, alert, as if one had become one with the room's

173

brilliant silence. One talks about this silence, plays with it, caresses it and lets it caress, attunes to and within it. One's whole being feels pinpointed into speaking. One is giving everything, and yet in that giving one disappears and the Guru becomes the giver so that one receives as well: "It's incredible when you can feel sincerity come through, when you can really feel a love for Maharaj Ji come through." ("Golden Age," 2/77)

Getting Out of the Way: Sometimes "getting out of the way" to become "GMJ's channel" may not happen quite so easily. As with listening, the speaking of "satsang" can suffer from improper "surrender." One may wait and wait but one's "mind" will not "shut up," one's "ego" will not let "GMJ flow through." GMJ has said that giving "satsang" is like a car that coughs and splutters when it is cold and only gradually warms up to run smoothly. Premies sometimes say the speaker is like a drain pipe whose first response to the flow of pure water is a gushing of rust, dirt, and rotten leaves. Only when all the grime has washed out does the water flow out pure as it flowed in. But if this washing- out takes months and months or years and years one must in the mean time speak utterly self-conscious and unspired in front of everyone, listening, instead of to GMJ, to the "shit" flowing from one's own "mind." And noone wants to hear it:

When people start communicating the difficulties they're having in Knowledge, then what they're really singing is the praises of the limited success the mind is having in preventing them from realizing their life. Instead of singing the omnipotence of the Master and the power of the Knowledge, they sing the praises of the trials. … Satsang is something else. Satsang is a pure experience that lifts us into the faith and trust in GMJ and a determined effort in Knowledge.

GMJ said to the Initiators, "Don't give satsang unless you're having that experience in your heart." ("Light Reading, 4/77. p.3)

But how does one get "that experience in your heart" when one must deal

174

with a "mind" and "ego" which must now perform on the spot, its "reality" continually sustained by the real-life interaction at hand, but its status and reputation continually threatened.

A premie tries to "get beyond" his own personality as it intertwines with others in the "satsang" speaking situation by trying to "disappear." "Please, please, please GMJ," premies often beg aloud to their Guru as they begin to speak, "let me disappear completely, let it be you that speaks, not me." Instead of scrambling around like an ordinary speaker for what seems an acceptable front to present, the premie speaker must scramble around until he senses the futility of any front at all. The more attractive and convincing the stance he might choose, the more he and others might like it, the worse for his "satsang" because "getting out of the way" is all that much harder. He wants GMJ's "energy" to "shine through" him as the very life of his personality, expressing itself spontaneously through his humor, his sentimentality, his shyness, his articulateness, his fear, his bunglings, however it chooses. Even an "open," "beautiful" stance, if it is a stance, makes the speaker feel as awkward as the most shambling, scattered stance makes an ordinary speaker feel. For he knows his listeners are watching this "fakeness" through all its guises, waiting quietly to see not what he is but what he is not.

When a speaker really feels earnest and sincere he has "gotten beyond" the social situation's temptation to vent grudges, push personal views, put down rival "concepts" or "shine" with guilelessness, intoxication, devotional fervor to manipulate the listeners and garner support. If so, he must now concentrate on the method of speaking " GMJ's words."

Speaking "GMJ's Words:" Premies say that "GMJ's words" come when

175

the breath attunes to the room's stillness. "GMJ's words" do not disrupt but deepen that stillness because they come from the same "place" both the breath and the room's stillness are coming from, pinpointing the attention into the breath's present moment.

With practice one learns to recognize the way "GMJ's words" appear in the mind. They do not ramble like ordinary "thoughts," stringing chaotically along one generating the next, but appear suddenly, precisely, clearly, authoritatively, with or from a different "energy." One "feels" an ordinary thought as it courses through the body tensing or exciting various muscles and setting them against the next thought's coursings. But "GMJ's words" engage the body differently. They seem to flow effortlessly, firmly and directly from the breath or, more explicitly, from the twinge of "vibrational" excitement within or under the breath which begins at the same time to suffuse through one's whole body.24

Speaking "GMJ's words" feels different from speaking one's own ordinary thoughts. "His" words seem to speak themselves. One need not hear them, consider and formulate them for a split second and then speak them, for their appearance in the mind demands their speaking that very moment. One hardly knows their sense before they are spoken; one only feels a characteristic bursting feeling, as if a bubble were rising spontaneously from the breath, wanting to burst into meaning and into speech at the same moment. One waits, then, more for this bursting feeling from the breath rather than for meaning and qualities of specific words.

One can only let "GMJ's words" burst correctly into speech if one is ready and waiting. A hesitation or rival thought will ruin the timing

176

and perhaps the word will burst merely into one's thought and not into speech. If one then tries to speak it anyway, one will be speaking it merely in tune with one's rumination on that thought, with one's feeling that it is one's own. Attunement with the breaths moment will be lost; the word will sound stale, inappropriate, forced, imprecisely timed. Having spoken from the wrong moment one is not ready for the next bursting from the breath, and one cannot speak "GMJ's" next words.

Focus on one's own "thoughts" not only distracts the attention so that one cannot "hear GMJ's words," but also impedes one physically. Reading teachers, after all, know that pronouncing the words visibly with one's lips slows silent reading to the pace of speech. Premies

notice that people tend physically to "read" the ongoing rush of their own thoughts: if not muttering to themselves outright, they still "speak" their thoughts within the throat, chest, and mouth, holding the lips still while engaging the breath in hesitant forming and re-forming of half-conscious words. With the speech organs thus preoccupied and the breath's flow chopped up one cannot speak spontaneously. The mouth and throat will be too tense and the breath will be disturbed not only as an organ of speech out of timing but also as that ground to which the premie orients to feel the "vibration." To relax and be ready to speak "GMJ's words," premies do not try consciously to relax their mouths and throats the way singers perhaps do but concentrate instead on stilling their "minds." When the "mind" stills the muscles relax and "satsang just happens."

177

The "Experience" of Satsang Speaking

Speaking "satsang," one feels sure. The words precisely articulate one's perception of the moment; they authoritatively document the subtle unfoldings of "experience" so that one believes them and the "experience" together. One is not sure, however, of one's "self," for if one tries to divert the words' strength towards one's own intention that strength suddenly eludes one's grasp leaving one hollow and dissembling, quickly spending one's own limited strength defending one's lack. One loses the tread of the words' authoritative "energy" and lapses abruptly into confused silence, embarrassed giggles, or the nervous urge to jump down from the chair at once. The sureness returns when one begins to feel overtaken, pushed out of the way into the role of mere witness to an un-ordinary sense of strength. One must stay firmly in the outpouring words' current of strength, flowing only with their pace, never hesitating, never anticipating, never judging, always present to the depth of the moment at hand and the expression which marks it. One must speak, then, in the way one listens, letting the words say and mean what they will, letting them transcend one's private concerns. One cannot identify them as one's own.

"Satsang words" correctly spoken surprise the speaker. One hears the words not as a rehash of mulled-over thought, but for the first time:

I didn't go home and study what am I gonna say tonight. I just said, "Okay, well, let's see what happens." Because I enjoy it too, whatever comes out, you see. It's interesting. Fascinating. Always fascinating. And we call it satsang. (Satsang recorded 9/77)

One articulates things one was only dimly conscious of knowing, rather like finding oneself speaking a foreign language far more fluently than

178

Usual, coming out with words one hardly knows one knew. A novel feeling may invade, turning intended humor into a devotional outpouring, stern moralizing into humor or very intimate revelation, launching one into poetry or into incisive analysis. "How strange for me to be saying this," the speaker will often muse in mid-sentence.

The "experience" of "energy" also surprises the speaker. One feels as if the Guru is pouring "love," "devotion," and joy through one's being, letting it flow out again as "satsang." Often this "love" appears physically as the same pervasive tingling or upsurging energy which comes in meditation. Sometimes this "energy" surges so strongly one trembles slightly, not quite knowing what to do. One feels that unless one speaks one will burst:

I had taken a vow of silence, 25 then I met GMJ and received Knowledge, but I still didn't talk very much. I started meditating on Knowledge and something was just building up and building up, but I'd never spoken about it. I did a lot of meditation. And just one night during satsang someone else was speaking, but it was just uncontrollable. It was just exploding, and I just said, "OH!" This thing came out, like this energy was exploding inside. This guy was speaking, and everyone turned around and looked at me, and I was just sweating. My whole - just like a rocket that's about to take off. I just let out a groan, all I could get out was, "It's perfect!" I couldn't say anything more. It was just that energy was just going wild. Everyone looked and there was this silence and and someone else went on. But it was just something there. It was so beautiful. (Satsang recorded 9/77)

"Letting go" to the "energy" never results in the involuntary motor movements characteristic of possession trance. 26 Premies sometimes laugh or cry giving "satsang," but they never jerk, twitch, roll their eyes, froth at the mouth, or jump about. Nor do they speak in intonations or accents different from their own, as in spiritualistic "trans-lecturing," nor mutter incoherently as in "speaking in tongues." 27 A premie may say he feels "high," "in love," or even "ripped" or "smashed" while he gives "satsang," but he is cold sober in the sense of being

179

fully aware and in possession of all his faculties.

One wants to "experience" the "energy" while giving "satsang" but keep it concentrated and under control. Paradoxically, one keeps if from "scattering" by "letting it go," "not holding onto it," "letting it flow through" one so as not to be eaten up or "frazzled" by it. Most speakers appear self-controlled and speak quietly. The "energy" must serve to concentrate, bursting out just enough to reveal itself and the point from which it comes, but honed to a fine point, adding clarity, depth, exactness, and intensity:

The service offered by the mind to the Master is that of surrendering into the communion, of acting as a clear and precise reflection of the higher consciousness, as an effective channel for the transmission of the Truth. The communication can then be as clearly formulated as formal poesy, as precise and exact as light. The key to the clear and effective presentation of satsang is the peaceful centering within meditation, and being without preconception. The key is to trust the reality of the communion of the Knowledge which lies within the spontaneous and ever-creative expression of the WORD. (Crozier, 1974)

When one has really "let GMJ flow through" while giving "satsang," one returns to one's seat all vitalized and aglow with the "energy," scarcely knowing how long one talked or what one said. 28 Rehashing it in one's head afterward when one should be listening to the next few peoples' "satsang" is a sure sign only one's "ego," not GMJ really care through. "Real satsang" will leave one's mind blank, clear, and relieved, and one's "ego" unselfconscious. One will expect few comments from others, and rarely will they come.

The "experience" of giving "satsang" overwhelms the speaker with GMJ's "energy," "power," and "love," and at the same time points poignantly to the inadequacy of language to express the inexpressible and of oneself to perform as a perfectly "pure channel." GMJ frequently quotes an Indian saint as saying that "if all the world's oceans were

180

ink and all the trees pens, I could still not begin to praise You." Or as one premie poet put it:

In spring
White clouds rain joy
Upon the eager leaves.
Green arms
Extended to receive
The precious water-seed
employ

A language
Fair of Word to greet
Each God-sent taste of love.

For me to tell you
How I feel,
I'd have to steal
The lyrics of their song.
What tongue could be so free?
What life, so long? 29

181

NOTES TO CHAPTER V

1) Any place "Name" or "word" appears in religious scriptures, premies take it at face value that the writer was referring to the same breath-sensation premies call Holy Name. And if the writer or someone who interprets the scripture talks about the Name as a particular pronounceable name, like "Allah" or "Hare Krishna," or a mantra, they think of that person as misguided, because they didn't really understand what the true, unpronounceable Name of God really is.

2) GMJ's four other "commandments" are: 1) Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today; 2) Constantly meditate and remember Holy Name; 3) Never leave room for doubt in your mind; 4) Always have faith in God.

3) These are analytic distinctions. Premies, who must deal with these three levels of distraction all at once, do not distinguish between them, except to remark that tape-recorded or written satsang, even of GMJ, can never hope to approach the "experience" of listening in a live satsang situation.

Most analyses of "satsang" have focused disproportionately on the words and their effects; Saliba (1980) and Schwartz (1977) abandon the situation altogether in favor of taped interviews. But satsang does not take place in a vacuum; it is a form of social interaction where participants who generally know one another well play specific parts, the listeners as well as the speakers.

4) Headquarter communities - Denver during 1973-78 and Miami since 1978 - boast hundreds of premies, perhaps over a thousand; New York and Los Angeles communities have also been quite large. Most premie communities, however, have about 20-100 "regulars."

5) A "premie house" is a dwelling where premies live communally but independently of the Mission. They take no vows, usually they share expenses but do not pool their money. Turnover in "premie houses" is apt to be quite high.

6) The custom of bowing to the altar ("pranaming") comes and goes, depending on the religiousness or casualness of the occasion and the phase the Mission happens to be passing through.

7) This varies with time, depending on how devotional premies are during any particular phase. Most "satsang" customs similarly vary with time.

8) The ashram schedule includes attendance at the two-hour "satsang" program every single evening. During especially fervent phases of Mission life, active community premies try to emulate this ideal and encourage others to as well. Many premies censure themselves for even one evening of "spacing out," during these periods, but during other periods they relax and attend only four or five evenings a week. Less involved premies, during any phase, content themselves with one or two "satsangs" a week.

182

9) The standard premie reply to the outsider's typical comment that GMJ, reveling in all his cars and luxuries, is a greedy, exploitative playboy is: "GMJ is perfect. You are just seeing your own greediness and exploitativeness when you look at him."

10) Premie meditation always focuses first on the object of concentration, and secondarily on external and internal distractions. Distractions are never analysed for themselves, only "recognized" as distractions so they can be "dropped." This same "dropping" of distractions is one main difference between this and Theravada Buddhist Vipassana ("Insight") meditation, which uses concentration only as a tool for examing the mind's vagaries, those very distractions premies try to deal with by recognizing and "dropping." Premie meditation thus dichotomizes mental phenomena in a way which Vipassana does not. For a phenomenology of Vipassana by a Western practitioners, see Walsh, 1977, 1978.

11) Tart (1971) notes three similar effects which arise from marijuana intoxication: a) "The face of another person will change even as I watch it, so he keeps changing from one different person to another." (60) [This often happened to me in satsang, and I believed myself to be seeing hidden aspects of the speaker's personality.] b) "There is a sensual quality to vision, as if I were 'touching' the objects or people I am looking at." (63) [Reported most often by heavy users.] c) "Everything I look at seems to vibrate or pulse, as if it had a life of its own." [This occurred at higher intoxication levels.] (64)

12) Often at festivals and especially during that period, GMJ would wear his "Krishna costume" of yellow pants and red jacket while he gave his final "satsang." Pictures of GMJ in the "Krishna costume" abound, and many premies see him thus clad in their visions and dreams.

13) Despite all this, taped recordings of GMJ's public "satsangs" are made by the Mission and sold to the premies, who listen to them in their cars, at home, even at work when they can. A real "satsang" experience can happen when the coincidence of GMJ's taped remarks seem uncannily to apply to the very moment at hand in a premie's life, particularly when someone happens to start a tape in the middle or pass through a room and just happen to hear a snatch of "satsang" from a tape of GMJ.

14) Premies occasionally sent unsolicited articles to the "Divine Times" and "And It Is Divine" staffs. This one was simply labeled "from Canada," and was never used in a premie publication.

15) These words change with time. Before GMJ and his brother Raja Ji split off from his two other brothers and mother, the five together were referred to as the "holy family," and even by Indians as like "five fingers of one hand." After the split, GMJ made it explicit in a letter to all the premies that only he was to be considered divine, though soon his wife and children began acquiring, if not "holy family" status, an especially numinous presence for premies. Possessions, too, change o'er time. After GMJ surprised premies by flying into a retreat

183

in the Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains by helicopter when they thought he was in Denver, premies talked and dreamed of helicopters for years. The Boeing 707 airplane he purchased in 1980 made an even greater impact, drawing premies to airports to work on it or even tell others about its gleaming polished wings, its elegant interior.

16) GMJ's "mala" is a garland of huge flowers GMJ has sometimes worn on the climactic final night of festivals.

17) One premie who claimed to be a practising spirit medium said that the talent required of a good "satsang" speaker was the same as that of a good medium. One somehow discerns the wishes and interests in the minds of the listeners and speaks to that.

18) Letter from the Denver "Community Coordinator" to the premies of the Denver community, March 7, 1966, p. 1.

19) Communique to the DLM centers of the U.S. from the premie headquarters in Denver, about the DLM image, Summer 1976.

20) A friend who lived in the same "premie house" as me had been assigned the job of keeping track of the number of premies who attended "satsang" in Denver during that period. She remarked to me several times that "satsang" attendance had drastically declined.

21) In the days before 1973 and in casual or impromptu "satsangs" whoever feels so moved speaks next, but the tendency for vociferous and "bongo" (crazy) premies to "hog the satsang chair" prompted Mission officials toward the "satsang monitor" system. Sometimes, especially at large satsangs or programs oriented to the general public, the monitor schedules the speakers beforehand.

22) Though most monitors rarely choose speakers with bad reputations (i.e. a premie who doesn't meditate or attend satsang regularly, who smokes marijuana, who seems absorbed in a career or non-premie friends, who disagrees with prevailing views, whose satsang borders on the "worldly".) Sometimes a move to democratize satsang and give

everyone a chance, abolishing favoritism, sweeps through the Mission. Then often enough a counter-move will follow, the urge to "clean up" satsang discouraging monitors from choosing borderline premies.

23) The altar always has a picture of GMJ on it, and is often decorated with flowers and raised a foot or two. Depending on waxing and waning trends of premie devotionalism, an empty chair may or may not wait on the altar for GMJ. Arguments for the presence of the chair cite instances where GMJ showed up unexpectedly to give satsang in communities hundereds of miles from where he was thought to be. "If he should come," the argument goes, "where would he sit?" Arguments against the chair say simply that it looks silly to outsiders to be bowing down all the time to an empty chair. Prostrating to the altar upon entering and before giving satsang also varies over time.

24) Premies rarely speak of satsang as "coming from the breath" in quite such a physiological way as Zen practitioners speak of actions

184

"coming from the Hara." (see for example Hara by Karlfried Graf Von Durkheim, (1962), and Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel (1953).) They mean something more like "coming from the consciousness which comes when the attention is on breath-meditation." Premies teach one another about this "consciousness," rarely referring to explicit physiological sensations, so that the individual must more or less figure out these sensations through his own trial and error. However, once in 1972 I overheard two premies' comments on a certain Indian Initiator's (called "Mahatma" in those days) especially passionate, concentrated, devoted satsang one evening. They talked about how his breathing was powerful

and even, how its "energy" manifested so evidently in his speech. He was neither breathing heavily nor shouting; his expression was calm, passionate not with arousal or excitement but with a lucid intensity.

25) Note that this person took his "vow of silence" before becoming involved with DLM. Rarely do premies do such things; noone requires it and others would discourage it.

26) On possession trance, see Lewis (1971) and Henney (1974).

27) On speaking in tongues, see Goodman (1972). Premies never try to go into some sort of trance while they speak. If anything, one experiences more alertness than usual.

28) GMJ is rumored to have watched a video of a "satsang" he had given earlier that evening and to have commented to his wife, "You know, I don't remember saying any of this?" (At other times, however, he quotes topics he brought up in earlier "satsangs.")

CHAPTER VI

******************* Unfortunately Pages 186 & 187 were left behind in a Berkeley motel *******************

188

As he kept tightening the noose, I was saying something like "Guru Maharaj Ji, if it's your will for me to die, then take me, but please take me to your lotus feet." … Then, all of a sudden, he loosened it. He told me if I didn't struggle, he might let me live. So I sort of went "Whew, maybe Guru Maharaj Ji wants me to live." …

It was definitely a miracle. It was sort of like being taken into the wilderness to face demons and having them overcome by the grace of God, by Guru Maharaj Ji, and then being taken back to civilization. (Downton, 1979, pp. 44-5)

Still other stories recounted masters' impossible commands miraculously fulfilled and ecstatically rewarded only when devotional faith flamed hot enough to melt away illusory obstacles.

"KRISHNA LILA"

Gradually GMJ replaced Hindu stories with technological parables about cars, airplanes, computers, but the story of the young Krishna and his "gopis," or milk-maid devotees, weathered Americanization and continued to animate premie lives. GMJ always identified heavily with this myth; in fact, its premie version allegedly emerged from one of his dreams:

During the celebration of Guru Maharaj Ji's 14th birthday party [December, 1971] at Prem Nagar ashram [in Hardwar, India], he related a dream he had about Krishna and the love and devotion of the gopis. The dream was a play which tells a story of the pain and separation from the Lord and the Joy of reunion. Premies begged GMJ to let them perform for him the dance he had dreamed. ("And It Is Divine," 3/75, p. 8)

A dance troupe formed and performed this play at major premie festivals and other public occasions for several years. They called it "Krishna Lila." The plot of "Krishna Lila" was simple. Act I portrays the initial merging and separation. The gopis are going through the motions of their day's activities longing for Krishna to appear. When he comes, "The gopis do not resist, and with their Lord they perform a joyous dance of reunion." But separation soon follows:

189

The elusive Krishna cannot be held for long, and too quickly the dance is over. As He turns to go, Radha, most beloved of the gopis, presents the Perfect Master with a lotus flower.

In his playfulness, Krishna at first appears to ignore the gopis' longings:

[Act II] Alone with His beloved servant Uddho, Krishna seems to have forgotten the young milkmaids who are weeping ceaselessly, praying for His return.

But the gopis' longings finally pull him too into the sorrow of separation:

A lotus flower floats by [Krishna and Uddho] in the midst of their play and Krishna becomes sad, for he is reminded of Radha and the strength of her pure love.

Act III portrays Krishna spying playfully and lovingly on the mourning gopis:

The gopis are still in misery, waiting for the return of their Krishna. … Finally drawn by their love, Krishna appears. He has been hiding, watching His loved ones, and knows the depth of the sorrow they have been feeling.

And Krishna pours a miraculous joy into the final merging by manifesting so many forms of himself that each gopi has a Krishna as dancing-partner all to herself: "Laughing through tears of joy,all perform the Rasa Dance." ("And It Is Divine," 11/73, p. 18)

"Krishna Lila" thrived in the premie imagination partly because GMJ would act out Krishna with them. On some festival occasions he dressed like Krishna as king, wearing a royal red and gold jacket, flowing yellow pants, and crown. He enjoyed the ecstatic love of his premies, or "lovers," sometimes even dancing with them. And, like Krishna, he played hide-and-seek "lilas" with the premies, appearing unexpectedly at "satsang" programs, phoning premies at strange times, fouling up Mission plans, and periodically vanishing. At one performance4 of the "Krishna Lila" dance, for example, specially decorated

190

seats sat empty awaiting GMJ's entourage while upstairs he cut his cake, cavorted with fireworks and, declining to attend the performance, declared uproariously, "This is Krishna Lila!" Another time GMJ sat laughing in his car watching unsuspecting premies prostrate to his motor home parked nearby, where they thought he was.

"KRISHNA LILA" AND THE INDIVIDUAL: "LILA" AND "GRACE"

"Krishna Lila" fit individual premie lives well, with its pattern of merging-separation-merging, joy-sorrow-joy, understandingconfusion-understanding. The "conversion sequence," whose frequency Schwartz noted in premie satsang, typically begins with an account of the chaotic, unhappy, ignorant state of life before Knowledge and ends, in fairy-tale fashion, with the initial merging of "coming to Knowledge," or to GMJ. But soon the honeymoon bliss fades:

After my initiation into Knowledge … Day after day I woke up to discover I was still overjoyed. (Collier, 1978, p. 118)

In particular I remember the day my two-month period of joy broke. Early in the morning I had had a haunting dream. …

I woke up crying. This was the first morning that I was not in the elated state that had become my normal consciousness for the past few months. When I went to cook breakfast I was still sad. I served food and went to cry alone in the kitchen. (p. 131)

Then the round of separations and subsequent mergings begins: "darshan" and then GMJ's absence; the premie community, then "the world;" "Holy Name," then "mind;" "clarity," then "confusion." Then miraculously, "darshan," the community, "Holy Name, "clarity" all back again, but never for good.

This cycle does not command one's life impersonally, like the cycles of the seasons and the heavens, for GMJ with his "lila" shines through In every phase, teaching, playing, flirting, loving, using

191

worldly "illusions" for his props.

GMJ the person is said to play hide-and-seek and other "lilas" in order to play with premies' consciousness. "One time," a premie once told me, "GMJ put on a record for me to hear. Then as he gazed into my eyes the music slowed, the turntable stopped, and time hung in an eternal suspended moment. When I glanced away the music and time along with it started up again." Another premie recounts:

And just then [GMJ] put his finger right in my forehead, just straight into the middle of my forehead, and he just said, "You have no control!" … That was it; I was gone. I was gone for weeks! And a couple of people helped me over to a rock and they draped me over it. And I was looking at Guru Maharaj Ji, but he wasn't that same. … Because he was omnipotent now. And he was everything. ("Divine Times, 9-10/77, p. 12)

GMJ also plays with premies' consciousness in their visions and "darshan" dreams, and even beyond these his "lila" includes the whole effort and reward of meditation.

"GMJ's lila" also includes anything unusual or untoward done by the DLM. According to Foss and Larkin (1978), many premies saw as "lila" GMJ's lavish lifestyle, the "Millennium '73" festival which incurred a one million dollar debt and much bad press, and the characteristically abrupt changes in Mission policy.

Then again, "lila" appears as the unexpected or unwanted at work, in the family, with health or weather, for these are all part of GMJ's dream, or "movie," in which the "energy" of his cosmic, universal form grandly manipulates everything to "test" premies' inner spiritual "connection" and to instruct them in the intricacies of meditational equanimity.

So in one sense a premie can always blame bad luck or "separation" from "experience" on GMJ's "lila," or even on the more fatalistic "karma,"

192

that myaterious flowering of effects rooted in the shrouded realm of long-forgotten causes. But on the other hand premies tend also to blame "separation" on themselves:

When bliss fails to manifest itis blamed on the premie, and the problem can be attributed to numerous possible causes: he is insufficiently dedicated, he is in his mind, he has not let go of his ego, he has "expectations" of "realizing the Knowledge" too quickly, failing to "let go" and thereby make real progress on the spiritual path, and so forth. In short, if bliss is manifested, this is GMJ's Grace; if it is not, this is human failure. (Foss and Larkin, 1978. p. 162)

Only on the most rarified level can these shortcomings been seen as "GMJ's lila." In a similar way, if GMJ in person does not appear as expected, premies scrutinize themselves for the guilty explanation -for, as one version of "Krishna lila" would have it, Krishna left the gopis because of their quarreling and jealousy; "Karma" here is only literal, everyday cause and effect.

"GMJ's Grace," as the flip side of "GMJ's lila," brings about the individual's reunions with the person or "experience" of GMJ. As with "lila," premies understand the operations of "Grace" on many levels.

Some instances of Grace are directly attributable to the actions of GMJ as when he Graces a premie with his "Darshan" or assigns him to a particularly blissful service. [Foss and Larkin, 1978, p. 161]

"Grace" can also appear as the explosion of "experience" during meditation, or as some vivid coincidence of daily life. Just as one contemplates "spacing out," a passing radio blares sentimental lyrics which recall "divine love;" or a premie immersed in melancholy goes to a repair shop to pick up her car, only there to receive a blissful feeling like "darshan" from a Mercedes which had once belonged to GMJ.

Finally, premies often extend "grace" to encompass any good which befalls them:

One evening in April 1974 a sixteen-year-old woman said that

193

"little droplets of Grace" were constantly raining down on her. As an example she told of looking for a present for her mother; she did not expect to purchasethe desired item for under six dollars. Grace intervened when she happened by a store which had the intended gift on sale for a mere $1.98. (Foss and Larkin, 1978, p. 161)

GMJ has occasionally defined "grace" more strictly than this: if your car breaks down and you just happen to find the right size fan belt lying there on the shoulder, well, that's luck, that's "fan-belt grace," not real grace. Real "graces" are four: 1) having a human body; 2) scriptures, which point the spiritual way; 3) saints and Perfect Masters, who can teach God-realization; and finally 4) the grace of one's own efforts. Thus, though GMJ' uncontrollable mercy and love are said constantly to shower the premie with "grace" in every circumstance, only through individual effort can one recognize and thus benefit from it. "Grace" will follow the effort of opening to, or "surrendering to grace." Thus "grace" can be said to follow effort, but still subtly and somewhat unpredictably, still escaping the strict logic of causality:

At other times Guru Maharaj Ji intimates that Grace is a miracle or supernatural reward which magnifies the anticipated consequences of virtuous behavior such as hard work or diligent organizing … the notion of Grace in the old sense that runs, "God helps those who help themselves." (Foss and Larkin, 1978, p. 161)

Thus with both "lila" and "grace" human activity is only ambiguously causal, for the "lila" of separation and the "grace" of merging are inherent in the very nature of the cosmic drama.5 This ambiguity permits the individual to view all his life events, whether he is responsible for them or not, in mythic "grace/lila" terms, as part of the vast cosmic round of merging, separation, and merging. Individual biography merges into myth as premies tell their stories in "satsang," and others tell and retell, color and exaggerate them until the

194

devotees' identities are lost and only the stories, with which the listeners identify, remain, and 1970's Americans join the Ancient Indian yogis and gopis in the premie mythic universe.

"KRISHNA LILA" AS MYTH OF THE PREMIE COLLECTIVITY

The "Krishna Lila" story spells out the relationship of "me and my Lord," but also of "us and our Lord." Thus it speaks to the individual's devotional life, but also to the collectivity of devotees together with their Master. In the myth, ecstatic dancing together with Krishna symbolizes ideal togetherness. He comes for them all, his call brings them all together, they dance all together with one another, all together with him, but at the same time each alone with him. The new mode of being together is grounded in Krishna's presence; the ecstacy he brings the "gopis" transforms their relationship with one another.

Similarly, when premies come together with GMJ their relationship with one another is also transformed. But reenactment of myth in collective life is subject to interpretation; thus premies have, over time, experimented with modes of coming together with one another and with their Guru. Three discernable experimental directions correspond roughly with Wilson's (1969) conversionist, introversionist, and Utopian sect types.

1) "Conversionist" tendencies of the "naive offensive"6 are typified by the 1972-1973 recruitment efforts culminating in the intensive publicizing of "Millennium '73" in Houston. This period saw a syncretism of Hindu cosmic cycles and Christian millenarianism. GMJ represented Vishnu/Krishna returning once again to Earth at the end of a world-cycle, the end of the Age of Iron and the beginning of the new

195

Golden Age. But he was also Christ come again for the period of final judgement, the Battle of Armageddon, and the next Millennium of peace. A fanciful sci-fi tale entitled "Aromageddon" which appeared in the January, 1973 "And It Is Divine" reflects this syncretism while chronicling the typical early premies' odyssey through drugs, Eastern religion, and hippiedom to GMJ and his dream of converting the world.

The tale of "Aromageddon" begins with Earth in trouble. But "the prompter, scene shifters and script writers for the Divine Comedy are constantly on guard," the call for help "flashed acrosss of host of angelic visors," and help comes:

Krishna put it nicely. When things get rough, I'll drop in, look to the interest of my boys, and tidy the whole mess up.

