QUESTIONABLE ACTIVITIES

OF CHARAN SINGH

I

 Sant Rao,
 

   You and David Lane have asked for more specific
   information regarding the shuttling of personal
   items from England to Maharaj Charan Singh in
   the 1970's.

   During those days I was Secretary of the
   Cambridge England RSSB Sangat. I was active
   in developing Satsang Activities and especially in
   organizing Satsang between Indian Satsangis and
   our Cambridge Group. Together with Kulwant
   Rai Chaggar, I negotiated the renting of the
   Wembly Indoor Stadium, for example, for
   Maharaji's Darshan to the combined English and
   Indian Sangats.

   The European and Indian Satsangis were kept
   apart at meetings, partly owing to language
   differences and partly owing to cultural reasons.
   There was a limited degree of crossing over
   between the two sangats by a few "permitted"
   Satsangis. I, myself, was very active in the
   Indian bhandaras I was studying hindi and
   punjabi and wanted to adsorb as much
   understanding of the culture of my "Master" as I
   could.

   When my wife and I held Satsang in a our home
   in village near Cambridge, we would listen
   to tapes of the Master with seated Satsangis
   spilling out of our living room into the grass of
   an apple orchard. These were "bhakti-drenched"
   occasions and had a blissful, dream-like quality
   about them as they were happening.

   I felt myself the luckiest of people, and my
   greatest good luck, of course, was that I had
   somehow managed to "find" Sant Mat, which
   vouchsafed me life beyond the grave and gave
   assurance that one day I would eventually get
   answers to all my deepest questions about
   existence.

   I established a business manufacturing and selling
   scientific instruments in Cambridge. My work
   took me often to London, where I would meet
   with and often stay overnight with Mr. Mohinda
   Ahuja who was an Indian man, about the same
   age as Charan, who had attended College with
   the Master and kept a close friendship with the
   Master. It was Mohinda, by the way who was
   the father of the girl, written about in another
   post here, who had obtained a full scholarship to
   Medical School in London, but was not allowed
   to take it up. Instead she was forced to marry a
   son of Professor Janak Puri, whom she had
   never met and move to Bombay. The boy was
   picked out for her by Charan, who was the guest
   of honor at her wedding.

   During this time Mohinda was my very good
   friend. He was a close friend of the Master and
   he knew thousands of wonderful stories and was
   a very warm person to people he liked. He
   supported himself with an Indian Handicrafts
   importing business in London.
 
 
 

   Whenever Maharaj Ji came to England, he would
   always stay with Mohinda in London. Before
   these visits, "selected" Satsangis would be invited
   to come to Mohinda's house to do Seva. We
   would strip all the old wallpaper off, sand down
   the moldings, paint the wood work (one coat of
   primer, Jay and two coats of enamel), then we
   would re-hang the paper in the room.
   Sometimes we installed new windows and doors
   and improved the overall facilities of the house.
   Those of us who were chosen by Mohinda for
   this work felt lucky and were willing to work
   until late, then sleep on makeshift pallets on the
   floor and continue our seva the next day. We
   were entertained by tapes of Satsang or the
   singing before Satsang, and enjoyed great meals.
   We were happy knowing that "Our Master"
   would be using these very rooms, would see our
   wallpaper, and enjoy all the fresh improvements
   we had made.

   And so it happened that once after an extended
   tour that had taken Maharaj Ji through Greece,
   Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, maybe Holland and
   some Scandinavian countries as well, Charan
   came to London and stayed with Mohinda. He
   gave Darshan several times, held Satsang for the
   Westerners and for the Indians, and then
   "retired" for a week with Mohinda. The two of
   them toured England together on an incognito
   basis, going to the Lake District and to the West
   Country. At the end of this time Maharaj Ji gave
   Darshan again and took off for America for a
   long tour there.

   Several months later, I was staying overnight at
   Mohindas, and was also preparing for a trip to
   the Dera. Mohinda took me up to "Maharaj Ji's
   room" -- that is what we called it, since no one
   ever stayed in that room when he was not there--
   unlocked the door and showed me an amazing
   amount of boxes and bags of shopping. All of
   these things looked like what tourist often buy
   from Harrods and department stores when they
   travel in Europe. Mohinda said that it was so
   large because the Master and his party (Maybe
   Prof. Puri, wives, cousins, neices, etc) had been
   to so many European cities before he arrived in
   England. They had decided to drop off all the
   stuff at Mohinda's house. It would be very
   cumbersome to take it all with them to America
   on their tour there. Mohinda and his relatives
   would bring it load by load into India every time
   they traveled there, and Maharaj Ji had said that
   Mohinda could send some it with any "good"
   Satsangis who were traveling to the Dera.

