NOTE: This article was published in 2015 in Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology, ISSN: 2360-959X.
Divine Light Mission: Cultic Commitment Over A Lifetime Story
Elliot Benjamin, Ph.D.
Accepted 30 August 2015
ABSTRACT
This article describes the commitment to the religious organization Elan Vital (whose original name was Divine Light Mission) over a lifetime
through the author’s intermittent correspondence with a childhood friend for over 40 years. Elan Vital was rated by the author in his previous
work has having a moderate degree of cult dangers. This article gives a firsthand account of what it is like to be a lifelong committed member
of this organization, from the author’s perspective.
Keywords:
Elan Vital/Divine Light Mission, Guru Maharajji/Prem Pal Rawat, Premi, cult dangers .
Corresponding Author:
Elliot Benjamin, Ph.D.
Email: ben496@prexar.com
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology
(ISSN: 2360-959X)
http:/www.pjpub.org
© Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Research Article
Introduction
I first learned about Divine Light Mission in 1973 when I was
23, from my boyhood friend Richie. Richie and his fiancé Linda
were thoroughly enamored with the guru of Divine Light
Mission, 14-year-old Guru Maharaji¹ from India, who was
proclaimed by Divine Light Mission as being the lord of the
universe. Over the next 5 or 6 years, I engaged in a number
of get-together’s with Richie and Linda as they would
proselytize about their guru to me, frequently with my ex-wife
Diane, as well as letters and phone conversations with Richie.
Richie and I would become immersed in our heated, extensive,
and repetitive guru-no guru dialogues and arguments. Of
course neither one of us would convince the other to think
about the legitimacy of Maharaji’s guruship any differently,
but this never discouraged Richie from always trying his very
best to “show me the light.”
These guru-no guru conversations came to a natural hiatus
soon after my son Jeremy was born in 1981. Richie and Linda
visited us when Jeremy was a baby, continuing to proselytize
to us about their guru, and I soon became quite taken up with
being a new father and earning my living as a mathematics
instructor and soon mathematics professor. I had no further
contact with Richie for the next 9 years, but in 1991 I visited
him and Linda in Montreal with my 10-year-old son Jeremy.
Richie and I got back to our old guru-no guru dialogue during
this visit, as it there were no 9 year break in the action. But
after one or two letters between us over the next year or two,
our communications came entirely to an end.
That is, they came to an end until I received a phone call from
Richie 17 years later in 2008 (see my essay
Guru Maharaji Gets
Sat-Sang
below). And then another 7 years passed without
any further contact with Richie, until a few weeks ago my now
33-year-old son Jeremy, who I was visiting in Hollywood,
California, Googled Richie and Linda for me and found out that
they were currently living close to Los Angeles. One thing led
to another, I had a brief conversation with Richie, and I agreed
to call him soon for us to “catch up.” I am expecting that “soon”
will be tonight, and I am bracing myself for another guru-no
guru long conversation with Richie, over 7 years after our last
one. Of course I have no doubt that this will accompany our
usual topics of conversation: the “love and magic”² of Richie
and Linda’s relationship, Richie’s advice to me about my own
romantic relationships, our debates about the reality of life
after death, my philosophy of natural dimension³, etc.
In my
Modern Religions book (Benjamin, 2013), I concluded
from my tri-perspective experiential analysis of Divine Light
Mission, based upon what I learned from my friendship with
Richie and Linda, that Divine Light Mission has a “moderate”
level of cult dangers⁴. One of the key ingredients of my
analysis was Guru Maharaji’s personal charisma to induce
people to accept a 14-year-old overweight Indian kid as the
lord and master of the universe. I rated Divine Light Mission
and Guru Maharaji extremely high in the cult danger scale that
I utilized in the categories of wisdom claimed, wisdom
credited, and dogma⁴. I also placed Divine Light Mission in the
pre-rational level of Ken Wilber’s (1995) consciousness
continuum, and rated him high in the category of wealth⁴. The
way that Guru Maharaji accumulated his wealth through the
donations of his devotees while so many of his devotees lived
lives of poverty is a major source of ethical concern about
Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital, as described on a number of
websites⁵.
Thus this reunion conversation that I will be having with
Richie is especially interesting to me, given the conclusions I
have previously come to about the cult dangers of Divine Light
Mission/Elan Vital. However, before I engage in and describe
this reunion conversation with Richie that I will soon be
having, I will convey what I have learned about Guru Maharaji¹
and Divine Light Mission through my intermittent but lifelong
friendship with Richie, from the following essays I have
written in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Guru Marajji (Divine Light Mission)
(1977)
I have been somewhat familiar with Guru Maharaji and Divine
Light Mission for about 6 years now. It all began when my
boyhood friend Richie and his wife Linda became devotees of
Guru Maharaji, back in the summer of 1971. At that time
Maharaji was 14 years old and was proclaimed throughout
India as a living perfect master, and moreover-one who was
destined to bring peace to the world, in his own lifetime.