"Supreme Intelligence" then recruits yogis from laid-back planets and "dream-locations" to reincarnate on Earth. But "yogis parachuting into a new planet often suffer from amnesia." "…So it was that many of our boys got quite caught up in the Earth Programming Courses known as schools." The reincarnated yogis, "disenchanted with school," are soon lured away by Arabs with magic carpets, "a butterfly named Chuang Tsu," and "various distinguished Swamis and Rishis, Rochis and Rimpoches."

Eventually the yogis find one another, gather together to make music, and then "the Supreme Commander, the Born Lord of the Yogis,"7 arrives to train them at an "Inward Bound Camp" to overcome hatred with love using, among other tactics,

The butterfly-versus-tank ploy. I'll bet my butterly can tickle the soft underbelly of your tank before you can set your gunsights on him. For gentleness is always tougher than strength. …

… For it was time for the meek to inherit the earth, and the Born Lord was here to see it happen. …

… Pulling the thorn out between His teeth the young Guru tossed His rose through the windown of the High Command, where it exploded with colossal peace in the warmongers' hearts. …

… All hearts responded to the Born Lord. None died. The

196

powerful, powerless to stand before Him, dropped to their knees, and learned Love. All mankind stepped into the new age. ("And It Is Divine," 1/73, pp. 39-42)

In this fantasy premies arise from another world and reunite in "Krishna-Lila" fashion with GMJ the "Supreme Commander" after various adventures, but instead of staying separate they invade the world to save and transform it.

2) After the "Millennium '73" festival failed so utterly in its missionary aims and brought heaps of derision upon the Mission, premies retreated into their first introversionist phase. The Mission fell deeply into debt and though the Denver headquarters reduced its staff, within a few months it began to expand once again, and along with it the nationwide system of ashrams. During the 1974-1975 period premies withdrew from the outside world as much as possible, the Headquarters worked not on outreach but on facilitating internal networks, premies concerned themselves with meditative purification of the "mind's" "worldly" tendencies, clung to one another in their communities, and drew a marked distinction between "us" and "them." One often heard that "if you miss just one night of satsang your mind will become worldly," or "I know now I want nothing more to do with this world," accompanied by a sigh and a long, pious blink. During this period, then, being together with GMJ meant conforming to a tightknit premie society, socially and physically rejecting the "world."

3) Introversionism gradually mellowed as the group recovered from its post-"Millennium '73" setback and thoughts turned once again towards saving the world. This time, however, the method involved the creation of premie alternative institutions which would inspire the "world" through Utopian example. A "divine city" fantasy of

197

1972-1973 crystallized as the "City of Love and Light," a semi-monastic urban commune of 200 which flourished in San Antonio between 1974 and 1976. The fledgling premie school and clinic in Denver expanded, a publication company, arts group, photography business and food cooperative emerged as well during this period, and by the end of 1976 premie alternatives in construction, travel, gardening, music, childcare, psychotherapy, to name only a few, began to appear all over the country, drawing premies out from the ashrams and eventually into communication with the "worldly" institutions they sought to copy and inspire.

Utopia, however, was nipped in the bud. Plans for a premie rural commune or permanent festival site never materialized, and the leadership sensed that premies were enjoying their various projects all too much. Some enterprises disbanded at GMJ's express command, others faded from lack of attention as GMJ drew premies' focus back to himself. If towards the end of 1976 premies had a question it would have been, "Where is the premie ideal community meant to manifest if not in world-transforming crusades, retreats, or Utopian alternatives? If GMJ never speaks of waiting for Heaven until after death, thwarts premie efforts to establish Heaven on earth yet still speaks continually of a Heavenly collectivity, what is he talking about?"

GMJ answered by staging a series of impromptu "festivals" during the spring of 1977, calling his whole nationful of followers first to Portland in January, then three weeks later to Denver, then to Miami, then Montreal, and on and on over the next couple of years until most premies' projects, ambitions, careers dropped by the wayside. GMJ proved to them that the premie ideal collectivity can exist here on earth but only temporarily, only here and there and now and then -- only, as in the "Krishna Lila" myth, when the "Lord" calls and the

198

creatures respond. Only when thousands of premies gather for GMJ's "darshan" and "satsang" and the most spectacular, whimsical, memorable, and intoxicated moments of premie life.

Inspired by these frequent festivals and distracted from Utopian and worldly pursuits, the premies entered another introversionist phase. Ashram ranks swelled, communities turned inward once again. But this time they attempted minimal institution-building. The new headquarters in Miami never blossomed to the proportions of the 1973-1975 Denver headquarters, and no new schools, clinics, or communal experiments emerged. Only a few new companies formed, and these were stringently kept legally separate from the religious organization which now no longer even bore the name of Divine Light Mission.

By 1980 even the new introversionism had crested, communities began to scatter, individually looking into school and careers, communally selling off any lingering real estate. Ashram residents grew increasingly restless until in 1982 GMJ urged most of them to move out. In terms of tangible accomplishments, the premies had clearly failed. This failure to establish either a retreat, a missionary organization, or a Utopia stands in sharp contrast to the tangible achievements of some other New Religious Movements.8

Yet premies did not perceive themselves to have failed.9 Individually they still experienced spiritual growth and continual inspiration from several dozen Western "initiators" appointed by GMJ to crisscross the premie world giving "satsang" and initiating what few newcomers trickled in by word of mouth. And as a group they still attended festivals and witnessed GMJ traveling more and more, in the early 1980's giving numerous programs on four continents.

199

If anything, premies by the early 1980's probably sensed in their movement the final triumph of a kind of simplicity. They had, after all, transcended their "concepts" of how to be with GMJ -- the experiments with conversionism, introversionism, and Utopianism -- and acquiesced to the original pattern of periodic festivals, the "Krishna Lila" pattern of merging and separation with their Lord.

200

NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

1) This understanding of myth and symbol owes much to the work of Eliade and Stanner.

2) Manifestly Indian symbolism -- Brahma, Vishnu, lotuses and so forth -- became less popular as the Mission Americanized. Nevertheless, the underlying import has very much continued in premie thought.

3) Strict Hindu interpretations admit only ten incarnations, the human ones including Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and the future Kalki who will appear at the end of this world cycle, whom premies claim is GMJ. Neo-Hinduism, inspired by Hindu contacts with other religions during the last centuries and exemplified by Sri Ramakrishna (1834-1886) who reenacted the experiences of Christians and many other religionists in ecstatic meditations, includes Jesus, Mohammed, and teachers of many traditions. The Sant Mat traditions emphasize the medieval "bhakti" masters and their spiritual descendents. On the relationship between GMJ and the Sant Mat tradition, see chapter 10.

4) In celebration of GMJ's fifteenth birthday in Hardwar, India. I happened to have witnessed this particular incident myself.

5) Foss and Larkin (1978) interpret the premie attraction to "grace/lila" theology as evidence that premies sought in GMJ and his teachings a cosmic reflection of a social reality which to them, as post60's movement youth, was random and absurd. As with most such glib equations of theology with social circumstance, they ignore other facets of the native worldview, in this case the premie semi-belief in the "karma" notion of causality, which points to a kind of fatalism rather than nonsense as the underlying logic of the cosmos. They also ignore the Christian roots of the "Grace" concept (premies often sang the hymn "Amazing Grace"), and the Hindu origins of the "lila" concept, and fail to observe that these notions persisted through centuries of various social circumstances, some absurd, others not.

6) My term, see chapter I.

7) "Born Lord of the Yogis" is the literal translation of "Balyogeshwar," the name by which GMJ is generally known in India.

8) The Unification Church has a theological seminary, a communal farm used to socialize new recruits, publishing firms, and a number of successful businesses. Krishna Consciousness has a large retreat center in the South, schools, a publishing firm and businesses, and it owns most of the temples where devotees live. Raj Neesh followers are establishing a a model community in Oregon. Bubba Free John followers have a community and publishing house in rural Northern California. Zen Center in San Francisco has two rural retreats; followers of Yogananda have a commune in the Sierra foothills and and urban center in San Francisco. Followers of the Tibetan Buddhist Trungpa, Rimpoche have established a university and medical clinic in Boulder, Colorado.

9) Most journalistic and scholarly reports have been describing the demise of DLM since 1974.

201

CHAPTER VII

FESTIVALS

Premie history in the West reveals beneath wide fluctuations in organizational complexity and institution-building a consistent pattern of huge "festivals." 1971-1973 saw winter festivals in India, summer festivals in Colorado, the Alps, and London, and "millennium '73" in Houston. Succeeding years saw at least a "Guru Puja" festival every July, a "Hans Jayanti" in November, a "Holi" in April,' often on two or even three continents, and other impromptu festivals as well. 1978 and 1979 nine-day campout "Hans Jayantis" in Florida each attracted some fifteen to twenty thousand premies from Europe and North and South America. "Holi" festivals in the Miami Orange Bowl have persisted through 1982, along with the numerous smaller programs of GMJ's many international tours.

Festivals not only absorb tremendous amounts of premie resources and energy; they also mold a premie's life around periodic interactions with GMJ and the crowd of other premies he inevitably attracts.

BEFORE THE FESTIVAL: PREMIES AND GMJ

GMJ's play of "Krishna Lila" is said to begin with premie longings. At a retreat in the Pennsylvania Pocono mountains late in the summer of 1977, one speaker began his "satsang" only after weeping into the microphone for several minutes:

I just feel completely helpless, and I want him to come and help me … I just want GMJ to come so much … I really do. So much

202

Then he wondered about the longings' effectiveness:

This is so serious. It's just really serious, because if he could have come, and he doesn't come because we just don't go deep enough, I'm going to feel terrible. And I don't know how to bring him. I just don't know how to bring him. But I really want him here. ("Divine Times," 9-10/77, p.5)

GMJ was in Denver that very same night, where another large gathering of premies were also longing for him to appear:

The [Denver] satsang was beautiful, and so was the music. Everyone seemed to be reaching together for deeper answers to old questions: Do we have a right to demand that GMJ come to us, ever? Is it wrong to acknowledge that we want to see him so badly we can't stand it? If our hearts are breaking to see you, Lord, will you come? (p.4)

GMJ played "lila" with both the Denver and the Pennsylvania premies. In Denver, the "satsang" monitor kept trying to phone GMJ at his "residence" a few minutes' drive away:

One voice answered with the mysterious words, "Temperature Control." By the time Jim realized whose voice that was, GMJ had clicked off …

In another conversation, a premie told Jim the answer was an "absolute negative." But GMJ, from across the room, yelled out: No it WASN'T negative. There was still hope … (p. 4)

… Not long after that, we learned that GMJ was in the air - presumably heading to Malibu. (p. 5)

Actually, GMJ was flying to the East Coast, where after fog and bungled plans gave even him a little "lila," he chartered a helicopter the next afternoon for the Poconos retreat. Finally Guru and devotees came together in ecstacy:

Why are those helicopters heading this way? Of course it can't be happening. GMJ's in Denver right now. Or Malibu. Or somewhere. Isn't he?

[The speaker] continues, but the sound gets louder and louder until everyone's eyes are drawn to the choppers …

"Maharaj Ji is here!" He has swooped down out of the sky, answering the call of hearts that were gathered for the "Court of Love"2Retreat. "Lord of all the universe, come down to show the way."

There are tears and gasps and roaring cries … at intervals [the speaker] blurts her feelings into the microphone. "Goddd!" she cries. "Oh, Goddddd!" (p. 4)

203

GMJ often called impromptu programs himself, giving the impression of artless spontaneity. He later described the time in January, 1977 when he called a national program in Portland, Oregon with three days' notice:

I was just across the border from California into Oregon … there wasn't any intention, really, to do any program at that point, I just wanted to have a nice camping trip …

But anyway, it was like, it 'happened,' and all of a sudden, I said, "How about a program in Portland! … and this program was really what you would say, whipped together real fast. ("Divine Times," 3/77 pp. 6-7)

Premies interpret this apparent playful spontaneity not only as "GMJ's lila," not only as his divinely intuitive "perfect" response to their innermost longings, but more specifically as a teaching device:

Saturday afternoon before Father's Day [1975, at GMJ's Malibu residence] we were all sitting around and GMJ said, "How about if we have the premies come up here?"

We all got into it immediately, saying, "Oh really GMJ, that would be incredible …" And just as we got into it, GMJ sat down and said, "No, this is my residence." Of course we all sat down and agreed. It's funny you know, because GMJ knows what he wants to do, but he plays with us and even his seeming indecision is a beautiful part of the play between Lord and devotee.

So we continued making dinner and tried to take our minds off the affair. Suddenly GMJ walked into the kitchen and said, "Call the ashram and tell the premies we are having a party up here tomorrow at 6 P.M." We exploded with joy. ("Divine Times," 7/75, p. 10)

This call, this teaching touched all California premies and even that evening me and the other premies of the Phoenix ashram. Like the gopis who would abandon their husbands and cattle at the first tooting of Krishna's flute, we quickly ironed our "darshan" outfits, grabbed some sandwiches and the forty of us, squeezed into vans and VW's, fled through the night toward Los Angeles.

If response to GMJ's call is impossible premies still learn, still "experience GMJ playing with their hearts," increasing their longing. If they stay away but could have gone they witness their own

204

lack of zeal and perhaps deluge themselves in uninspired guilt. But if they can possibly go they go, perhaps impoverished and jobless from the last one, but trusting in "grace" all the way.

To go to a festival, then, is to step into the reality of "GMJ's world." Care for the everyday future is thrown to the winds:

In going to [the surprise program in] Los Angeles, many premies had unhesitatingly used up what little they'd already saved for the charter fare to Europe [for the "Hans Jayanti" festival planned two months later in Rome, Italy]. It could only be called an act of surrender and faith.

Yet, when GMJ stepped out on that carpet there were no regrets, no doubts about whether they might get to Rome, or any other place GMJ wanted them to be.

Once again, the pull of the Perfect Master had been stronger than anyone's logic. ("Divine Times,"9-10/77, p. 6-7)

Festival-going "grace" often appears only after "lila," "lilas" which work out in the difficult context of angry airline ticket agents, broken-down vehicles, bewildered bosses and parents, overdrawn checking accounts. But GMJ so often speaks of "Beat the System" and "Mission Impossible." In his world such obstacles are "maya" which disappears when longing and meditative determination persist until "grace" peeks out through an unexpected loophole. Someone finds hundreds of dollars in an unused drawer at home; a hitchhiker abandoned in Kansas who has just prostrated himself to GMJ there on the roadside gets picked up by a driver who responds to his "satsang" by driving to Miami and attending the festival himself. A stranger approaches a destitute premie meditating in a quiet corner of the airport and hands her a ticket to the very city where GMJ is to speak that evening. A premie with no passport succeeds several times in walking unnoticed through immigration as if he had the power to become invisible.3 And on and on, in life and in satsang, the stories suggest a hidden miraculous reality which proves its strength by defying the expected limitations of the everyday world.

205

The essence of "illusion" is to deny that limitations can crack just enough for that sacred reality to seep through.

Even when things don't work out as one wishes, premies still "flow with it," still perceive the hand of "grace." A blizzard hit New York on the eve of a January festival in Kansas City:

It seems right, in the divine logic of GMJ's world. …

At Kennedy Airport conditions are bedlam. Passengers scream for tickets and flights. "What can we do?" the airlines say. "It's an act of God!" The premies laugh and share satsang. They see GMJ's control. ("Divine Times," 1-2/78, p. 7)

BEFORE THE FESTIVAL: PREMIES WITH EACH OTHER

The "lila" of getting to a festival challenges premies toward disentanglement from the obstacles and obligations, habits and thought- patterns of the "world." Festival-going demands promote such disentanglement by throwing premies together into airplanes and vans, together into unemployment lines, fund-raising projects and ever more crowded premie-houses, into an increasingly shared experience of the everyday "world's" strangeness, its withering power, significance, and relevance.

But mere premie togetherness does not insure the emergence of "GMJ's world:" "lila" insinuates itself into the premie community as well. For every time "grace" "manifests" through a ticket agent's mistake, twenty times it "manifests" through another premie's gift or loan. The 1977 series of festivals, for example, generated an intricate network of loans among Bay Area premies, many of which defaulted as debtors lost jobs to yet more festivals, moved into ashrams or to other communities. As wellfare mothers and the unemployed increasingly pressured more wealthy premies for festival funds, some of the wealthy became poor, others left the movement, others cut off the destitute

206

until they too left the movement. Meanwhile the ashrams and central Mission headquarters were also crying for funds, instigating further debts and resentments among their following, and among the leadership increasing criticism of premie spending for ice creams, movies, new clothes, and other frivolities. Thus the premies' common plight both drew them together and set them against one another.

In the Bay area and most other communities, efforts toward socialization of premie funds and festival efforts failed (except within the ashrams, which were nationally budgeted), throwing premies finally back onto individual solutions. But just as mere togetherness did not insure the "experience" of transcendent community, this failure did not undermine the possibility of it. Only if one left did one lose that but if one managed to stay despite all the divisiveness, struggle, and imperfection, sooner or later those moments of divine togetherness would come.

* * * * *

If getting to festivals generates some "lila," preparation of festivals brings much, much more. Premies have to rent huge halls, convention centers and hotel rooms, coordinate transport from airports, arrange lighting and PA systems to amplify GMJ and one or two bands, design and build an elaborate stage,4 food concessions and childcare facilites, and above all prepare GMJ's regal accommodations, transportation and food for his entourage5 and the myriad associated details.

Like travel to the festival, many of these preparations involve "grace" and "lila" interactions with the outside world, nip and tuck financial escapades or scheduling dilemmas like the time rental of one huge arena depended on the quick elimination of the host city's pro

207

basketball team from the playoffs. In overcoming obstacles the "world's" ways set in front of often bizarre Mission demands, premies draw together; but then again, even more than with travel to festivals, the most challenging "lilas" emerge not from without, but from within their separate premie world.

The Mission hierarchical organization dominates festival preparations. Important and influential premies generally get important and influential festival "services" which carry with them the prizes of special reserved seating, intimate contact with GMJ's entourage, and the chance for extra behind-the-scenes "darshan" of GMJ. Over time a core of experts develops for each "service," through whose nationwide networks new helpers are gathered before each festival. Those not recruited by these networks, however, get assigned at the festival itself to tedious, menial posts in "security" or "childcare" which demand long hours of standing, missing sleep or GMJ's "satsang" and offer little hope of special reserved seating or extra "darshan."

This lowest but necessary level of "service" workers tend toward "spaciness." To keep them in line organizers stress "internal" experiential rewards: "what GMJ is looking for is devotion and sincerity, not whether you are an initiator or a janitor. He'll give you that experience with any service if you're in Holy Name. It doesn't matter where you sit in the hall, darshan is darshan." And so premies learn to "surrender" in service:

"At first, I just resisted," says Jenny, a seamstress who has been up for the last two nights. "I hate sewing. But I broke through and surrendered myself." (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 8)

But since premies so often covet the "external" rewards of "darshan," special seating, and prestige, organizers alternatively suggest

208

that, as with any job, consistency and dependability will reap a better post next festival. DLM "rags to riches" tales relate how GMJ's chauffeur used to be stuck guarding the parking lot during GMJ's "satsang," and how diligence in festival clean-up earned the supervisor of GMJ's residence her post.

This argument convinces only those with the means or the will for the official route to upward mobility of hard work and official promotions within the hierarchy. For the rest, only the logic of "grace" and "lila" keeps them at their posts.

The "grace/lila" interpretation, however, raises festival "service" to the level of GMJ's divine "play." It implies that, like the outside world, the Mission organization too is ultimately "maya," an illusory dream, a movie which enlightened consciousness can penetrate at any moment.

Festivals may seem to symbolize and reinforce the organizational hierarchy, for usually the same leaders give "satsang" while the rest listen, the same important people sit in front with the others behind, the powerful enjoy GMJ's "darshan" offstage while the powerless settle for "darshan dreams." But only to a point, for to premies GMJ has created the structure to be collapsed, the rules to be broken. Inviting anarchy and chaos, he promotes "nobodies" to high ranks, mothers otherwise ridiculed "bongoes," and sneaks around official "channels" contacting random premies all over the globe for secret projects. In 1976 GMJ fired his top executives and, Mao-like, himself attended the first self- questioning "workshop" which mushroomed into a Mission-wide critique of dogma and entrenched priviledge and led to the collapse of most ashrams and the substitution of democratic for authoritarian decision-making at the local community level. GMJ "plays" with the organization,

209

especially with festivals; once he encouraged 10,000-odd premies to come to a Miami festival despite hurricane warnings. They arrived just as Miami was beginning to evacuate and had somehow to scrounge their individual ways to Orlando where, as "grace" would have it, the Mission had just rented land for a subsequent festival. Established ranks shattered, the relocated festival wallowed about in chaos and mud, finally enjoying a "darshan" line at 3:00 A.M. amid eerie pre-hurricane winds.

Even at ordinary festivals GMJ gives obscure and contradictory directions to an exhausted staff called from far-flung communities on short notice. No wonder then that "grace" seekers suspect the phalanx of Mission organizers and security guards teems with hidden loopholes which will yield readily to their intrigue, alertness, or just plain good luck. Everything is possible. A lowly "security" premie guarding some unused door is whisked suddenly to GMJ's private backstage area because a "bongo" gone berserk has just tied up other security personnel. Or a kitchen worker who drops the right name at the right time finds himself feeding "initiators" - and then sharing their front row seats. Or GMJ suddenly appears at midnight to the ecstatic surprise of a hanger-on drafted at the last moment to haul lumber for the stage.

The less opportunistic also see the Mission social structure as provisionary, unstable, and illusory. They know they must obey and conform, this is made clear. But whom they must obey and to what they must conform, this is not always so clear. To disagree with the organization is to follow one's own "mind," but contradictory instructions, unexpected confusions, clearly non-meditating superiors so often force one to intuit "what GMJ really wants." One comes to rely on

210

the guess, the hunch, the "flash," and what Rennie Davis used to call the DLM "incidence of coincidence," incidents like this:

As Jenny works on the darshan curtain, Alfie, the carpet layer, is taking measurements. He would like to lay carpet, but his tools have been locked in a room and nobody has a key.

"I'm having fun," he says. "It's just a nice element of surrender." But how will they lay the carpet?

"I'm going to bend like a reed in the wind,"6 says architect Ed D'Andrea. "Just go with the flow and see if the door gets open, and if it doesn't, kick it down!"

The last measure proves unnecessary when someone shows up with a key half an hour later. Service was experienced … (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 8)

Going with the hunch and the "flow," identifying with GMJ who appears to manipulate and rise above the organization, for many in the crowd the "illusion" of DLM becomes a "mind"-made obstacle which justifies disrespect and unruliness. This forces those who must manage them into harshness and regimentation, which only reinforces a critical view. But the leaders must manage and control if only for safety of life and limb. Premie mobs crazed by "divine love" have torn clothing from GMJ's body. Twice I was knocked down by crowds rushing for "darshan."7

The leaders then find themselves caught between necessarily harsh control measures and the gentle philosophies of "grace" and "flow." If the latter course more readily generates "experience" and lets them feel comfortable with themselves, the former, dealing more effectively with problems in the short run, may lead more quickly to promotions. But then again a leader who waxes too authoritarian begins to look "attached" to his post, over-zealous and obnoxious; yet "detachment" may yield the very lackadaisical incompetence which insures demotion.

Beset with unpleasant tasks, chronically insecure, transferred frequently and rewarded erratically. Mission leaders must also interpret

211

their organization as illusory, a play of "lila" and "grace." In the Mission, we "play out our trips," they say, and "GMJ tests our devotion by pitting ego against ego." A "service change" should be taken as a learning experience, a subtle manifestation of GMJ's "grace." The San Francisco "community coordinator" was transferred to Denver and assigned to menial tasks:

When I found this out I saw my mind in its corner go "You mean you were replaced as community coordinator to become a janitor?" …

Then I looked a little deeper and noticed that without fanfare GMJ had accomplished something by His grace that I had been begging for … The ashrams that exist throughout the country just this week stopped being the monastic order of Divine Light Mission, except in Denver which will be the only place where the monastic order exists. … Secretly I had prayed that I could be in the monastic order. …

I tell you when I saw what He had done all I could do is feel so fortunate to have that opportunity to do any service for Guru GMJ. (SF Community Newsletter, 11/77)

To see it otherwise is to take the "illusion," the "movie" too seriously, and ultimately to question GMJ, the only "real" authority in the DLM. Once this happens, the insubordinate do not have to be fired; they leave. 8

* * * * *

Festivals put the inherently unstable organization to the supreme test. The leaders' responsibilities multiply, they sleep little, rivals appear who compete and disagree, and at any moment GMJ may appear to "bliss them out" or shoot them down, further disintegrating their cohesiveness. Perhaps this inherent brittleness helps protect GMJ's charismatic authority from the encroaching limitations of routinization. As premies see it, festivals are supposed to jar people out of ruts and "attachments." Indeed, in the Western Mission's earlier years so many premies typically quit the organization after festivals that afterwards communities often had to restructure from the ground up.

But only a limited understanding of "maya" or "illusion" demands

212

as evidence material impermanence, unreliability and abrupt changes. Practically, continual upheval in DLM proved too cumbersome, costly and exhausting. Things eventually settled into a balance which allowed for smoother running of Mission communications, finances, and ashrams, yet still gave GMJ a high degree of control and flexibiltiy. As for festivals, the pandemonium which reigned at "Millennium '73" may have yielded hundreds of pounds of leftover peanut butter, lost rental cars, and a million dollar debt, but later festivals ran more and more smoothly and incurred no debts.

A subtler understanding of "maya" needs only smaller fallings- apart. With only minor bunglings at an otherwise well-planned festival in Rome,

Soon it becomes apparent that things are coming unglued at the physical level just so it will be undeniable to us all that the harmony of this festival is coming from another level. And all from one source. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 11)

To perceive this divinely-inspired "harmony," social reality and organization must crumble, but only subtly, toppling only in a certain direction. The illusion to be dispelled is not the bare fact of collectivity, even the facts of ranking and privilege, role and habit. The social actors need not try to disappear or destroy their parts, but only to see themselves as actors, to play in "GMJ's play" as if it were "real," but knowing it to be an "illusion."

GMJ and premies use a variety of methods to make this attitude "real." The abrupt, violent dissolution of social structuring is called for only when structures rigidify quickly and uncontrollably. Festivals, as Turner (1969) suggests, provide a periodic, controlled collapse of structure. But the oscillation from ordinary life to festival to ordinary life, from "structure" to "communitas" to "structure," is only

213

very broad and very general. Within both the festival and ordinary life much more radical and complex oscillations occur. For the lived "experience" of transcending "maya" lasts only a short time and needs ever more subtle and effective mechanisms to renew it.

At the festival physical upheavals like uncomfortable seats and accommodations, strange food, hours, and climate, and social upheavals like long lines, mobs, thwarted plans, loophole-seeking and post-juggling - these only set the stage for ritual upheavals. And ritual upheavals in turn only provide tools or chances for the person who understands how to use them in his effort to transcend the "maya" of social reality. The rituals provide nothing automatically; on the stubborn, the untrusting, the unwilling, the hostile, they rarely work.

FESTIVAL RITUALS

To premies, festivals above all mean "darshan," the physical beholding of GMJ. "Darshan" is the Indian belief that a holy person's special purity, wisdom, energies or powers can infuse into the beholder.9 Even Gandhi could not escape this custom:

I was followed even to the bathing "ghat" by these "darshan" seekers, nor did they leave me alone whilst I was having my meals … I was the victim of their craze for "darshan," … [Their] blind love has often made me angry, and more often sore at heart. (Gandhi, 1957, p. 389)

To premies, GMJ "is our everything, he is the most beautiful thing that these eyes could ever see in this world:" (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 33)

and I saw him standing there,
and he was just so glorious.
He was so beautiful.
He was just so powerful; broad shoulders
and his black, shiny hair was just blowing
in the wind
and - OH! He was incredible! …
beyond anything.
But so beautiful (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 25)

214

They behold in their Guru every manner of wonder:

There was just wisdom oozing out of every pore in his body. Such wisdom … There was a confidence, a power, an energy, that really touched me, that commanded and demanded my respect. (satsang recorded 9/77)

He is standing there calm and poised and relaxed and noble and sure and proud and humble and gorgeous and regal and real and divine

and perfect and so present and personal and he speaks to us. (Divine Times 11-12/77, p.8)

There was Maharaj Ji, radiating so much that you felt you almost needed sunglasses to look at him! (p. 29)

"Darshan" radiance inspires the ultimate "experience:"

Guru Maharaj Ji opened his door and was standing in front of us, all aglow like the noonday sun. I stood there and shook with a feeling I had never known before. (Cameron, 1973, p. 141)

So much different kinds of light was coming … from the toenails of his Supremest Lotus Feet … just like all the red, blue, and shining. And I looked toward GMJ's face and then more and more cried. (Cameron, interview notes)

"Darshan" is both an internal experience and a social occasion. When GMJ gives formal "satsang" to the crowd that is "darshan;" when they sing to him in person and when he dances before them, when he sprays colored water on them at "Holi," these are also "darshan." Even when premies spy him driving by in a car or peeking out of a window they get "darshan." But the ultimate "darshan," the occasion specifically called "darshan," is that most sacred time of the festival when the throng comes to meet GMJ as single individuals, filing past him one by one to "pranam," to bow and kiss his feet.

The "Darshan" Line

Films of "darshan" lines in India with either GMJ or his father show a crowd of devotees pushing and shoving, ducking down to touch the holy feet as best they can.10 Western premies organized the ritual by

215

lining up the premies beforehand, seating GMJ higher up so his feet, now at chest level, would be quicker to kiss. They even experimented: once they had two lines, one passing by each foot; and once they set GMJ and his throne on a jeep which drove slowly by two miles of lined-up premies. They finally settled on a long, cloth-draped blue tunnel through which premies could file silently, leaving the world's mentality, stepping into the divine route to their Guru's feet. Once for a fall festival premies wanted to drape the "darshan" tunnel with orange cloth. GMJ insisted that it be blue, saying that the darshan tunnel prepared premies for the after-death experience which, according to him, involves the sensation of traveling down a blue tunnel. He rarely speculates on after-death experience, so premies took this as particularly significant.