   By "good", I understood this to mean, reliable,
   upright people who would appreciate "getting"
   this personal seva for the Master. I was therefore
   overjoyed to be in a position where Mohinda
   would let me join in with his family members to
   carry the stuff back to India for Maharaj Ji.

   At that time I was such a "believer" that the
   question of the legality or propriety of carrying
   someone else's gift items through Customs in
   India never entered my head.

   It actually "astonishes" me at this moment to
   realize how infatuated I was that my mind did
   not even work at this ordinary level. I was being
   offered a privilege. Mohinda put it like this, "If
   you have some extra space in your luggage, you
   can take some things with you when you go to
   the Dera." There was no question of Declaring
   anything on Customs forms. It never arose. We
   were taking personal things that belonged to the
   Master. This had nothing to do with Customs.
 
 
 

   Indian Customs was a disgrace. A typical
   "Import Duty" ranged from 50% of the value of
   the item to 240% of its value. If I brought a new
   $300 tape deck into India and declared it, I
   would be assessed with paying a Duty of $720 to
   legally bring it in. In practice, the total duty was
   use to determine the amount of the concealed
   payment to the Customs officer. If you brought a
   tape deck with you, you would deliberately dirty
   it up a little, and pack it with your underwear. If
   it was found you would say it was a cheap one,
   you had had it for years, etc. When the bill of
   $720 was presented to you, you would haggle it
   down to maybe $25 dollars (US cash) under the
   table. This was the reality.

   With regard to the watches, Mohinda told me
   that Charan liked to give watches as presents to
   family members as well as wear them himself.
   My impression they were not Rolex or Tag
   Hauer, but dress watches in the sort of range of
   price of $50 to $300 each.

   So I understood what to do with the Customs
   "shake down artists" just as well as anyone else.
   I would not let them try to "shake down" my
   Guru.

   I must have been exactly the kind of "good"
   Satsangi Mohinda and Charan were looking for.

   It was only much later when the glitter fell out of
   my eyes, when I became an "ex-RSSB Premie"
   that the nausea set in. Only then did I realize
   that I had been seriously breaking the law and I
   could have got into big trouble. This man whom
   I had loved so much had placed me in danger
   and had shamelessly taken advantage of my and
   other satsangi's willingness to do anything for
   their Master.

   I hope this will place the actions in the contexts
   in which they occurred. I agree that it shows
   remarkably bad judgment on Charan's part. If it
   helps remove the veil from some people's eyes
   with will have a beneficial anti-cult result.
 

   Bob
 
 

   P.S. Mohinda Ahuja is still around. He is the person to interview to get the
   whole story -- the big picture. I wonder what his take on Sant Mat is
   now.
 
RSSTUDIES 4368,69,70  11-4-1999
 

II

Dear Michael,

   You have just written:

   " The Beas Masters have not been on trial. They have not even been
   charged
   officially with anything to my understanding. Yet, you have the unmitigated
   gall to pass judgment on them. To read your article one would think they
   have
   been charged, tried, and convicted. This is not true at all. They will remain
   innocent to me unless proven guilty. I can't comment on this incident, since
   MCSJ is not here to present his side of the story."

   I am here and I can present my side of the story.

   You have been saying saying in your posts that Saints may
   do anything they wish.

   I used to think as you do. For more than 15
   years I attempted to conduct myself in all matters of
   my life as you have been suggesting: first, by
   believing that Charan Singh was a Perfect Living
   Master, who was in charge of all my pralabad
   karma, and second, by trying to follow all the
   precepts of living found in Sar Bachan and other
   Sant Mat books.

   I my case, the result of following these beliefs was
   an erosion and almost complete destruction of my
   center, as an autonomous person, the loss of an
   international business that I founded and built up,
   the failure of 2 marriages, and then, finding myself
   at the age of 42 in a state of profound confusion
   about my whole life, which it has taken me many
   years to recover from. I am now fully recovered,
   and I have never felt so wonderful in my life, nor
   has the future seemed so bright and hopeful.

