THERE ARE TWO WORLDS

Guru Maharaj Ji meeting with the Anglo-Saxon delegation.

MONDAY AFTERNOON ….

On the second day of the conference, Maharaj ji arrived at the hotel after lunch. He launched straight into a meeting with the Nepalese delegates and then met the representatives from the U.K., Ireland, Canada and Australia. It went like this….

GURU MAHARAJ Jl: Shall we begin? Any problems?

ROBIN HESLOP: I would like to see you again in London, if possible, Maharaj Ji.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: That is literally impossible.

ROBIN: Not really.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: It is possible. But I think there has to be a little bit more organisation, a little more participation, a little more straightening out. After this conference, whatever we get resolved, when I next get back to England, I would like to see those things have already happened. That's more the way. And you are from … ?

ROBIN: … London.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Then I would like to come when everybody is ready.

ROBIN: They are ready, Maharaj Ji.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well let's find out, O.K.

COLIN SPEARS (Canada): Maharaj Ji, I have a question which relates mainly to the initiator programme - and probably specifically to Canada - in so far as there are 22 ashram premies in Canada and about 1,000 premies throughout the country; it applies personally to me and to a few others. I would like to become an initiator - I have been in the ashram for over two years, but I am not in the ashram at the moment; and at the moment nobody outside of the ashram is permitted to apply and no-one is permitted to move into the ashram.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: That is an unclear line, because it is not quite really defined yet. Because the person has to be living in the ashram or has to just be in the ashram for two years at any given period. And if he is at present living in the ashram or not, that is sort of unclear. You would like to apply?

COLIN: I would love to apply, yeah.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Are you married?

COLIN: No.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Are you separated?

COLIN: We were never legally married.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: O.K., I see. So we have this system that works. It is working out pretty good, instead of leaving it open to all the premies, so who-ever wants to apply can apply - we already did that system once, the O.T. system, and it just went completely haywire. Everybody started applying, and there was no control over the system in terms of screening. A lot of people became O.T.'s who were confused, as confused as they could be. So we have this system which works, where we hope we will consider them, and then send applications to them. And that way, you are really not wasting so many applications, because the chances are a lot better of them becoming initiators than if there is an open apply system. If a person has applied, it is very clear who the person is; we already have his background - more information than is needed. So we have been working on it. So we will see if you apply; that will have to be something that's looked into.

GARY OCKENDEN (Canada): Do you know yet when the new ashram set-up or guidelines will come out? Because we have got ashrams still but we have just put them on hold in terms of new people moving in. And a lot of people are interested in moving in.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: I am working on them. You caught me at the wrong time, because I was just working on them in Malibu, and then this whole thing started happening and I went to Denver. I was going to bring them these specific guidelines, and I have a few guidelines. But I am going to - as soon as I can get back - put them all together and to you.

Just in terms of the ashram supervisor, he does not manage the financial affairs of the ashram, he does not manage other things. He just mainly takes care of the premies, what they are there for - the meaning. Still it is undecided how the ashrams should be sponsored. We did come up with one system where the people were charged a minimal fee to get into the ashram, which covers their insurance, their clothing, and all those things; and they have their own clothes that they bring with them.

The ashram is not going to start providing people with clothes, insurance, everything - the thing is it will have to be individually done. And so that is the way we are going to work it. The way I would like to see it set up is, finally, that the ashram system is totally independent of the mission. It is on its own feet; it is not a community-supported project but totally independent. It is a service provided by the organisation, but it is independent. Because when there is such a support, when the ashram is like a parasite, and sucking so much from the organisation, the organisation gets an immense control over it, which has happened, and we have seen happening. And when this control comes then the purpose is defeated why there should be an ashram.

So we don't want to make the same mistake again. We want to have a clear distinction between the ashram; and when people go up to the ashram they do what they are supposed to do in the ashram in terms of rules and regulations.