Premies have occasionally expressed a typical Western reluctance when first exposed to the "darshan" ritual:

I had never seen any human being bow down before another, and I was revolted. (Yudell, 1980, p. 10)

[The Mahatma] bows and shows me this is how you pranam, and I say, "Now listen, you know, we don't do that. (Cameron satsang notes)

But this reluctance only lasts until one begins to see the "Lotus Feet of the Satguru" as a symbol for liberation:

His feet are just above it all. If we cling to those lotus feet then we, too, are able to just be out of the heaviness of this world. … It's beyond any experience that the world has to offer. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 31)

In the Indian devotional song called "Arati" which premies sing after "formal satsang," the "feet" are said to purify:

Nectar from Satguru's feet
Is so holy and it cleans us
of our sins

215

One offers oneself to the Lotus Feet:

Mine, thine, wealth, health
Give them to the Lotus Feet of love,

And there finds one's peace:

Please let me come home,
Find my rest at your Feet.11

Since the Guru's "lotus feet" are the gateway to ultimate reality, the center of the universe, "The whole stage design starts with Guru GMJ's feet." (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 15-6) And "darshan" is its ultimate moment:

There is something about waking up on darshan day which nobody but a premie can ever hope to understand. Unlike Christmas morning, it's not us opening presents. But the presence opening us. Today is the day. The peak of Puja. The day when the human race finally stops and catches its breath. (Divine Times, 8/78, p 4-5)

One prepares by meditating, praying, dressing one's best, selecting a gift, but anticipation and anxiety mingle with eager joy: "And yet, just a few minutes more, Lord. Let me just really get into Holy Name." (Divine Times, 8/78, p 5) The "mind" refuses to silence itself: "What's it going to be like this time? Oh, I wonder if I'm going to really be empty. Oh, I wonder if I'm really going to get filled up." (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 21) For his presence is said to purity and purification can burn, glare into one's private darknesses.

Going toward the blue tunnel, the "darshan" line files past silent guards posted to keep order and protect the Guru.12 But then again, it seems that those guards are guarding that other world, attracting one into the mood of GMJ's presence with their stillness, their huge, knowing eyes which gaze equally on friend and stranger, at the innocent sameness in everyone. With measured steps one reaches

217

closer to the dream, the being, the mystery which has captivated one's life.

Gliding silently now through corridors, down stairs, around corners, prodded to move ahead because we forgot where we were, floating somewhere, floating, waiting patiently, slipping ahead. (Divine Times, 9-10/78, p. 5-6)

Up a little hill, and into Guru GMJ's world. (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 4)

The last turn in the tunnel reveals GMJ's throne at the end:

I came around a curtain in the darshan line - crying and trembling, I don't know why - and there he was. (Divine Times, 3/79, p. 20)

And so he should always appear, at the end of all their questing, their longing, their hope. "Now in the Magic Tunnel, getting a first glimpse of his immense and loving presence." (Divine Times, 9-10/78, pp. 5-6) "He was so completely beyond human - beyond anything I've ever seen, experienced, felt. He was just golden, shiny, beautiful." (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 24)

He looked enormous. I thought he was the largest person I have ever seen. I have a dim memory of trying to walk and figure out how he could be so big at the same time. I couldn't do either. I floated. (Divine Times, 3/79, p. 20)

Randomly, eagerly, one drinks in the color of his suit, the taped song playing loudly which GMJ has selected, to be played in that room only, whose tinniness somehow deepens the vital, charged stillness.

Then comes the dilemma of seeing and being seen, the beginning of encounter:

Closer now, closer, at last looking at him almost fearful to look yet even more fearful to miss a bit of the experience of seeing him up close. (Divine Times, 9-10/78, p. 5-6)

And if I go through the Darshan line just loving, and not looking that desperately for GMJ to look at me, that's when GMJ can really look at me, can really smile at me, because where my Master is, I am not, and where I am, my Master is not. This self image, this conception, just has to be erased, just has to be merged, cause it's not real. (SF community Newsletter, 9/77)

218

In a language of glances, neither Guru nor devotee speaks a word.

Only a moment elapses13 but so much happens:

In the span of a few seconds of being near Him, I'd see Him as infinite light and infinite vibration and the next minute He'd be my best friend. (Cameron, interview notes)

Maharaj Ji is at once lion and friend and brother and teacher and dove and eagle and savior and ocean and sky and breath and mirror and gentle lover and ruthless truth unmasking my every weakness. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 8)

One feels that he challenges, teaches, purifies, that before his gaze no lie can be hidden. An initiator who saved a little money for a tape recorder (which he needed for his "service") instead of donating it to GMJ felt that when GMJ looked at him it was painfully obvious; he emerged from "darshan" full of guilt and remorse. Yet GMJ is said never to judge: "He doesn't care about those aspects but it's the pure section in us that He is paying attention to." (Cameron, interview notes) GMJ is said to know each devotee intimately, to recognize everyone, to have described to one overwhelmed premie the outfits she had worn through the last several "darshan" lines, when she had thought he didn't even know her name. Hour after hour, through all this, he never fidgets:

He sat majestically without a break for ten hours, … without stretching, without stepping away, without so much as a glass of water … Simply giving of himself. … Giving. And giving. Endlessly. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, pp. 11-12)

Only his eyes move, sliding slowly from premie to premie, alert, passive, watching from the inside of some fathomless ocean, suggesting, hinting, knowing, so that one both longs and fears to meet them:

When you look into his eyes, it's like looking down a long long corridor. Time and distance disappear. (Cameron, interview notes)

He looks with a look that is no look.
I cannot explain it.
It has no recognizable attribute

219

It is blank,
a sky with no clouds
No definition no shape
no duration.
I cannot tell when it starts
and cannot tell when it stops
If infinity had an eye
maybe that would explain it. …
Yet so undramatic.
So natural
Simple as a child's gaze who, when turning away,
need not explain it …
The look of the Lord. (Divine Times, 8/78, p. 5)

To some, he even grants a smile.

Having had his glance or not, one is "wafted into that eternal millisecond at his feet, touching him now," (DT, 9-10/78, p. 5-6) to enjoy "that connection which is so precious to us, which is beyond precious, which is our everything." (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 24)

I just really loved kissing Maharaj Ji's feet so much. I used to have a lot of darshan dreams where I would always say, "Pranam, Guru GMJ, pranam, Guru GMJ, pranam, Guru GMJ," over and over. I was completely into that, just kissing Guru GMJ's feet. I just loved that experience more than anything. (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 28)

The opening of a fresh window suddenly surprises one, or an electric jolt, or the agonized stab of a self unbanished, or a "rush" of love, or a giggle, a dance, a dirge, or breathless eternity, a burst of hot light, or nothing at all, or perfect clarity.

And afterwards,

Lifted along. Floating away, away but not really away, just floating. Silently. Only Breath inside of us, exploding silently, eternally, floating us into a room with spotless altar and giant picture.

And tears come forth as we pranam before that altar for a long, long time. Somewhere inside of us there is music. (Divine Times, 9-10/78, p. 5-6)

Then they staggered or floated or wobbled or danced or flew or sailed or were carried down the other side. (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 4)

A "darshan recovery area" awaits those who faint, staffed with nurses

220

and doctors who watch them, perhaps for hours, until normal wakefulness returns. From them one later hears of a bodiless, perfect realm:

Not meditating, … being meditated … Not breathing … being breathed … not celebrating Guru Puja, … being celebrated … (Divine Times, 8/78, p. 5)

Guru Maharaj Ji's Satsang

"Darshan" is the most extremely individualized of festival rituals where, beyond the distractions and comforts of the social realm, one confronts the inner and outer Guru alone. Though premies endlessly swap "darshan" stories, these moments can never truly be shared. They stand beyond the limits of collective life, like the death for which they seek to prepare one. Like death, then, "darshan" is alien to ordinary collective life even among premies. An abrupt transition back disorients a premie, leaving him with no link between the divine and everyday realms of experience.

But "darshan," unlike death or individual meditation, does involve interaction - the extremely formal, extremely symbolic encounter between a premie and GMJ. This encounter, serving as model for all social interaction, generates an extra-ordinary mode of collective life. The other festival rituals involve the collectivity enjoying GMJ's presence together, together transcending the social life of every day. In particular GMJ's satsang allows for a simultaneous sense of both individual and collective transcendent awareness.

Even when GMJ gives "satsang" to a huge crowd premies often re-experience the sense they have in the "darshan" line of being beyond the crowd, alone with him, as he has himself suggested:

There might be 8,500 people in this hall, and yet the ratio is one-to-one. One premie to one Guru Maharaj Ji … the whole world disappears when we merge in that river of satsang, of

221

service, of meditation. (Divine Times, 3/79, p. 9)

Premies play out individual dramas while he speaks. Sometimes someone in the back of a large hall, even someone looking through binoculars, will feel GMJ is looking right at him and will even experience eye contact. Those with urgent questions feel he answers them personally; others feel he ferrets out their particular weaknesses. Once when a premie was so upset during GMJ's satsang that she thought of walking out, someone happened to hand her some binoculars. She looked at GMJ and saw he was wearing a tie she had given him. She was so surprised she fell onto the people sitting in the row in front. "What is it," said the person who told me this story, "that so touches a premie that they would actually fall onto the people in front of them?"

Other times premies have "cosmic" experiences:

Then Guru GMJ gave satsang and I was crying and crying, all this garbage that had been inside of me for months and months, GMJ was just pulling it out of me. I started hallucinating, everything started moving. I felt like I was on a psychedelic, … and then the whole stage just became white light - I just couldn't see anything, I was completely disoriented, but I just felt so much love that it was almost too intense, and I just couldn't take it. … The whole stage was melting, and I couldn't even see Guru GMJ, and then he was gone, and I was completely disoriented for about two hours after that. (interview notes)

One's entire wish and struggle during a festival is to feel a "connection" with GMJ, to feel "his love," to feel "the perfect kingdom forming within." (Divine Times, 11-12/77. p. 8) Nothing confers it automatically. Some don't "feel it" until the "darshan" line, others not until the final evening of "satsang," others leave the festival forlorn, wondering if their Guru still loves them, because they did not "feel it" at all:

To be before GMJ, listening intently, and not to feel it, not to brush that curtain aside and enter his kingdom. … To be in his presence, and still feel a separation … that is almost too much to bear. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 8)

222

Some "feel it" best not when they try psychologically to transcend the collectivity but when they merge into its mood. They use the crowd's presence to achieve the inner state they desire.

Perhaps hours of others' "satsang" proceeds GMJ's appearance, perhaps loud rock music and stamping and calling, perhaps longing, devotional music, perhaps just a simple announcement. "And then, quite simply, he appears. Sits. And bows his head." (Divine Times, 8/78, p. 5) Everyone stands, shouts "Bolie Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai,"14 then they quickly sit and hush to hear his first words, "Dear premies …" Finally the festival hubub has subsided, the aisles have cleared, and everyone sits stock still.

This sudden, intense silence, the rapt attentiveness on every face - one can use this collective quiet to inspire quiet in one's own mind, to relax, to concentrate, "surrender," "open" one's "heart," tune the mind to meditative awareness. For sometimes one knows that relaxation, the stilling of the "mind," is just what one needs:

I do not feel that amazing, that other love, that only comes when my efforts to contact him come to rest. The love that comes when I am stilled.

It is a matter of the water settling, before the face of the moon can be seen. It is a question of the heart being pure, before the unicorn can appear. It is simply that the mind must be still, if the silence is to be heard.

And there is a threshold, a transition I go through when my own attempt to reach GMJ fails. … And I glide to rest.

… it is the curtain lifting, the body consenting, worries evaporating, the heart arising, the waters stilling, and the perfect kingdom forming within me again. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p 8)

Indeed, the crowd's sudden silence during GMJ's "satsang" is many premies' first respite from travel and exhausting festival "service," and they fall promptly asleep:15

Almost on cue I begin to nod out … No, this can't be! I bite my lip. I pull the hairs on my wrist. I pinch my own cheeks. Please GMJ, don't let me fall asleep now. (Divine Times, 8/78, p. 5)

223

One calms inner struggles other times by attending to the whole occasion of "satsang," to GMJ and listeners alike, drawing inspiration from others' response, as this premie once tried to do:

I felt an actual pain in my heart because I realized just how many layers of anger and depression I had built up there.

This premie then became fascinated by GMJ's ability to respond to the group:

In a sense, he gave everyone a shot of love and understanding with such precision that it seemed impossible for him to be doing it consciously. It was like feeding and nourishing a whole roomful of people.

The premie himself felt nourished and began to attune to the Guru:

Now there were moments in the room when everything was very quiet, when Guru GMJ had nourished and taken care of everyone and he would be free to manifest something. Those were really the high moments.

And that attunement set him up not only to pay special attention to a remark which responded to his personal problem; but to identify the problem and the remark with everyone else there:

And in one of [those high moments] he looked around and said, "All of you have many layers around your heart." Right then I felt that he knew, that he really knows us, because what he said penetrated so deeply into the essence of what I was feeling. (Cameron, 1973, p. 129-130)

* * * * *

But mental agitation does not always subside so easily; one can quite readily continue to fret despite the calm of others, despite their touching response to GMJ. Sometimes the solution lies in "tuning into" or "surrendering to" the crowd's "energy," the intangible, immeasurable "vibration" which premies say they "feel."16

Unlike the "vibration" of "Holy Name," this "energy" is attributed to sources external to oneself, most notably GMJ. In one premie's "darshan" dream,

224

GMJ started to give satsang and the room just started vibrating really heavy, really heavy and the altar was rumbling … (Divine Times, 3/15/73, p. 7)

Premies believe that GMJ's consciousness is especially high when he gives "satsang:"

Last night after the program … [GMJ] said, "You know, something really funny happened to me. I looked at my watch and I had started like on a full hour." I guess it was nine or something, I forget. And then when he looked back on the watch it was five past the hour. And so he said, "You know, I really didn't know; had I been giving satsang for an hour and five minutes, or had I been giving satsang for five minutes?" … Later when GMJ had gone upstairs we were saying, "Just imagine. I mean, how can we imagine in what a place GMJ is? It's just completely outrageous, I mean, it's beyond time, it's beyond any, any, anything." (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 27)

GMJ has described "satsang" as the transmission of energy, and to the premies, his "satsang" is a chance to "experience" the inconceivably marvelous, to get a feel for "the place he is in." Some say GMJ has a powerful "aura," specifically, according to one premie, a brilliant, eight-foot aura of intense white light shimmering all around him.17 Others simply remark, "Around him was a hurricane of energy that I'd never experienced before." (Cameron, 1973, p. 129) Sometimes the "energy" is attributed solely to the presence of many premies together:

The hall begins to fill, and the energy begins to pick up, as the program progresses. There is satsang and music. (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 7)

By late afternoon on Saturday 5,000 premies had filled the hall and I lost all my previous feelings about the convention center. Where it was once barren and desolate, it now echoed with the sounds of joyful love. (Divine Times, 12/10/74, p. 1)

In yet another understanding the presence of premies around GMJ is thought to compound his "energy." Not long before the "Millennium '73" festival one leader said that just one premie in the Astrodome would reflect and thus magnify GMJ's "energy," and thousands more

225

would reflect it thousand-fold, or very, very intensely.

But if one is not in the proper "place," the right frame of mind, powerful negative "energies" might take one over:

Then Maharaj Ji was talking about what it's like to be at [his] residence: that the two energies, the energy of the Knowledge and the energy of the mind, are so intense because the vibration is so pure. So the mind just becomes that much more intense. He said a person can become like a battlefield. (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 30)

For this reason, "the people around Guru GMJ were having all kinds of intense personal experiences." (Cameron, 1973, p. 129)

Occasional outbursts of classic mob behavior, when the throng rushes across a field out of all control at the sight of GMJ or storms into a hall to fight for good seats - these are attributed to the influence of negative "crazy mind energy," and contrasted sharply with celebratory dancing, singing, clapping, even fainting in the "darshan" line, which GMJ's presence inspires. One must discriminate between these "energies" of group situations, but the task can be very subtle. Shortly before the 1976 period of general doubt and questioning GMJ had instructed some premies to "attend all satsangs scheduled by DLM." Premies later reflecting on that period said that "satsang" had been crazy, mostly expressions of "mind," but that, if one could somehow ignore that and go for the "grace," the "energy" of GMJ could also be felt.

Whether GMJ or the crowd of premies or both of them together are responsible for generating the "energy," premies feel it through every kind of mood, during the intense silence which accompanies GMJ's "satsang," during the tearful longing of melodic lovesongs played to his occupied or empty chair, as well as during exciting rock songs when the crowd yells and jumps.18 In any case it has been

226

called in one popular premie song "The Power of Love."

Even if premies cannot precisely define or explain the "energy," the "power of love," they are intensely aware of its quality and of their own response to it. Despite the excitement of others, sometimes one simply cannot "feel it" for oneself. With everyone else singing or clapping or crying or adoring, one just looks around miserably, unable to "let go" and "loosen up," like someone at a disco who just cannot bring themselves to start dancing. One may be just tired, or feel some sort of undeservingness, or perhaps the crowd, the band, even GMJ has suddenly "turned" one "off." But whatever the problem, one cannot count on "catching" the "vibration," by contagion;19 one must make the special sorts of efforts to "surrender" that one has practiced in "formal satsang." While the others are dancing all around, one may just have to sit trying to meditate, for to join the excitement from an "uncentered place" might "wierd you out," or open one to the wrong "energies."

"Surrendering to the energy" means accepting it, but before one can accept it one must recognize it, and to recognize it one must attune to it. And attuning to it really means searching in oneself for that same "vibration" so that one may feel it as oneself, obliterating other "vibrations." Then, when one has become the "vibration" one may easily merge with the same "vibration" from others. The external "energy," like a tuning fork, suggests a certain pitch, but one must oneself make the effort to adjust one's being into resonance with it.

Even when one has attuned to the "vibration," one does not necessarily respond like the others. Sometimes clapping or singing

227

might ruin one's "focus" and "bring one down" from a "connection" one feels with GMJ which pulls one beyond such excitement into an attitude of hands folded in reverent prayer. One might even sit in meditation, utterly oblivious to the jumping throng all around one because, as a friend swore repeatedly to me, "You can go really deep, the vibe is so pure." Often one switches from loud singing and clapping to silent meditation and back again, depending on the feeling of the "energy." Ever aware of one's inner state, one uses the crowd's excited "vibe" as one uses the meditative techniques, as tools to help one "feel the love" and "be with GMJ."

The collective experience of GMJ's "satsang," then, is ambiguous. The premies feel that they, together as a crowd lovingly focused on their Guru, somehow help generate the "energy." Together they "feel" it but separately they perceive and react to it. They witness GMJ speaking to "us" as one conscious entity in itself, yet they leave with private interpretations. Memory of the collective "experience" returns only when premies, even in twos and threes, can gather again and, by remembering together, recreate the "energy" and witness it together once again.

Only when GMJ dances and he "plays Holi" does the "energy" flow powerfully enough to utterly wash away private determinations and individual sensation in torrents of delight. And this is not even at every festival; GMJ has performed his dance only since 1978 and only unpredictably at festivals when "it feels right;" and "Holi" comes only once every year or two.

228

GMJ'S DANCE

When GMJ has finished speaking, noone quite knows what will happen next. Through an intercom from backstage or by means of a control panel built into his chair, he tells the band to play "a mellow song, or 'to really rock it out.' He's really feeling it all the time," (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 24-5) responding to the premies' "energy," the writer of this article implies, rather than directing it. According to a musician from one band,

"The whole vibe that [GMJ] wanted to create was a really natural one. No hyped up music or anything out of balance. … We had our song list and he told us what songs he especially wanted us to play."

GMJ told them that all the premies want to sing to their GMJ, and that the band should play mostly songs that everyone knew and could sing along with. (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 24-5)

The band was instructed on the one hand "to carry all the premies along with it. But," on the other hand, "not to try to direct them in any way." For the "vibe" is also pictured as developing independently of the band, "Because it's such a changeable thing. One program can be a certain vibe,and another can be another way. Things can be so different." Rather than directing the "vibe," the band's task is to "be in tune with what's happening in that moment." Instead of leading the crowd, they feel they are responding to its "energy" which arises spontaneously, independently:

And you can sort of feel that when you're on stage. You can really feel, "Wow, the premies really want to sing." Or "The premies want to stamp the floor and clap their hands." (Divine Times, 11-12/77, p. 24-5)

Sometimes GMJ sits quietly while the band plays, after a few minutes the crowd rises to sing "Arati," their traditional devotional prayer, and then he leaves. Other times his little children come running out to clown with him. Then again, usually on the festival's

229

final evening, he sometimes retires to change either to his red and gold "Lord Krishna" costume or to his "mala" outfit with flowing pants, garlands of huge flowers his only shirt. The first time he wore it, in 1978,

"Oh my God," shouted one premie into the international phone hookup. "Oh my God! He doesn't have a shirt on!" In Denver two premies listening to this passed out and disconnected the line. (Divine Times, 10/78, p. 39)

Excitement mounts, anticipation begins to sweep away "resistance" for now he is Lord Krishna for sure, and perhaps he will dance. After all,

Krishna stopped time for ten thousand years so that he could dance with his gopis … (Divine Times, 1-2/79, p. 3)

In 1972 GMJ watched a performance of "Krishna Lila," and commented that the Lord of the Universe would not dance exactly like the performer was dancing.

"How would he dance?" the premie asked.

GMJ tried to explain that he would move slowly and carefully. But it soon became clear that words would be inadequate. "Why don't you show us?" someone asked.

"When it's perfect," GMJ replied, "I'll dance!" (Divine Times, 1-2/79, p. 3)

The band breaks out with slow, waltz-tempoed songs written especially for GMJ to dance to - "Dance, Dance, Dance," and "I Love You." Still sitting, GMJ smiles, and the crowd cheers. He lifts a hand, they scream, moves forward in his chair, and they bellow. He relaxes back, and they sigh. Once more he flirts, once more they scream in the agony of anticipation, the agony which has been building with his "satsangs," the "darshan line," the ups and downs of the whole festival. Suddenly there is no question of who is directing the "vibe." The "energy" simply explodes, "The Love affair which grew hour by hour climaxed when GMJ danced with us." (Divine Times, 1-2/79, p. 3)

Now from the chair, he invited us all with gestures, motioning us to rise up to him, to keep going, to dance on, to go beyond ourselves and to join him.

The Guru dances slowly, swinging both arms upward from side to side.

230

"The measured, full majesty of his dance, the power and authority in his every movement, lifted us higher and held us there." Everyone's arms are swinging now, just like his, the crowd a vast sea of dancing arms magnifying his every movement. Now one hardly has to try to "surrender," make an effort to "open the heart;" one simply melts one's "separation" into the crowd's loving uproar, a drop drowned in the crowd's vast sea:

He danced on and on, destroying our reserve, blowing our hope, embracing us in ecstacy … an experience so out of this world; … our hearts so open in Love, the most natural moment in our lives. Our hearts chanting, shouting, dancing freely with their liberator and Lord! (Divine Times, 1-2/79, p. 3)

This is the experience of merging, of "losing it," of utterly forgetting the self, of stepping into cosmic pageantry, the dance of reality, dancing with God. GMJ's wife Durga Ji said, "Guru GMJ is the most beautiful dancer. He wrote the dance. He wrote the music. He wrote the whole script. He made the dance floor." But somehow, she implies, even in the midst of this collective ecstacy, one still feels oneself alone with the Guru, "… and he's asked each one of us personally, individually, to dance with him." (Divine Times, 1-2/78, p. 31)

But this is different from the aloneness of individually meeting him in the "darshan" line or individually listening to him in "satsang" oblivious to everyone else. This feeling of dancing alone with the Guru is the individuality of oneself feeling so merged, so at one with the ecstatic throng that one becomes in a sense everyone, and with oneself as part of everyone he is dancing alone. Oneself the individual no longer man or woman, bigshot or "bongo," front row or back row, but oneself the everyself, dancing alone with him as he dances with all. So when GMJ dances, the paradox of "Krishna Lila," Lord manifested at once for each and for all, is finally understood. And rumor has it that

231

even GMJ can hardly contain the ecstacy of those moments:

When Maharaj Ji left the stage, seeming so God-intoxicated, so full of love, that he could barely walk, moving so slowly, his bronze shoulders and bare back there for all to see, the premies in the audience could only sit back stunned, full of the love of GMJ. (Divine Times, 9-10/78, p. 39)

Holi

"Holi" festivals also arouse this sort of ecstacy:

Holi is one of the most sacred festivals of India. Celebrated on the full moon of March, Holi recalls the divine Lila of Lord Krishna, Perfect Master of His time … Lord Krishna threw colored powders and paints over His Gopis, who ran to receive this blessing.

The meaning of the symbolism is perhaps best expressed in the verse of Saint Mira-Bai:

I am dyed in the color of my Lord,
Only His color do I know.

It is the Grace of the Perfect Master which entirely transforms our lives, coloring us with His Mercy and Compassion. Our lives take on a completely new hue as we are drowned in devotion and service to our Lord. (Divine Times, 4/15/73, p. 1)

GMJ has "played Holi" from a huge two-story platform mounted with fire-hose fueled guns, three times in the Miami Orange Bowl, twice in fields in southern Spain:

Slowly, smilingly, he strolled down the long catwalk, allowing premies to be with him for a long, delicious moment of eternity. (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 15-16)

Again, as with his dance, the arms all reach upward, ready to receive the Guru's colors. No chairs for the audience this time, no rows, no saved seats, no special people up front, no structure at all, just an open field with everyone pushing, just white clad bodies pressing as close to that platform as possible.20 One may stay toward the edge or sit in the stands if one has a small child or can't feel the mood, but once caught in the middle there is no way to sit down or even stand in meditative silence, for one is pushed and shoved by the crowd and besides one is soon sopping wet:

232

Water. Pouring at a rate of up to 500 gallons a minute. With such pressure - an average of 80 pounds per square inch - that the premies in front not only are covered with Holi colors but with carnation petals as well, the stream tearing them away from the flowers which line the stage. (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 15-16)

The spray comes, the arms and the shouts rise, everyone jumps.

As the white clothes are dyed purplish and greenish, the mind is intoxicated with jumping, with shouting, with shivering, with the play of rainbows in the arcing water, with straining every moment to gorge on another eyeful of "darshan" close up, GMJ with his Holi guns, GMJ playing. Others' faces drip red and blue water, drenched beyond recognition. And, as with the dance, one loses oneself in the crowd's vast scream of delight:

More than two hours go by as we barely notice time is passing. Almost 35,000 gallons of water fly through the air - three and a half gallons per drenched devotee … (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 15-16)

And the water was cold, but surrender was warm. But really there's no way to describe that experience that happened inside each premie. (p. 4-5)

Every devotee's experience the same, the writer implies, nothing solemn but a cleansing, a purification of joyfulness which obliterates all regrets, an outrageous happiness, an overwhelming fun, one's ultimate intoxication reflected in every other face. And finally, when it is over,

Premies close to the stage immerse their faces in puddles, doing pranam, after GMJ abruptly shuts off the water cannon and strides back down the catwalk. (p. 16)

FESTIVAL "ENERGY"

"After Holi, what could satisfy the heart of a premie?" (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p. 16) And after "darshan,"

The challenge is clear. Can I stay in this place and move at the

233

same time? Babies, old friends, announcements, yogurt, and a bhajan 21 sung in a key unfamiliar to the Western world greet me back at the hall. (Divine Times, 8/78, p. 5)

GMJ's dance or "Holi" only last for an hour or two of the festival, and many festivals have neither. The intense excitement which compels one to "merge" during "Holi" quickly dissipates as premies prosaically converge on the stadium's bathrooms to change their motley- colored wet clothing. After GMJ's dance, someone begins to announce about bus and charter flight schedules over the PA. Premies become quite sensible, gathering up their things to leave, no longer dancing in the ecstacy of just five minutes before.

The rituals of GMJ's "satsang," his dance, and "Holi" provide a collective context through which the realm encountered in individual meditation and "darshan" can be understood together. But afterwards, premies must somehow integrate extra-ordinary experiences of festival rituals with ordinary social life. They achieve this not so much by assigning complementary meanings and uses to the ordinary and the extraordinary, but by trying to deny or avoid the ordinary altogether. When an old friend appears one is happy, but somehow the encounter is extremely impersonal. Suddenly the past is gone, being with that old friend is no different than not being with him:

Two premies running toward each other, shouting "Jai Satchitanand!" and hugging, swirling each other around, smiling into each other's eyes. Then the odd, curious, wonderful "festival conversation" begins.

You tell each other where you're living now and what service you're doing, ask about mutual lovers on the endless path. Then suddenly, those famous words - "Well, really, there's nothing to say." They go unspoken, like the Word itself, and you part. You haven't seen this brother or sister in a great long while, but you part after five minutes in each other's arms. … It's called family realization: in your time apart, you've each come closer to the love of our Lord, so you're closer together. What's there to say? (Divine Times, 10/15/74, p. 3)

On the level of practice, premies try to avoid the cycles of

234

"maya" by trying to stay always "in tune with GMJ," to prolong the "experience" in hopes that sufficient practice will establish it for good. At the festival, between the special rituals, they try to keep "connected" with the "energy." For to them the "energy" has a life of its own, arising from the crowd's devotion and the Guru's "divine love" but then hovering unconfined by a specific occasion as a sacred, unpredictable manifestation of Grace which transforms the whole festival site. At a festival held in a bullfighting ring in Spain,

It was like this bullring stood for something. And when that sat- sang started to happen there, … something happened to this bullring which made it completely different. (Divine Times, 4-5/78, p 5)

One feels intoxicated simply to be there.22 Once transformed by the "energy," the festival site stands out in sharp experiential contrast to the drab cheerlessness of the surrounding mundane world:

We are in a place called Philadelphia. Or are we? … In the hazy gray of a sunless day … we wander across a funky university campus. … We step through a door queue up … Whoosh! We're safe again, in His World. Wrapped snug in a Love which never had a beginning and never, never knows an end … swallowed up again in that world that's so-much-more-than-real. (Divine Times, 9-10/78. p. 5)

Everyone radiates beautiful smiles. One glides through necessities of body and service as if on well-oiled wheels. Everything slides into place according to the "perfect" laws of a preternatural harmony. And even without the Guru's immediate presence the dance can continue:

When the stage was bare, we looked at a vision of his presence, took it within, and danced … each of us, every one of the thousands, was dancing away his mind. … No one chose a partner who could be seen; this was a dance divine, personal movement between devotee and Lord … Dancing loose, dancing free, touching the energy and letting it move us, our hands, our feet, our heads, our bodies; our souls danced until it hurt to breathe and still we danced. (Divine Times, 10/15/74, p. 3)

For many, the intoxication of the festival "energy" tides them over between specific rituals easily enough, but one must guard it

235

carefully. For "illusion" lurks in every moment, ready to tear one out of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not even the gathering, then, not even the ritual, not even the place and the time but a certain twitch of consciousness which allows one to glimpse, in a Spanish bullring, in the Miami Orange Bowl, among rows of dusty tents in northern India, that

This is the Garden of Eden finally found. Here we walk with God not in metaphor or fantasy but in the manifest reality. ("And It Is Divine," 1/73, p. 21)

On the one hand, "Reality is what's happening now, here, in this hall." But one can't count on it, for in another sense, "even the hall, even the stage is an illusion. The Truth goes so much deeper …" (Divine Times, 9-10/78, p. 5) For if one begins to "get caught up in" what's happening in the hall, taking only the appearance of a festival as one's reality then, as with most sorts of intoxication, nightmares hover ready to engulf the hapless premie who falls into his "mind" when he loses his wallet, gets sick, confronts an unpleasant "service" or an ex-lover or finds that a stranger has stolen his seat. Then he can glimpse no "reality" beyond long lines for food and toilets, bossy types striding about in slick suits, grungy types panhandling, the whole hassle of mundane society solidified tightly around him once again.

