Divine Times - Volume 5, Number 5, June 1976
"As you know, people really don't have the right consciousness about Divine Light Mission. They think it's a cult or a religion. But what do we really teach you? Still, those things confuse people because there are some similarities to be found. Anything that's becoming a burden in the path of Knowledge, I'm just going to eliminate that."
1for the next two months NAO representatives are visiting every DUO community and center community in the U.S. and parts of Canada. Lou Schwartz, Ross Mickey, Jeff Grossberg and Joe Natter have already taken to the road, each with a list of communities in which they will spend 3 to 4 days sharing satsang and gathering information to be compiled and reviewed in Denver during the months of August and September. The source of that information will be all the premies that they talk to during their travels -community directors, DUO staffs, community members - and from it NAO hopes to generate a clear focus for their activities over the coming year.
2"Walking into the conference, the thing I wanted to achieve was to get a better feeling about the whole situation of DLM's finances. I had begun to worry about the way the money I and other premies were giving was being used, and I didn't like to think that way. So I hoped I would understand, just for myself. "By the end of the conference, my feelings changed, and I got beyond the point of worrying about the money at all. The one thing that impressed me the most was how few supporters of the Mission there are in relation to the work that we're doing. We can throw around figures - a million people here and there - but when you get right down to the brass tacks, there really aren't that many people supporting Guru Maharaj Ji's organization on a regular basis."
Since AMP began, many people from around the country have expressed their feeling that - in its presentation and very structure - AMP implies judgemental overtones that lie far behind our current understanding of what Knowledge and Divine Light Mission really are. In various ways, someone who had the personal resources to join AMP and pledge 10% was given the reinforcement that he was now accepted as a full-fledged member of DLM, and that he was more closely connected to Guru Maharaj Ji for it. (We even handed out a card that says 'I love you,' signed by Guru Maharaj Ji.)
4Just Relax And Try To Concentrate
So when we actually sit down to meditate, just relax. You know? And don't fight with your mind. Mind will be there so far as you fight it. That's the whole gimmick, the whole thing that mind wants. Mind wants you to fight with it so it can stay in the battlefield. Just try to concentrate. After a little while, all those ideas will be brushed out of you and you'll really, really become one with that Word. Then you just get into that flow of meditation. But if you sit there and try to fight it, then you waste your time. Again, mind knows that it can be brushed out just like that. Once you are really in the rhythm of meditation, you can almost feel your mind trying to get you.
6For some, of course, it has. Some premies already have a really good career situation. But a lot of us haven't. For most people, the employment scene is probably the biggest thing in their lives. But for premies, the biggest thing is developing our relationship with Guru Maharaj Ji. We want to understand how career planning fits into that. Sometimes, we've had a hard time just seeing where and how it fits in. For many of us, at some point after we received Knowledge, we looked at that whole orientation towards jobs that we'd grown up with and we said,"Wait a minute, I'm going to reevaluate this, and before I do that, I'm going to throw it out." I've talked to so many premies that were well on their way to professional careers when they received Knowledge and then they dropped it all and even developed freaky ideas about it. But now they're saying, "Wait a minute, that was something real in my life."
7After talking to Maharaj Ji for a long time, Joe promised him that he would try the ashram life again. Maharaj Ji remarked, "This time, really get into it." Joe went on to explain that the IHQ staff needs to help each other get into it. He pointed out that Maharaj Ji said that no one had to live in the ashram, they could leave any time, but if they stayed, they should have an understanding of their commitment to Guru Maharaj Ji and their responsibility to inspire each other. We need to take care of each other's needs, Joe said, and if we can't take that basic care, then we can never learn to serve anyone. Maharaj Ji told Joe that when you come to the point of death, you have to review your life and see what you have done, who you have served, and what you have achieved. Then Joe rounded off his satsang with a call for "a lot more patience and a lot less nitpicking," a recognition of our stumbling and falling as a learning process and a desire to look at our lives and make them real.