They have been really spaced out; nobody has been really following the rules and regulations in the ashram and they are really spaced out. People are just going out and doing just whatever they wanted to do. Really that drive of premies of why we should be in ashrams, that inspiration, has been really sort of lost. People go out and see movies instead of sitting down and maybe doing meditation. Once a while it's O. K. but it's extensively done.

But in the new ashram system it's going to be very very clear, a black and white line, no grey areas. If you are found smoking, found drinking, found

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disobeying any of the guidelines that are specifically set, you will find you are immediately outside the ashram, and you'll never be able to come back in again. To be able to go into the ashram system, there's still an apply system, with a few options that are open to us. I'm giving you some of the information that's at the back of my head, so that it'll be easy for you to set up when specific guidelines come. One option is that to apply you have to go to the ashram supervisor and directly apply. And he says there are too many people already, you've already been in the ashram and so on and so forth - we're still working on it. That's one way. The other option we have is that he directly applies to I.H.Q. or the National Headquarters; so maybe there is a good possibility that you will apply to the ashram supervisor.

BRUCE CORBIN: Maharaj Ji, I represented Scotland yesterday, but after what you said about married initiators I kinda felt that I was representing the conceptual world, and it kind of frightened me to say anything about what was going on in Scotland. I'm thinking of getting married next month, and I did apply for the initiator's service. \nd after what you said yesterday, I still feel like I could do it, I still feel that I want to do it, but I don't want to set up dichotomy in my head, between, shall I get married, or shall I become an initiator?

And in the last month before coming here, I travelled around Scotland to the communities, and there were two basic issues that seemed to come up: one was, the married initiators and the other our communication directly with you. I guess the kind of feeling the premies felt, I personally feel that as well - that the idea of putting forward married initiators as well, could enable us to communicate more with the initiator in terms of the everyday experience of a premie. As much as if I was married with children and an initiator was also married, he would be experiencing the same problems of life to be able to relate Knowledge to. Also I feel that he would be much more of an example to premies if he was living with the problems of life and practising Knowledge.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: So that means if you get a cold and the initiator doesn't have a cold, then you couldn't relate to him, right? Because you have a cold, and he doesn't have a cold, so how are you gonna relate to him? Am I right? If the initiator gets married, and tomorrow they are having problems in their life and they want to get divorced, then that means that the initiator can actually … I mean, what do you think that the initiator is gonna communicate to you? Marriage, sex? Or is he going to communicate Knowledge to you?

BRUCE: Knowledge, Maharaj Ji. It's just that this feeling that your clarity and your dedication somehow isn't lost because you're married. Therefore you haven't lost that clarity to be able to share with aspirants.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: This is not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say, "Look at it practically." If you put an air conditioning unit - you, you used to drive cars for me - if you put an air-conditioning unit in an automobile and turn it on, what is going to happen?

BRUCE: It's going to make the car cool inside.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yes, but also, it's going to make the engine RPM slower. (Laughter).

BRUCE: Right. Going to lose a lot of power.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Most definitely impossible. It's like, I'm married, and I don't find any different association with premies than I had before. Yes, I'm starting to wear different kind of suits, instead of, you know, garments that closed up all the way to here. I have a house and so on and so forth; I have a family to take care of. But I don't find my relationship changed any way with the premies, with married or with non-married. I think it's just a Ioad of jibe.

BRUCE: Is that just a concept that I had, an idea.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: I very much think it is a concept because I am a practical example for you. I was one of the persons who was most definitely, you know …. Now I'm married, I don't find any change of relationship, but I do find that it is somewhat of a job that takes tolling terms.