Thus Maharaji came to America, and brought forth a new
religion to many confused and disenchanted young Americans.
At the time, Maharaji was quite a comical figure to our
population at large, as to me he looked like nothing more than
a plump, egocentric fat boy who had barely started to shave.
This was the lord and master of the human race? A direct
incarnation of God? The only thing that kept me from totally
discounting this new religious fad was the respect I have
always had for my friend Richie, whom I have known since i
was 11 years old. I was sure that Guru Maharaji was just
another phase that Richie was going through, and would soon
pass over. Well this phase has lasted for 6 years so far, and if
anything it appears to be stronger than it ever was. As I have
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology ISSN: 2360-959X Page 2
kept up my friendship with Richie, I have had no choice but
to take Guru Maharaji more and more seriously, until I now
feel that he deserves a proper place in my book on modern
religions, right after Scientology, EST, and The Unification
Church⁶. Maharaji is now a young man of 19, a husband and
a father, and an outcast from his family because of his
marriage to an American girl. Guru Maharaji is still somewhat
on the plump side, but Divine Light mission has thousands of
ardent followers all over the world, and is growing stronger
every day.
A devotee of Guru Maharaji is called a “Premi,” and to a
Premi-Guru Maharaji is everything that Christ was to his
followers, two thousand years ago. Premis proclaim that Guru
Maharaji is in a class with Buddha, Moses, and Christ, and that
Maharaji is here to complete the job that these other perfect
masters before him began. This claim is very similar to that
made by the followers of Reverend Moon, founder of The
Unification Church, except for the fact that the Unification
Church does not always specifically name who this living
perfect master is⁷. I have been to an ashram (the spiritual
place of worship for Premis) twice, and attended Millenium,
the vastly publicized Guru Maharaji festival in Houston’s
astrodome in November, 1973, while I was living in Houston,
Texas. So what have I to say about all this? Well, to me-Guru
Maharaji is still little more than a plump, egocentric, fat boy,
but one who is growing up fast. I have no way of knowing
whether Maharaji is truly a living perfect master, or if a perfect
master has ever existed. But for what my opinion is worth, I
do not believe that Maharaji is any more or less human than
you or I or anyone else in the world. Maharaji is from India, a
country that believes wholeheartedly in reincarnation, gurus,
and transpersonal beings. I think that Maharaji himself
believes that he is all that he is proclaimed to be, for he has
heard nothing else for his entire life here on Earth.
At first glance it might seem totally remarkable that hundreds
of young men and women in a New York ashram can bow
down on the floor to a picture of Guru Maharaji and
wholeheartedly proclaim that he is the Lord of the Universe.
But if you stop and think about it, is this really any more or
less silly than the advent of Christ-or of any other religious
figure who is said to be something more than a mere human
being? What is important is that all these people really do
believe that Maharaji is Lord of the Universe, and they find
peace, comfort, and even salvation in this belief. They have
given their lives to Guru Maharaji, just as their ancestors have
given their lives to Christ. It is tough to live a life without some
sort of supernatural religious belief, and it gets tougher as one
gets older⁸. I myself have changed from a confirmed atheist
to a confused agnostic. What is attractive about Maharaji is
exactly what makes him appear so unlikely to be a true perfect
master-his age, his fatness, and his richness. His followers defy
all logic and all intellectual use of the mind, and what better
way is there to stress the unimportance of the mind than to
accept that which appears wholly non-rational, unreasonable,
and contrary to everything the mind has always thought?
Accepting Guru Maharaji is wholly an act of faith; there is
nothing logical about it, nothing whatsoever;. There is Sat-
Sang-a nightly get-together where Premis take turns in
opening up their hearts about all that Guru Maharaji has done
for them in their lives. There is Meditation-a special kind of
meditation which is taught by the “Initiators” in a 7 hour
experience called “Receiving Knowledge,” whereby one is fully
initiated into Divine Light Mission and promises to accept
Guru Maharaji as one’s savior for the duration of the universe.
And there is Service-the job of every Premi in his/her
continued efforts to spread the presence of Maharaji to others
and to do his/her share in bringing peace to the world. The
message of Guru Maharaji is pretty straightforward Eastern
Buddhism; one must get rid of one’s individual personality
and join with the universal and everlasting. What is different
about Guru Maharaji is the physical presence of Maharaji
himself, which supposedly makes it actually possible to
achieve or at least move close to this state.
I have grown, over the years, somewhat fond and tolerant of
Guru Maharaji. I like the Premis I have met, and I definitely
feel a lot of love, warmth, and good will in the ashrams that I
have attended. I suspect that this religious ardor and warmth
is very much lacking in many of our more traditional places
of worship that exist in Judaism and Christianity. I believe that
Maharaji will appear as a much more legitimate figure to
prospective followers when he is in his 20’s compared to
when he was 15, and there is really no telling how far Divine
Light Mission will spread. Followers of Guru Maharaji, aside
from the inner peace of mind they gain, become part of an
extended family that gets together every evening for Sat-Sang.