In such desperate straits one needs instant help. Few can muster up the determination to "connect" again through prayer and "informal meditation." With no quiet corner for "formal meditation," GMJ not due to give "formal satsang" again for hours, one clings to snatches of "informal satsang," which, like stepping stones, keep one above the dangerous currents of "maya," until the next ritual. Through "informal satsang" they regenerate the "energy," reorient one another back into the "experience" again and again.

236

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII

1) These are all festivals traditionally held in India. "Guru Puja" means "Guru worship" and can generally label many sorts of gatherings honoring living or legendary gurus. At "Holi" the lowly spray colored water, mud, oil, buffalo urine on their superiors as a dramatization of what Turner (1969) calls "status reversal." "Hans Jayanti" is specifically an Indian Divine Light Mission tradition honoring the birth of GMJ's father, Shri Hans Ji Maharaj.

2) Quote from the popular premie song, "Lord of the Universe," written in 1971.

3) This sort of story lends itself easily to exaggeration and fabrication, but people I knew swore these particular incidents had actually happened to them.

4) The elaborateness of stages changed over time. After a stage-set with huge foil sails which resembled a huge ship, in Kansas City, January, 1978, GMJ apparently asked for more modest sets. Eventually the stage, especially for public programs, featured just a simple chair for GMJ.

5) Often an elaborate waiting room underneath the stage was built. For one festival someone requested that the Bay Area premies make beds for GMJ's wife and children and sister-in-law and her child to wait in during the hours GMJ spent in the "Darshan" line. We constructed five beds from scratch, and made bedding as well. Some of the beds were very elaborate, one resembling a helicopter for GMJ's son, another a playhouse for his daughter. Volunteer crews worked day and night for weeks, and generous funds were constantly needed. I, at least, never heard how the family liked the beds or even if they were ever used or saved for future occasions.

6) Premies were fond of picking up not only drug jargon, but also jargon from other "spiritual paths." "Bending like a reed in the wind" is a typical American Zen or American Taoist expression.

7) Premies have often wreaked havoc on non-Mission property as well. A communique from the Mission PR department to all premies said certain hotels "would not accept DLM at any cost because of the amount of damage and theft reported by the hotels premies used in the past." Damage included theft of "hotel towels, pillows, pillow cases, blankets, sheets, … Vandalism is common … In many hotels, rooms were left so dirty that they had to be completely re-done." The communique went on to list specific damage done at specific hotels, including plumbing problems due to diapers flushed down toilets which required $5000 of repairs at one hotel. (Circa 1979, undated letter to the premies entitled: "Re: "Consciousness about Hotel Use at Programs.")

8) A particularly striking example of defection following a demotion occurred when an Indian Mahatma quit the Mission when GMJ put him to work, in a premie grocery store. The Mahatma set himself up as a

237

rival guru saying he came to America to be a saint, not a clerk.

9) The "darshan" custom is a response to "charisma" which corresponds well with Weber's original use of the term. People in the West also turn out en masse to view politicians, saints and celebreties in person, but they have no term for the custom nor any theological rationale for their behavior. If one questions Westerners closely, however, one finds them describing their internal responses to meeting the great, sometimes in great detail.

10) Among New Religous Movements this custom is not unique to the DLM. A film about Bhagawan Shri Raj Neesh shows a "darshan" line complete with devotees falling away into a faint. Followers of Muktananda used to line up so he could touch each head with a peacock feather.

11) In the early days in the West premies still sang "Arati" in Hindi, like their fellow premies in India. Gradually various portions were translated until the entire hymn, fifteen minutes in length, was sung in English. It was said to have been written by a "Swami Brahmananda." For the text of Arati, see appendix II.

12) I have heard about half a dozen rumors about alleged attempts on GMJ's life during "darshan" lines. Guards also remove anyone obviously hysterical, calming them so they can return to the line more quietly.

13) "Divine Times" reports on this instance as highly unusual: "In Toronto the premies had at least 60 seconds just to watch GMJ before they touched his feet." (12/10/74, p. 1) Usually one has only a few seconds to look at him while waiting, and two or three seconds to bend and kiss his feet. GMJ actually calculates the number of seconds each premie should be allotted in order to get the line over in a reasonable time, and instructs the people who usher the prmies through just how long to allow each premie actually touch his feet.

14) Loosely translated as "Hooray for the Perfect Master!" Premies go through phases of feeling embarrassed to shout it and phases of shouting it self-righteously, as if to defy all Western conventions. At public programs, they try not to shout it.

15) Current "anti-cult" literature is fond of charging mass occasions like DLM festivals with "hypnotizing" the followers. That a sizeable proportion do snooze during GMj's "satsang" would perhaps add fuel to their argument, but then on the other hand most stay wide awake, fascinated by the Guru and their own responses to him. The variety of responses described below seem to counter any argument for a blanket, uniform, hypnotized reaction. If one observes the listeners carefully and talks with them afterwards, one is astonished to discover their varying sorts of reactions.

16) The "energy" or "vibration" which premies feel in crowd situations seems in some ways analogous to what Durkheim calls "collective effervescence," the almost electric feeling which arises during the intensity of aboriginal collective frenzies. But for premies, experience of the "energy" is not confined to collective frenzy, for they

238

feel it in the collective quiet of GMJ's satsang. Neither is it confined to those times when the collectivity is all assembled together. Premies feel the "energy" intensely in the "darshan" line when they file by the Guru one by one; they also feel it at non-ritual, random moments during the festival, perhaps not even at the festival site -- and further, they are still able to "feel it" after the festival ends, if they learn how and try hard enough. Perhaps the "energy" is more obvious at collective occasions, but once one learns to recognize and help generate it, one can find and use it at many other times.

17) Spiritualism, clairvoyance, the "occult milieu" provide the only language in American culture for describing "charisma" in any technical sort of way. Everyone is thought to have an "aura," but saints' are much more vivid than others'. Premies borrowed from this language, as they borrowed from the drug culture language, but never developed a consistent and uniform theology about the "energy" or its sources. GMJ never discussed "auras," though he frequently discussed "energies" and "vibrations".

18) The singing, yelling and jumping can last for hours, though the only time I felt it was getting really out of control was once in a Los Angeles hotel when the floor sagged with each beat as the crowd jumped. Instead of recognizing any danger, the band played louder and faster, but luckily the floor never gave way.

19) This description argues against the assumption prevalent in "contagion" theories of collective behavior that the participant, passive and unaware, "catches" the crowd's mood much as one catches cold germs. The "contagion" theory cannot explain why individuals react differently in a collective situation, nor the active steps they take either to reject or to absorb the crowd's mood.

20) Premies simply wear white clothes to Holi so that the colored-water dyes to be sprayed on them by GMJ will show up more readily.

21) Indian-style "bhajans" are played infrequently. Most bands play Western pop-style music, Latin American bands Latin music.

22) At two or three festivals I felt such a sense of intoxication that I idly wondered if the anti-cultists' claims were true, that the Mission somehow sneaked drugs into the food or water. But I would still feel intoxicated at the festivals when I drank or ate nothing at the site itself, and the Mission could hardly have doctored the food and water at every hotel and restaurant in Montreal or Miami.

239

CHAPTER VIII

INFORMAL "SATSANG"

To see premie life as the re-enactment of the "Krishna Lila" myth of union, separation, and union with the divine is to see in religious life regular oscillations between the sacred and profane. In this interpretation premies seek "experience" of sacredness away from ordinary group life - alone in meditation or in the "darshan" line or in the "communitas" of special rituals like festivals, festival rituals, and "formal satsang." Ordinary life becomes in contrast a time of mourning for the return of the divine in "experience" or in person.

But the Krishna myth has another level. Only in the illusory world of "maya" does Krishna play at coming and going; in the "reality" glimpsed through realized perception he never leaves for he is everywhere, within and without:

By nightfall, He [Krishna] has not come. Still Radha proves her love and wisdom. She has another way to reach Him.

"How quickly, dear Sakhi,
How quickly will my heart and mind,
All that is "I,"
Run swiftly to that hidden place
Where nothing exists
But endless union with Hari."

And this is the incomprehensible play of Radha and Krishna; that they weep, longing for the joy of each other's company even while being completely united internally, where there can be no parting. ("And It Is Divine," 3/73. p. 43)

Following this example, premies seek unbreakable union with the divine while playing along with the alternations between long periods of drab, ordinary life and exciting meditations and rituals. "Formal"

240

practices are necessary, they say, not only because GMJ's "play" demands them but also because premies, as beginners, cannot sustain their "connection" at other times without concentrated doses of "experience."

Between "formal" practices, "informal" practices - like "informal meditation," service to the Guru, and "informal satsang" play an ambiguous role. On the one hand they can function, like "formal" practices, as experiential islands of the sacred where one can escape from profane ordinary life. The oscillations between sacred and profane may occur from hour to hour or even moment to moment, but they still occur and one can distinguish between them. On the other hand one can use "informal" practices to sacralize all of mundane life; to underlie all apparent ups and downs with a steady sense of divine presence.

Among "informal" practices, "informal satsang" is the most potent because it involves social interaction. Like romantic love in conventional life, it stands idealized and pursued, central to social life but curiously outside it as well for when it actually emerges no comfortable expectable social niche can contain it. Always out of place, the "informal satsang" "experience," like romantic love, breaks free forgetting the restraints of its origins until anything goes in the ecstatic merging of disagreeing minds, of disparate social ranks.

On the other hand premies also establish "informal satsang" as the basis of all premie social life, using it to sacralize mundane as well as ritual activity so that they might always realize Radha's perception of the Guru's eternal omnipresence. In this case "informal satsang" becomes a rule and a duty as well as an ideal, like love in conventional married life. Premies come to require "satsang" of their

241

society always and finally to define all interaction between premies as "informal satsang."

THE PRACTICE AND "EXPERIENCE" OF "INFORMAL SATSANG"

When a premie has lost the "experience" and feels down, when he hasn't the inspiration nor the discipline to practice "informal meditation" nor the time and place to sit in "formal meditation," and when no "formal satsang" is available, then he can seek out "informal satsang" with any other premie. Premies come to crave and to pursue "satsang." Caught in the outside "world" at work they phone one another frequently, write endless "satsang" letters, or wander about until they run into another premie. At home with other premies they desperately beg one another for "satsang" any time of day or night, drop every thing, haunt a seemingly "closed" fellow premie until he will "come off his trip" and "surrender to satsang." They will stop in the middle of any task until "satsang" sets the "vibe" right, for once it does the "energy" flows, they can drive all night, type all day for a nasty boss, rehearse a song so it finally sounds right, agree for once on the premie house dishwashing schedule. Everything seems to fall right into place.

"Satsang" between even two willing premies develops slowly. When they meet, fresh from encounters with "mind" or with a "world" which has never heard of "satsang," their eyes may dart anxiously about, or pain dulls them, or care pulls their gaze ground-ward. They cannot look clearly at one another and, perhaps forgetting that they ever could. they continue to stare past one another, bickering and gossiping and planning as if the world of "maya" were their only home. But sooner or later guilt or longing reminds them of the possibility of "satsang."

242

As with the first subtle moments, of flirtation, "satsang" begins not with words, but with the eyes. For "satsang," like romantic love, flows best through an open, steady gaze. And premies are meeting as GMJ's lovers, delving within one anothers' eyes for his "look that is no look." One lets the new mood flood through oneself until it widens the eye, mellows the voice, deepens the breath. Then, as in flirting, one waits for a response before going too far. The other, instantly attuned, can easily parry these first gestural hints. For the direct gaze requires "surrender." One must abandon distractions and attend fully to the other, receiving, as in "formal satsang," his eyes, voice, mind, everything he offers without fear of being overwhelmed. And -unlike "formal satsang" - one must reveal oneself as well to the other all-penetrating gaze, oneself in all one's hesitation, pain, distractedness, and wilfulness. One must be "open to satsang," as the premies say, open to receive and open to be seen through. So one waits, weighing one's desire for "satsang experience" against the nakedness of surrender, knowing the other is weighing these as well. If finally the other eyes one more fully, sighs deeply, or drops an oblique premie cli che, one responds with warm interest and a steadier look. Thus luring one another, the gazes and words became more direct. Perhaps, like a nervous lover suggesting a first kiss, one may say "let's have some satsang," but usually the first move emerges within the general flow, the eyes gazing steadily, the words leading direcly into the praise of GMJ.

Once minimal "surrender" allows a mutual steady gaze, premies begin the process of concentration learned in meditation and "formal satsang" - catching one's attention as it strays to other thoughts, and

243

bringing it back to the immediacy of the breath, the other's eyes and words. But now the process is shared. Two attentions tend to wander, while two awarenesses try to recapture those attentions: one monitors the other's as well as one's own attention, and one's own focus is monitored by the other as well as by oneself.

At first each knows they want to "feel the experience," but both have forgotten the sensation and actually how to activate it. The concentrated sorting-through of thoughts and responses must proceed with no sense-able object, and any excitement or soothingness may be mistaken for the "experience" and amplified until it obscures the original intention. This often happens, for example, when the two start indulging in self-righteous guilt about their weaknesses as practitioners. Guilt- excitement inspires many "satsang"-like phrases but also generates experiences of tension or depression. Alternatively, the two may begin to indulge in a joint fantasy - "wouldn't it be great if GMJ came to our community;" or "what would the world be like if everyone were premies?" The pleasant, fanciful image relaxes them at the cost of diverting attention entirely away from the present moment where the "satsang experience" lies.

The most insidious distraction from "satsang," however, is the solace of simply agreeing with one another - agreeing generally that GMJ is the Lord and premies are right, or specifically that one's own theological camp, alone among premie views, has finally figured out what GMJ is really trying to teach.1 A view thus solidified by mutual agreement is unlikely to appear as yet one more facet of "illusory thought;" yet the "experience" will emerge only when this agreed-upon view, the comfort it brings, and the whole notion of having views at

244

all is left behind.

To "experience satsang" premies must push beyond obstacles like the comfort of agreement. They must actually generate the "experience" through the means of 1) joint concentration and 2) properly used "satsang" words; both guided by an unswerving longing.

1) Joint Concentration: The mutual stare of joint concentration itself produces a certain sensation, a feeling of great, quiet stillness. As concentration increases, straying words stand out ever more obviously. So too do straying glances and moments of flagging attention. Ever more subtly, one's attention detects minute changes in the eyes and face of the other, the tone and tenor of the words. Eventually the point comes when a distracting thought appearing in one's ow mind and a corresponding disturbance on the face of the other appear simultaneous, and one feels them to be linked. Or one reacts with a slight jolt knowing the other has just witnessed a distracting thought within himself. One begins to feel that the distracting "thoughts" are more like impulses which burst in both minds simultaneously and can be stopped even before they take on interpretive reactions. Together the two awarenesses watch as the attentions stray together momentarily and are refocused toward the center of one another.

Such stillness, such attunement, captivates the two with wonder and delight. But unless carefully directed by "satsang" words and longing for the "experience," intense mutual concentration can lead instead to other experiences, like what I shall call "trance," or to sexuality.

By "trance,"2 I mean simply a concentrated absorption into something which can break off further awareness of the actuality at hand an eventually communication with one another. When the mind is intensely

245

concentrated, nearly anything can fascinate. Even if both attentions together switch to an object near them, or an intriguing idea, or background music, each may delve alone into it and soon lose contact with the other's mind or even forget his presence. Or the sensation of super concentration itself can fascinate, until each becomes so busy with his own experience that he forgets to keep reengaging the other. The two may even still gaze at one another, they may even imagine they still feel in common, but they no longer communicate. Communication only continues when the minds remain concentrated but not absorbed, moving the attention on from one moment to the next, to keep together in the instant at hand.3

If "trance" is avoided, the means of mutual concentration - like direct gazes and mutual cuing - can induce sexuality instead of "satsang." These end experiences are not identical. The sexual mood floods one's being with wild excitement, tensing the muscles, charging up the heart, breath, and emotions, absorbing the attention with trance-like fixity.4 For "satsang" to prevail, both together must choose it. For if both choose sexuality the exciting emotions and powerful sensations (even if neither overtly acknowledges it) will disturb the "satsang" stillness of mind. A liberal, unofficial school of premie thought contends that the "love" of sexuality can sometimes lead to "divine love," for when the excitement has died down communication born of mutual experience and giving remains and can easily be shifted into the "satsang" mode.5 But more conservative premies warn that sexuality usually cuts off communication because the volatile emotions can switch so quickly from love to hate, from excitement to boredom and exhaustion. Further, sexuality can so easily involve "ego" games of

246

conquest and control and "surrender" to one another rather than to "satsang" and GMJ. Close communication with one's partner is gained at the expense of close communication with others. And finally, as with trance, the excitement of the sensations may cut communication even between the two, for while one loses the self in ecstacy, the other may lose it in frustration.6

At the same time, premies see that the mutual avoidance of sexuality can cut off satsang communication as decisively as can indulgence:

Before taking a nap I had a little satsang with the premie I was sharing a hotel room with … The communication was deep, and we were both feeling grateful for Knowledge and for this chance to share.

Between one moment and the next, a wall shot up between us. It was hard and impenetrable, and made any further attempts at satsang impossible. … The fear cut off the love we were feeling completely, and left no alternative but for both of us to try to ignore each other … I had told him I was gay. ("Light Reading," 11/15/76, p. 8)

(Between heterosexuals, rejected sexuality is nearly as cold.) Moral scruples, embarassment, fear, repulsion, the wish to avoid entanglement can all tempt a premie not to risk the mutual concentration which leads to "satsang" but might lead to sexuality. When both are struggling so hard to avoid the issue - or when one struggles while the other remains oblivious - the open, trusting, sharing, mutual gaze of "satsang" is nearly impossible.

The course premies must choose, therefore, is to acknowledge together, if ever so subtly, the possibility of the sexual choice, the presence of desire - but then to continue concentrated communication. They must let it pass as they let everything else pass, agree to let it pass, watch each other let it pass. Then they must watch together and also let pass the disappointments, humiliations, frustrations and everything else that accompanies sexuality foregone. They can only do

247

this when they trust that further, more satisfying communication is possible, and when, in the light of that trust, the wild urges and intense self-involvement of sexuality can be witnessed at a bit of a distance, when the one desiring can be seen as not one's ultimate, permanent self. As they let sexuality gradually pass by they lose not only the excitement but also the encumbrances that sexual encounter can impose - the obligations, the roles, the feelings. But they keep the "love," ever-radiant, warm and giving but now "purified;' impersonal, beyond the kind of love that they could have controlled and given back and forth just to one another. The encounter thus opens beyond themselves eager to welcome others, eager to welcome the ungraspable presence of the Guru.7

2) "Satsang" Words: Premies keep their "satsang" intention on course - past trance and sexuality - with "satsang" words. But again, words must go beyond merely generating agreement; they must evoke the "experience." One must speak the words "peace," "truth," "love," "darshan," "Holy Name," not as if one possessed them and their meaning, but as if they were hollow like windows, as if through them could shine the mystery and beauty, the wonderful, awesome, humbling powers of the "reality" one cannot quite yet perceive. The spoken words knock urgently on the door of "experience," so to speak, calling on it again and again until insistent faith and longing dissolve the door, the separation. So goes the premie cliche, that "experience" of Knowledge is one of the few things in this world you can get just by talking about it

When words generate the first whiffs of "experience," the two, closely concentrated together, start pointing it out to one another. "Connecting" suddenly with "Holy Name," one gazes as if from the breath,

248

leading the other through one's eyes into the source of that breath.

Or one lets an exaggeratedly delighted smile rest in the features a moment longer than normal to show the presence of the extraordinary, or smooths the air with one's hands as if all had just settled into ultimate peace. And by a myriad of even subtler gestures premies tell one another, "it's here!"

And, as we each surrender more to the superior power, what we see in each other's eyes increasingly twinkles us back to the place where nothing is going on save the quiet celebration of two people discovering they are actually one in the first place. ("Light Reading," 12/17/76, p.3)

The words too begin to point it out - not blatantly, announcing "here's Holy Name," or "I feel GMJ's presence all of a sudden" - but in the reverence or lightness with which they are spoken, so that somehow "that feeling" of the festival one is talking about becomes "that feeling" here and now, and "GMJ's look" becomes the other's look.

At first the "whiff" of "experience" may come and go, but seeing it in the other and seeing the other see it in oneself, and seeing it together directly in another's gaze which melts into one experience -all this fans its fire. Both delve spontaneously into long, deep, meditative breaths, and now words begin to follow the breaths. Intensified listening inspires more carefully pronounced words pinpointed in clarity and sincerity of tone more precisely to the developing feeling. Words become simpler, each meaning more, the shared perception expanding, the need for explanation and refinement dropping away when "oh," or "wow" or "you know" or a giggle or just the mention of "his love" reverberates with an orchestra of felt meaning. Sometimes pauses lengthen, the eyes speaking as they forget to talk, an occasional word just checking to make doubly sure that both, at the same time, are with each other in

249

that electrified stillness. The unbroken gaze searches and penetrates, trusts and receives. When the eye can reveal everything speech drops away. Conversation lulls, the eyes which meet rivet, fathoming untold meanings from one another, touching the breath. The esence of each floods into the other and the breath-looks outshine all else which might be seen.

If they continue to talk a lot, telling one another long stories (in "satsang" premies often only take turns speaking at long intervals) the chatter or words flows like a stream, literally meaning nothing very new but carrying by their tone the fullness of "experience." One may be repeating the story of one's Knowledge initiation for the tenth time to this person, but with the retelling both witness as if for the first time the essence of that moment, the wonder of new vision. Like people gazing in awe at a sunset or a new-born baby they feel they are witnessing a supreme wonder. - But now the source of this wonder is within each other - within yet somehow not of them. Their faces fascinate each other, but they are no longer ordinary faces, ordinary eyes. Light plays strangely on them; nearby objects radiate with hidden significance. The radiance, the bare thereness of a cup, a flower, a hand, the other's face, the feeling of free, awesome delight - all fascinate with equal intensity, bespeaking the Guru's infinite presence. They marvel at it all, and marvel also at the marvel of marvelling together. And each further contact, each finer meaning of understanding, increases that awe until one feels so light one can hardly keep from laughing.

The exchange becomes both extremely intimate and extremely impersonal. One is not basking in pride at the other's admiring gaze; the other is not overcome by awe of the first. Through one another's eyes

250

something else is witnessed before which the usual habits of self drop away. They feel freed from all that, free to say anything and have it understood. Free to play, as one premie described playing with children

You don't worry about rules and regulations and what's going to happen but you are just free sharing that love with that child … to just really explore what's happening at the moment with that child and to really get into that vibration of love that's going back and forth between you and just flow with that. (O'Brien interview notes)

Having forgotten the "world" of obligations, claims, ceremony, distancing, they forget to defend themselves. Though they stand naked stripped of the importance of personality they also stand fearless, invulnerable because through the personality shines not the private self but the Guru, gazing at himself through one another's eyes. And Guru-essence loving Guru-essence can afford to be warm and intimate, need not bother to hurt, compete, need lay no plans to control and to keep. And because his presence sweeps through the air as well, through the room, the chairs, the sky, the world, through all the other others, one has no particular need for this one special other. If a third should come, they will both embrace him too, and if parting should come they would not fuss and emote beyond a knowing twinkle in the eyes.8

When "non-satsang" words must be spoken to carry on some ultimately illusory business, they proceed quietly and efficiently without breaking the flow of the eyes' unspeaking communion. If premies are not careful the pull of the eyes into extra-ordinary vision may obscure everyday necessity altogether, and they forget what they were about. Minutes and hours may go by, the two passionately absorbed by "satsang" into GMJ's divine world, while the meal stands uncooked, the tire unchanged, organizational arrangements unattended to, the night unslept. For when their goal has been reached, of what use are preparations?

251

"INFORMAL SATSANG" AS ESCAPE FROM EVERYDAY LIFE

"Informal satsang," then, can easily provide an escape from everyday life. But in practice it is difficult. To achieve it premie must watch together and let pass the claims and urges of status, power, opinion, rule, obligation, just as they must watch together the claims and urges of sexuality so that their communication may proceed beyond it. They must trust that both share the aim of "getting beyond" anything impeding the free circulation of "energy" and awareness between them.

"Satsang," then, erupts easily among strangers, who may never have to deal with one another again, who haven't adopted habitual stances toward one another, who have little motivation to stab one another's opened "hearts." Premies eager for "satsang" intimacy catch one another's eye waiting in a festival restroom line, stuck in an Omaha bus terminal halfway to a festival, or drudging through some tedious festival service, at occasions when urgency and responsibility won't impinge on the feeling of ecstatic timelessness. Even premie strangers not seeking the "experience" will use "satsang" words because that is their lingua franca, the thing they know they have in common. Thus despite themselves premies just trying to pass the time in a friendly way may find the words' associative power bringing them twinges of "experience," inspiring them to concentrate towards the realization of "true satsang."

Most of the time non-festival premie life proceeds in small tightly knit communities where people know one another altogether too well and premie strangers rarely appear. Really ecstatic "informal satsang" may then fit more uneasily into premie life. An intense,

252

intimate "satsang" between a "community coordinator" and a "space-case" premie may undercut the coordinator's sense of authority for good. "Satsang" can also undermine the taken-for-granted trusts and distancing of friendships:

Close friends or a married couple - the other one is the hardest person to have satsang with. The hardest person to inspire or to pull out of a rut is your closest friend. It's easy for two people to get in a rut together - you're both there you just put up a bigger wall between each other … We don't have that much satsang with each other because we're just comfortable with each other. (interview notes)

What is revealed at the height of "satsang" intimacy, when both feel quite apart from their usual selves and singularly undefensive, may be remembered in a dimmer light later on when both are quite their social selves again.

Crisis, however, can temporarily estrange premies from one another in the sense that it trivializes everyday relationships, habits, and obligations and renders people equally vulnerable to the occasion. Suspended outside of routine life, they fall back like real strangers on the one thing they still have in common which seems to have endured despite one crisis after another, the ongoing and never-ending "sat- sang" stream of the Guru's praise which can sweep one along with it into his presence.

Nightly "satsang," festivals, and the disruptions their preparations entail provide one sort of crisis in premie life, and another emerges when the outside "world" crowds in on premies or when they venture out into it.9 Then too premies must face pan-human crises like birth and death, which they also celebrate with "satsang."

Three times I was invited to small "satsangs" with mothers of infants just a few hours old. They were not particularly close friends

253

of mine, but the feeling was that any premies would do because a beautiful "satsang" was bound to "happen." To premies, newborns exhibit the perfect peace of one united with the divine and utterly unaware of separateness, even the distinction of having one's own name.10 We told one another that the baby was still "experiencing" "Holy Name," nectar, music and light as he did in the womb. We remembered the way GMJ described over and over the supremely knowing simplicity of his own infants, and Durga Ji's comment that GMJ's own sleeping face had the purity of a baby's. We marvelled especially at the infant's breathing and related to one another stories of babies' first breaths, that moment when the power of "Holy Name" is said to rush into the body and vitalize it for the first time:

When my son was born, he was perfectly still; a small, wet doll resting in silence. I thought he was dead. …

There are medical explanations for those first moments of silence that frightened me so. The baby was still receiving oxygen through the umbilical cord; … That's what Science says.

But I knew there was something else that would push my child's first breath and that's what I was waiting for. I knew there could be plenty of oxygen in the umbilical cord - as it is in a hospital respirator that can push the chest of a dead patient up and down, up and down, in a hollow imitation of life - and I knew it wouldn't mean a thing. I was waiting for a power that would breathe my son right then and throughout his life, from the inside, (Yudell, 1980, p. 8)

The attention of everyone would turn to the "power breathing us," to the baby's silent face, to the room's silent glow until we hardly remembered who or where we were and, as they had predicted, "satsang" was "satsang" and it didn't matter which individuals were there.

Again with death attention turns to the breath. One premie described the death of his father as "so still and peaceful." He had just watched as the breath came more and more slowly, with longer inter, vals between until finally, after one exhalation, it never returned.

254

Premies have no theology of death other than the general belief that GMJ's essence somehow gathers up those who focus on him:

One night on the camping trip GMJ was talking and he usually never talks like this … He was expressing that nobody else can understand what he knows. He was saying, "I know everything … I know where John Miller's father [who had just died] is; he's in heaven because he brought a devotee of GMJ into this world … I know what's going to happen in every one of your lives. In about half an hour there's a premie in New Jersey that's going to be killed in an auto accident. But it's O.K. That premie's remembering me and I'm going to take him."

And a little later someone called back east, and sure enough, right on time, a premie was killed in a car accident. (SF Community Newsletter, 5/77)

So when premies feel they may be dying they put their attention on GMJ. When alone, they meditate. A premie who had a stroke recounts,

I woke up and there was death sitting on my chest like a tiger staring me in the face. And at that point it's all so simple, you have two choices which is to panic or to meditate … it's just like, you've got this thing up on the shelf and you just grab it, and I mean I was really scared, because I really felt maybe I'm gonna die, … and if it had happened to me without Knowledge, I would have completely panicked … There wasn't anything else to do, except just clutch Maharaj Ji, talk to Maharaj Ji, meditate, you know … I went in this hospital, and I just had such a sense of peace about that thing. I was still very much afraind, but I felt like there was one priority at that moment for me as a human being, was to really try to reconcile myself to OK, if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. It's not like I succeeded one hundred per cent, but I succeeded maybe half way, and that was enough to make it all right. (Interview notes)

When premies in the face of death find themselves with other premies they not only meditate individually but have "satsang" together even with premies they've never met before. The stroke victim compared his near-death experience with that of another premie who he took to the hospital after a bad accident:

I can't even tell you his name, because I haven't known him well before or since but that night he and I were like completely one. … The sister that hit him was not a premie, and she had a look of real terror and shock on her face … And here was this brother, he was the one that was hurt, and that guy was as blissed out as anybody I've ever seen in my life, and all he did all the way to the hospital as just have this high satsang about how beautiful it is

255

to have an experience like that that makes you really see what you've got, because the second he was hit, he just went into Holy Name. (Interview notes)

When the stroke victim had recovered enough to receive visitors in the hospital his immediate reaction to them was "satsang," not just speaking the words but perceiving their states and desiring to comfort and lighten them:

When you're in a hospital bed, like, everybody who walks in there is looking right at you, and you look in their eyes and really read exactly where they're at. And people were walking in there, even premies, with a look of real fear, tremendous fear. And my reaction to all those people coming in was to say, what's the matter, it's cool, please don't look like that, you don't have to be afraid, because I'm not afraid anymore, 'cause I have this Holy Name, and it's all Maharaj Ji's doing and it's all okay. (interview notes)

Premies facing death together hold to "satsang" even more intensely. Once a fire in the Malibu hills trapped some premies in GMJ's house there (though GMJ was not there at the time). One person later related that suddenly it was too late to run and even the swimming pool would provide no escape because the fire's heat would boil its water. So everyone retreated inside where, coughing and wheezing from smoke, they riveted themselves, fear and all, on an initiator giving the "heaviest, most intense satsang you can imagine." Noone panicked, and finally the danger passed.11

"SATSANG" AS SACRALIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE

"Informal satsang" arises easily among strangers and at crises in premie life, but not only then. All social life harbors the possibility of "satsang." Any unexpected or vexing event can warrant "satsang" and many such events following one after the other obscure "ordinary life" altogether. When premies no longer conceive their life as split into "satsang" and "non-satsang" zones, then "satsang" becomes

256

not an escape but an active, powerful force of sacralization.