   Once, on a trip to the Dera in India, I carried 6 or 7
   fancy dress men's wrist watches into India through
   New Delhi Customs. I wore 3 or 4 watches on each
   of my arms, all on my forearms, under a shirt and a
   jacket. I had to go into the toilet on an Air India
   flight to do this before landing. I did it to prevent
   the watches being found in my luggage, since I
   could have got myself into serious trouble, had they
   been found. In my mind at the time, I was
   performing personal seva, of carrying these watches
   to my Beloved Master, and I was very willing to do
   it. I felt a warm glow of happiness when I thought
   the He, the Master, would be actually handling these
   watches with His hands, an might actually wear
   some of them -- the same watches that were now
   against my own skin!!!

   Ah, Michael, those halcyon days of yore!!!!

   Had I been caught, I would, of course, have hidden
   the truth from Customs. I would have said I
   brought the watches to India as gifts for my friends
   in India. I would have asserted that the watches
   wer all cosmetic and had little value. The Customs
   agents would have had a different interpretation,
   since I had brought so many, as well as the other
   new items they would have found in my suitcases.
 
 
 

   They would have deemed me to have been making
   an attempt to smuggle all these items into India in
   order to sell them for cash on the black market.
   They would have confiscated everything, and set an
   enormous price on getting the items back. If the
   Customs officials determined that the total value of
   my contraband exceeded a certain amount, I would
   have been jailed and charged with a serious offence
   against the Government of India, equivalent in this
   country to a Felony crime.

   I was not caught, Micheal (It must have been "All
   His Grace"). When I reached the Dera, I handed the
   watches, along with all the other gift items over to a
   member of Charan Singh's Dera staff .

   Later, during my first interview with Charan, I
   expected to see a radiantly smiling face on my
   Beloved Guru, thanking me for my Seva.

   But No. Instead, Charan sort of nodded and
   mumbled thankyou for bringing the things for him
   and actually looked slightly ill at ease. He asked me,
   "What would I like to discuss?"

   Since, at that time, I believed Charan to be merged
   in Sat Purush, I immediately interpreted this "cool"
   behavior towards me as a "message from God" that
   I was somehow more "impure" as a soul, than I had
   realized. I did not merit a smiling face from my
   Guru or appreciation for the trouble I had gone to.
   Oh, dear, I thought, I need to apply myself with
   more seriousness to my meditation.

   Later on in my life, I came to see that there was no
   essential difference in this behavior of Charan Singh
   towards me, and the "unconcerned" behaviour of
   the boy guru, Guru Maharaj Ji., towards his devoted
   "Premie" disciples, after they showered him with
   gifts and seva.

   I could really vomit now, when I realize how
   thoroughly I was used and abused, not only by
   Charan, but by the entire Dera administration, and
   many "Old Satsangis" who were in complicity with
   Charan in perpetuating an outright lie that Charan
   was a Perfect Living Master.

   Michael, the fact that you have no intuition
   concerning the reality of Charan's betrayal and
   dishonesty to me, which was carried out over many
   years, is incontrovertible proof that you are not a
   spiritually advanced person. You are not even
   clairvoyant..

   The fact that you claim that Charan is a PLM says
   to me that, either you are playing a game of satire
   with all of us, or you are in serious need of medical
   help. I hope you are just playing a game. I hope
   you are "out-ratting" Sant Rat, by parodying a Sat
   Guru so completely that your statements become a
   means of demonstrating the danger of Guru Bhakti
   it as a doctrine.

   I, in no way believe that I had a load of bad karma
   that my guru graciously helped me burn off by
   causing me to smuggle items into India and then not
   thanking me for doing it. My best construction is
   that he was a human being, trying to do as
   honorable job as he could, carrying out the "orders"
   of his grandfather.

   As Dave has told me many times, I was the
   "chump" for believing it so uncritically.

   If there is some way we might help other people to
   make better decisions than I have made, regarding
   spiritual paths and gurus, I think we should do so.
   That is one of the functions of the RadhaSoami
   Studies and Ex-Satsangin Support Group forums.