There is much joy and happiness in an ashram; peace and love
certainly do reign throughout. It seems to be a very human
quality to need a transpersonal human figure to put one’s faith
in, and perhaps we are today witnessing a rebirth of authentic
religious feeling in this country.
But for the record-in my opinion Guru Maharaji is a pleasant
trap. A trap to give up on life-to give up prematurely. There is
no more self-imposed growth once one accepts Guru Maharaji,
for there is no more self. It is tempting, but luckily not
tempting enough for me. I believe there is a better way. A way
in which all of our potential mental abilities can be respected
and utilized, but a way in which our spiritual centers do
transcend our minds. This way rejects any one human figure
as being the representation of God. This way stresses that the
path is where it always was-within the individual, and then
across to other individuals. This way explores anything and
everything in life that is worth exploring, and calls it
knowledge and experience. This way in not new- it is as old
as Socrates and it persists in some of us die-hards, some of us
who love life too much to ever give in to the conventions of
repressive society or to the dogmas and mind-destroyers of
proselytizing religions, whether they be modern or traditional.
I am by no means saying anything unique when I talk about
this way, for I am merely following in the line of a rich cultural
heritage, but I do wish to stress that my life will be lived to
indeed do my share to see that this line does continue. Natural
Dimension has no need of a name when one is in the woods,
doing theoretical mathematics, playing the guitar, or watching
a bird. However, Natural Dimension does have need of a name
when one is sitting in a mind-molding classroom, working at
a mind-lulling job, and witnessing a mind-shattering religion.
And so I have decided that more-much more-of my philosophy
of Natural Dimension will be making its way from my own
personal self to the selves of others-as an alternative, an
alternative to everything “un-natural” that is around you³.
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology ISSN: 2360-959X Page 3
Letter from Richie
(1978)
What more can I say about Guru Maharaji? I didn’t intend to
write a second essay on Guru Maharaji but I have just received
a letter from my aforementioned friend Richie, in which there
contains such a beautiful illustration of the experience of being
a Premi, that I wish to share it with everybody who is
interested in learning more about Guru Maharaji and Divine
Light Mission. I know that Richie will not be offended by my
inclusion of parts of his personal letter to me in my book, and
to give any sort of an authentic account of what it means to
be a devotee of Guru Maharaji the message must come straight
out of the horse’s mouth, so here it is.
“Dear Elliot,
Well it seems to be about that time again; it’s never an
easy thing to write to you because I can’t just scribble
off a “How are you, I am fine” letter. But since I’ve
started I’m sure the momentum will carry this
through….Linda and I just got back 3 days ago from
Rome, Italy. We had a 5 day festival there with Guru
Maharaji. 15,000 people from 50 different countries,
and simultaneous translating headphones in 15
different languages. So much love-such concentration
on one person. 15,000 hearts meeting just to see him
smile. Love is all there is and love is infinite. God is love.
I’m learning that in my relationship with Linda I only
glimpse the possibilities of love; but with Guru
Maharaji I can’t even comprehend the magnitude. I see
him totally transforming so many souls that for me to
not call him Lord or Master would be a gross
ingratitude. And I warn you, Elliot, if you dare write
anything about Guru Maharaji without first receiving
knowledge, all you’ll be doing is drawing a paint by
numbers picture without the colors. It’s like looking
into the wrong side of binoculars; all you’ll be defining
is something that’s too far away for you to grasp. The
further I dive into Maharaji the less I understand and
the more I realize that the key to God Realization is to
experience it and not to intellectualize about it. You can
read all the books you want about love but that will
never give you the feeling you get when you look into
Diane’s eyes. And the feeling I have with Linda is
nothing compared to the love Maharaji has in store for
me. I’m learning that the more i love him and open
myself up to him-the more I feel that love inside of me.
The more love I “feel” the more love I can “share”….I
haven’t written a song for months; in fact, this is the
first time I’ve taken pen in hand for this length of time.
But I feel totally satisfied-Maharajji must be filling me
up-he “is” filling me up….love to Diane-write.
Tell me everything soon,
Richie”
Well-that’s Richie. This is the kind of thing I’ve been hearing
from Richie for the past 6 years. In regard to the possibility
of me ever “Receiving Knowledge,” the last time I saw Richieabout
7 months ago in New York, I told him that I would be
curious to experience Receiving Knowledge. His response was
that before I would be able to Receive Knowledge I would have
to be ready to accept Guru Maharaji as Lord of the Universe.
In other words, Receiving Knowledge only works if you
already have utmost faith in Guru Maharaji. Thus, I cannot see
how I will ever be able to experience Receiving Knowledge.
But it is true what Richie says about my not Receiving
Knowledge being a severe detriment for me to convey an
authentic picture of Guru Maharaji and Divine Light Mission.