A premie then approaches daily-life situations with the deliberate intention of using "satsang" consciously and accurately to influence others. Parents, for example, speak of

That place of peace that will calm a child and make him happy. You find that as you get more centered the child relaxes, will stop crying and fall asleep … There's always going to be a meeting point where the child and you can come together and understand because you have that meditation. (O'Brien, interview notes)

In the same way, premies center themselves to bring "scattered" house-mates or fellow premie workers into the "experience" and smooth out the interaction.

Intentioned "satsang" involves intuitive, sometimes uncanny perception. According to a premie doctor,

At times I would just become transported. People would come in to see me and somehow I would just know what was wrong with them. I found that I could see exactly what it was in the person's mind that was causing the illness. (Cameron, 1973, p. 131)

Ordinary premies, too, feel that from the "place" of meditation they need only glance at another to see if he is "in his mind" or not. But this perceptive glance is not just a private intuition; it is also the beginning of communication. Through the meditative glance the intentioned flow of influence begins:

There is a heightened awareness I come to in meditation where I just kind of know the person I am treating almost as if I have known them all their life - and they experience that too. It's such a rare and powerful moment - it's a feeling that the patients immediately comment on - that it relieves them of tremendous anxieties and even symptoms of serious illnesses.

At one point we were invited to speak before the psychiatrists at the hospital. They weren't interested in our meditation, but just with the power, or as they called it the "positive transfers" going on between us and our patients. (Cameron, interview notes)

To achieve this communication one watches the other's attention as it shifts from focus to focus, the other's eyes as they dart about

257

or fixate into brooding stares. When one understands what influences the other's attention, one can begin to attract it into one's own mood. One simply takes command, not allowing any gesture or comment by the other to distract from "satsang" intention, not reacting to any stray ideas, concentrating intently and knowing just the precise moment to speak, look, touch in such a way that the person relaxes or changes his mind or suddenly knows something has affected him. That precise moment comes when the other's attention lapses for just a moment, disoriented between trains of thought, when it is waiting to be caught by another thought-train and is caught instead by a "satsang" gesture, which must intrigue and captivate him so that he will not bother to notice the next thought-train arising in his mind.

The one being converted into the "satsang" mood, who is receiving this "satsang" intention, starts to relax perhaps even before he realizes the other is intending "satsang." He feels thawed by what seems like a glowing warmth coming from the other, and that glowing warmth, centered in wide, interested eyes, seems to invite and welcome until one is thoroughly curious to explore for oneself into that mood:

J's eyes are clear and receptive. When you talk to her she gazes gently and steadily, but not piercingly. Something unfathomable in her look intrigues you, begging to draw you in, until you start to get bored with what you were saying because you want to feel where she's at, be where she's at. So you just start to talk about certain things, talk in a certain way that brings you more and more in tune with that unfathomable feeling in her eyes, until you know that your eyes say the same thing hers do. (Personal notes)

Premies use intentioned "satsang" not just to convert each other individually back into the "experience," but to change the "vibration" of a whole group. When some of us were rehearsing a play, for example, and everyone got too rowdy and "scattered," we would spontaneously sit in a circle for "satsang" until concentration, patience, and coopera-

258

tiveness returned. A problem arising in a premie dwelling or business would similarly be approached with "satsang," sometimes such intense "satsang" that hours would pass without anyone so much as mentioning the problem itself. The new sense of a loving and cooperative "vibration," it was felt, would in itself solve the problem. Or the new outlook generated by "experience" would reveal solutions previously overlooked.

And often enough such would be the case. Premies began to view "satsang" as a practical tool in intergroup and interpersonal relations. Frequent "centering" in "satsang" would reduce friction and furstrations, taking the pressure off everyday relationships because "it allows us to still be in relationships and yet know we're in relationship to something that is beyond relationships itself:" (O'Brien interview notes)

Our family with Knowledge is such a tight-knit, happy, close unit, but also not nearly so attached to each other either … Knowledge just puts you in the place where you can see it that way. (interview notes)

In addition, premies felt that "satsang" provided a tool for actually confronting family and interpersonal problems. Detachment provided protection, while the hope of "satsang" communication provided a goal; premies felt they were airing problems for some purpose beyond personal triumph:

In many ways marriage is a good deal like meditation. The deeper you get into it the more you become aware of just how much junk there is to get past before you experience the joy that lies waiting … Your choices are three. 1) Put yourself/wife/husband on terminal hold and avoid any confrontation. 2) Split. Run. … 3) Go deeper into your conflict, rooting out the sources of separation. ("Light Reading," 12/17/76, p. 3)

As in the family so also in the premie community at large premies began, to feel that "satsang" could break down limiting structures

259

while sustaining people in a more joyous mode of communication:

Gradually our individual and collective habit patterns are being undone … As we become more secure in ourselves the need for community diminishes, yet paradoxically the joyous experience of it thrives. ("Light Reading," 12/17/76, p, 3)

Where else, premies began to muse, could you find a deli worker serving sandwiches with "so much love," or a supervisor who approaches a janitor, instructs him, and sighs, "I'm so blown away by His Love," and for a moment both gaze into one another's eyes oblivious to the task at hand. Where else would one find a community like Denver in the mid-70's, "The incredible phenomenon of 1,000 lovers of God living within a stoned throw of each other"? (p. 3)

"Satsang" as an Ideal: The sacralizing power of "satsang" was real, its impact did liberate and intoxicate so that one would float through days and months of happy smiles loving everyone, letting things "flow" so somehow the work got done but the caring never ceased. Everyone felt it at one time or another and most had never felt anything like it before.

But whether they felt it often or seldom, everyone began to believe in it. No matter what the state of their conventional families, here was one's true family, finally found: "I looked around at all the brothers and sisters with a depth that I had never experienced." (Divine Times, 10/15/74, p. 1) GMJ became "Dad," especially honored every year on Fathers' Day, and Durga Ji became "Mom." And the family stood ever ready with warm, open arms:

The door is always open
Why don't you let yourself inside?
Coffee's boiling on the stove,
We want to hear you harmonize, …
You're in the family when you'r here
You're in the family when you're gone.

260

And if this place really ain't your home
You are still where you belong. 12

This family-like premie community came to have in premie minds certain consistent, Guru-given qualities. Wherever premies gathered to live, to work, to be together, they came to believe in their own magic, their own power, their own chosenness:

We have satsang. We have service. We have meditation and the Perfect Master. We have each other … Conscious businesses, divine marriages, whirling dervish dances, schools, celebrations for no reason, group meditation and propagation will spontaneously abound. Joyfully the family reunion will spread until there is no one left on this earth who does not understand the power and glory of community. ("Light Reading," 12/17/76, p. 3)

So constant "satsang," a permanently sacralized society, became the premie ideal. Then the ideal became a standard, and finally the standard became a rule.

"Satsang" as a Rule: At the Mission's organizational height "satsang" would preceed every premie business meeting of the directors, the carpenters, the clinic staff, the premie laundry employees, the cooks, even us writers. Often "satsang" turned out to be the meeting's only "business." Premie community life during such phases turned into an endless round of "satsang meetings" for people wanting to organize the local Mission office, play music, publish the newsletter, fund- raise, propagate to outsiders, and "meetings" for "satsang" among mothers, older premies, gays, third world premies, premies wanting to move into the ashram, and so on. Active premies might attend five or six such "satsang meetings" a week in addition to regular nightly "sat- sang." Then at festivals one could spy little rings of "satsang" here and there in and out of the hall. Leaders were preparing their little groups for a myriad of services.

The rule of "satsang" came to dominate one-to-one interaction as

261

well, not only between Mission official negotiating business and managing subordinates, but between any two premies at any time. All ordinary talk became "satsang" and every mundane communication had to be clothed in "satsang" words. Just to talk would feel a little uncomfortable because each would think and each would know the other was thinking that "were spacing out, we ought to be having satsang." So "satsang" words would appear, the talk would start to conform to premie beliefs and guilt would subside even though "experience" would not arise. "Satsang" thus forced tended to make ordinary communication awkward:

We're riding in the car to the program, talking about forgetting things, joking about things we've forgotten at times, relaxed, having a good time. … Suddenly Pat stops it all, "Just so we don't forget Holy Name." Someone echoes a weak "Right on, you just said it all," And no more can be said, it's against the ethic. It stops the conversation dead and everyone feels just a little embarrassed. (personal notes)13

The rule of "satsang" invaded every corner of premie society, at times wholly preventing ordinary talk, setting up "satsang" as the only acceptable means of communication so that others would turn away from ordinary talk from fear of disobeying their Guru or being tempted by the "mind" to "leave Knowledge." For fear of others' disapproval premies would thinly disguise their challenges, arguments, orders, complaints, manipulations, defiances in honeyed phrases of the Guru's praise. The recipients of such "satsang," finding the speaker impossible to penetrate and insensitive to pain and loneliness, occasionally cried out from the hurt:

Can't help wishing somebody had been able to ask what was wrong instead of so many judgements about me being made. ("AFO," Atlanta Community newsletter, 1976, p. 11)

But at such times in premie life there was no place to go for ordinary communication, to joke, to talk about problems. Premies seek-

262

ing advice from initiators always received "satsang," whether they wanted it or not, whether the "satsang" was "real" or not. Once when I went to a psychological counselor in the Denver premie clinic I was met with the remark, "I could do Gestalt with you, or some other methods, but I really think that satsang is the best therapy."14 Even someone in serious trouble had nowhere to turn. An ashram resident who had become pregnant complained that,

I wanted to be able just to go to the DUO director … But I didn't because I felt I couldn't be honest without getting the "satsang" that would make me feel guilty and feel that I had done something wrong. ("Light Reading," 11/28/76, p. 5)

"Fake Satsang": Even when the "satsang" rule pervaded informal premie communication so completely still there was always an undercurrent of non-acceptance. "I don't go for these pep talks, this locker-room satsang," I heard once at an evening "satsang." Words sprung up which designated hypocritical "satsang," words like "fake satsang," "laying a trip," "the party line," "the rap," "preaching," "ego trip," "mind-sang." Premies developed criteria for distinguishing "mind-sang" from "real satsang," calling "mind-sang" rigid, forced, unloving, seeing in it the desire for power and getting one's way and the absence of the desire to listen to and accept the other. In notes for an article about "satsang" (which I was trying to write while still an insider), I contrasted the "satsang" listener with the "mind-sang" listener. Both appeared to gaze at one with attentive "satsang" listening, but the "mind-sang" listener seemed to impose, coerce, and to thrust aside all one had to offer:

But with N. it was a little different. We used to gossip about everything together, with no thought or intention of satsang. But then she would suddenly switch to "listening to satsang" right in the middle, no matter what we were talking about, and maybe she wasn't even aware herself that she was doing it. But her eye - I

263

could only notice it in one eye at a time - seemed suddenly to pierce or to penetrate, almost in a cold way, almost like an animal's eye when it stares at you and you don't have any idea what is staring at you through that eye. I felt unnerved whenever this happened and a couple of times I even sort of glanced behind me to see what she could be staring at. Maybe once or twice I even said, "what are you looking at," or "what do you want?" I said that right in the middle of my sentence, or at least imagined I said it. A couple of times this piercing eye brought me into speaking satsang right away. Other times I was so unnerved I just ended the conversation.

Here the listening eye of the other was not gentle and clearly good, for it would suddenly and coldly begin to challenge. But for premies the distinction between "real" and "fake" "satsang" is difficult to make because one must first know whether or not one is coming from one's own "mind." The "mind," after all, will see "fake satsang" and hypocrisy even in GMJ's "satsang." And the "mind" altogether deserves to be challenged, swished aside, haughtily rejected:

Sometimes it is very hard to tell the difference. Is it you or them? I was surprised, when talking with a friend recently about a period a couple of years ago when I was feeling very alienated from the premie community, to discover that while I felt that the reason for my feelings was just a heavy-duty paranoia, she confided that the premies very much had ostracized me. (SF Community newsletter, winter, 1977)

Premies uncertain whether the other intends "real" or "fake satsang" also become uncertain about their own experience. Imposed, coercive "fake satsang" demands in response the feigning of "experience" and will not relent until that feigning appears. A premie convinced that his own "mind" rather than the other's coercion is causing discomfort will relieve the tension by feigning "experience" and come to believe that this relief of tension is real "satsang experience."

Given the difficulty of distinguishing "real" "from "fake satsang," premies begin not to trust one another. Why risk "satsang," they feel, when one never knows if the other will truly abandon his claims and prestige and views and fling himself headlong beyond everything

264

toward the "experience?" The other may only fake, even fake truly believing he is not faking, and one will have opened oneself to his mercy. What if at the sight of all one's own pitiful weaknesses he hides his while gleefully preaching that long ago he surpassed one's feeble attempts at "surrender?" Then if one is not careful, if one is at all confused, one will lower one's eyes before his self-righteousness come to see one's own true "surrender" as false and his false "surrende as true. Utterly cowed by the other's moralistic force, one will accep as "truth" the pain of contradicting one's original intuition.

So premies find themselves "resisting satsang:"

Man, really humbling myself to someone and asking for satsang is a teeth-gritter. I'd rather go up to someone and spit on them than do that - it's much easier. (interview notes)

They provide a whole gamut of reasons for "resisting satsang," for not conforming to the ideal and the standard of premie society in which they fervently believe. This particular person blamed himself for "resisting satsang,"

I was walking through the hallway the other day saying GMJ I am so sick of being beaten, so sick of fighting and as soon as I said that, I heard a voice inside me saying, "then why don't you give up? Huh? You're not so tired, you say you're tired, but you're putting up a hell of a fight, if you're so tired, why don't you jus surrender and go to someone and humbly ask for satsang?" But I say, "No, no, never, I'll never do that." And it says, "Why don't you just go and tell someone you love someone," but no I'm not tell ing anyone I love someone - let them come and tell me. (interview notes)

The premie who had found that others had been ostracizing her blamed the group's immaturity for the fact that "opening up" to another for "satsang" was so difficult:

I know, ideally if you are having problems, you should be able to sit there and your vibe will attract the loving attention of those around you. This does happen occasionally, but I wouldn't take any bets on it. We as a group of people are not at that place just yet, Perhaps we will be someday, but in the meantime, we still have the

265

lessons of opening up to learn.

But she still urged the individual to perservere, knowing it is difficult but necessary:

When you feel like the last thing you want to do is open up to people, that's exactly what you have to do … Scary? You bet your sweet a*s it is. Let me say this, also; it won't always work. So what do you do? Keep trying. Keep trying. (SF Community Newsletter, winter, 1977)

Still others blamed the problem of "resisting satsang" entirely on the group and never on themselves. The official premie world appears to them as nothing but a grim organization full of fake poses and "power trips,"15 where the urge for "satsang experience" cannot find any outlet at all. These premies can feel "true satsang" only in rebellion against the words, the tone, the posture of the "fake satsang trip."

In the desperate attempt to be "real" these premies, like their nonpremie counterparts, flagrantly defy every pious premie custom with sex, drugs, rock and roll and profanity. They haunt premie communities, appear in "satsang" occasionally with sullen faces, hold their own version of "satsang" at the bar or late into the night tearing down the Mission and its hypocrisy, trying to skirt the "satsang" words which are blockading the "experience." One hears rumors of marathon meditations, exotic experiments with drugs and sex, visionary visitations by GMJ.

GMJ emerges in premie rebels' lore as "the ultimate rebel. He doesn't care about anything, anything that's unreal." (satsang notes) Their rumors have it that he has given his initiators hashish, that he went underground shortly before his marriage to try out every hippy vice in hopes of understanding his hippy followers, that even still he smokes dope with premies, puffing first on the pipe and then passing it around for premies to sniff from the bowl.16

Breaking the "Satsang Rule: This rebel life always rumbles

266

menacingly under premie society, occasionally enticing a leader or two away from his pious life, producing the most alluring of premie devotional singers, providing ambiguous food for thought for conventional premies:

We think they're spaced-out premies, but actually there's this unshakable, uncrushable thing inside, when you see it you know it's there and you know they're premies. (satsang notes)

But every so often this underground erupts to devour larger portions of the leadership until suddenly it has nearly everyone. Once again everyone gathers themselves into groups and meetings, this time not to repeat the "satsang" words but to attack them.

The 1976 era saw premies gathered not in "satsang" but in "workshops" - part of a plan GMJ proposed as "a program for the premies that facilitates their understanding so that they can become helpful instruments in spreading Knowledge."17 The "workshops," like "satsang," aimed at communication but their primary goals seemed directed to realms of communication which "satsang" had been missing:

Our goals for the groups are:

1) To get to know each other a little more; (have contact with premies you don't ordinarily have contact with).
2) Allow each of us to express where we're at and collectively discuss issues and aspects of our lives with Knowledge.17

The first consisted of encounter-style communication games, one- to-one mirroring of gestures and words, listening, touching hands, and group circles touching and cooperating at various tasks. Some premies took it all as a great lark while others adapted only uncomfortably, bemoaning the absence of structured "satsang." Still others took the games as "satsang" and saw the sorts of spontaneity and warmth they required as the requisites of "real" spirituality and communication. Armed with this new standard, they bustled about hugging one another and judging others for being "so uptight." Thus the criteria for

267

interpersonal conduct became officially blurred, opening the way for any number of standards and many new ways to ostracize. For the first time the premie underworld could legitimately criticize the leaders' "ego trips."

The second workshop goal, "allow each of us to express 'where we're at,'" quickly broke beyond the limit of pious mouthings about GMJ and ultimate bliss. Some discovered for the first time in these workshops that many others were dissatisfied or unhappy, that doubts ran rampant, that some did not even see GMJ as "Lord."

If the first round of encounters centered on interaction styles and beliefs, the second attacked "satsang" words:18

In the past, we have misused language; instead of finding ways to communicate the essence and spirit of the Knowledge, we have chosen words which reinforce a conceptual framework of what we felt Knowledge "should be."19

Attack on the words brought attack on the theological "concepts:"

Take a look at our concept of surrender. Depending on which paradigm you're coming from, surrender is either passive or active, dynamic. ("Times Two," summer 1976, p. 24)

Eventually this attack on "concepts" reaped a questioning of the mode of spiritual life and organization they implied:

If, to you, surrender is a passive thing, then you are acted through. You do what you are told; you trust in the channels of Divine Light Mission implicitly, and you wait for direction … the organization looks upon you as an object: to be used. ("Times Two,"p.24)

What is this impulse we all have to be controlled, to be like puppets on some perfect master's string? … We shouldn't kid ourselves into believing that we are at all different from the fanatical followers of Moon, Moses David or Manson when we repeatedly foist our lives onto our guru and abandon all personal responsibility in some misguided pursuit of "surrender." ("Times Two," p. 7)

And finally the very role and nature of GMJ - even the "Krishna Lila" myth was questioned:

Seeing Guru Maharaj Ji as Lord allows people to be seen and treated

268

as objects … If you see life passively, then the future is pre-recorded, your lines are already scripted, and Guru Maharaj Ji … knows this path so well it bores him, and he is only -with the detachment of a loving patriarch - coming down this one last time, because this is the play …

So long as Guru Maharaj Ji stands above the world, we also, "serving him" take liberties that infringe upon people's need to be free and creative and real. And we have a thoroughly authoritarian organization for this very reason. Authoritarianism is at the very base of our thought - of our paradigm. ("Times Two," p. 25)

Under the pressure of such intense doubts and questionings the national organization soon fell to pieces, the Denver International Headquarters crumbled, the ashrams emptied, and many premies embarked on marriage or careers. In the meantime instead of "satsang" they held parties and dances where more conventional means of intoxication competed with "his love."

But even during this time, before the organization and ashrams coalesced again through the 1977-78 series of festivals, still premies believed in GMJ and in "surrender:"

GMJ, as I hear him, is calling for a deeper surrender, a more personal, profound, and lasting attitude of unity with our deepest selves. ("Times Two," p. 7)

They still longed for "satsang," but now had to skirt around words and "concepts" to find it. Adherence to former taken-for-granted attitudes now reaped derision, as at one "workshop" I attended where a woman was roundly hooted for saying that all she wanted was to surrender to GMJ and live in his ashram the rest of her life.

Premies knew that in their newly-found anti-authoritarianism they were still "judging" one another, but still they struggled to "get beyond" even these new conventions, standards, and beliefs. Once in "satsang" a leader got up and said, "What's wrong with this song?"

A world humanitarian leader has come to us this day.
A world humanitarian leader has come to us this day.
And he's come to show us the light

269

And he's come to show us the love
And he's come to show us the way …

It was a takeoff on the old premie favorite which began, "The Lord of the Universe has come to us this day," and the speaker was trying to say that to fixate on the new label for GMJ was as bad as fixating on the old one. They still wanted to see GMJ as their leader, but now less regally, more reachably:

Maybe Maharaj Ji isn't bored after all; maybe this adventure is as much a surprise to him as anyone … Maybe we have something to share with Maharaj Ji, rather than just receive things from him in a prepackaged way. ("Times Two," p. 25)

Even with such conscientious struggles against the words and spiritual categories, "real satsang" during this time remained as elusive as it had been at the height of the authoritarian organization. To flaunt the former Mission conventions at all times and revel in anti-organizational freedoms succeeded no better in sacralizing daily life than had the rule of "satsang." In their frustration premies became reflective, glimpsing for themselves the parade of devotional styles which had come and gone in DLM:

When I received Knowledge, it was what people would call an Indian trip … I was ready to wear yoga whites and beads and go barefoot. Premies were leading this nomadic life and nobody was worried about money. It was really groovy. But that didn't last long. From that it went to the extreme of everybody cutting their hair. Then, within just a few months, these total freaks had become, like, these walking rummage sales, wearin' all these old suits with pants halfway up to their knees - the other extreme. And it got to the point of a real austere, rigid form of life … Those extremes that we experience really help us. Because you can't lose those kinds of ideas until you've played that role right to the hilt. And then you say, "Oh, that isn't me." (Atlanta Newsletter, 1976, p. 4-5

Some even sensed dimly that the 1976 rebellion was just one more in this series of group styles, but such a view demanded that one buck the tide of joyful release from former rigidity which everyone was enjoying. Critique of the rebellion smacked of reversion to the past; and those

270

who insisted on it, along with those who really did cherish the past, has to insulate themselves in small counter-counter-groups who banded together aloof from the current trend.

Officially, questioning and sarcasm held the day. The Atlanta Community Newsletter, "All For One," typically published a takeoff on the popular premie song "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?"

What is Divine Light Mission?
What is its current disposition?
That's the question you must ask,
Don't hold your breath til you get an answer.

What is the purpose of our changing
And all this talk of rearranging?
I know it's to serve, but why all these curves
As we trek on to our destination?

What keeps our corporate growth in motion?
Can problems be solved by commotion?
What's happened to the International Division format plan?
There's just so much to understand.

But the song only caricatured the Mission organization, and Maharaj Ji emerged unscathed:

Since DLM began,
There has only been one man
Who has always remained the same,
And we all know his Holy Name.

And the solution lurked, as always, beyond confusion in the meditative recesses of the breath:

What is Divine Light Mission?
Is Maharaj Ji pleased with our condition?
That's the question you must ask
Within your breath you'll find the answer. (1976, pp. 4-5

True "experience," true "satsang" and meditation, still hovered just beyond the reach of "concepts" and anti-"concepts." One had to wait as long as ever, beyond the fun and noise, and beyond the exaggeratedly "liberated" hugs and the new "real" ways of being, for those subtle moments when the eyes would begin to search in one another for the clear

271

272

NOTES

1) Analyses by some apostates and commentators on DLM suggest that agreement is all that "satsang" ever achieves; that it sometimes reaches another level is suggested when one finds premies critiquing mere agreement. One woman who moved to the DLM headquarters in Denver wrote to her friends back home, "There is so much external support here with satsang three times a day … lots of premies who you can find to support your particular way of practising Knowledge … I can see the tendency in myself to get lazy …" (SF Community Newsletter, 9/77

2) "Trance" is my own, not a premie term. It suggests phenomena bordering on hypnotic fascination with an object or state, or perhaps the super-absorption of yogic "dhyana," either of which can obscure awareness of the other and willingness to continue communication.

3) This does not mean that the goal of "informal satsang" communication is not a trance state in itself, only that the two must avoid absorption into the other trance states or fixated attentions in order to arrive at the "satsang experience."

4) Sexuality is a good example of the kind of fixated attention into an object and/or sensation which I am calling "trance."

5) One premie told me about an extraordinary experience of satsang communication which came when her lover made love to her with eye eyes and they gazed continually at the "GMJ within each other" during the whole experience. The premie gay community holds that gender identity is the earliest ingrained, most basic form of "ego," so the aim of gay sexuality was to transcend gender identity and arrive at the purest, most ego-less form of communication between just human beings, not male, not female. And from time to time other theories of the "satsang" possibilities of sexuality would abound.

6) These views do not necessarily imply summary acceptance or rejection of sexuality per se, but mainly concern the prudence of trying to mix sexuality with "satsang" and retain the maximum "satsang experience." Premie sexual activity ranges from celibate monastics and faithful married folk to every degree of sexual involvement and experimentation, with many premies taking for granted the view of their permissive countercultural milieu which sees in sexual retraint outdated Christian moralities or blatant neurosis. The only premie view on sexuality consistent over time and between factions is the view that, compared with God-intoxication, it is blase. One initiator, for example, continually quotes GMJ as telling a premie who had fallen in love that GMJ could bestow on him a thousand times more pleasure. Attitudes are practical and not absolute. Sexuality per se is not thought to be intrinsically evil, and might possibly even help occasionally, but at the same time it is potentially one of the most deluding obstacles of "maya."

7) This is something like the process through which premies privately deal with sexuality. The gay premie quoted above went on to describe his five years of ashram celibacy:

273

"To me, true celibacy doesn't mean repressing the sex drive. It means dealing with it in a particular way that doesn't include acting it out. (This opinion may be controversial.) During my years in the ashram I experienced this kind of celibacy rarely, but when I did it was beautiful. Those were the times when I was able to accept the existence of my sexual energy, and consciously decide to divert it into satsang, meditation, and service. It can be done but it ain't always easy. Especially in the springtime!" ("Light Reading," 11/15/76, p. 8) This account, published in the counter-organization "Light Reading" paper at the height of the 1976 questioning of premie life, pictures celibacy and the struggle to deal with sexuality in far more realistic terms than does a discussion published several years earlier in the official DLM "Tivine Dimes," by a premie doctor: "The goal of the premie who is celibate is not repression, denial, or control - rather, it is transcendence. Transcendence of sexual desires occurs when sexual desires are simply not occurring. In doing meditation, instinctual sexual energy can be completely transmuted. Energy becomes concentrated and expressed in selfless love, joy, peace, and service. The ecstacy of bodily union is clearly known to be of small moment and quality when compared to the state of true consciousness of bliss. Then desire for sexual contact just drops away. … Physiologically speaking, when a person meditates regularly, his endocrine system is profoundly affected, and the sexual hormones are not produced at previous levels. The pineal gland then acts as a bind of the master gland to tune the person to experience true consciousness of bliss." ("Divine Times," 5/15/73, p.4) For premies who accepted this, the presence of sexual desire was then clear evidence of the failure of their meditational efforts.

8) Premies often meet, have intense "satsang" for awhile, and part sometimes without bothering to learn one another's name. At festivals they may exchange deep, meaningful "satsang" looks for long minutes without knowing each other's language. Once a gay male premie announced that he had a long "satsang" with a person (who turned out to be a gay female) and suddenly realized in the middle of the conversation that he had no idea whether she was male or female. And they parted before he found out.

9) The crisis of festivals was discussed in the previous chapter; the crisis of encounters with the "world" will be discussed below.

10) GMJ gave several "satsangs" about the fact that his son Hansi was born and breathed comfortably for several hours without yet having a name, with everyone witnessing him as just a human being. One's name and all that goes with it, he was trying to say, is not the same thing as one's true self. After this many premie couples also did not name their newborns right away, and some waited for weeks and even months, regularly trying to contact GMJ to bestow an appropriate name.

11) I never witnessed a premie funeral, and only vaguely heard

274

of one, at which the premies among other things sang "Arati." Death seems not to fill them with intense fear that needs to be allayed with powerful rituals, as much sociological theory suggests. Rather, death reminds them to prepare for death by orienting toward that which they believe endures beyond it. They seem almost to welcome death and other crisis or boundary situations for their power to provide that orientation and to trivialize daily-life distractions. Some try in one way or another to render day-to-day situations more death-like, somewhat in the manner of Don Juan suggesting to Carlos Castaneda that he "let death be an adviser." (1972, ch. 4)

12) From "Welcome Song," by Doug McGinnis, written for a musical with a definite story to it. Though using the metaphor of family, the song is probably really about meditation: "let yourself inside" (instead of the conventional expression "come in") suggests letting oneself "go inside" to meditate. "You are still where you belong" implies doubly that one is still and also that one belongs in "this place" (the premie term for "inside") of meditation perhaps more than in one's normal "home" of "mind" and conventional identity.

13) This was written during the period when I was in the process of disillusionment and defection.

14) During this same period outside of the Denver premie clinic dozens of other premies were busying themselves experimenting with EST, "Science of Mind," and a number of other therapy and mind-training systems, some of which were considered heretical and eventually officially condemned by GMJ.

15) The organization acknowledged this attitude in a communique distributed to the Mission leaders which aimed at changing the Mission's "image" in the minds of recalcitrant premies as well as the public: "In its worst light, premies view DLM as authoritarian and hypocritical, serving some cause, but not a basically joyful one." (Communique sent from DLM Headquarters to DLM centers around the country. Summer, 1976)

16) These are premie rumors, which I am not trying to present as true facts. Premies who enjoy this sort of rumor are never bothered by newspaper allegations that GMJ eats meat, drinks, and involves himself in one scandal or another. To them, this is only further evidence that GMJ lives indifferent to all convention, acting continually to "break concepts" people have about holy men. This sort of rumor abounded most during the 1976-97 era.

17) Letter from Denver Community Coordinator to Denver Community, 3/7/76.

18) For a discussion of "satsang words" attacked during this period, see chapter V, "Satsang." This same sort of attack on the words emerged again in the early 1980's. "Divine Light Mission" was abolished as the group's official name, the nationwide organizational structure broke apart, and each local community adopted an innocuous name of their own choosing. I was told they were even trying not to use the word "premie."