   The is no question, therefore, of Charan Singh's guilt
   on this matter. He conspired with his friend,
   Mohinda Ahuja in London to send many, many
   items of personal shopping to the Dera, using
   Satsangis like me to carry the items. Many of these
   people are still followers and remain brainwashed.

   There can be no doubt that Charan Singh was not a
   Saint.

   I hope you can get your act together, Michael, and
   fi

RSSTUDIES 4165,66
 

III

 To Members of the RSS Club.

   The purpose of this post is not to humiliate
   anyone, or cast doubt or blame on persons
   who cannot answer back. It is to record some
   personal experiences of mine that may
   help us form an estimate of recent Radha
   Soami Masters.

   I apologise if anyone's sensibilities are hurt.

   A cardinal rule for human growth and for the
   flowering of a human relationship is that it
   be based as far as possible on "truth". What
   you have led me to believe about you corresponds
   fairly accurately with how you accurately are.
   And what Ihave led you to believe about me
   coresponds to who I really am. These are
   the preconditions for a real relatioship.

   On the other hand, if a person pretends to be
   "just the kind of person" another person
   always wanted to meet, and is able to "deliver"
   perfect experiences (tailor made) to the other
   person, the deception may enable the decieved
   person to experience real bliss for a while.

   But it all comes tumbling down in the end.
   Then one values "old fashioned" honesty.

   This post is about some experiences I and
   a number of my friends had with Charan Singh

   During the period from 1968 to 1980, at
   Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, Beas, Mr. Dev
   Prakash was in charge of the Guest House
   for Westerners. When one wanted to have
   an "audience" with the Master, Charan
   Singh, one told Dev and he took one's
   name down. Then after a few nights,
   usually, it would be announced that
   Maharaj Ji would be seeing Satsangis for
   30 minutes before the Evening Meeting
   began, and one would go to the notice
   board to see if one's name was on the list
   of names that were scheduled to be seen
   on that occasion.

   This notice was a neatly typed sheet of
   paper issued by the Dera Secretary's office
   which stated that on the night of (date)
   Maharaji would grant interviews with the
   following guests. The guests' names
   would be listed down the left side of the
   page, with a number placed in front of
   each name, starting at "1." and finishing at
   "6." or "8." or "12..", depending on how
   many interviews were being granted.

   Those chosen would prepare for the
   meeting by dressing especially nicely and
   by being present in the waiting area before
   the allotted time. Dev Prakash would
   usually be there, holding a copy of the
   paper, making sure that everyone was
   present, and that they were seated in
   precisely the same order, in the chairs, as
   their names appeared on the paper. Dev
   was very concerned that the exact order
   be preserved and that each person was
   present. If someone who had been
   scheduled, was not present, Dev always
   appeared very anxious about this, for
   some reason.

   When the Master arrived he would go into
   the meeting room and sit in an armchair
   facing the entrance door of the room.
   there would be a small coffee table in front
   of him and one or two chairs across from
   that facing him for the guest or for a
   married couple to sit during the interview.
   Before the interviews began, Dev would
   always go into the room to confer with
   Maharaji. These conferences sometimes
   might last several minutes.

   When Dev finally emerged, he would
   signal the first person on the list that the
   Master was now ready and that he or she
   should now go in the room. The rest of
   the waiting guests were to remain seated,
   quietly doing their simran, until their turn
   came up.
 
 

   After one interview had concluded and the
   guest or guests (married couples had the
   option of seeing the Master together or
   singly) had left the room, then sometimes
   immediately, and at other times, after a
   few moments, Maharaj would ring a bell,
   which meant that the next guest should
   come into the room for his or her
   interview. The bell was the same kind of
   bell found in hotels for calling a Bell-hop, a
   round chrome plated bell with a knob on
   top for hitting, and it was placed on a side
   table next to where Maharaji was sitting,
   next to his opened briefcase.

   On hearing the "bell sound", the next
   guest(s) "in line" would automatically get
   up and enter the room to have his or her,
   or their audience with "God incarnate",
   who would, at this time, be found wearing
   a cream colored Sikh type turban and
   sporting a long beard.

   On entering the room, Maharaj Ji would
   usually greet the guest warmly by his or
   her (or their) name, such as "Hello, Mr.
   Pollard", or "Hello, Miss Bethune", and
   the gesture for them to sit down. He
   would sometimes turn his head sideways
   and say, "You can ask me anything". The
   guest could then ask any private question
   that was on their mind regarding
   meditation or problems in their private life,
   and receive the Master's direct response to
   the question.