This is much of the reason why I am including this excerpt
from Richie’s letter and writing this follow-up essay to
On
Guru Maharaji
. I hope that Richie has added significantly to
your understanding of what it is like to be a devotee of Guru
Maharaji.
NOTE:
For a fictional portrayal of the experience of becoming
a devotee of Guru Maharajji, see
Excerpts from “The
Maturation of Walter Goldman,”
particularly the excerpt
entitled
Alienation, in my Modern Religions book (Benjamin,
2013), where the main character Walter is modeled after
myself, and Walter’s friend Zachary is modeled after my friend
Richie.
Diane Gets Sat-Sang
(September 22, 1978)
Well I have finally seen Richie again, as myself, Diane, Richie,
and his wife Linda got together for an interesting evening in
New York a few nights ago. Guru Maharaji is now going on 21
and has two kids. Richie and Linda were wearing Guru
Maharaji teashirts when we greeted them, with pictures of
Guru Maharaji all over their bedroom and living room. If
anything, their devotion seems to he growing stronger over
time. They want to follow Guru Maharaji all over Europe and
then follow him around the U.S.on his periodic Divine Light
Mission festivals. They no longer talk about making it in music
and they no longer talk about having kids and a family. Linda
seems so spaced out on Guru Maharaji that she is not able to
be interested in or relate to anything that Diane and I say
about our own lives. She indeed seems to be falling into the
trap that I wrote about in
Moonies and Premies⁹, i.e. not being
able to see anyone else’s path as valid.
Of course this might be an inaccurate projection I am making,
but this was my experience. Richie was made Food Service
Coordinator for Divine Light Mission in New York City, and he
considers this to be a divine privilege and honor. However, I
am happy to say that my friendship with Richie is still intact,
as he was able to be quite open to both myself and Diane.
But what was most interesting for me during this evening was
to see Diane’s experience of receiving Sat-Sang from Richie.
Diane listened very attentively to everything Richie said. In
fact, she listened so attentively that Richie ended up saying
how beautiful it was to finally be able to relate his blissful
experiences of Guru Maharaji to a non-Premi who truly gave
him space to share himself, and that he was now willing to
give us credit for having something special and maybe he
could learn something from us. Believe me, coming from my
old friend Richie this was truly an incredible statement to
hear. For so many years, I have been trying to convey to Richie
that I too know something, and he finally has given me the
space to live and breathe on my own terms.
Richie realizes that the Premies in Divine Light Mission have
much to learn about love, as their own personal relationships
leave much to be desired, from Richie’s experience. Richie says
that Premies are only human, and he has many objections to
much that goes on in the Premi community. Richie feels that
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology ISSN: 2360-959X Page 4
his relationship with Linda is his way of learning how to love
Guru Maharaji, and he believes that marriage should be a
sacred path for all people to learn how to love. He says that
marriage gives you a direct mirror into your own self.
Yes-much of what Richie says is very true to me, as I have
expressed so many similar ideas in my own philosophy. But
then Richie goes on and talks about the necessity of having a
Master in order to find out who you are in your deepest self.
The Master knows where you want to go and sets up the
conditions for you to go in exactly that direction. Diane retorts
that she has no need or desire to have a Master, as she and I
learn from each other. Finally, Richie accepts that perhaps it
is our fate in life to walk a spiritual path without a Master, and
a dangerous impasse gets resolved. Diane says she is able to
understand everything that Richie has been saying, in a way
that not many people would be able to understand. Richie says
that he knows this and appreciates this greatly.
What did “I” do this whole evening? Well, I played the piano
a little bit (my old piano which I had given to Richie and Linda
as a wedding present), and I listened a whole lot. Richie and
Linda were totally flabbergasted at my silence after their
opening of their hearts about Guru Maharaji. They expected
me to argue and debate like I always used to. No-I no longer
have anything to argue with them about. That’s them- and this
is me. If we can all accept each other, there does not have to
be any one right or wrong way for everybody. Only time will
tell what is really “real,” and I think a few more years will be
necessary before we are able to formulate any definite
conclusions about Richie and Linda and Guru Maharaji.
Elliot Gets Sat-Sang
(March 17, 1979)
About 5 weeks ago I had a telephone conversation with Richie.
I must tell you a little bit about my circumstances in order for
you to fully appreciate the impact that this conversation had
upon me. Diane and I had just celebrated the 9th anniversary
of our falling in love, and as an anniversary present I gave
Diane enough money to go for a long weekend personal
retreat to Mendocino, California (we were living in the
Berkeley, California area at the time). This was a very
significant few days for us, and marked the beginning of a
whole new era in our relationship. However, it was a long few
days for me, and it felt pretty weird being in our five room
house all by myself. I went through many deep insights about
my life and our relationship, and soon before Diane was
expected home I decided to call my friend Richie in New York.
To really appreciate the meaning of my calling Richie, you
should realize that I have a general aversion to the telephone
and that I virtually always write letters rather than call
friends. Well, the phone call has cost me $20, so I figure I at
least better try to get another essay on Guru Maharaji out of
it, so here goes.