19) Communique from DLM headquarters to centers. Summer, 1976,

275

CHAPTER IX

PREMIES AND THE "WORLD"

"Informal satsang" as elusive ideal operates side by side with "informal satsang" as established requirement in premie life, playing out two levels of interpretation of the "Krishna Lila" myth. The complexity of "informal satsang" within premie life does not end there, however, because premie society does not dwell apart from the surrounding society but nests here and there within it. "The world's" "non-premie" interaction styles always loom nearby to contrast with "informal satsang," providing a threat and a challenge. The "world" threatens because it declares itself "real" and the deified "Guru" and "experience" of the premie world "false." But the "world" also challenges because the raison d'etre of premie life lies in revealing falseness, converting and transforming it. Premie society has intermeshed with the "world" through both necessity and design. When "worldly" contact proved corrupting premies withdrew into insulation. But when insulation hampered "propagation of Knowledge," they approached the "world" once again. Thus underlying the 1976 questioning of rigidified Mission structures lay as much concern with "propagation" as with the elusiveness of "experience." But premie society has intermeshed with the "world" also because GMJ apparently never wanted to create a viable sect insulated from the larger society.

The hardest challenge for premies has been to find ways of

276

sustaining their worldview during those periods, like 1976 and 1982-3, when their society crumbles and abandons them to the "world."

Some cling to tiny groups of other premies, many still see "non-premies" as nothing but potential converts. But a few have tried to transcend rather than sustain the differences between themselves and others, and to sacralize all their human interactions.

WORKING IN THE "WORLD"

Most premies have had to deal with the "world" at least through employment. Only for brief periods - 1974-75 in Denver, 1974-76 in San Antonio, perhaps 1978-80 in Miami - did significant numbers of premies find themselves employed as well as housed by the Mission, existing in virtual isolation from the "world."1 Even most ashram premies have had to work at outside jobs. And the expense of travel to festivals as well as the Mission's constant call for funds has required most premies to work full-time.

Even when premies were undergoing their most insulated phases, they still attributed some value to work in the "world." Approached with an impeccable "consciousness" it could even come near to the "purity" of devoted "service" to GMJ. Certainly work provided the Mission with funds, for ashram residents donated their full paycheck (in return for support) and others were encouraged - with the argument that this certainly was "service" - to donate ten percent of their income. And even if work could not be performed as "service," it still provided discipline.

Work as discipline, especially in the early and mid-70's, helped temper the "spaciness" of premies who were long accustomed to

277

drifting, freeloading, "hippy" ways. In particular, day jobs with reputable businesses forced them to cut their hair, dress presentably, stay out of trouble, and free up evenings for "satsang."

Thus emphasis on work as discipline helped integrate many premies who had been middle class countercultural dropouts back into mainstream society, as Robbins, Anthony and Richardson (1978) suggest.2 But this re-integration back into society went only so far, stopping at the point where job commitment threatened religious commitment. Premies tended to choose jobs which minimized this threat while maximizing the disciplinary advantages of employment. They preferred, for example, job situations conducive to meditation. They sought simple, routine or manual work which required little "thinking." Too much work with words, details, decisions, responsibility, or abstractions was said to distract the attention from "Holy Name." Thus a premie might prefer straight typing over bookkeeping; dishwashing over waiting on table; school bus driver over cab driver; warehouse worker over supervisor; retail over commission sales. Jobs unconducive to meditation were seen as a "test." If one succeeded in enduring them one would come to appreciate the premie world one came home to immeasurably more. But if one failed one's "energy" would drain and practise of Knowledge would suffer, and others advised quitting the job.

Socially, premies preferred jobs where another premie worked with whom one could sneak frequent "satsang" breaks. Barring this, working alone at one's own pace afforded the best chance for meditation and maybe a little "satsand'over the phone or the chance to glance at a DLM magazine from time to time. A few "mellow" work partners were tolerable, but premies tried to avoid harried interactions at work or

278

social entanglements which required a lot of "non-satsang" discussion or spilled over into commitments beyond the workplace. Thus temporary work, though generally isolated from other premies, at least prevented social entanglements; solitary work like delivery truck driving provided privacy and flexibility. Independent odd jobs like gardening, painting, fixit, and house cleaning could be done in comfort, alone or with other premies away from outsiders.

One of the worst risks to premie practise was a job which called for too much commitment. A boss might start demanding overtime or after-hours training or transfer to a place where no premies lived, and he might dimly view requests for days off for festivals. Or the job might open up opportunities to tempt ambitions for success, prestige, money, security, the attainment of which might push the practise of Knowledge down to a lesser priority in one's life. So premies had to settle for something in between. Typically they favored temporary employment or high turnover low-paying jobs. The choice of jobs was sometimes difficult because premies had to balance revulsion for marginal work with the obstacles premie life put in the way of committed long-term employment. At times when the ashram was fully functioning, ashram premies had no idea when they would be transferred to other cities, and non-ashram premies could not predict the timing of festivals or the possibility that someone in Denver or Miami would suddenly request they come there for a special "service." One middle-aged woman considering leaving her husband and comfortable professional wife's life to move in the ashram agonized over the job dilemma:

That thing about the ashram really bothers me, and maybe it will prevent me from moving in. I just don't know if I could stand a job at Taco Bell or something like that, I think I might go crazy. I've done all these shit jobs; I was a telephone operator, and I hate it. On the other hand there are a lot of trainee positions,

279

but I don't think it's right to take a trainee position and have the company spend all that money on you, and then you just split and say "see you later!" I don't want to go in and be a flake but I don't want to marry the company either. (interview notes)

Thus though commitment to DLM helped integrate some premies back into the mainstream society, it pulled others already in the mainstream out of it. Many quit demanding jobs for marginal employment; many others quit school and training programs in favor of casual jobs which would pay for festivals and support the Mission. Those who stayed in career jobs or school generally enjoyed a more peripheral role in the Mission, plagued with constant guilt for their inability to "surrender" their "attachment" fully to GMJ by quitting their jobs.

Thus the Mission tended to pull people from disparate occupational and social categories and recast them together into the role of marginally employed clerical, service, and light industrial workers.

This tendency made certain classes of people, even if they did convert, unlikely to take this sort of job and stay permanently in the premie community. Those with family and job commitments could not as flexibly switch to marginal positions; they had more to lose than the uncommitted youth. On the other hand, uneducated and minority persons might not find it as easy to take and quit a number of typical premie positions. They had less options and no safety net of disgruntled middle-class parents who would ultimately appear from the wings to rescue them if they should get in trouble. As the 80's recession came and deepened, the DLM staged fewer festivals and premies presumably were permitted to have stronger job commitments. Perhaps this was related to the increasing difficulty of supporting oneself by sporadic marginal work available at one's whim.

Those premies who remained in professional careers which demanded

280

intensive, committed interaction with non-premies encounter the problem of having to divide their lives and selves between the outside "world" and the premie "world." According to one premie lawyer,

It just seems that when I get in that elevator and the doors close then it's closing out my world of premies. (satsang notes)

Such dividing-up, though commonplace in modern life, is intolerable for premies because no world but theirs has a purpose or meaning:

These people I work with are nice, and I'm working on "good" causes, but it's just bull, it doesn't mean anything to me. I just get all tense at work and can't remember Holy Name, so how can it be helping Guru Maharaj Ji? (satsang notes)

The job has to mean something in relation to "GMJ's world." Some professionals found meaning in donating large portions of their income to GMJ, or in using their expertise or prestige for Mission causes. But still they yearned to overcome the day-to-day sense of a split world.

The issue often revolved around being known and/or tolerated as a premie at work. The Mission's reputation as a "cult" forced many premies to "pass" as non-premies, to fake normal interests, to invent excuses for avoiding extra-work involvements. In certain cities some employers and agencies began refusing to hire premies so that even non-professional, marginally employed premies also had to "pass." This added the question of duplicity to the burden of living in a split world:

In jobs, you have to lie perhaps because as a premie or ashram resident you don't know how long you'll be able to keep the job. (interview notes)

Then again, premies often took pains to "pass" when they didn't really have to. They exaggerated the effect of their religious affiliation on their careers and reputations and underestimated their colleagues' potential tolerance and interest. The premie who had been a stroke victim, for example, found that when he was in the hospital he tended to view the people from work and premies very differently:

281

The office people would walk in there; and there would be a real heavy separation. The moment they'd walk in the door they were already looking for the way out - they'd pivot and right back out the door - so much fear on their faces. But premies who'd come, they'd settle in like they do at the corner coffee shop like they're having a party, like this was an excuse for satsang and they were ready to stay forever. "Oh boy, somebody's in the hospital, so we can go and give him love, and satsang, and all these joyous things." (interview notes)

But he felt singularly undefensive, the close brush with death somehow giving him the right to be "himself," a premie. So for the first time he didn't feel he had to hide his affiliation with GMJ from his co-workers:

The walls were covered with GMJ's pictures, and all the people that would come in that room to see me would gawk at those pictures … But I just realized that I'm never gonna care again about what they think about me being a premie. There was no trip about "the office people are coming so let's put away the Maharaj Ji pictures." I just felt like you're coming in, and you're seeing my life wide open and that's where I'm at, and I don't care - when I went back to work after that I just carried that with me. Because those office people in spite of being hung-up and neurotic and so on, are actually a common group of people, and when the right combination of circumstances happen the love comes out of them too. (interview notes)

"Passing" as a non-premie, minimizing social contact, seeing a job only as a facilitator of meditative discipline - premies used these strategies when they saw the "world" as a threat. This posture divided the premie "world" sharply from the outside "world." Home safely in "satsang" premies were fond of caricaturing co-workers, condemning their commitment to work and search for meaning in it, ridiculing their faith in work's rewards of money and comforts, and pitying their consequent misery and loneliness. To premie eyes their lives were empty or misguided, and even those appearing most happy were hiding some fatal flaw whose only possibility of healing lay in conversion to GMJ. In this premie view "worldly" work was a useless waste to be done minimally and quickly, then forgotten.

282

* * * * *

But "propagation" forced premies to take other stances toward work and the "world." To "propagate" actively, premies had to step out of their simple dichotomized view from which outsiders appeared as a featureless "them" on whom premies could blame their woes from a secure distance while celebrating their own virtue. "Propagation" brought an attitude not of escaping the "world" but of covering or incorporating it within the premie "world." "Propagation," then, nudged premies toward a unified, monistic view of reality.3

"PROPAGATION"

The premie urge toward "propagation" comes directly from GMJ's teachings. His father Shri Hans Ji Maharaj founded the Divine Light Mission in Patna, India, in 1960. A biography of him published by the Indian Divine Light Mission in 1970 states,

Shri Maharaj Ji realized the necessity of following a modern technique for propagation, and wished to provide for his followers an organization in which they could work for the betterment of mankind. Therefore, in 1960 the mission was named Divine Light Mission and registered in Patna. For the first time membership in the Mission was recorded … The Mission aims at achieving the unity of nations and the one-ness of mankind by instructing them on the technique of utilizing the universal primordial Force, that is, the Holy Name (Word) which is the same as the Divine Light and which pervades all human beings thus bringing to the fore the eternal principle of unity in diversity. (1970, p. 46)

Shri Hans Ji Maharaj is said to have commissioned his youngest son Sant Ji (the present Guru Maharaj Ji) to carry his message to every corner of the earth. GMJ and his mother began this task when he was still only eleven or twelve by initiating Western hippies who stumbled upon him in India and sending them home to prepare for his coming. (He also sent Indian missionaries to "propagate" to the large Indian population of South Africa.) At thirteen in 1971 GMJ first went to Europe and the

283

United States and within a few years DLM centers had been established in South America, Africa, many Asian countries, and even a few tiny outposts in Communist and Arab countries. By the late 1970's GMJ was scheduling regular festivals and tours in North America, Europe, South America and Asia (Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hong Kong, sometimes India when politics permitted.) This pattern continued through the early 1980's,

Theologically, GMJ explained his efforts in terms of the theory of "Perfect Masters." "Perfect Masters," he would say, come for specific purposes. Some "manifest" to only one or two disciples; others influence a handful and still others like Krishna and Christ turned the tide of whole civilizations. In his incarnation as GMJ, however, the "Lord came with more power than ever before," this time to save everyone. In 1970 in what has become known as the "Peace Bomb" satsang GMJ declared to a huge crowd in Delhi:

I possess such a thing that I do not need machine guns, I do not need pistols, I do not need a sword, I do not need a spear. I possess such a Knowledge that I can control the whole world from ants to elephants, from men to animals, from birds to mosquitoes by tying them in the thread of love. I have this Knowledge and I have come to give it to you.

Dear premies, the time has come. See how peace will be established in the world. There will be peace on earth … It will come and once again the world will understand it … Right now I feel such a spirit in me, I do not know where it has come from; I feel as if I want to shake the world.

Already he was commissioning Indian premies to help make his message heard around the world:

Dear premies, arise! Awake! Open the ears of each man and tell him the time has come. Make them understand that I have come to show the true path. ("And It Is Divine," 11/76, p. 12 actually 11/73)

GMJ's coming was understood to be fulfilling the prophecies of all religions, he was Kalki, the tenth incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu, the Buddha Maitreya to come, the Christ returned, the Moslem twelfth

284

Imam Mahdi, the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl, the Great One which every religion and legend has predicted will come to "bring true meaning to religion and unite all the world's people. ("And It Is Divine," 11/73, p. 12)

Naive "Propagation"

The first naive outburst of premie "propagation" in the West saw only GMJ's consciousness marching blithely, step-by-step toward its final destiny of world transformation. But the "world" was not an enemy to be conquered, not a "them" distinct from "us" because it was nothing but an "illusion." The premie "world" was the "reality," and premies felt they need do nothing more than act within and by that "reality" for the transformation to occur. Typical of this attitude was an Indian Mahatma who used to say, "For me, GMJ has already established peace on earth, because everywhere I go I see happy premies and because I meditate on Holy Name I feel peace in any circumstance." When an angry crowd attacked premies once at a festival in India5 this man was hit by a brick which broke his back. He is said to have prostrated immediately to GMJ, in the midst of the melee, to thank him for his "prashad," or holy gift.6 For him everything, even those who attacked him, was a manifestation of GMJ's "play."

Further, "propagation" was seen not only as GMJ's "play" but also as GMJ's gift to premies, a situation created by him in the illusory "world" so premies can serve him and get an "experience:"

In the Ramayana, Lord Ram created a whole situation so that all His devotees had a chance to show their love and devotion for Him. Their service was to re-capture His kidnapped wife. It was a situation made for the benefit of the premies.

I can really feel the same thing happening now. Here is a situation of darkness covering this world and GMJ wanting us to do

285

something about it, by doing propagation. Of course, he could do it by Himself - but then what would that leave us? There would be no way to become part of Him and to fulfill our life's destiny. Now is our chance to have the experience we were created for. 7

This attitude led almost to an indifference toward success in "propagation." Krishna on the battlefield had said to Arjuna the warrior "remember my Name and fight;" he had told Arjuna not to care what happened, but to act and dedicate all fruits to him. Disregard of consequences made premies feel free to act. They reasoned that isolation from the "world" can lead to laziness, whereas even wrongly-directed action keeps one on one's toes and if one dedicates the fruits to GMJ then the results don't matter.

Organized Mission "propagational" activities during this stage included leafletting, door-to-door sales of Mission magazines, "meditation surveys" or solicitation of junk for "Divine Sales" rummage stores.' Singly premies doing this had to rely on Holy Name and the feeling that GMJ was acting through them. But when they went together "satsang" fortified them, often to the point where increasing the "vibe" between them took precedence over trying to convert outsiders. One report about "propagational" efforts said, typically, "they just went around giving satsang to anyone they saw. They had a marvelous time."9 For premies felt that the "satsang vibration" between them was the best tool of "propagation," a visible result of the power of GMJ's "Knowledge" in promoting peace and love in human society. They recalled the role of premies' sacralized interaction in their own conversion, in ritual:

They started singing and at that moment I thought it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard. And all of a sudden that wave … started coming again. So soothing. (Cameron, interview notes)

and in daily life:

I worked with the premies for three weeks - there were 300 of them -

286

and observed the harmony in which they worked together, no slamming of telephones and no slamming of doors, they just wanted to work together, they wanted to share the experience they were having. (interview notes)

"Propagational" efforts went toward getting people to come to introductory "satsang programs," and sometimes premies held "satsang" in open public places so that the "vibe" would be right there, available to the public:

[in the Boston Commons] We set up Maharaj Ji's photo close to one well-trodden sidewalk. Some premies stood around listening to one premie give satsang … The gathering, photo, etc., attracted quite a crowd in about ten minutes. Once they got sucked into the vibe of satsang it was very easy to approach them and give some personal satsang.10

Whether people were attracted or not premies witnessed through their own "propagational" efforts the "satsang vibe" prevailing in "worldly" situations again and again, unbroken when "the police threw us out," undaunted when "no one was in the park and it began to rain as well," and overwhelmed when "some people came over and listened. We got blown away ."1° As along as they remained together in "satsang" no matter where they went they never had to leave "GMJ's world." The "world" they carried between them outshone the mundane "world" so completely that they really never even had to see it except as bit by bit it yielded to GMJ's power of transformation.

The "propagational" principles of "remember the Name and fight" and "dedicate the fruits to me" led premies to seek in a job not just a quiet haven for meditation, but a platform for "propagation." Proponents of this view liked jobs which involved meeting the public - jobs like receptionist, waitress, salesman, cab driver, and any helping jobs. Such jobs offered them ample opportunity to proselytize actively, not just exhibiting a beautiful "vibration" but directly telling people about GMJ. That this strategy caused them to lose their

287

jobs frequently hardly mattered, for only "satsang" was "real," and GMJ would soon provide another job situation where someone needed to hear "satsang." And meantime GMJ would provide, through food stamps, thrift stores, cheaper living arrangements, an IRS refund, overripe produce discarded by supermarkets at the end of the day. To premies with this view the whole "game" of jobs and job-hunting was merely GMJ's setup to expose the public to "satsang." Premies who job-hunted for weeks giving "satsang" to interviewer after interviewer might never land a job but would feel convinced that they were serving GMJ by "propagating" Knowledge the way it was meant to be "propagated."

Stress on action and disregard of consequences pervaded not only job situations but every encounter with the day-to-day "world." House-hunting yielded opportunities similar to job-hunting, and apartment living offered creative new "propagational" strategies:

In apartments, premies have put up small notices on bulletin boards that they can take care of plants or animals if someone is going out of town. People often put a lot of love into these things and it is a good medium to get to know someone. You can also get posters to put up in the laundry rooms, common rooms, etc. ("Pathfinder," Denver community Newsletter, 9/14/76, p. 6)

A premie who had taken an initiator shopping that day reported in "satsang" that the initiator, having decided against a particular shirt, turned to the saleslady, showed her a picture of GMJ, asked her if she'd heard of him and proceeded to give her "satsang." The premie had felt jealous that the initiator had beat him to it, and the rest of the day they wandered around shirt departments giving "satsang" to sales people. One premie told me that she first heard "satsang" from a premie who turned to her in a supermarket checkout line and asked her if she'd heard of GMJ. Traveling to festivals by car premies regularly deluged gas station ..ttendants and waitresses with "satsang."

288

Premies also ****** rest of line missing ***** "satsang," reasoning that good and bad, pure and corrupt were only relative and that GMJ's "play" pervaded every such situation in the illusory "world." A friend once told me that when he was drafted into the Army he just gave "satsang" to everyone, especially his sargeant who eventually turned him over to the Army psychiatrists to whom, even in confinement, he continued to give "satsang" until finally they gave him a medical discharge. Sexuality provided yet another "satsang" opportunity. An attractive gay San Francisco premie used to dance for hours at a popular disco wearing a T-shirt which said "I love Guru Maharaj Ji." The numbers of gay men who consequently found their way to "satsang" unnerved the heterosexual San Francisco premies, but they themselves had used the same sort of ploy upon occasion. Attractive premie women occasionally gave men the ashram phone number instead of their own. Other times "satsang" was more ambiguously mixed with romance:

I saw this brother at the beach reading this spiritual book so I asked him about it and he said it was incredible and he couldn't put it down and satsang just started happening, just flowing. And his eyes became completely dilated while he was listening, he was just completely drinking in the satsang … he began to come to satsang every night and during the day he would be at the beach and we would just have satsang all the time. It was just like watching this flower open, because it was so beautiful, and at that point it was just so pure because the relationship was just totally based on trying to bring this brother to Knowledge. He was very attractive but at that point there was no ulterior motive … (interview notes)

Premies who utilized "worldly" situations in this way felt no discontinuity in their "experience," no division between "our" and "their" "realities," so in a sense they could never be defeated. Every situation, however bizarre or apparently unfruitful, harbored GMJ's "grace" if one approached it with faith and energy. A premie kidnapped

289

by the infamous Ted Patrick and subjected to "deprogramming" failed to deconvert:11

Patrick and his men tried for almost a week to break Ellen but, she said later, 'When they brought in a minister to question me, he could only say, 'she's fine, as peaceful as a madonna.'" The interrogators stood over her from morning until night, she said, not letting her get into the lotus position to do formal meditation. Little did they know the power of the Word, commented Ellen …
… The morning of the day she was abducted, Ellen had been writing a premie letter which began, "Guru Maharaj Ji's lilas abound and sweep us away …" ("Divine Times," 4/1/73, p. 2)

In her mind GMJ's power was unlimited, and she returned from the ordeal, as many premies returned from lesser "worldly" unpleasantness, with re-doubled zeal.

Ever-buoyed by their purpose, premies who thus propagated indiscriminately exuded a certain excitement and determination which sometimes astounded, sometimes offended, sometimes inspired others:

There seemed a touch of fanaticism in their insistence that GMJ was the only one … But on the other hand they showed a genuine human interest, they were happy - very happy. Their eyes were bright and brimming with childlike enthusiasm. They were light, and honest, and candid. (Cameron, interview notes)

They felt no doubt. They could neither be bought nor deflected from their purpose and they let people relate to them only on their own terms.

Conversation with others meant waiting out what they considered he other's babble until a topic surfaced they could redirect toward satsang." Premies traveling in planes, for example, found that the appearance of their specially-ordered vegetarian meals usually sparked questions, which they turned toward "satsang." Relating only on their terms meant vigorous use of "satsang" words, so that people attracted by their sense of energy and purpose could not think for a moment that it came from any source other than GMJ. Nothing the other offered except agreement was given any value, because the premie would expand his

290

own interests, his words, his "vibration" until it obliterated the other. Therefore in a sense he hardly even saw the other; his world did not even exist. Once a premie reported in "satsang" that he and his wife had gone to visit some old friends. One the way he had told her, "if satsang doesn't happen in twenty minutes, we're leaving." Others took on value only as potential objects of "propagation." Because successful conversion was secondary to the actual act of "propagation," premies wanted most that others simply hear "satsang." How they responded was up to GMJ.

* * * * *

This naive, heedless mode of "propagation" tended to promote problems; because it relied on the words and hardly saw the other or cared for his response, it offended many. Even GMJ commented on it:

Some of the approaches we were taking were definitely wrong. They, in fact, were not helping people but were confusing people. ("Divine Times," 2/76, p. 4)

Lack of success and hostile reactions always generated an undercurrent of doubt during phases of naive "propagation." This doubt surfaced organizationally as the inability to settle on any one method - door-to-door, leafletting streets and parks, advertising, free concerts, special products, introductory dinners were all tried. The Mission never even kept to one logo or format for their advertising materials.

Individually, despite the attitude of "dedicate the fruits to Him," premies came to blame themselves for failure in "propagation;" they were failing GMJ, their faith and devotion must be all wrong, they were believing too much in the power of "illusion" because their "realization of Knowledge" was faulty. They interpreted feelings of silliness and embarrassment they felt during "propagation" as their inability to rise above the "ego's" concern with "social respectability." So

291

many preferred to avoid "propagation" altogether. Work, job-hunting, house-hunting, shopping were tedious enough as it was without the added burden of always feeling one must risk embarrassment and complications by telling everyone about GMJ.

Naive "propagation" often lapsed back into avoidance of the "world." But since GMJ continually stressed "propagation" this avoidance could never last with premies who wanted to obey him or be a part of Mission activities. Calculated "propagation" provided a compromise.

Calculated "Propagation"

Unlike the defensive stance which opposed the ordinary "world" to "GMJ's world," both naive and caluclated "propagation" offensives perceived only one "world." But while the naive approach overpowered the "world of illusion" by "shining like light which makes darkness disappear," the calculated approach incorporated it, finding GMJ already there in every aspect of the outside "world." The naive emphasized action, vigorously shining the light into the darkness, while the calculated emphasized consciousness, learning to see and trust that GMJ was already everywhere. The naive wanted to "bring people to GMJ," while the calculated felt that "It is His job to bring people to us."12 The naive stressed quantity, the number of people informed about GMJ, and the calculated stressed quality, the way they were told. The naive tried to convince, the calculated to intuit:

And while the naive approach stressed "satsang" words, the calculated approach stressed "experience:"

The emphasis has to be placed on the formation of a Company of

292

Truth, rather than on the spouting of our beliefs and concepts.13

Premies at work who practised calculated "propagation" tried hard to meditate, to realize Knowledge, to see GMJ in everything. This transformed their attitude toward work from disdain and irrelevance to scrupulous conscientiousness. The job became "service" to GMJ. For if GMJ were everywhere certainly he was here on the job, and anything performed in Holy Name, though the company claimed it, was really for "Him."

But conscientiousness for GMJ was different than conscientiousness for a "worldly" boss. Premies who did things directly for GMJ in person did them exquisitely perfectly, and usually carefully and very slowly. As the object took shape - a marvelous hand-made desk, a woven belt, a complex computer program - it acquired a special numinousness which captivated its creator and inspired even more careful, loving work. They sustained their alertness through meditation and their inspiration through the sense that GMJ's presence worked through them so they could give it back to him. Such work depended on the proparconsciousness and the consciousness needed meditation and "satsang." Premies who persisted in this caliber of work on the job, however, often got in the way in the business world. Exquisite craftmanship took too much time where mediocrity and efficiency prevailed. Treating every customer as if he were GMJ risked too much familiarity and generosity when the job demanded depersonalization. And the effort to sustain a high caliber of effort required frequent "satsang" and meditation:

A lot of people have trouble with their jobs because they do service at work, like they spend all their time making phone calls and I don't blame employers at all. We hired some premies to do some work at our house and they just sat around and had satsang

293

the whole time. I felt it was OK for them to have satsang, but I didn't feel like paying them for it. (interview notes)

Especially concerned with maintaining proper consciousness in the "world," premies practising calculated "propagation" interpreted any praise of their work as a sign that the "vibe" had worked. They would report in "satsang" that, though they had not breathed a word on the job about GMJ, co-workers would begin coming up to them wondering what "special thing" they had, why they were always so happy, why their product "shone." Only when asked did they tell co-workers or customers about GMJ. A real estate agent commented,

I believe that this Knowledge is very subtle and it's when people are open to you that they're going to hear what you're saying. So unless someone is really open to me, I don't necessarily bring up Divine Light Mission or the Knowledge except for the fact that I do have a picture of Maharaj Ji on my desk and in my car. However I don't wear a button14 and I don't have any stickers on my car. I just respond when people ask me, which is quite frequently. (Interview notes)

Even if their conscientiousness and affability pleased the boss, however, premies made clear their allegiance. If taking off work to attend a festival jeopardized his job a premie would feel that his commitment to GMJ would prove instructive to others. The boss and co-workers would see that work was not everything, that one could have a higher loyalty, that no commitment of the "world" could hold a premie for long. And so the premie would leave feeling free as a bird, hoping that others would at least be inspired to re-examine their cages.

A premie who couldn't see things in this way, who got upset that a boss wanted to fire him for going to a festival or for working too slowly and conscientiously tried to see the fault in himself, not in that boss:

It's never our bosses' resistance we have to go beyond. It's our own resistance. It's our resistance to [GMJ's] Love, our lack of faith, our lack of trust. (Divine Times, 1-2/79, p. 3)

294

With no "other," with no "them," the perennial scapegoat was the self, the last recalcitrant entity to try and maintain its separateness from the Guru-pervaded unity of creation.

CONVERSION

The fact that GMJ wanted to "save the world" was clear enough. But his teaching was complex. Salvation required the two-step process of conversion and "realization:"15 conversion happened at the beginning, but "realization" meant a prolonged process of deepening and stabilizing one's "experience" which led asymptotically toward the infinite point of absolute and eternal "truth, consciousness and bliss" (Sanskrit "sat, chit, anand" often said to have been attained only by GMJ). Both conversion and "realization" required the dual method of "experiencing Knowledge" and "recognizing GMJ." Thus one had to "recognize GMJ" within each of four basic practises: one had to understand that GMJ had taught the meditation and that the "experience" was of his infinite form; one had to understand that "satsang" was talk about GMJ which summoned the "experience" of his presence; darshan was his physical and infinite presence "experienced" simultaneously. Similarly, "service" meant the "experience" of GMJ acting through one's own efforts to serve him and "propagate Knowledge." So an important part of the route to realization lay through the "service" of "propagation."

Conversion also involved both "experiencing the Knowledge" and "recognizing GMJ." The naive efforts at conversion, emphasizing the latter, had eagerly paraded GMJ's picture and extolled his marvels. But the later, calculated efforts worked first at bringing a prospect into the "experience of Knowledge" after which, it was felt, "recogniz- ing GMJ" might come a little more easily.

295

"Informal satsang" is the major method used to lead outsiders into the "experience of Knowledge." "Informal satsang" with premies is difficult enough, with having to break through the barriers of "ego" and "fake satsang," the temptations of ordinary talk, mere agreement, and "non-satsang" fixations, but fellow premies can at least recognize the "experience" and know how to enhance it through concentration, "satsang" words, and unswerving longing. Even the most benign and curious outsiders know nothing of the sort, or so at least premies think.

To establish "informal satsang" with an outsider a premie has first to see beyond his "personality" to "GMJ within him." If one can not see GMJ in the other then the other appears alien, with potential only to bore and not to inspire. Or he appears lacking and needing to be taught. The latter perception leads premies to a sense of "separation" or a preaching stance which robs them of the "humility" necessary for "informal satsang" to develop. Such a stance tries to force "satsang:"

I was having a conversation with my sister, and I was trying to give her satsang - you caught it: trying to give her satsang. How many people have ever received satsang from someone who's trying to give them satsang? Not quite the same, is it? I really got into my ego. I really started teaching my sister. 0 sister, you are this way and this way and this way, and it's really not necessary. You should be this way - and I don't know what it was exactly; it was ego, and she responded to it with ego: Goddammit I don't like to get taught! Why are you always teaching me??? That also was ego. (recorded satsang, Denver, 1974) 16

Sometimes this attitude is overcome serendipitously as the encounter progresses and either or both recognizes the problem:

That was also ego, and we both did our ego trip, both sat back and said wow! Look at that ego! And as a matter of fact, we both, both, at that moment, had a realization about what ego is, and what it does to us.

If such recognition does not happen the "teaching" continues, the

296

outsider feels increasingly uncomfortable, and neither "informal satsang" nor conversion takes place.