   At that moment one could get specific
   advice on the most pressing and crucial
   questions of one's life. One could stare
   directly into the eyes of the man who was
   speaking, a person who permitted
   everyone to believe he had transcended his
   own ego and uniquely represented God on
   earth. One could look into the eyes of
   God from 3 feet away, and hear his
   answer to your most intimate questions.

   What rare good fortune, as a human being,
   to thus have access to the Source of all
   wisdom. Needless to say, these interview
   meetings were fraught with emotion for
   many guests, since they would get answers
   (or not get answers) to questions
   concerning their marriage, their divorce,
   their surgery, their cancer treatment,
   whether to attend this or that school, take
   this or that course of study, receive
   clarification on their obligations to spouse
   parents, step-children, employers, etc., etc.

   Each Guest was usually entitled to have a
   first meeting with "Maharaj Ji" after he or
   she first arrived at the Dera, and also to
   receive a final meeting before he or she
   left. If there was urgent need, other
   meetings could be arranged in between.

   At the final meeting, the devotee was
   allowed to bring a bag, or a suitcase
   containing candies, food, clothes, shawls,
   pictures of Maharaji and any other objects
   that the devotee wished to have "blessed"
   or signed. Maharaji would always oblige,
   if in a perfunctory manner, but oblige
   nevertheless.

   It was explained to everyone that this
   formality of the interview procedure was
   necessary to enable the maximum number
   of guests to have audiences with the
   Master. and also to prevent certain
   Satsangis from trying to monopolize the
   situation by getting more than "their
   share" of the interviews.

   What was never disclosed, however, was
   that this "bureaucratic" procedure, enabled
   the Secretarial staff at the Dera to have the
   time to locate the "correspondence file"
   for each of the Satsangis or satsangi
   couples that were scheduled for interview,
   and to organize these files in the order that
   guests would be seeing the Master.

   Before each interview session, the Master
   would have a chance to peruse the files to
   remind himself of who the guest was,
   where he came from, how many times he
   had visited the Dera, what the Master had
   said to the guest in earlier correspondence,
   etc.
 

   This is exactly what a physician in
   General Practice usually does before
   seeing the next patient: he looks over his
   records to remind himself of the patient's
   medical history, what he and the patient
   discussed at the last meeting, what the
   patient's chief complaints are, etc.. He
   then greets the patient by name, and asks
   him how his shoulder is doing, or if he still
   has the shooting pains in his stomach, etc.
   The patient feels wonderful that the
   Doctor "remembers" him and gladly
   answers these questions. "Now, what
   seems to be the matter?" the friendly
   doctor then asks.

   At the Dera, since it was not disclosed that
   Charan Singh was doing the same thing,
   many Satsangis often took the Master's
   pertinent questions as "proof positive" that
   he was God on earth. One would hear the
   awe-struck Satsangis "sharing" with others
   afterwards, "He asked me how my little
   girl was doing? Oh, my God. How could
   he have remembered? It was over 7 years
   ago that we wrote to him about her heart
   valve operation and he told us to proceed
   with it. Now, after 7 years, with there
   being millions of Satsangis under his care,
   and thousands of Westerners, HOW could
   HE remember? Oh, we are so lucky, so
   very very lucky." Etc. Etc.

   Sometimes, Charan's "mix-up" from hasty
   readings of the files could be a source of
   reverential reflections by the guest after
   the interview. "Master kept saying that he
   was happy my brother is getting well now.
   But it is my father who had the problem.
   Maybe this means that my brother also
   has the liver problem and doesn't know it,
   and this is Maharaji's way of warning me
   and letting my brother know."

   In my own case, once in the early days,
   when I was still open to the possibility that
   Charan could be "god incarnate", I went
   for my interview with him. At that time I
   was married to someone named "Brett",
   who was also a satsangi and who wrote
   many more letters to the Master than I
   did.

