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
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
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
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