I didn’t tell Richie the details of what was going on between
Diane and me, but I did tell him that we were still in process,
and have not attained nirvana yet. This was all Richie needed.
For the next half hour I got Sat-Sang. Of course Richie and
Linda were the same, were living in total bliss and harmony,
were like little children with each other, etc., etc. We went
through our old guru-no guru controversy, and I totally made
up for having played the piano during our last Richie & Linda
get-together. I once again succumbed to Richie’s exhortations
and proselytizing excitement. It made me realize how long it
had been since I had actively searched for God. I told him that
I still believed in Natural Dimension; i.e. in Mutual-
Internalness¹⁰ between me and Diane. I told him that Diane
and I were almost “there.” Richie has been in on our journey
from nearly the beginning, and he understandably took my
reassurance with somewhat of a grain of salt. He stressed the
importance of sharing your self with a community of other
people, and I stressed the importance of making Diane into a
happy human being. I told him that this was my life work, and
if I could achieve this aim then I would also become a happy
human being. I asked him if he could accept that he had his
way and I had mine, and perhaps they were both O.K. His reply
was remarkably brilliant. He said that when I tell him that I
am living in love and bliss, then he would affirm my existence.
I had nothing left to say. I could not say that I was living in
love and bliss, and I could not say that I did not want to be
living in love and bliss. I said that it was “Internal”¹⁰ for me
and Diane to have children soon, and he minimized the
importance of this to me, saying that nothing in external
circumstances was necessary to be happy. I disagreed with
him in this respect, and we said good-bye in a very distant
place.
So what have I learned from my spiritual telephone
conversation with my friend Richie? I learned that I am still
vulnerable to authentic spirituality. It is still something that
is very much a part of me. I am still on a search, although I
spend much less time actively searching than I used to. But
it just takes a few real words from a real friend to remind me
of who I am. I need to conquer materialism first; this is the
only reason I have taken a rest in my search for truth and for
God. But I foresee that I will be moving again shortly, as the
quest for authentic spirituality is as valid in my life now as it
ever was. Thank you Richie for giving me Sat-Sang.
Richie Gets Sat-Sang
(April 15, 1979)
I’m now at a small private public beach in the town of
Mendocino, California, which I have just made into a nudist
beach. Natural Dimension is alive and well, as Diane and I
are recapturing who we truly are; God is Mutual-
Internalness¹⁰ Do you hear that‐Richie? Last weekend I wrote
you a letter which I don’t expect you to answer, for you are
too wrapped up in your Guru Maharaji to really see me for
who I am. But in my letter I said that although I love you both,
you and Linda are two of the most closed-minded people I
know. I said some stuff about truly being open and susceptible
to what life has in store. This is Natural Dimension, Richie.
Sometimes I’m uptight, and sometimes I’m uninhibited. I
seem to work in extremes. But put me in nature with Diane
for a few days, and I inevitably find out who I am. If I believed
in past lives, i would say I’m Albert Einstein reincarnated. Am
I happy? I’m on the road to being happy. I’m almost content,
and that is a nice place for me to be in. And whatever I have
achieved and will achieve in life, I have done it directly to life
itself. You my friend have cheated; although you think you
know all the answers, you know absolutely nothing. For I
know that I know nothing, and therefore I know far more than
you. You’ll say you know nothing, nothing except that Guru
Maharaji is Lord of the Universe. What kind of weakness is it
that needs a guru-the way you and Linda need Guru Maharaji?
Why is true love not enough for a human being? It is enough
for me-more than enough, and I am thankful to be alive. The
challenge, the mystery, and the ecstasy are all experiences in
life that I feel privileged to have had. I could not have
experienced one without the other. So now my friend-I am
giving “you” Sat-Sang. I don’t expect you to ever listen, and
that is why this is going down as an essay for my book-instead
of as a letter to you. I know you don’t care, but I am sorry that
I feel you aren’t there anymore. I’m no guru; I’m only a human
being. But it’s good to be alive.
Guru Maharaji Gets Sat-Sang
(May 31, 1982)
I truly do believe that this will be my last essay on Guru
Maharaji. I had lost touch with Richie for over 3 years, when
one night I came home from my Men’s group meeting and who
do you think was on the phone with Diane? It turned out that
Richie was still very interested in us and was not able to locate
us the past few years, but finally managed to find us through
a mutual friend. He had heard that we had a baby, and he
seemed to be genuinely interested in us all getting reacquainted.
And so we all got together in New York for an
evening last Thanksgiving, and then Richie and Linda visited
us at our home in Easthampton, Massachusetts for 3 days-just
a few days ago.