Premies seek GMJ in outsiders as they did in other premies, through the eyes. This proves difficult when the other darts his eyes about or refuses to meet eyes with the gaze premies are used to. The divine essence of the other lies beneath all scatteredness and distrust, which one has somehow to peer through without trying to change it.17 Collier apparently managed this even in dreams. Once she dreamed she met a man on a bus who made fun of her spiritual interests:

I looked deep into his eyes. They were a rich chestnut brown. As I watched, their appearance changed. The man's eyes seemed like windows into another world. Through them I could see the dark blue color of a starless night sky.

When the man blinked, his chestnut-colored eyes reappeared. In this brief look I felt I had seen the infinite part of him. I had seen his "Buddha nature," the Kingdom of Heaven within him. (Collier, 1978, p. 131)

In searching for GMJ in the eyes of another, one sometimes has to be careful not to use the piercingly direct premie gaze, but deliberately to glance away from time to time. One uses the direct gaze only after having induced a steady gaze in the other, which usually comes only with the pinpointing of attention. But first the premie has to get the other not only to trust, but to be "open," interested and curious.

Getting an outsider "open" and interested takes patience, sometimes the patience of waiting for months or years for friends, co-workers, family members. Meanwhile one has to be quiet and "play along with their trip," but not in the naive offensive sense of lying in wait without listening, ready to pounce with "satsang." Rather, the calculated offensive stance takes "playing along with their trip" to mean going,along on the "trip" and even enjoying it because GMJ

297

would be there as he was everywhere. One waits and plays the part of the other's friend by being the other's friend, neither threatened by the challenges of such a "worldly" role nor attracted toward getting "stuck" in it, but feeling safe and balanced within it.

In "playing along with their trip" one avoids any proselytizing gesture; "What I mainly do is not say a word when religion comes up in a conversation. Rather I wait for satsang and explanations to be dragged out of me."18 The "right time," the moment of the other's "openness," could come any time, in a crisis or a time of unusual stability, a time of "searching" or a time of satisfaction.19 The calculated offensive stance sees such a moment emerging spontaneously from the prospective convert, not caused or inspired by the premie. They feel that GMJ works invisibly with people long before they became aware of him and sends premies by just when the moment of "opening" is near at hand. Sometimes conversion follows upon only one such moment of "openness." Others require several such moments and still others enjoy many "experiences" of "openness" and "satsang" without ever converting at all.

Only when the other becomes "open," eager to discuss religious and existential matters, ready to ask about the premie's experiences - only then does the calculated offensive stance begin "informal satsang." But the necessary concentration is often harder to induce in outsiders than in premies, because most outsiders appear to have trouble keeping their eyes still, sticking to the point, not letting their minds wander off with each new whim:

Ever notice conversations? How it wanders all over the place, from here to there, just wandering, "what kind of tea was that, Oh it was from that New Age store, I forget the Name, you know those New Age stores are not doing that well, their prices are high, well it's like everything else, inflation. But you still can find good deals. My mother got this hat the other day." It wanders all over,

298

has no point, no focus, no conclusion, it's just scattered. (satsang notes)

Perhaps for this reason the most useful "open" moments are moments intense with emotion, misery concentrating the mind on misery, joy concentrating it on joy, boredom on boredom. With concentration already attained, the premie has only to direct it to something intriguing and then let the natural concentration of curiosity keep out distractions until the person, like the premie, becomes curious about the very moment at hand.

Having pinpointed concentration in the moment at hand, having slowed thought in both minds to the point where silence can be heard, the premie still has somehow to show the other the "vibration" so he can feel the "experience." This he usually has to do without "satsang" words, which with outsiders lose their power to summon symbolic meaning and which may upset or distract. Even if the premie tries to introduce "satsang" words and convey their symbolic power, he must do so by means of other words, common to them both, which already carry numinous meaning for the other. The process is hit-or-miss, the premie throwing out possible words - "love," "truth," "peace," "God," "infinity." GMJ becomes an "enlightened soul," the "true teacher," even the "ultimate playboy," and the "experience of Knowledge" is presented as "time standing still," the "ultimate rush," "insurpassable beauty," "knowing your true self." The premie continues until he hits upon expressions which enliven the other's religious sensibilities. Once over dinner with an intellectual outsider I found him responding to Maslow's notion of "Being-cognition."

But the premie can not just let the person rest in his habitual understanding,of a numinous word: I could not let my friend merely

299

recall the nice feeling he had had reading Maslow's discussions of "Being-cognition," or even the profound feeling of oneness with nature he associated with that word; the word "Being-cognition" had to recreate those feelings here in the moment, and not only to recreate but lead him beyond them. To do this the premie tries to enter into the other's numinous memory, feel it together with him, and then, watching as numinous words recall numinous experiences for the other, point out just that moment when the other's recollection is closest to his own present "experience." Then he must merge the other's present "experience" into his own. He might just point to things in the room, the way they look, or tune the tone of his speech more precisely to the "experience," responding when the other adopts a similar tone. The premie uses subtler and subtler cues to direct the other's attention increasingly precisely into his own mode of perception, hinting to the other what to notice and how to stand within one's eyes and breath to notice it.

When the other has finally entered into the premie's "experience" of the present, his eyes now gaze unflinchingly, he relaxes utterly, and perhaps he too begins to point things out - "your face looks so radiant," "gee, it's quiet all of a sudden," "suddenly I'm feeling full of energy." The friend with whom I was discussing "Being-cognition" began saying that our table seemed to be enveloped in a bubble of still, fuzzy light, magically shielded from the surrounding restaurant hubub. I agreed, we investigaged the "bubble" a little more carefully, and when the topic of "Being-cognition" came up again he suddenly said, "you've brought me there."

"Bringing me there," however, does not always result in conversion.

300

Outsiders, unlike premies, do not always desire to repeat the experience. When I invited my Maslow-phile friend to "satsang" saying he could get the "experience" there more deeply and again and again he declined, telling me that while he valued such moments he just let them come as they would and never pursued them. Communicating the "experience," in fact, turns out to be the easiest step in converting an outsider. It is much harder to instill the desire for repeated "experience" and harder still to link the "experience" with the person of GMJ.

Desire for the "experience" sometimes grows with exposure to it, until the point comes when an outsider actively seeks out "satsang" on his own. Sometimes a crisis or a strange dream suddenly leaves him with a yearning for it. But often people have to learn this just as they learn to like martinis or marijuana.200 People learn to value the "experience" primarily by being with premies who value it, who sacrifice other pleasures and goals for it, who describe it in such ultimate terms. Thus if an outsider feels the "experience" was "nice," premies tell him it was "fantastic," it he thinks it "unusual" they insist it is "unique." If he finds it "meaningful" they explain that it is "ultimate truth." And beyond using such terms, the premie shows the other his valuation of the "experience" by treating it with reverence and awe, worshipping it, moving within it as if God were present, as if the time and the place had become sacred.

At the same time, premies cast pleasurable and meaningful "worldly" "experiences" in a different light, explaining that drugs, making love, and winning goals only provide temporary happiness, material comforts are superficial, and artistic creation is a moment of spiritual insight manipulated and distorted by "ego." They say that even

301

nature is only a dim reflection of the perfect divine universe which lies within. Finally, premies associate with the "experience" various phenomena the outsider had previously overlooked or discounted. Coincidences, indistinct feelings, sometimes even dreams are all redefined as manifestations of "GMJ's world." Thus common but little-noticed "experiences" are labeled for the first time. Once labeled one begins to notice them more, sees that they seem to occur more often. Because the outsider associates these newly-noticed experiences with the "satsang experience," the importance of it expands, seeming to pervade many hidden nooks of his life. The outsider recalls it easily and it begins to teem with mysterious meaning.

But even if an outsider comes to enjoy the "experience" of "satsang," to desire it repeatedly and to assign it spiritual meaning, he still has to be convinced that the "experience" comes from GMJ and can only be found through him. For "recognizing GMJ" is the necessary second step in conversion. To those who have already enjoyed similar experiences on drugs or through other teachers premies explain that GMJ had been just preparing them, only now revealing himself as the true Source. The "experiences" at "satsang" and with other premies, furthermore, are only tastes, not the true "experience" GMJ is capable of revealing. For this, the newcomer must be initiated. Then only will the "connection" be made, then only will GMJ open his "third eye," then only will the premie learn the meditation techniques which enable him to regain the "experience" any time he so desires.

When this time comes the calculated offensive finally has to use "satsang" words, to present GMJ in detail, to introduce the newcomer into the intricacies of premie culture, to wean him away from

302

his "attachment" to the "world." If the naive offensive offended many by trying to assert GMJ from the start, at least noone stayed around who imagined that the "experience" could be gotten without GMJ. But te calculated offensive, which concentrates on "experience" before belief, risks losing people who find other means to the "experience" or, no matter how much they valued it, can not bring themselves to "surrender their lives to GMJ" in order to get it more and more. For this reason, the phases of Mission life which emphasized the "calculated offensive" tried to devise a series of steps for the newcomer to tread on his way to initiation - what one official called a "consciousness continuum," which would gradually, through seminars, films, dinners, and meetings, introduce the newcomer to the Mission belief system and customs.21

Nevertheless, no matter how much the organization tried to ease the transition between recognition of the "experience" and belief that GMJ was its only source, many prospective converts were lost between these points. To convince newcomers of the core premie beliefs - that GMJ is the source of their "satsang" and meditation "experiences" and that his is the only path to spiritual realization - is harder thanjust to bring them into the "experience." The "experience" showed them a new dimension of life, an unguessed potential on which the beliefs immediately threaten to impose a limitation. Premies have somehow to bring newcomers to an integration of "experience" and belief which establishes the Knowledge "experience" as the reality of life and GMJ as the reality of one's own being and which make one an actor in the sacred drama of his "play." "Experience" and belief have to become inseparable. With this "recognition" the limitation

303

of the belief appears to vanish, for GMJ then encompasses the "world."

To bring about such a "recognition" premies can not rely just on their own "satsang," but have to orient newcomers squarely toward GMJ. They can not "make it happen" to another, or even to themselves. Only by GMJ's "darshan," or a "darshan dream" of GMJ, or his picture, or an instant of "satsang," or an event of the world blazingly branded by his omnipresent signature can the "recognition" take place and convince a person to "dedicate his life" to GMJ, bow down before his picture at the initiation, and utter the words of the "submission vow:"

Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji,

I dedicate myself at Your Holy Lotus Feet. I am weak and ignorant, and am filled with the impurities of this world.

Oh Guru Maharaj Ji, please take my mind and purge me of the impurities I possess. Reveal to me the Knowledge of all Knowledges. Strengthen me, uplift me, and reveal the Kingdom of Heaven within inside of me. Bring me from hate to love, darkness to light, death to immortality.

I will obey you implicitly, and will never reveal this Knowledge to anybody for any reason. I will keep in contact with You through my devotional love, satsang, meditation and service.

The "recognition" of GMJ which happens to each new convert is a mystery to premies, the mystery of GMJ's hidden and all-knowing power acting infinitely beyond their own capacity to unveil in any unexpected corner of the creation his divinity. The new convert's "recognition" is the established premie's re-"recognition." Now suddenly complete communication flows where hedgings and urgings had struggled a moment before. "GMJ's world" has been found in yet another person's eyes.

* * * * *

The conversion of another is the highest reward of "propagation," the strongest confirmation of a premie's own "recognition" of GMJ.

304

Especially until the 1979-80 period initiations were often celebrated with great fanfare, the premies crowding around the newly "born" initiates with great curiosity, searching in their eyes for a new spark, basking in their "vibration," giving them feasts and birthday cakes, demanding they give "satsang" to all to tell about the miraculous merging with GMJ they had just undergone. But as the 70's gave way to the 80's conversions continued at a mere trickle and nothing fed the perennial premie hope of massive world-wide conversions. The organization embarked on a second loosening, decentralizing phase, and it looked like the DLM, which no longer even bore that name, seemed to have collapsed for good. Festivals came now only once or twice a year, ahsrams disbanded, local "satsangs" convened irregularly and premies had to struggle in the "world" without even recourse to "informal satsang."

Yet a 1983 Memorial Day "local" program in Los Angeles attracted two thousand premies and a Fourth of July festival in 1983 in Miami projected an attendance of over ten thousand. Thousands of GMJ's followers still stuck with him though his organization and they themselves had become nearly invisible. They had merged back into the "world," someone explained to me, but since GMJ was in the "world" too they had really only merged more completely with him. Their ideal now was to end all separations between "us" and "them," between "propagation" and life. They felt freer - "we've finally gotten rid of so much of that crap" - less afraid of the "world," less plagued with ambivalence and guilt. "So much has changed;' an old friend assured me and yet, when I told her I had rejected GMJ and was following other religious teachings, suddenly nothing had changed. For her, my

305

rejection of GMJ, my new religious interests, even my very existence were only a mere shadow. "But I'm happy," she said, "I look around and noone else is happy." "GMJ's world" still held her apart. Yet others perhaps really are learning to live up to the new ideal, articulated to me by another old friend who told me, "Now GMJ has sent us fully into the world and there's no place to hide and no excuses. We will be there, like lotuses growing in the mud but untouched by it, looking like everyone else but only serving Him, quietly and unobtrusively reorienting the world toward His love."

306

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX

1) Two to three hundred premies were employed by the Mission in Denver's International Headquarters, one hundred and fifty or so in San Antonio's "City of Love and Light."

2) They suggest in particular that "monistic, two-level, charismatic" movements, of which they define DLM as one, perform this "function." (1978, p. 108)

3) Anthony, Robbins, and Richardson (1978) classify DLM as a "monistic" rather than a "dualistic" movement. But actually GMJ's metaphysic vacillates between dualism and monism. Dualism emerges when he emphasizes distinctions between "mind" and meditative consciousness, the "world" and the premies, belief in and rejection of him. But he also suggests that these could be united in the realization of Knowledge and the recognition of GMJ, when "illusion" would disappear as "darkness" flees when a light is turned on. His is, of course, a theistic monism, in which all is seen as a manifestation of one existing divine essence.

4) See discussion of "naive" and "calculated" offensives in chapter I.

5) The DLM in India was occasionally harassed by, among others, an organization called the Arya Samaj. See chapter X.

6) "Prashad" usually means a gift of food from the Guru.

7) "The Word," a DLM Propagation Newsletter distributed to all DLM centers, 11/24/79, p. 2.

8) Selling of magazines and solicitation of junk took place mainly during the early 1971-1973 period; "meditation surveys" during 1975-76. This was probably the last of the door-to-door efforts, which never were conducted with any regularity. Leafletting in parks continued at least through 1979-80.

9) Letter to premies from Ira Woods, National Propagation Coordinator, 8/31/79.

10) Letter to premies from Ira Woods, national Propagation Coordinator, 8/31/79.

11) Patrick describes in his book, Let Our Children Go! (1977) the "deprogramming" of several other premies. Over the years he and similar "deprogrammers" apparently kidnapped and tried to "deprogram" quite a number of other premies. Some deconverted and others didn't.

12) "Comments from the Workshops," Denver Community Bulletin, p. 7. This bulletin was sent out to Denver premies summarizing results of "propagation workships" during the 1976 period when the philosophy of the calculated offensive was originally forged.

307

13) Ibid.

14) The phase of wearing GMJ picture-buttons ended around 1975

15) According to the typology of new Religious Movements developed by Robbins, Anthony and Richardson (1978), this makes the DLM a "monistic, two-level movement" disposed toward both "technical" and "charismatic" means. "Two-level" simply means devotees see enlightenment as a gradual process and themselves as still having a long way to go. "Charismatic" means that devotion to a spiritual master is the means to enlightenment; "technical" means that techniques and practices are the means to enlightenment. My point has been to stress that premies feel both are indispensible.

16) Though premies used their own terminology to describe this sort of thing, similar preoccupations raged in countercultural and alternative psychology circles. Richard Alpert/Baba Ram Dass had this to say at a lecture at the Menninger Foundation: "As long as I have a value that where I'm at is better than where you're at, then I'm coming on to you in the most subtle way saying, 'Look how conscious I am, and look how centered I am,' see? You can't come on. That's impure." (Ram Dass, 1971, p. 78)

17) Alpert also describes this same phenomena:

"I am perfectly convinced that always in another human being there is that place, if I can just cut through to that place which is my own ability to not get caught in the melodrama each time." (Ibid, p. 62)

18) "Comments from the Workshops," Denver Community Bulletin, p. 6)

19) Many theories of conversion suggest that people convert as a result of disorienting life crises. No systematic data has been gathered which would confirm or deny this theory among premies. Further, such data might be hard to gather. Like many converts, premies tend to reconstruct their biographies, dwelling on particularly unpleasant experiences they had before converting to emphasize their disillusionment with the world. But even despite this penchant for viewing the "world" dimly, a number of them still recount very bland conversion stories, saying they were leading normal, average lives with gurus and enlightenment the furthest thoughts from their minds.

A further problem with the crisis theory of conversion lies in the fact that nearly anything in one's life can be viewed - or subjectively felt - as a crisis. Therefore whenever conversion takes place it is not too difficult to look back and find some sort of "crisis" withir the previous year. The problem then becomes explaining why all one's other life crises did not result in conversion to something.

20) Here I am following Becker's (1963) argument which suggests that, after learning to perceive the effects of marijuana, the neophyte must also learn to enjoy them. the "Knowledge" differs from marijuana in that the effects must be induced without aid of a chemical substance and often take more patience to point out. Further, the

308

newcomer must learn not only to enjoy the effects but to value them as spiritually meaningful.

21) Styles of preparation for initiation changed over time. When the Mission first arrived in the West, in 1971-72, some people could get initiated the very day they were told about Knowledge. Someone would leaflet during the day to advertise a program for that night after which a Mahatma would hold a Knowledge Session. Gradually restrictions were set up; a person had to have heard ten, then twenty satsangs in order to receive Knoweldge. Later one was required to have heard satsang for several months, to have done service for the Mission. Still later formal Knowledge seminars were held, lasting weeks or months, and a person had to be fully integrated into the life of the premie community before becoming eligible for initiation. Some people waited as long as two years, and even more in remote areas which initiators seldom visited. Around 1979, however, restrictions were gradually lifted, the Knowledge seminars were shortened or eliminated, the requirements for satsangs attended, services performed, and integration into the premie community were increasingly ignored. By 1982 apparently it was again possible to receive Knowledge within a few days of hearing about it if one showed properly sincere and reverent attitudes.

When Ms Dupertuis wrote her thesis, knowledge of the Indian roots of Divine Light Mission was sparse. Professor David Lane's statements about the initiation of Hans Rawat by a Radhasoami guru were based on ashram gossip and have not been validated?? I have struck out the information that (I believe) is incorrect.

309

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION CHAPTER X

PREMIES AND THE "WORLD"

Since Emerson's time Hindu ideas have filtered into American intellectual thought. Popularized by Theosophy in the late nineteenth century and articulated early in the twentieth by Yogananda and the Vedantists, Hindu ideas blossomed with the widespread practice of Hatha Yoga and various meditations in the 1950's and 60's, and the emergence of a number of sects.

The Hinduism from which these influences emerged was not a monolith but a many-faceted relgious culture from which a number of different strains have found their way to the West. Further, much of the Hinduism which reached the West had long since been influenced by Western thought already, through the influence of the British presence in India. NeoHinduism tended to incorporate within its revival of ancient Hindu ideas innovations which answered the more vehement Western critiques. Divine Light Mission thus arose from a specific Indian religious tradition rooted in medieval times but oriented toward modern thought and internationalism.

INDIAN ORIGINS OF DIVINE LIGHT MISSION

The Divine Light Mission emerged in India from a loose-knit movement called Radhasoami, which began in the 1860's. According to Juergensmeyer (1978) and Lane (1981), Radhasoami recalled the "Sant Mat" ("the way of the saints") teachings of a group of "bhakti"

310

(devotional) poets of medieval India, among them Kabir (1440-1518) and Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh religion. Lane defines three distinctive precepts of the "Sant Mat" tradition:

1) "Satguru," both as the Absolute Lord ("Nirguna") and the living human master ("saguna");
2) "Shabd" (sound or melody), which encompasses both "varnatmak" (that which is spoken or written) and "Dhwanyatmak" (inner or spiritual sound which is beyond expression,) the primal current of the Supreme Lord ("Sat Purush"); and
3) "Satsang," the congregation of earnest devotees of the truth. (1981,p.12)

In the late eighteenth century the "Sant Mat" teachings found a voice in Tulsi Sahib, author of Ghat Ramayana, who re-emphasized the importance of "purification of the soul (Surat) by means of 'Surat Shabd Yoga' [sound current yoga] so that 'moksha' (liberation) could be secured." (Lane, 1981, p. 18) Tulsi Sahib's followers worshipped him devotedly in the true "Bhakti" spirit:

Tulsi Sahib happened to reach Seth Dilwali Singh's house when precious silk garments embroidered with gold and silver lace, expensive shawls and woolens had been laid out in the sun on the terrace … Tulsi Sahib walked over them with muddy feet and sat down. The ladies of the household, lost in love and devotion for their Master, did not mind at all, in fact, they were delighted. Tulsi Sahib said, "Oh, I am sorry, I have spoiled your precious garments." At this Seth Dilwali Singh's mother humbly replied, "No, Sahibji, nothing has been spoiled. Rather, you have blessed us with your 'darshan.' Everything belongs to you; what is ours in them?' (Lane, 1981, p. 21)

Pleased with this woman's devotion, he fulfilled her daughter-in-law's wish; "Yes, she will have a son. But do not look upon the child as a mere human being." (p. 21) The son, born in 1818, was Shiv Dayal Singh, the first Radhasoami guru. Initiated by Tulsi Sahib at a very young age1 he apparently began to preach and meditate at the age of six.

Rai Saligram, the first Indian Postmaster General of the Indian United Provinces, succeeded Shiv Dayal Singh. (Juergensmeyer, 1978, p. 191). He began to internationalize his movement both by initiating British Civil Service colleagues and by introducing the "foreign ideas"

311

now of "science, managerial organization and developmental progress." (Juergensmeyer, 1978, p. 191) They incorporated social services with their teachings and were soon publishing most of their literature in English. Eventually his successors splintered into a number of sects which, according to Juergensmeyer, formed a distinctive religious movement within India. Several of these eventually established outposts abroad, the first in the United States as early as 1910. The Beas branch of Radhasoami had become by the 1970's "a vast international organization, by virtue of 120 local centers in some forty different countries. The number of foreign initiates is probably about twenty thousand; the largest numbers are in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States." (Juergensmeyer, 1978, p. 193) According to Lane2 Guru Maharaj Ji's father Shri Hans Ji Maharaj was initiated by Sawan Singh of the Beas Radhasoami tradition.

While with the Divine Light Mission I never heard any reference to the Beas or the Radhasoami lineage, though the "Sant Mat" teachers, Kabir, Guru Nanak and the other Sikh gurus, and Tulsidas were quoted in great profusion. True to Radhasoami tradition, Guru Maharaj Ji emphasized the importance of concentration on an internal "sound" or "Word," stressed (following the Beas idea) that initiation must be received from a living "Perfect Master," taught the notion of a formless and attribute-less Absolute, emphasized "satsang" and the family-like collection of followers (Juergensmeyer, 1978, p. 197), and the scientific claims of the teaching. His claim to exclusive possession of the truth echoed that of some earlier Radhasoami branches, as did his incorporation of leaders of all religions into his list of former "Perfect Masters." His father's Mission had created a large organization in India which published literature in English, and had railed against the

312

Hindu caste system and Brahamanic ritual and scriptural erudition.

Though insisting that spiritual teachings must pass in a lineage from one living master to the next, GMJ did not teach his American followers much about his own lineage. When the Denver Headquarters writing staff tried periodically to gather such information from Indian Mahatmas, they received only vague and contradictory replies. The only articulate claim suggested that the guru of Guru Maharaj Ji's father had succeeded the successor of a Shri Brahmanand, one of the chief disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, the late nineteenth century saint of Bengal who greatly influenced the Neo-Hindu thrust during the past century. Guru Maharaj Ji's American followers never pursued the matter, following what is, according to Juergensmeyer, a typical lack of interest among American Radhasoami followers in Indian culture (1981, p. 195).

Even the life of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj was rather sketchily communicated, de-emphasizing the heavy opposition his movement eventually gathered. A miraculous story circulated about the way Shri Hans Ji Maharaj had met his guru, but who that guru was, or who had been his guru was never made clear. In a commemorative book published by the Indian Divine Light Mission in 1970 in honor of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, his guru's name appears only once, as "Dada Guru." (Divine Light Mission, 1970, p. 3.) The succession from "Dada Guru" to Shri Hans Ji Maharaj aroused considerable dispute:

Once, all the disciples of Dada Guru were sitting together in the presence of their master. The Dada Guru lifted Shri Maharaj Ji's hand and declared to his disciples that they should follow "Hans" after his death. The story had an ironic ending. A small group dominated by one Varaganand disobeyed their Master and after his death declined to follow Shri Maharaj Ji. Varaganand claimed the property of his late Guru and set himself up as Guru in his own right Shri Hans Ji Maharaj was not attracted to the perishable

313

wealth of this world, having already been bestowed with the divine property of Ram Nam. So, according to the commandment of his Master, he started propagating the Holy Name. (DLM, 1970, p.3)

Despite this setback, the biography claims that Shri Hans Ji Maharaj went on to gather hundreds of thousands of disciples, first in Sind and Lahore and then in Delhi, beginning among workers at the Delhi Cloth Mill, and finally in much of North India:

By 1960 [Shri Hans Ji] Maharaj Ji's mission had spread to all the northern states of India. He had large numbers of followers in Gujarat, in Bombay, Maharashtra, Bihar, Calcutta and even in Nepal and Kashmir …

… He was taken out in processions in Allahabad and Lucknow, followed by thousands of people. …

… Because of the enormous numbers of the devotees and their presence throughout northern India, the necessity was felt for the creation of some link between the devotees of different areas. The possibility of beginning an organized mission was entertained. Ultimately, after discussions and deliberations between the disciples the mission was named Divya Sandesh Parishad or The Divine Light Mission and registered under the Registration Act in the year 1960. (DLM, 1970, pp. 9-10)

Shri Hans Ji Maharaj's Indian following, according to the biography, consisted generally of devotees "of the lower middle class living in the cities, as well as workers, labourers, and farmers from the villages. Maharaj Ji glorified the innocence and humility of the poor." (1970, p. 10) The higher classes apparently shunned his teaching:

The priestly class, the Brahmins, regarded Maharaj Ji with supercilious indifference, thinking they had nothing to gain from Maharaj Ji, since he had no formal knowledge of Sanskrit nor displayed any form of erudition. As he criticized the traditional modes of worship, more specifically their own practices and false pride in bookish knowledge, their numbers in the Mission were few.

The western educated, sophisticated, aristocratic class were also not attracted to Maharaj Ji, because they were engrossed in the pursuit of material happiness and were sceptical about the very existence of God. Moreover, they were against the idea of Guru." (DLM, 1970, pp. 9-10)

Strong opposition, in fact, eventually arose from both these groups:

314

Surprisingly, the first opposition against him was made by Hindu oganisations and the Hindu priestly class. Mandaleshwars and Maha Mandeleshwars as well as the Shankaracharya Gurus, the masters of the traditional Hindu religion, were upset by his frank but valid criticism that they were only following the traditional aspect of religion and not the spirit of it …

… Many people who came to him for knowledge left their traditional religion, their family gurus, their old mode of worship and followed him with a religious devotion which disturbed the leaders of the traditional religion. If any member of a family was initiated by Maharaj Ji the other family members found a distinct change in his attitude. Casting aside the visiting of temples, pilgrimages, he devoted himself to the service and the worship of the Guru … Gradually it seemed that all the pujaris and Mandeleshwars joined together to oppose Maharaj Ji. (DLM, 1970, p. 28-9)

Shri Maharaj Ji seemed, therefore, to be threatening not only traditional priestly authority but also, as his son was later to do in the West, traditional family allegiances. Shri Hans Ji Maharaj was also attacked by the Arya Samaj, a nationalistic religious reform movement "known for its condemnation of all the prevailing religious sects in India." (p. 31) He had apparently briefly joined this organization in his youth, but had abandoned it for his religious calling. The Arya Samaj

Published pamphlets and handbills against Shri Maharaj Ji, … organized public meetings against Maharaj Ji, … tried to mobilize public opinion against Maharaj Ji and tried to involve Maharaj Ji in court cases simply in order to defame him … [they asked] how he could call himself an enlightened soul when he had no familiarity with the Vedas and the Upanishads. The criticised that his devotees worshipped him as an incarnation of God and objected to the fact that women were being initiated. They also criticized Maharaj Ji for creating a separate sect and misleading the ignorant but innocent people. They also imputed that Maharaj Ji's Mission was an agent of Christianity… (DLM. 1970, pp. 31-32)

Despite these problems, the Indian Divine Light Mission was apparently still flourishing at the time of the death of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj in 1966, and his last years passed happily:

In the last two to three years of his life, Majaraj Ji was all dance and bliss. Taking the tamboura in his hands, he would sing and dance on the platform, giving peace and bliss to the devotees

315

who delighted in these lilas. Like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he was in a state of divine ecstasy. (DLM, 1970, p. 12)

He was succeeded by Guru Maharaj Ji (named Shri Sant Si Maharaj) who was then eight years old, the youngest of four sons. Guru Maharaj Ji immediately began giving satsangs, apparently convincing much of his father's following that he was the new "Perfect Master" by dancing before them "as his father so often danced… All were amazed to see his every gesture and movement to be that of his father, Shri Hans Ji Maharaj." ("And It Is Divine, 11/73, p. 64) The young guru's mother and top organizers held the Mission together for several years, and by 1969-70 the first Western hippies were drifting by. GMJ sent them home to spread his teachings and at the age of twelve in 1970 delivered a famous "Peace Bomb" "satsang" in New Delhi, to "hundreds of thousands of people," in which he said, "Give me your love, and I will give you peace … Give me the reins of your life and I will show you the way to liberation." (AIID, 11/73, p. 12) Then "he proclaimed that he was going to establish peace on the earth." A year later, in 1971, he went to London and Los Angeles and the Western Divine Light Mission was born.

* * * * *

The DLM movement in the United States differs in some fundamental ways from its Indian parent; because the cultural and social milieu is very different and because a different socio-economic group has been attracted to it, the American devotees have taken what they needed, emphasizing some and ignoring other aspects of the teaching. They appear to have converted to something very exotic and alien to American cultural and religious tradition, but they are not much like Indian premies

316

and even less do they resemble Indian Hindus. Like the premies, Americans who follow other Radhasoami teachings, Vedanta, the teachings of Caitanya,3 the Sikh tradition or any other Indian practice and philosophy have also only picked and chosen from the bewilderingly vast and varied offerings of Indian religion. Still, "American Hindus," as I shall call this motley collection, tend to embrace high hopes - and their critics equally great fears - that their gleanings will somehow transform our society. On the other hand, quite possibly this much- touted but selectively chosen Indian influence will serve simply to gloss over, perhaps even further entrench, our present condition. The analysis of just what parts of Hinduism Americans have and have not accepted, and why, may help elucidate the actual impact of Hinduism in America. This analysis can be carried out on three levels: the American adaptation of Hindu beliefs and symbols, Hindu practices, and Hindu social forms.