   When I entered the room, Maharaj looked
   up at me with a beaming smile and said,
   "Come in, Mr. Brett", and motioned me to
   sit down. My mind of course was reeling
   from the believe that I might be in front of
   the source of my being, but this greeting
   put a new spin on things. I dare not
   "correct" the Lord and tell him he had
   made a mistake (then He would not be the
   Lord, would he?). Instead I accepted his
   greeting as constituting a special koan
   from the Teacher, just for me. It would
   not have crossed my mind that he could
   have hastily looked as some of the copies
   of his letters in my file and seen the name
   Brett, and just assumed that this was my
   name.

   In that case, I would have thought the
   "honest" thing would be for Maharaji to
   have been holding my file in his lap and
   perhaps to be looking through it, as I
   entered. That would have been fine with
   me. He could then have motioned for me
   to sit down and taken a moment to look
   over the file, then looked up, and then we
   could have begun the interview.

   The way it was actually handled is strong
   circumstantial evidence that there was,
   indeed, an intent to mislead sincere
   Satsangis into believing that Charan had
   "remembered" details of their life and
   what they had written to him earlier about,
   by hiding the fact that he had just
   refreshed his memory by "covertly"
   brushing up on their correspondence
   before the interview.

   For many of us, such a disclosure, would
   have been "fatal" for sustaining any belief
   in Charan Singh as being a "Perfect Living
   Master".

   Charan, of all people, by virtue of his legal
   training, would have understood that a
   deception based upon a "partial" disclosure
   of facts, BUT withholding other facts
   which wo
 

   "How could he do such a thing?" some
   people ask. "There must be another
   explanation. The Charan Singh that I
   loved and believed in and followed always
   exhorted me to follow the "High Road",
   the noble path. Such behavior as you
   have described seems "beneath" him."

   "It is like a tawdry, cheap trick, worthy of
   a Sai Baba, or a TV Evangelist, certainly
   not behavior becoming the recipient of the
   turban of Soami Ji, of Jaimal Singh, of
   Sawan Singh. If it is true, it may mean
   that the others were no better. They were
   all 'hustlers'."

   Well I can answer only whereof I have
   personal knowledge. I know that the same
   Charan Singh allowed many visiting
   Satsangis from England to be "used" for
   transporting huge amounts of personal gift
   items and belongings to the Dera from
   England. These Satsangis were told that
   this was the "highest seva" to be able to
   render the Master a personal service.
   They had been selected to carry into India,
   in their suitcases, fine jewelry, watches,
   sarees, perfumes and numerous other
   personal items purchased by Charan and
   his entourage during His European
   Satsang Tour.

   The Satsangi was to take them into India
   as his own property and not declare them
   on the Customs forms. Then hand them
   over to Dev Prakash on arrival at the
   Dera. I personally transported many wrist
   watches and, yes, suitcases filled with
   Weetabix® cereal during the 1970's.

   Other people may argue that the Master
   knew nothing of this, and was just at the
   mercy of his Dera "handlers" and the
   unscrupulous sevadars who did these
   things without "His knowledge".

   This is not true, because Maharaji,
   sometimes acknowledged my "Seva"
   during the "interview". I always
   wondered, at the time, why He looked a
   little uneasy in the way he spoke.

   I thought then, "If I did not know he was
   God, I would have sworn that he looked
   really uncomfortable about thanking me
   for bringing the 2 suitcases of stuff to the
   Dera for him"

   I would have expected that his face would
   be beaming with love and gratitude to me,
   when he thanked me for my Seva.

   My eyes are filled with love and gratitude
   to my god within for getting me through
   this phase of my life.

   I don't blame Charan for all this. In these
   Clubs we have been exploring various
   ways of understanding how this Sat Mat
   phenomena occurred, what its meaning is,
   in all its various manifestations.

   Charan had a role to play in life and he did
   so. I don't think it was a "noble" or a
   happy life, however. I hope you manage
   to do better in your life.
 

   Bob

This paragraph got chopped off the end of
   post # 3:
 
 
 

   Charan, of all people, by virtue of his legal
   training, would have understood that a
   deception based upon a "partial" disclosure
   of facts, BUT withholding other facts
   which would alter the interpretation made
   by an ordinary person, is a deception no
   less than that accomplished by the
   use of untruthful statements or forged evidence.
 
 

   (Addendum)

   Many people have remarked that "if they didn't know
   that Charan Singh was God", they would have sworn
   that he always looked a little "uncomfortable" in
   some way, during their interview.