Well I would have to say that Richie and Linda will always be
our friends, but with serous limitations. Richie and I go back
a long time, and neither of us wants to throw that away, but
there is virtually no change in their effervescence over Guru
Maharaji. However, to do justice to their faith, I must say that
there have been some interesting and positive developments
in the Premi community. It turns out that Divine Light Mission
no longer exists as the organizational structure of the religion,
and that the term “Guru” has been dropped; he’s now referred
to simply as Maharaji. It seems that Maharaji honestly does
not want any more of the circus antics and fanfare that
overrided all the festivals in their old days. The whole thing
seems to be simplified to such an extent that it is nearly
impossible for anyone to locate Premies on their own, without
knowing someone first. I welcome these changes very much,
and I am nearly tempted to stop calling Maharaji a cult.
However, when I look at the intrinsics of what is really going
on, I nearly want to vomit.
To backtrack a little, when we got together with Richie and
Linda in New York last Thanksgiving, I was very affected by
the beauty and happiness that Richie and Linda had preserved
in their 10 year marriage. Diane and I have been through so
many struggles, and we have preserved the special ingredient
of our love, but we by no means live day-to-day life in the
honeymoon stage, which is how Richie and Linda seem to live
every day. I’ve had a long-standing jealousy of their
relationship, but it always was that Diane and I were on the
path of reaching our potential. Well this time it didn’t seem
like we were on too much of a path. I was having tremendous
difficulties in supporting my new family, my in-law problems
were intense, and we were not at all happy. Richie and Linda
were truly caring and helpful. I will always appreciate their
sincere interest and wisdom in regard to what I needed to do
to get back on the track. But the personal details are not
relevant right now; the point is that I felt a very real bond
with Richie and Linda; a couple bond. This couple bond was
the motivation that led me to acquire more learning
experiences with Maharaji. Richie had changed his tune about
Receiving Knowledge over Thanksgiving. He said that the
Initiators were giving out Knowledge much more easily now,
and that you did not first have to believe that Maharaji was
Lord of the Universe in order to Receive Knowledge. Soon
after our New York visit I wrote to Richie that I would like to
experience Receiving Knowledge-this summer in Boston.
After a few tumultuous months of bad communication about
this matter, Richie and Linda came to visit us, and Richie and
I talked and talked and talked. It was very draining on me-both
mentally and physically, and I knew that if I was going to keep
some kind of a friendship with them, I had to put a stop to
Richie’s unceasing unwanted advice that he would
continuously give me. And so it was left that I was going to
check out Maharaji for myself.
And now I have checked it out enough to satisfy any lingering
curiosity that can possibly still be in me. Receiving Knowledge
is just as it always was-you have to first open your heart to
Maharaji, as a child to the Lord. This is the only way in which
the meditation techniques of Receiving Knowledge have the
effect they are noted for¹¹ I verified this quite personally,
having spent a few intensive hours with an Initiator in one-toone
dialogue, both in the Hartford, Connecticut ashram and
in the car ride from Hartford to New York, and there is no way
that I could ever Receive Knowledge. It is so very obvious to
me how Maharaji fills the hearts of those who are at their
dead-end; those who do not have the courage to face life on
their own. I had a very sad firsthand experience of this while
spending the night in the apartment of a very pitiful Premi.
Enough! I can stand it no longer. I saw continuous pictures of
Maharaji in the slide show at the Hartford ashram-a fat
egocentric young man. I feel a repulsion towards him-and I
always will. Yes his followers are sincere, including Richie and
Linda. They believe that they have found God, and there is no
changing that.
But for me, I choose to meditate on my own special form of
God-the gift of my family, i.e. me, Diane, and Jeremy. I have my
own mission in life, and it is to be worthy of the gift I have
received, and to make all the potential beauty inside my gift
come out. To hell with everything else. I am now content, and
I foresee the day when I will be happy. If God is not in me, then
there is no God. For I have preserved the ultimate meaning of
religion: LOVE¹²
Afterword #1:
9 years later I visited Richie and Linda in
Montreal, Canada with my then 10-year-old son Jeremy in
1991, and it was evident that Guru Maharaji continued to be
the ultimate source of spiritual meaning and happiness in both
of their lives, as they were still living in total bliss and
harmony. As of 2005, Divine Light Mission is alive and well.
Afterword #2:
17 years after my 1991 get-together with him,
I received a surprise phone call from Richie in April, 2008,
after not having heard from him in all these years.
Within a few minutes it was the same old story-Richie urging
me to check out Maharaji and Receive Knowledge that is now
available through the guru’s CDs that can be done at home,
etc. Maharaji and Divine Light Mission both have new names
(check out Prem Pal Rawat and Elan Vital at
www.elanvital.org
) but the more things change the more they
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology ISSN: 2360-959X Page 5
seem to stay the same. As of May, 2011 I have had no further
contact with Richie or Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital.
Conversation with Richie 7 Years Later
And 7 years later Richie and I have had another conversation.
Yes Richie and Linda are still devotees of Guru
Maharajji/Prem Pal Rawat and Divine Light Mission/ Elan
Vital, but I must admit that I was very surprised (and relieved)
that this time Richie did not plagiarize to me about his religion.