BRUCE: Hmm. There is that feeling that if there was, like …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: You know, before, I used to do whatever I wanted to, but now I have to also give that responsibility. My case is exceptional in terms of, there's so many premies working at the residence - everything is provided for and so my case is exceptional. I don't have to bother so much; but your case would not be exceptional because how are you going to get your finances? Who's going to see …

BRUCE: See, it wasn't so much that it was felt that the initiator was going to be full time, because it wasn't felt that there was a full time service in the community to do. He wouldn't have so much to do during the day because everybody's working; it would be basically an evening service, with the aspirant programme, and the volume of people coming to Knowledge wouldn't demand that …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: I think the way you're operating this is backwards, because you've already conceptualised the job of an initiator. Then you're working at it that way, but not the way it happens. I don't think that is the proper way it should happen. The point is that an initiator has to be full time; either he is or he's not. And the reason why I think there should be a full time initiator is because it takes a lot to hold your horses. But the fact is, it is not just going out and giving techniques; it's holding your whole life together, 24 hours a day, so that when that moment of morning or evening or afternoon arises when you have to impart Knowledge, you're in synch. Because it's like, giving Knowledge is a very simply seen service. But it's not; it's very sophisticated. It's a very integrated service where a lot of sacrifice has to be there.

You know, a person has to be totally, he has to be totally a part of Guru Maharaj JI's world. You have to start looking at it in terms of two worlds. There are two worlds and there's this world, world, world, and then there's Guru Maharaj Ji's world which is exclusive. It's a world where there's not much materialism happening, or none whatsoever; it's just a lot of Knowledge; it's just a lot of love. And a lot of premies are in that world; they're not out there, they're in there, in this Guru Maharaj Ji's world. But an initiator has to be pretty much in the core of it. He just can't be anywhere in the whole atmosphere of this world. He has to be right in the centre, dead centre, and he has to be really, really clear.

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You know, you're not playing games with people in terms of just giving them Knowledge or you're not just… You know I can see that if it was just something you whispered in somebody's ear and said, "Googly, googly goo" and that was it, then I could understand them going out, having a job, having kids, having a family. And then in the evening you'd get all the people together and say, "Googly, googly goo" and give them the forms to sign and then they're premies. That's not the way it happens; I have a whole thing written here in terms of what it takes for a person. It's like, a person first sees something; he hears about the organisation, or he sees a poster, or he sees something. and then it's like a lot of questions start coming up in his head and he says, maybe this is a big rip-off, maybe this is true, maybe this is what I'm looking for … . maybe this is … What is this? What is this peace? What is this Guru Maharaj Ji? What is Divine Light Mission? How does it happen? How does it manifest? And it all begins. There is the person; right there is the decision made in his life if he shows up at the first programme. He's clicked. Or if he doesn't show up at the programme, unclicked.

And you see, to look at it in a way that everything is going to keep on happening pretty much the way it is happening is also another … it proves that that's the way you're looking at things. But there has to be a constant and extensive growth in the organisation, an extensive growth, and therefore that would automatically make a necessity for a full-time initiator. But if the community is just going to stay at the same level as it is right now, then it is not good. But we are looking forward for an extensive growth which calls for a full-time initiator.

BRUCE: So when you talk about community now Maharaj Ji, you mean a country as a community, or countries or ?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Local communities. Local communities covering other communities that are small and being based on a bigger community and helping smaller communities. That'll have to be worked out, but for instance in Los Angeles, it'll be based out of Los Angeles. Then also it'll help the community in Malibu, Santa Barbara all the down to Santiago, maybe even Baha and all the way, say, to other parts of California. Then maybe another one is based out of San Francisco and if necessary he helps other areas. Then he'll have to look what kind of co-ordination is needed in those terms, but it is a full-time job.

I have looked at the pros and cons and I have weighted it in every way, and, as a matter of fact, when I first looked at it, when I first thought about it, I said, , "No, maybe we will accept married people's applications - at least accept them." But the more I started thinking about it, the more it became obvious that that was just a little complicated. You could do it; I'll give you an application, you can sign it, fill it up and give it to me and I'll stick it in my brief-case - that's no problem. But actually going through with it there is a lot of problem. Because it's like this - I mean you have to face the fact, you're not a king, you know, who just gets married and that's it, period.