   Captain Lionel Metz (Representative for Holland) used
   to say that Maharaj Ji sometimes acted irritably or as though
   he were "pissed off" at him during an interview.

   Is it possible that these
   perceptions were not merely imagined?

   Is it possible that one aspect of the "infernal
   logic" of having agreed to "play the role" of being a
   "Master" was that Charan believed he had to "appear"
   to know everything about each Satsangi's life,
   and so was "forced" into the deception?

   As a result of this belief, Charan was always uncomfortable
   on one level, with the deception he believed he had to practice
   in order to "follow the orders" of Sawan Singh.

   Did Sawan do the same kind of thing, justifying it as
   a "practical necessity" for the institution of Jaimal Singh?

   If one imagines Charan beginning a typical interview
   with a disciple by first prefacing his remarks with,

   "I have just been looking over our correspondence
   for the past few years.

   (Has his reading glasses on and looks down through
   the correspondence, then looks up)

   "How is your Mother doing? Is she no longer
   blaming you so much? "

   (smile)

   "And the problem you mentioned with simran?
   Any better now?

   (Looking up, now ready to engage in any discussion
   that the disciple wants to have.)

   What a different Charan that would have been!!!
----------------------------
3628,29,30,31,32,38   10-26-1999  RSSTUDIES
 
 

IV

  http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/exsatsangisupportgroup

Message 10155 of 10184
 
Inner Circle - Dev Prakash  walking_now
 1/24/02 4:18 pm
Dev - wasn't he a wonderful warm person?

Well, he was one of the first Inner Circle people to
give me a shock during my early "true
believer" days at Dera during the late 60's.

I was about ready to leave the Dera and go
back to my "karmas" and life in the West,
when one day Dev came up to me and began
talking about whether I would do a favor for
him when I got "back". He and others at the
Dera had cassette tape recorders but the
cassette tapes were very expensive in India.
Dev wanted to know how much they cost in
my country and after I told him he wanted
to pay me to buy a dozen or so tapes for him
when I got back.

He said that I could just give them to a
Satsangi who was coming to the Dera, to
bring with them.

A normal thing to do.

Cassettes tapes back then were new and cost
between $5 - $10 each. Dev's tapes would
cost maybe $80.00 total.

Me - at that time, being a squeaky clean boy-
scout of a Pilgrim to the holy shrine of my
Holy Master, could not imagine asking
another pilgrim to dilute the purity of his
spiritual mission to the Dera by carrying
something so mundane - so WORLDLY - as
blank cassette tapes for the Guest House
manager --

So I said brightly, "No, I will mail them to
you. I will be happy to pay the postage,
Dev"

My words brought a pained but sympathetic
look to Dev's face. He explained, "No, no --
don't do that!!! If you mail them the Indian
Customs will charge Duties on them. They
are classified as luxury items and the duty is
240% of the cost." He gave me a pleading
look with eyes that said 'Be sensible'. Then
he said, "Just give them to some satsangis
who are coming to the Dera and they can
give them to me when they get here."

I was now just a little shocked to hear Dev
speak this way, since as an Inner Circle
devotee of the Master, psychologically, he
must be basking in the love of his Master
and drenched and imbued with the noblest of
thoughts and, of course, freed from any real
concern with worldly things -- such as
cassette tapes, for chrissakes.

I could not imagine that Dev, whom I
assumed to be a spiritually evolved person,
could ever wish to be a party to lowering the
spiritual vibration level of one of the
Master's precious disciples, by asking a
disciple to MULE contraband of any type
into India, in order to avoid Custom's duties.

Seeing my reaction, Dev quickly relented
and said something like "OK. OK. Don't do
it." Then I saw a fresh look of concern
come over his face.

"By the way, don't tell Maharaji about this.
Don't mention this to Maharaji" (that he had
asked me to get tapes for him).

I replied, "Don't you think that Maharaji
already knows everything that is going on?",
I was incredulous. "He sees everything
that happens in the world, right?"

"Oh, I know, I know," said Dev,
"just don't mention anything about this to him, OK?"

What did this mean, I wondered. It would take me years
to see the reality that RSSB was a fraudulent cult.

The Master was not a "spiritual Master". He was
just a punjabi man pretending to be a Master.
 
 

--
walking now