We talked for an hour and fifteen minutes, and nearly all of
our conversation was about Richie’s music and art, his living
alone in California for the past 8 years while remaining close
with Linda, his very involving platonic friendship with a
woman who lives near him, his health challenges, and a bit
about my own artistic development over the past 20 years.
However, in passing Richie mentioned something about his
old friend, who I knew from Brooklyn when I was a kid, having
“received knowledge.” But it actually took a few prompting’s
before I got Richie to tell me about his current involvement
in Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital, as he was obviously much
more interested in telling me about the immense changes that
have taken place in his life. And when he did finally describe
to me what his current meditation practice is like, he
emphasized that the focus of his 2 hour daily mediation was
on going deep inside himself, without his usual plagiarizing
way of describing to me how sublime and magical Guru
Maharaji/Prem Pal Rawat was. What he actually said was that
Prem Pal Rawat now conveyed that his followers should not
focus upon him as an “inspirational speaker,” but instead
should go deep inside themselves to attain spiritual wisdom⁵.
When Richie talked about the meditative quality of his music
and art, I told him that this was similar to how I practiced
meditation myself with my mathematics and music, and that
this sounded similar to me to the practice of mindfulness
mediation¹⁶, which was what my fiancé Dorothy’s meditative
practice is. Richie listened to me well and did not minimize
what I was saying in the way that he always used to, as in the
past he would always try to convey to me how much “higher”
his meditation on Guru Maharaji was after “receiving
knowledge.” No-I must admit that there was no more
proselytizing in this conversation. All things considered, this
conversation felt pretty much like an old friend telling me
about his life, and included a description of his
religious/spiritual practice, but without trying to convert me.
I don’t know if Richie has truly become as mellow as he
sounded to me on the phone, in regard to accepting that others
have their own legitimate spiritual paths that are different
from his own. Perhaps in our next conversation Richie will
once again get back to his proselytizing/trying to convert me
mode of conversation. But for now, I must say that I was quite
surprised and relieved to feel that I reconnected with my old
boyhood friend Richie without our usual intensive guru-no
guru conversation. If anything, it makes me feel more open
to reevaluating Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital and Guru
Maharajji/Prem Pal Rawat. But to consider all possibilities,
perhaps this is what Richie wisely decided to do; i.e. to not
put pressure on me to “receive knowledge,” but rather to let
me gradually feel more favorable to his guru. However, at any
rate, I must give credit where credit is due, as at this time I
must honestly say that I feel relatively calm when I think about
Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital and Guru Maharajji/ Prem Pal
Rawat. Perhaps it’s time for me to check them out on the
internet and see what I can find out from what others have
experienced.
Afterword: 8/9/15
Before I check them out on the internet, I would like to briefly
describe what has taken place for me with Richie over the last
few weeks since out recent phone conversation. I received an
e-mail from Richie about a week after our conversation, saying
that he read my
Experiential Skepticism: An Exploration of
Mediumship and Life after Death
essay¹³, and describing his
and Linda’s experiences with “psychic surgery,” which I had
described from an experiential skepticism perspective in my
above article. In this e-mail, Richie said that he was focused
upon connecting with spirits in “this” lifetime rather than with
ones who have passed on, and he sent me some of his music
CD’s. We exchanged a number of e-mails over the next few
days, about topics such as him having a bicycle accident soon
after his recent move to Florida, and my remarking that I liked
his music and artwork that I had recently checked out. Richie
did mention briefly about how wonderful it was for him to be
able to connect with a spiritual master in his daily meditation,
but once again for the most part our communications were
not focused upon his guru.
However, in the last e-mail I received from Richie, which was
over a month ago, he asked me if I would ever have an interest
in coloring in black and white creative drawings, which is
what I knew he was trying to promote on the internet to sell
his artwork. I responded that Dorothy and I had enjoyed
coloring in mandalas when we were vacationing in the
Caribbean, but I made no mention about buying any of his
artwork, as I had no interest or intention of doing so. And this
is when our immediate back and forth e-mail communications
have come to an end.
Basically I am relieved at this break in the action between me
and Richie, as it felt like it was too much day-to-day
continuous contact with him. But it also feels rather strange
to me if there is legitimacy to my feeling that this break in the
action was directly related to me not responding to his hope
that I would be interested in buying his artwork on the
internet. It makes me wonder how genuine our friendship
truly is. But in all fairness to Richie, I should at least give him
the benefit of the doubt and candidly ask him if he was hurt
or disappointed about this and if this is why he stopped
sending me e-mails. At any rate, this is now nothing more than
a personal aside about the relationship I am having with an
old friend from Brooklyn, and it does not change anything in
regard to my evaluation if Divine Light Mission/Elan Vital and
Guru Maharajji/Prem Pal Rawat.