You just don't see your wife ever, you've got nothing to do with her; and if you wanna have a baby you go pay her a visit, you know, and that's it, period. That's not your situation; I mean you have to be working, you have to be doing this. And do you think that people who really go out and work are always 24 hours in constant harmony? Maybe you go out and you're working all day long and your boss gets mad at you and you take it out on the aspirants in the evening programme. (Laughter).

BRUCE: So what do I do, Maharaj Ji, with that feeling that I want to be able to initiate people into the Knowledge of truth? Because I'm not married yet, but I don't want to deny it either. And is that feeling that I want to initiate someone, is that unreal inside of me?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Get rid of the feeling and make the decision.

BRUCE: One way or the other.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Try to find what is real, what is just a feeling and what is real. You know, this is the way I think a person should be. You can feel a lot of things. You know I feel a lot of things, but I let them go. I just cling on to something real. It's just like trying to make a plane land on a cloud; it's literally impossible. So you might as well fly right through it. there's no point in hanging around, just circling around it trying to shoot an approach. (Laughter). And then you also have to discriminate that's it's not your mind, that it's your real self; that is the tricky answer.

BRUCE: That's the bit that I don't want to get caught up in.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yes, I think you're caught up in it already. That is why you don't know which way to go. That is why you see two roads and one yourself. That means that mind is acting up.

TOM OGLESBY (Ireland) Will you answer a question, Maharaj Ji? I don't feel incredibly clear. I don't want to do anything else with my life, you know, and I'd like to be an initiator, just eventually. What I'd like to do is be an ashram supervisor and …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: When you jump off a cliff, you cannot say, I'd like to fall down very slow - you just do it. This or that, this or that, slow or fast, this is our mind. Want to become initiator? You want to become initiator. If you don't want to become an initiator, you don't become an initiator. I'm almost gungho to scare people off being initiators because it's an incredible amount of sacrifice that they have to make; and I think they're unaware of that. A lot of people have signed up these applications and in a lot of applications that I've reviewed, people are unaware of the sacrifice, the amount of sacrifice they have to do. You have to be so clear, you have to be so clear to discriminate in your mind, because everybody's going to throw their mind at you - everybody.

I mean, yes, a lot of people throw their minds at me, you know. But then I have a strong backing in Knowledge. Become an initiator, and somebody throws a pile of mind on you; it goes right through you, knocks you over, and you're dead.

Everybody's gonna come to you with their problems. There's an incredible amount of clarity required, an incredible amount of sacrifice required. Likewise, "This is what I'd like to do with my life." What I'm telling you is different from any logical thing. Logic doesn't say so; logic says,

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"No, maybe you should fall slow from a cliff. That way you will know if you're gonna fall or not." What I'm telling you is straight. I'm not going to try and give a lot of beat-around-the-bush stories of what the initiator is.

DAVID LOVEJOY: If there are going to be conferences for co-ordinators and so on, I just don't know whether it's going to be too practical for that person to be fully employed - you know, supporting a family and being able to do everything else part time.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yep, you're right, but that's some problem you'll have to face. You can't have apples and fruit cakes, you know, fruit pies. Sometimes you get the wrong kind of apple and the wrong kind of fruit pie. We are trying to, hopefully, have no conferences in the future, but only have satsang programmes, where people can come together for satsang, not for the idiosity of conferences. Because, what we discuss here, if we were to sit that much time and just have satsang … look, I've spent four hours today and I spent approximately four hours and a half yesterday; that would be eight hours of satsang. If we listen to eight hours of satsang non-stop, we would be in pretty good shape. That's the whole thing. That's why I said yesterday that my information isn't really, really valid. I had been told a great web is there - you know, a great maglollis of direction and putting this out and taking this out and putting it there, and doing this and doing that and everybody's crumpling; people are unclear because they don't know what to do.