THE AMERICAN ADAPTATION OF HINDU BELIEFS AND SYMBOLS

Though largely ignored by premies, reincarnation is the Hindu belief which has survived most successfully in America. Beyond specifically Hindu religious groups, reincarnation has pervaded the popular occult, become a pillar of spiritualism, and even found its way into our humor. Reincarnation comforts the American anxieties about time. On the one hand it gives the American a past. Largely cut off from his own cultural and historical tradition, the American privately reinvents an exotic international past: the bland shop-girl emerges in her reincarnational fantasies as an ex-princess, and ex-medicine woman, an ex-general leading the cavalry off to holy war. Through reincarnation, present

pp317 - 320: Irrelevant to discussion of Divine Light Mission and Prem Rawat

321

Americans use meditation, their other favorite Hindu practice, for a number of reasons. Advertisements for "Transcendental Meditation" and bio-feedback, its technological cousin, attract many with simple promises of relaxation and peace of mind. As a panacea for the stressful ills of modern urban civilization, this sort of meditation emerges as a healthy alternative to tranquilizers and promises relief from contemporary problems without the bother of changing one's lifestyle or abandoning any of one's wishes. For the more adventurous, meditation offers novel and ecstatic experiences. Guru Maharaj Ji is not the only guru to have insisted that meditation is better than drugs because it lasts longer, does not damage the body, and can even get you higher:

Stay high forever. No more coming down. Practice Krishna Consciousness … Turn on throgh music, dance, philosophy, … Tune in. Awaken your Transcendental Nature! Rejoice in the Ocean of Bliss! … Drop out of movements employing artificially induced states of self-realization and expanded consciousness. (Johnson, 1976, p. 36)

These ecstacies sometimes come relatively easily, but they are not instant gratification, and sometimes one must practice long and hard for them, as some premies do. American Hindus are not all just seeking lazily just for short-cut methods to instant enlightenment; some perhaps even work at it too hard, waxing extremely technical and manipulative with their bodies and minds. Their tendency, especially if they have not embraced a sect or explicit theology, is to reduce yoga and meditation not to the neo-Hindu "divine science," but to a mere science, a fascination with categories, analysis, and experimentation which, like other Western science, has no clear goal beyond collecting bits of knowledge or exploiting that knowledge for profitable - and perhaps humanitarian - ends. Thus meditative practice is found - as Hindus have known all along - to reveal "siddhis," or mental powers

322

with which one can reputedly pass exams, attract lovers, money and perhaps even a large following among lovers of the occult. But true yogic adepts warn us, as they warn their fellow Indians, that pursuit of such powers for their own sake traps one in the volitional round of existence, further than ever from spiritual goals.

The other popular use of meditation is in the service of psychology. One meditates to raise self-esteem, increase "personal power," round out the personality, adjust oneself to the powers and situations that be. Often enough, "finding oneself" with meditation means relaxing or distracting oneself out of further existential or even political questioning. Meditative psychology thus helps reintegrate "misfits" into "normal" lives and relationships, but there it leaves them, Jung and Maslow notwithstanding. Whether or not the original "spiritual search" of many "misfits" was ingenuine, meditation viewed as Western psychological tool tends to reinforce the idea that existential and spiritual concerns are symptoms not of an immature, shallow culture, not of an innate yearning for completion and transcendence, but simply of individual neurosis. Therapeutic meditation all too often helps the meditator forget rather than pursue his questions; the therapists themselves cannot distinguish between neurotic and genuine existential concerns. The therapist who is a "true believer" in Eastern lore thus risks pulling his patient away from problems he ought to be facing, while the true non-believer, who tends to view meditation as yet another technique completely isolated from context, fails to re-orient the patient who has genuine spiritual concerns toward an "atman"-like sense of self.

Despite these problems, however, meditation is a powerful practice which can show Americans new modes of awareness and novel, trans-

323

lingual, trans-historical perceptions of "reality." It can trigger mystical experience which may forever change one's understanding of one's life and world. But meditation sometimes escapes the control of one who wants to use it to gain powers or for therapy, and even the beginner or the half-hearted meditator may find it all too powerful. And then one is hard-put to find someone who understands what has happened well enough to guide one back. Most such dabblers eventually recover by themselves, but terror prevents further meditative exploration. We have trouble finding teachers who can teach us to use meditation's indisputable potential for spiritual discovery while guiding us through its perplexities and minimizing the dangers. Utterly naive in spiritual matters, we have no way to distinguish who does "know" from who doesn't. Neither impressive degrees and titles, a radiant smile, nor "what feels good" is a reliable guide. Even those teachers who have mastered meditation may have trouble communicating it to Westerners; making them see the goal, leading them past indulgences, temptations and dangers, and finally the ambition, self-satisfaction and laziness which comes with initial accomplishments. We don't understand their words, we don't know what of their teaching is cultural trapping and what is essential, and finally, we are so little experienced in this realm that the slightest unusual sensation fascinates us out of all proportion and convinces us we are already seeing Cod. A wise teacher notwithstanding, we suddenly make ourselves teachers long before we have even become true students. Fascination and greed dull our powers of discrimination and awareness. Perhaps if we begin to understand such elementary dilemmas we will finally learn the meditative lessons of seeing clearly where we are and starting from there.

pp324 - 327: Irrelevant to discussion of Divine Light Mission and Prem Rawat

328

practice only middle economic groups are represented in them. Vedanta and Radhasoami anti-caste rhetoric, though very popular among Americans, seemed only to alert them to the injustices of the Indian situation, to which they patriotically compared the American system. One rarely heard them draw an analogy between American and India and criticize the caste-like ethnic stratification. Widespread interest in non-violence and the example of Gandhi did, of course, address the American racial situation, but it seems that this was a very different group who paid little attention to other Hindu practices and ideas and certainly did not join Hindu sects. The self-avowed American Hindu retreats from the political arena perhaps because, like premies, he regards the world as illusory and not worth wasting one's energy on. Sometimes one even glimpses hints of a caste mentality among the American Hindu sects. Premies assured me on several occasions that hardly any black people had become premies because "they aren't ready yet." And within the organization one sensed an approval of the idea that rank results from spiritual merits. The leaders tended to withdraw themselves, and the Indian Mahatmas and even later the American initiators were set apart, during some phases even fed special food on special dishes. And, of course, the Guru himself occupied an unassailable position, unreachable by ordinary folk.

Guru-worship is the most undeniably undemocratic Hindu social form embraced by Americans, though the idea of the special purity - and consequent privileges - of saints and religious leaders is by no means new to us. But the notion of a spiritual teacher still confuses us. Is a "realized soul" innately better in every way or is he just talented in one field like a tennis star? Has he achieved his abilities

329

through hard work or innate superiority, and in the latter case was he "created equal?" How should he be treated; is his every gesture a teaching to be revered and his every whim a solemn command and spiritual "test" to his devotees? We don't understand how Indians treat their teachers, we wonder "who they really are," we don't know quite what we want from them. And even if they are innately superior incarnations, we haven't yet learned how to sort out our intense projections upon them from any genuine qualities they may have. What American Hindus have contributed to our ambivalent tendency toward hero-worship is not so much understanding as the spelling-out or definition of its various qualities. What others have taken for granted in their reverence for politicians, rock stars, sports and film heroes the American Hindu has begun to inspect and explore. Rather than denying that "charisma" ought to exist on the grounds of egalitarian ideology, American Hindus accept it and speculate about the phenomenon. They discover mechanisms for capitalizing on its effects and for spreading it to others. And they begin to integrate it with routine, fitting a leader with alleged spiritual powers into a smoothly-functioning organizagion which does little to disrupt the surrounding society. Even the most notorious of our "new religious" leaders have really posed no threat to American social structures nor created an angry following bent on violent change. Thus charisma-like spiritual power is not lost with routinization but only tamed, so that more may partake of its benefits while it is contained within pre-existing social forms. Perhaps when they have understood more about charisma American Hindus will also understand how it could be used to change social forms which have become oppressive.

330

Belief in spiritual charisma can lead to authoritarianism and the frightening aspects of guru-worship, but it need not always for at its best, as even among premies, "darshan" is understood as communication. Charisma is shared, and one is taught to develop one's own. It need not be thought of as a limited quantity. This sharing of charisma becomes a novel form of communication with which American Hindus experiment. Premies have singled it out and called it "satsang," but one senses it in other Hindu and non-Hindu religious groups. Just as Hindus can lay no exclusive claim to mystical states and practices, they cannot exclusively claim the sharing of charisma, or transpersonal communication, or the fellowship of believers. But this phenomenon, like mysticism, has been widely ignored in recent times and American Hindus are simply rediscovering it. For Americans now preoccupy themselves, in therapies and encounters, with "relationship," a sort of contract between individuals who want to exchange something or help each other but insist on keeping themselves intact as individuals. "Relationship" thus has no solid basis other than happenstance meshing of interpersonal qualities, and one "works at relationship" by working at compromise. Transpersonal communication of the sort premies call "satsang," on the other hand, is supposed to center on something other than individual personality, whether one calls it God, Guru, truth, etc. One does not lose one's individuality but finds instead one's commonality with others through symbol, common practices, or altered states. Because one does not compromise or deny a part of one's self in doing this, but merely shifts the accent of identity, one feels no loss or cramping. Instead, one feels expanded. Through "satsang"-like communication, the most moving part of religion emerges from exclusive privacy and can be experienced together in ritual, casual or formal, which moves beyond form

330

through symbol to spirituality.

American Hindus display the same ignorance toward transpersonal communication that they display toward meditation and charisma, discovering great difficulty in distinguishing between it and ordinary group pressure and coercion. As with meditation, transpersonal communication is powerful and can easily be misused or get out of hand. And yet experimentation seems worthwhile. Gradually a few premies developed the ability to sustain meaningful ritual while guarding against the worst abuses of group life.

In the American horror of group power people retain their individuality at the expense of finding themselves extremely isolated. Those who cannot "make relationships work" may, in their desperate need for human exchange, surrender easily to dangerously coercive situations - and most of these are not religious - because they have no notion of even healthy group consciousness, let alone genuine transpersonal communication and religious ritual. Hinduism - and other religious traditions as well - has given Americans a way at least to look at the problems of communication and group relations which sidesteps our fears and may lead some day to genuine understanding and healthier ways to live together.

332

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER 10

1) Lane describes in detail a controversy over the nature of the connection between Shiv Dayal Singh and Tulsi Sahib. For some, Tulsi Sahib was simply a divine incarnation and thus needed no guru; those who embraced this persuasion became known as the "Agra" school. For others initiation from a living master was all-important; thus the claim that Tulsi Sahib had initiated Shiv Dayal Singh at a young age. This group became known as the "Beas" school; Guru Maharaj Ji tended toward this teaching. (1981, pp. 22 ff)

2) Private communication from David Lane.

3) Devotees of "Krishna Consciousness" claim inspiration from Caitanya, whom they claim to have been Kalki, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu.

4) Ling (1973) draws a distinction between a (religious) "civilization" and a "religion." A "civilization" to him is "a total view of the world and man's place in it, and a total prescription for the ordering of human affairs in all the various dimensions which in the modern world are separated and distinguished from one another..." "Religion," then, is a "reductionist term" meaning " institutionalized systems of private comfort and salvation which have no business to concern themselves with 'politics.'" (1973, p. 29)

5) According to Juergensmeyer, the Indian Radhasoami groups espoused a kind of "spiritual socialism" with a "strong egalitarian strain." "All property is owned by the organization, tasks are assigned in teams according to ability, wages are regulated accordingly, and meals are taken in common." (1978, p. 198)

333

APPENDIX I: SOURCES OF QUOTATIONS

This study intended to portray not a codified, static theology, but the worldview of Divine Light Mission members as they pursued their religious practices within their lives. Therefore their views were best illustrated not by quoting Guru Maharaj Ji on how they ought to see the world and "practice the Knowledge," but by quoting their own thoughts and feelings. Many of the quotations came from my own memory from the years I lived with premies, and from the notes, journals, and drafts for articles for DLM publications which I jotted down through the years. These are cited as follows:

- "Personal notes" -- Memories and/or notes of my own personal experiences.

- "Notes" -- Memories and/or notes about others and their experiences, both things I observed and things people told me.

- "Notes for article" -- Notes and/or drafts I had written down in preparation of articles for Mission publications.

- "Satsang notes" -- Memories and/or notes of things people said in "formal satsang."

- "Interview notes" -- Quotations from interviews of premies recorded and transcribed for the purpose of writing articles for DLM publications.

- "Interview notes: Cameron/O'Brien/publications staff" -- Quotations from interviews of premies recorded by other writing staff members and transcribed for the purpose of writing articles for DLM publications.

- "Recorded satsang" -- Quotations from satsangs recorded and transcribed but not printed in DLM publications.

334

APPENDIX II: ARATI PRAYER

Jai Gurudev, Maharaj Ji,
Your glory fills the world
Protector of the weary and the weak
You bring the death of attahment
You bring the mind true detachment
Save us from the ocean deep
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Creator, Preserver, Destroyer
Bow their heads and pray to You
All bow and pray to You.
Scriptures sing Your glory
Scriptures sing Your sweet story
Your virtues are ever true
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Chanting, fasting, charity, austerity
Never bring you knowledge of the soul
Will never reveal your soul.
Without the grace of Satguru
Without the Knowledge of Satguru
Rites and rituals won't reach the goal
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

In the river of bondage to Maya
All are swept out to see
All are sinking in the depths of the sea
Guru's boat is the Holy Name
Guru's ship is the Holy Word
In seconds He has set us free.
Jai dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Anger, desires, attachments
Rob us of eternal life
Take away our heavenly life
Satguru gives True Knowledge
Satguru is Eternal Knowledge
The sword that kills our problem life
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Religions harp their own glories
Call me to follow their own path
Welcome me to follow their own way
The essence of all was revealed
The seed of all was revealed
I walk on the true way today.
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Nectar from Satguru's feet
Is so holy and it cleans us of our sins
When He speaks darkness flies away

334a

When He speaks darkness cannot stay
Doubts removed, new life then begins
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Mine, thine, wealth, health
Give them to the Lotus Feet of Love
Give them to the Lotus Feet of the Lord
Give yourself to Satguru
Sacrifice your all to Satguru
Be united with the blissful truth
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Bible, Gita, the Koran
Sing the glory of Your Name
They all sing the glory of Your Name
Angels sing Your glory
Heavenly hosts sing Your praises
They find no end to Your fame
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Desires have robbed me and left me
In the darkness of the night
Trapped me in the darkness of the night
Guru gives Holy Name and Light
Guru gives Holy Name and Sight
Cross the ocean by His love and light
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Many past forms you have taken
Now we have come in Your control
Again You have come to save the soul
In this time of darkness
To lead Your devotees from darkness
You have come as Hansa the Pure Soul
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Come to the shelter of Guru's grace
Come with your heart and your soul
Bring Him your heart and your soul
Cross the worldly ocean
Cross it by your devotion
And attain the Supreme Goal
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

Jai Gurudev, Maharaj Ji,
Your glory fills the world
Protector of the weary and the weak
You bring the death of attachment
You bring the mind true detachment
Save us from the ocean deep
Jai Dev, Jai Satgurudev.

334b

You are my mother, and You are my father,
You are my brother, and You are my friend,
You are riches, You are wisdom,
You are my All, my Lord, to me.
You are my All, You are my All,
You are my All, my Lord to me.

Guru Maharaj Ji, my life is within You,
From You I was born, and to You now I go.
Forever I'm Yours, my longing is endless,
This heart of mine aches to be One with You.
Forever I'm Yours, my longing is endless,
This heart of mine aches to be One with You.

Wherever I look, Your face is before me,
Your golden love melts all my troubles away.
I give You my heart, for in You it will mellow,
Maharaj Ji my Lord, my life is Your play;
I give You my heart, for in You it will mellow,
Maharaj Ji my Lord, my life is Your play.

Oh wondrous Lord, my Guru Maharaj Ji,
Your Grace is a river that flows on and on.
You fill my heart with Your love overflowing,
Please let me come home, find my rest at Your Feet.
You fill my heart with Your love overflowing,
Please let me come home, find my rest at Your Feet.

335

REFERENCES

"AFO," Atlanta Community Newsletter. Atlanta Divine Light Mission members.

Alpert, Richard. Be Here Now. San Cristobal, N.M: Lama Foundation, 1971.

Alpert, Richard [Ram Dass]. "Lecture at the Menninger Foundation." Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1971.

Anderson, Nels. The Hobo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923.

Anthony, Dick; Robbins, Thomas; Doucas, Madeline; and Curtis, Thomas E. "Patients and Pilgrims: Changing Attitudes Toward Psychotherapy of Converts to Eastern Mysticism." In James T. Richardson (Ed.), Conversion Careers. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1978.

Anthony, Dick, and Robbins, Thomas. "A Typology of Non-Traditional Religious Movements in America." Paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1978.

Attawell, Paul. "Ethnomethodology Since Garfinkel." Theory and Society, 1974 (1), 179-210.

Baba, Paul. "God the Mother and God the Son." In Paul Baba, Temple of The Phallic King, The Mind of India: Yogis, Swamis, Sufis and Avataras. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Bach, Richard. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. New York: Avon Books, 1970.

Bainbridge, William S. and Stark, Rodney. "Scientology: To be Perfectly Clear." Sociological Analysis (41), 128-30. 1980.

Barker, Eileen. "Confessions of a Methodological Schizophrenic: Problems Encountered in a Study of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church." Unpublished paper, 1974.

Becker, Howard. The Outsiders. New York: MacMillan, 1963.

Bellah, Robert,"Comment on 'The Limits of Symbolic Realism.'" Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, (13:4), 1974.

Bellah, Robert N. "Religions Evolution." In Robert Bellah, Beyond Belief. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

Berger, Bennett M. Introduction to Joseph Damrell, Seeking Spiritual Meaning. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1978.

Berger, Peter L. "Some Second Thoughts on Substantive vs. Functional Definitions of Religion." Journal for the Sociological Study of Religion, 1974 (13:2)

Berger, Peter, and Luckman, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1967.

336

Bernstein, Basil. Class, Codes, and Control: Theoretical Studies Towards a Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Schocken Books, 1971, 1974.

Bharati, Agehananda. The Light at the Center. Santa Barbara: Ross- Erikson, 1976.

Bharati, Agehananda. "Separate Realities: Sense and (Mostly) Nonsense in Parapsychology." In Joseph K. Long, Extrasensory Ecology: Parapsychology and Anthropology. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1977.

Bird, Frederick, "Charisma and Ritual in New Religious Movements." In Jacob Needleman and George Baker, Understanding the New Religions. New York: Seabury Press, 1978.

Bromley, David, and Anson Shupe. "Moonies" in America: Cult, Church, and Crusade. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1979.

Buckley, Peter, and Galanter, Marc. "Mystical Experience, Spiritual Knowledge, and a Contemporary Ecstatic Religion." British Journal of Medical Psychology (52:3), 1979, 281-9.

Cameron, Charles. "Black Elk Speaks Again." And It Is Divine, March, 1976.

Cameron, Charles (Ed.). Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji? New York: Bantam, 1973.

Castaneda, Carlos. The Eagle's Gift. New York: Pocket Books, 1982.

Castaneda, Carlos. Journey to Ixtlan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.

Collier, Sophia. Soul Rush: The Odyssey of a Young Woman of the '70's. New York: William Morrow, 1978.

Cox, Harvey. "Why do Americans Want a child God? Intellectual Digest, December, 1973.

Crozier, Pat. Unpublished manuscript about the experience of Knowledge, 1974.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "Play and its Intrinsic Rewards." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1975 (15:3).

Damrell, Joseph. Seeking Spiritual Meaning. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1978.

Divine Light Mission. "Life with Knowledge, a Premie Guidebook." Denver: Divine Light Mission, 1975.

"And It Is Divine." Denver: Divine Light Mission, 1971-77.

"Meditation, The Missing Peace." Denver; Divine Light Mission 1975.

337

Divine Light Mission, Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj. Delhi: Divine Light Mission, 1970.

Divine Times. Denver: Divine Light Mission, 1971-81.

Downton, James V. Sacred Journeys: The Conversion of Young Americans To Divine Light Mission. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

"An Evolutionary Theory of Spiritual Conversion and Commitment: The Case of Divine Light Mission." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1979, (19:4), 381-96.

DuPertuis, Lucy. "Deganawida." And It is Divine, March, 1975.

DuPertuis, Lucy. "In the Service of Light: A Sociological Essay on Divine Light Mission and the Knowledge Revealed by Guru Maharaj Ji." Unpublished manuscript, 1973.

Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Free Press, 1938.

Elan Vital. Denver and Miami: Divine Light Mission, 1977-81.

Foss, Daniel A. and Larkin, Ralph W. "Worshipping the Absurd: The Negation of Social Causality Among the Followers of Guru Maharaj Ji." Sociological Analysis, 1978 (29:3), 157-64.

Galanter, Marc. "Sociobiology and Informal Social Controls of Drinking; Findings from Two Charismatic Sects." Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 1981 (42:2), 64-79.

Galanter, Marc, and Buckley, Peter. "Evangelical Religion and Meditation: Psychotherapeutic Effects." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1978 (166:10), 685-91.

Gallwey, W. Timothy. The Inner Game of Tennis. New York: Random House, 1974.

Gandhi, Mohandas K. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.

Geertz, Clifford. "Religion as a Cultural System." in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, Michael Banton, (Ed.) ASA Monographs, 1966.

Goffman, Erving. Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Golden Age. Sidney: Divine Light Mission, 1974-78.

Goodman, Felicitas D. Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study of Glossolalia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.

Greeley, Andrew: The Sociology of the Paranormal. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1975.

338

Greenfield, Robert. The Spiritual Supermarket. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.

Gurwitch, Aron. Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966.

Harris, Marvin. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. New York: Crowell, 1968.

Hefley, James C. "'Divine Light' from a Teenage Deity?" In James C. Hefley, The Youthnappers. New York: Victor Books, 1977.

Henney, Jeannette H. "Spirit Possession Belief and Trance Behavior in Two Fundamentalist Groups in St. Vincent." In Felicitas Goodman, Jeannette H. Henney, and Esther Pressel, Trance, Healing and Hallucination: Three Field Studies in Religious Experience. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1974.

Herrigel, Eugen. Zen and the Art of Archery, trans. R.F.C. Hull. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1971.

Hood, Ralph W. "The Construction and Preliminary Validation of a Measure of Reported Mystical Experience." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. (14:1), 29-41. 1975.

"Humdinger," San Francisco Community Newsletter. San Francisco Divine Light Mission members. 1977-8.

Johnson, Gregory." "The Hare Krishna in San Francisco." In Charles Glock and Robert Bellah, The New Religious Consciousness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Jones Franklin (Ed.). The Spiritual Instructions of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Los Angeles: Dawn Horse Press, 1973.

Judah, J. Stillson. Hare Krishna and the Counterculture. New York: Wiley, 1974.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. "Radhasoami as a Trans-National Movement." In Jacob Needleman and George Baker, (Eds.) Understanding the New Religions. New York: The Seabury Press, 1978.

Jules-Rosette, Benetta. African Apostles. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.

"The Conversion Experience: The Apostles of John Maranke." Journal of Religion in Africa, (8:2), 1975.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.

Kelley, Ken. "Blissed out with the Perfect Master." Ramparts, July, 1973, pp. 32-35, 50-57.

339

Kelley, Ken. "Over the Hill at 16." Ramparts. February, 1974, 40-44.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Lane, David C. Radhasoami Mat Parampara in Definition and Classification: A Genealogical Histroy of the Gaddi Nasheen Lineages Connected with Shiv Dayal Singh. Unpublished M. A. Thesis, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Ca., 1981.

Levy-Bruhl, Lucien. How Natives Think. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.

Lewis, I. M. Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. New York: Penguin, 1971.

"Light Reading." Denver premie community, 1976-77.

Ling, Trevor. The Buddha: Buddhist Civilization in India and Ceylon. London: Penguin, 1973.

Long, Joseph K. Extrasensory Ecology: Parapsychology and Anthropology. Metuchen, N.J: The Scarecrow Press, 1977.

Lukes, Steven. Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work. London: Penguin, 1975.

Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936.

Mangalwadi, Visha. The World of Gurus. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1977, ch. 11.

Marin, Peter. "Spiritual Obedience: The Transcendental Game of Follow the Leader." Harpers. February, 1979, 43-58.

Maslow, Abraham. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York: Viking-Compass Books, 1971.

Towards a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1968.

Massey, Marshal. "The Cell and the Soul." And It Is Divine, series through 1974-1975.

Matza, David. Becoming Deviant. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice- Hall, 1969.

Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.

Messer, Jeanne, "Guru Maharaj Ji and the Divine Light Mission." In Charles Glock and Robert Bellah, The New Religious Consciousness. Berkeley: U. C. Press, 1976.

340

Mills, John O. "Introduction." In John O. Mills, David Martin, and W.S.R. Pickering (Eds.). Sociology and Theology: Alliance and Conflict. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.

Myrdal, Gunnar. Objectivity in Social Science. New York: Random House, 1969.

Needleman, Jacob. The New Religions. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Needleman, Jacob and George Baker. Understanding the New Religions. New York: Seabury Press, 1978.

Neihardt, John C. Black Elk Speaks. Simon and Schuster: Pocket Books, 1972.

New Religious Movements Update Staff. "A Spiritual Tour of India." New Religious Movements Update, 1981 (5:1), 21-5.

Ornstein, Robert E. The Psychology of Consciousness. San Francisco: W. H. Freecamn, 1972.

"Pathfinder," Denver community Newsletter. Denver Divine Light Mission members, 1974-6.

Patrick, Ted. Let Our Children Go! New York; Ballantine Books, 1977, 214-216.

Pelletier, Kenneth R. Toward a Science of Consciousness. New York: Delta Books, 1978.

Pilarzyk, Thomas. "The Origin, Development and Decline of a Youth Culture Reliion: An Application of Sectarianization Theory." Review of Religious Research, 1978 (20:1), 23-43.

Pilarzyk, Thomas and Bharadway, Lakshmi. "What is Real? The Failure of the Phenomenological Approach in a Field Study of Divine Light Mission." Humanity and Society, 1979 (3:1), 16-34.

Prabhavananda, Swami, and Isherwood, Christopher. The Bhagavad-Gita. New York; Mentor Books, 1944.

Price, Maeve. "The Divine Light Mission as a Social Organization." Sociological Review, New Series, 1979 (27:2), 279-296.

Price, Maeve. "Researching the Divine Light Mission - Methodological Issues." Paper presented to the Sociology of Religion Study Group of the British Sociological Association at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, England, April, 1978.

Ram Dass: see Alpert, Richard.

Redfield, Robert. The Primitive World and Its Transformations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1953.

"The Primitive World View." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1952 (96:1) 30-36.

341

Reich, Charles A. The Greening of America. New York: Random House, 1970.

Reiker, Hans-Ulrich. The Yoga of Light: Hatha Yoga Pradipika. trans. Elsy Becherer. Los Angeles: Dawn Horse Press, 1971.

Robbins, Thomas and Richardson, James. "Theory and Research on Today's New Religions." Sociological Analysis. 1978 (39:2), 95-122.

Robbins, Tom; Anthony, Dick; and Curtis, Thomas. "The Limits of Symbolic Realism: Problems of Empathetic Field Observation in a Sectarian Context" Journal for the Sociological Study of Religion," 1973.

Robbins, Thomas; Anthony, Dick; and Curtis, Thomas. "Youth Culture Religious Movements: Evaluating the Integrative Hypothesis." Sociological Quarterly, 1975 (16:1),48-64.

Rossman, Michael. New Age Blues: On the Politics of Consciousness. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979.

Saliba, John A. "The Guru: Perceptions of American Devotees of the Divine Light Mission." Horizons; Journal of the College Theological Society, Villanova University, 1980 (7:1), 60-81.

Schwartz, Paul A. Testimonial Speech and Self Image: An Analysis of the Testimonial Ritual In New Religious Groups. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 1977.

Shupe, Anson and Bromley, David. The New Vigilantes: Anti-Cultists, Deprogrammers and the New Religions. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications, 1980.

Singer, Margaret. "Coming out of the Cults." Psychology Today. January, 1979.

Snell, David. "Goom Rodgie's Razzle-Dazzle Soul Rush." SR/World. February, 1974, 18-21, 51.

Snow, David R. and Machalek, Richard, "On the Presumed Fragility of Unconventional Beliefs." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1982 (21:1)

Sontag, Frederick. Sun Myunq Moon and the Unification Church. New York: Abingdon, 1977.

Sparks, Jack. "An Introduction to Divine Light Mission." In Jack Sparks, The Mindbenders: A Look at the Current Cults. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1977, 63-89.

Stone, Donald. "On Knowing How We Know about the New Religions." In Jacob Needleman and George Baker, Understanding the New Religions. New York: Seabury Press, 1978.

342

Stones, Christopher R. "Personal Religious Orientation and Frankl's Will-to-Meaning in Four Religious Communities." South African Journal of Psychology. 1980 (10:1)

Tart, Charles T. On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication. Palo Alto, Ca: Science and Behavior Books, 1971.

"States of Consciousness and State-Specific Science." In Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughn (Eds.), Beyond Ego. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1980.

"Times Two." Pamphlet written and distributed by Divine Light Mission International Headquarters Staff, 1976.

Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti Structure. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.

Veysey, Laurence. The Communal Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

Vivekananda, Swami. Raja Yoga. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1970.

Von Durckheim, Karlfried Graf. Hara: The Vital Centre of Man trans. Sylvia-Monica Von Kospoth. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962.

Wallis, Roy. "The Rebirth of the Gods? Reflections on the New Religions in the West." Inaugural Lecture delivered before the Queen's University of Belfast, May 3, 1978.

Wallis, Roy. "Societal Reaction to Scientology: A Study of the Sociology of Deviant Religion." In Roy Wallis (Ed.). Sectarianism: Analyses of Religion and Non-Religious Sects. London: Peter Owen, 1975.

Walsh, Roger. "Initial Meditative Experiences, Parts I & II." Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 1977 (9:2) and 1978 (10:1).

Weil, Andrew. The Natural Mind. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1972.

Wilson, Bryan. Religious Sects. London: World University Library, 1970.

Wilson, Clifford. "Guru Maharaj Ji." in Clifford Wilson, The Occult Explosion, New York: Master Books, 1976, 59-70.

Wolff, Kurt. "Surrender and Religion." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 1962 (2), 36-50.

Wolff, Kurt. "Toward Understanding the Radicalness of Surrender." Sociological analysis, 1978 (39,1), 237-9.

Yudell, Cliff. "Me and Maharaj Ji." Tropic Sunday Magazine, Miami Herald, June 1, 1980.

Yudell, Cliff. "Confessions of an Office Temp." "Light Reading," 1976.