Conclusion
I am not at all surprised to learn from information and articles
on the internet, in particular from the Rick Ross Cult
Education site and the International Cultic Studies
Association, that there has been continuous disillusionment
and concerns about the legitimacy and ethical practices of
Guru Maharaji/Prem Pal Rawat and Divine Light Mission/Elan
Vital for many years⁵. However, I believe that my very
personal account from my lifelong friendship with Richie adds
Pinnacle Sociology & Anthropology ISSN: 2360-959X Page 6
a rather unique dimension to these reports. I concluded in my
Modern Religions book (Benjamin, 2013) that Divine Light
Mission had a moderate degree of cult danger, and I still
believe that this is the case4. The accumulation of wealth on
the part of Guru Maharajji/Prem Pal Rawat at the expense of
his impoverished devotees is certainly cause enough for me
to be very concerned about the ethics of his guruship⁴. Giving
one’s life to this guru at the expense of one’s freedom of
thought, as I have described in the series of essays in this
article in regard to my friend Richie, is another concern I have
about the cult dangers of this organization. As I conveyed in
my
Modern Religions book (Benjamin, 2013), there are
certainly modern religious organizations, such as Scientology
and the Unification Church, both of which are still in existence
today, that I have far more cultic concerns about than I have
in regard to Elan Vital⁶. But the dramatic reduction in
proselytizing behavior about his religion and guru from my
friend Richie is not a reason for me to have any less cultic
concerns about Pram Pal Rawat and Elan Vital than i described
in my above 1977 essay. The traps remain the same as I wrote
about nearly 40 years ago, and I must strongly discourage
anyone from partaking of them.
Notes
1. See Chapters 1: pages 37-41 and Chapter 3: pages 198-212 of
my book
Modern Religions: An Experiential Analysis and Exposé
(Benjamin, 2013).
2. “Love and Magic” is the phrase which Richie and Linda has used
to refer to their music and to the name of their performance as
a musical duo.
3. See my book
The Creative Artist, Mental Disturbance, and Mental
Health
(Benjamin, 2014) and my article My Conception of
Integral (Benjamin, 2006).
4. See Chapter 1: pages 37-41 in my
Modern Religions book
(Benjamin, 2013).
5. See the following websites:
ht tp : / /www. e x – p r emi e . o r g /p ap e r s /Ev i t a l . h tm
http://www.cultnews.com/category/elanvital/divinelightm
ission
http://culteducation.com/group/1219-divine-lightmission.
html
http://www.icsahome.com/system/app/pages/search?sco
pe=search- site&q=divine+Light+Mission&offset=20
6. See Chapters 1, 3, and 4 of my modern religions book (Benjamin,
2013).
7. However, i have since learned that as one progresses in the
Unification Church organization, it is indeed made quite clear
that Reverend Moon is the second Messia. See for example
Underwood & Underwood (1979).
8. See my personal experiential essays in Chapter 5 of my
Modern
Religions
book (Benjamin, 2013), and my essay Life, Death,
Meaning, and Purpose
(Benjamin, 2014b).
9. See my essay
Moonies and Premies in my Modern Religions book
(Benjamin, 2013), pages 204-206.
10. See my essay
On Internal in my book The Creative Artist, Mental
Disturbance, and Mental Health
(Benjamin, 2014).
11. See for example the book Sacred Journeys:
The Conversion of
Young Americans to Divine Light Mission
(Downton, 1979).
12. The nature of God being within the individual as well as in the
world is very much a part of various modern and new age
spiritual interpretations of God, including Neopaganism, Avatar,
and Conversations with God. See my related essays in Chapters
1 and 2 of my
Modern Religions book (Benjamin, 2013), and
Huston Smith’s (1991) book
The World’s Religions.
13. My essay
Experiential Skepticism: An Exploration of Mediumship
and Life after Death
(Benjamin, 2015) is also available on my
website:
www.benjamin-philsopher.com
References
1. Benjamin, E. (2006).
My Conception of Integral. Retrieved from
www.integralworld.net
2. Benjamin, E. (2013).
Modern Religions: An Experiential Analysis
and Exposé. Winterport, ME: Natural Dimension Publications.
3. Benjamin, E. (2014a).
The Creative Artist, Mental Disturbance,
and Mental Health
. Winterport, ME: Natural Dimension
Publications.
4. Benjamin, E. (2014b).
Life, Death, Meaning, and Purpose.
Retrieved from
www.integralworld.net
5. Benjamin, E. (2015).
Experiential Skepticism: An Exploration of
Mediumship and Life after Death
. Paranthropology Journal, Vol.
6, Issue No. 2, retrieved from
http://www.paranthropologyjournal.weebly.com/freepdf.
html
6. Downton, J. (1979). Sacred Journeys:
The Conversion of Young
American to Divine Light Mission
. New York: Columbia University
Press.
7. Smith, H. (1991).
The World’s Religions. New York: HarperCollins.
8. Underwood, B., & Underwood, B. (1979).
Moonstruck : A Memoir
of My Life in a Cult
. New York: William Morrow & Co.
9. Wilber, K. (1995).
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Shambhala.
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