I think people are unclear because they don't really meditate. People are unclear because they're sick. Inside they're not taking their medicine that has been given to them. That is why people are unclear. People need inspiration. People don't need organisation maglollis. People need a lot of inspiration, which turns out to be totally different. than what has been presented to me. Because I have the previous agenda that was prepared for this conference, and it's totally different from the way we are proceeding with it now, just open. And then, they way we are working is that there just needs to be one parcel of people together, really, really together, and that will be wherever the I.H.Q. is. Because these people are the people who are going to be giving me the information of what is going on. So they really need to be, like, full time, really clear, really together, really strong; and other ways, other communities, can just be pretty much flexible, and just expand themselves, grow in them-selves.

Because, what have you done, by putting the initiator in every community you have? You have literally made the community independent. And then what I'm trying to do now is make those independent so you can go wherever you want to go. But you need a fuel. So this is what I'm trying to do - give the fuel of Inspiration. And that's what I'm trying to do - link up all the communities, so that we can have a direct, more direct communication with communities. So that I personally can have a little more direct communication with the country; because what I have seen is different, it's really different. I've seen a lot of fact now, not just a lot of information that was dumped on me; and it's different.

It's like, what I have seen now, everything is really O.K. It's just that everybody ran out of fuel; and when you ran out of fuel, everybody opened up their hoods and say, "Check the dip stick, and this and that, nothing wrong with those." I mean, we are ready to go; all the communities are ready to go, to pull themselves together and go, go, go. It's just like that fuel missing, that inspiration missing and if that could have been there before, if that could have been provided a lot earlier along the line … but a lot of other kind of attention was given; in terms of like organisation, attention was given and the organisation doesn't exist.

First people, then organisation; no people, no organisation. There you have one man's army; he's the general, the lieutenant, soldiers, colonel, everything. We just have to come together, you know, and then, there's a lot of special cases, I guess, like yours, where people have been married. How would they get together to be able to do any-thing? It's just like, the way we would have to look at it, is that where the service is small - and hopefully all the services will be small, I mean as service, not as the position - you can do it. And if there's a full time person needed in that service, then there'll be a full time person appointed to the service. And then maybe another service opportunity can be opened up for married premies.

What we are literally doing is we are letting people in who are married, within this organisation. Before there was a great barrier. And I don't see it; I don't see why there should be a barrier like that. So, as far as this organisation is concerned, we are simplifying it already.

DAVID LOVEJOY: You know, we just want to do what you want, Maharaj Ji, tell us.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: No, it's like I understand your situation and I'm not criticising your situation. No, I think in terms of what you want to do, to go to Australia, that is fine. There's no problem with it, you know. You were saying he brought his replacement?

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MIKE DETTMERS: He's brought Alan, who's working closely with him.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Who is Alan?

ALAN SAUNDERS: It's me.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: You think you can take over?

ALAN: I think so, Maharaj Ji.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, there's no problem. It's just that you have to make sure that there is somebody there who can properly take care of the service. PERIOD. Then ask me. Everything is O.K., because it's a two-year system. It really throws a monkey-wrench in people who are looking for positions.

DAVID LOVEJOY: Alright, yes, I've been doing it for a lot longer than two years. (Laughter) … NHQ is sort of a level that's hardly necessary?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: National Co-ordination? Well, it's necessary, but it needs to be awfully small, awfully simplified, because the bigger it is, the more resistance it's going to provide in the channels. I believe there needs to be another pump, the main pump that throws it out; other sidelines go into the communities, but I think we could use a bigger pump in this.

Let's see, it needs to be safe; we have a National Headquarters, and we have community headquarters, communities that strongly stand on their feet. Because you see, we might fall into a category where we have one strong community, where the national headquarters is based; but other communities are not strong enough to be totally independent. There you need something.

NICK SEYMOUR-JONES: Maharaj Ji, how would the other communities communicate directly with I.H.Q.?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Let's see. You can scream if you're close enough. (Laughter). When people want to do things independently, there will be communications set up, where there'll be a lot of things happening. Like I.H.Q. will be publishing a yearly book, which will just about spell it all out what has happened, and maybe it will be printed every 6 months. It will be a book of all the communications that have happened from cross-country, and all the information and the progress that has been done, all the bad things that have happened, all the good things that happened, all the pros and cons and everything will be published in that book. You know, people will be able to know how things are proceeding, because this question was brought up to me in terms of a lot of countries would like to communicate with each other , and would like to talk with each other, or come together and find out exactly how their countries are doing and so on and so forth. And I saw a lot of problems in this; I tried to weigh both the good side of it and the bad side of it and they both levelled out exactly the same, you know. But I saw the advantage of it, so we are going to still have that, but in terms of going through I.H.Q. Because I can also see that going wild, completely wild, going into cheap competitions, going in for a real wild ride; I can also see that, you know, premies coming together and really, really going wild, saying whatever they want to say, 'Yeah, they're doing this in their country, maybe you should try to do this.' We will have controlled communications. And communications from the community - they can have any communications they want to I.H.Q. They can just stop, go ahead and do that, you know, independently. There is the communication co-ordinator in the I.H.Q., where all the communications come, they'll get sorted out, and one type of information is put on one side, and one type of information is put on one side, and feedback from the premies and so on and so forth. What we use for statistical purposes, what we use for different purposes, the sort of stuff I.H.Q. will have sorted out till it comes to me, will be the small communities that want to just send regular reports in terms of how everything is happening, if only out of courtesy. You have to do that - you don't really, really have to do that. But on demand from I.H.Q. you have to do that. You know, it's not like there are separate regulations that in every year you have to send in a report, but out of courtesy you can send in a report every six months, every day if you like. It's your courtesy, and on demand of I.H.Q. and on demand of Guru Maharaj Ji. Because I.H.Q. really are Guru Maharaj Ji - that's it.

What needs to be internationalised? You tell me: somebody's thoughts and ideas of how finance should run or thoughts and ideas of how leadership should run, should that be internationalised? Or is it Guru Maharaj Ji that needs to be internationalised? And his Knowledge? We were internationalising the wrong kind of thing. Now, we are internationalising the right kind of thing. And so, it's like, do just more communication - I can't. This is the way your letter, phones, what have you, will be handled and Raja Ji will be going and visiting other countries. Just see how it goes. There's a lot more chances of communication and there's a lot more free communication. Understand what I mean? I gave you general picture.

BRUCE CORBIN: Maharaj Ji, communities won't choose their own community co-ordinators, so ….

GURU MAHARAJ JI: They will be appointed.

BRUCE: They will be appointed by whom?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: By me.

BRUCE: So, like the Edinburgh community co-ordinator or the Manchester community co-ordinator will be appointed by you?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yes.

BRUCE: From Denver?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: By me, PERIOD. Could be from my office in L.A., or I have a bathroom on the phone (Laughter). It could be done from my bathroom, from my bedroom, or from one of my cars: The Mercedes has phone.

DEREK HARPER: Maharaj Ji, presumably, say, in the smaller places where you couldn't know the individual members of the community, somehow, someone would have to suggest to you that you get together with the community?

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GURU MAHARAJ JI: That is why we have a regional co-ordinator to possibly visit these communities, and find out exactly what's going on, what kind of progress.

DEREK: So, in other words … I'm just thinking that in some of the communities in Australia, say a person wanted a change, in some cases I've appointed people because I've thought they were the best person for the job, and in other cases, you have a consensus opinion with them in the community, and ask them what they think, and then come to some sort of agreement that you think is best - something that doesn't compromise the mission, yet allows them to feel involvement. Like, if you appointed a Regional Co-ordinator and that co-ordinator is satisfied with the National Co-ordinator and that Co-ordinator is satisfied with the Community Co-ordinator …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: … The way we have it, the Regional Co-ordinator is going to provide ….. what he is, the regional co-ordinator, is an information link. I call him up and I say, "Give me this information"; he goes out and finds out what kind of progress is really happening, what kind of satsang within the community, No fights, just finds out what really is needed in the community and what kind of person can provide that, can do it with the help of the community? I don't want to bring a Joe Blow from India and put him in America for the community co-ordinator who just screws everything up.

DEREK: So, where is the regional co-ordinator based?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, see that's the thing; he'll be sometimes based wherever the I.H.Q. is, or he'll be on a tour, just touring different countries, just getting all the information together. See, it's like, you pointed out the question, would the decision be made out of Denver, and I know that kind of feeling that you have; I'm quite well aware of it. But the decision will be made by me, not by the people who have been making the decisions. I think that's the only thing you have wrong against Denver isn't it? Not the city ?

BRUCE CORBIN: No, no, no, I like the city. It's a nice place.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: It's very bright.

GARY: (from Canada) Maharaj ji is there a North American regional co-ordinator yet?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, no. And Canada we consider America pretty much. Canada and America we consider one. We don't really think there's a necessity to appoint a different person there. The key is simplicity; the simpler we are, the more these systems can work. The more sophisticated we make them, the more problems we are going to have. It's just like the Germans building that tank, it was totally electronic, could detect any mines that there were, giving any information you needed - totally electronic. The only disadvantage was, they could not go more than something like 7 miles out of their base. They needed to come back and get all charged up and all serviced. That's their problem, you know; they can never go too far with their systems because they're so sophisticated, so comp!icated' that you can really never throw them out and just think that they're gonna really work.
You were saying something?

DEREK HARPER: Yeah, I was wondering about the job of national co-ordinator. See, you know there's a great deal of travelling which I've done in the past and recently I haven't done so much. And as more time goes past you get less in touch with what's happening in the individual communities. Now if it came to me for my suggestion on who should be a community co-ordinator in, say, some faraway place, because the guy there wants to resign, say, not having been there for some months, I may not know anything about what's going on. So, like, I've got to figure out what is my responsibility to a community in which I don't live, for what they do.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well you go and you find out about it.

DEREK: So that actually brings you to the point where it's not such a small job anymore. I couldn't work - see I was thinking I'd either go back to Australia and get a job now because my work isn't that involving; I couldn't support myself. But then it's very difficult getting a job where you can just pop up and go across to some other side of the country and have a look at the situation. In other words it would seem to suggest that the job will have to be salaried; it will have to be paid.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, wouldn't you like to become part of the ashram?

DEREK: I'm married.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Oh well we are opening up the retreat systems too.

DEREK: Well, I'd enjoy that for certain things.
(Laughter)
But the situation is - say I'm living in Sydney, and if I consider that it's my responsibility to see how things are going in the other communities around the country then that involves travel and then if

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that's the case then in some way I can't have a job in Sydney.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Why don't you find a job travelling or something, become a pilot or something? See, that's the way you would look at it. The way I would look at it is that means you are unfit for that kind of a job where there is a lot of travelling involved; you'll have to just get some other service.

DEREK: Well, it's like, it's not that - any person who is going to do that job as the national co-ordinator in Australia, say, because of the size would not be able to get employment under the conditions that every month or so they are going to have to pack up and go on a tour. And even if you spend only 5 days in each community still you are going to be away for 2 months out of every 6.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: See, we might have it so that the regional co-ordinator might be based out of Denver in terms of who goes and tours. He tours instead of you touring; he tours, he finds out, and pretty much the frequent communication between the communities is what is going to actually determine who should be the co-ordinator.

We are not just doing this blindly sending a hocus pocus man from Denver. I mean, wherever the IHQ is going to be, the person who I work with just goes and says, 'Yeah, I like that guy; when I was there he gave me a glass of OJ's; so he should be the community co-ordinator.' That's not the case.

DEREK: So, when this situation gets worked out more fully, then I will know whether I should. .

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yeah, but it's gonna take a little while. I'm just introducing the systems to you. The refinements and so on and so forth we have to just sit down and work out. The key is simplicity and the key is a lotta satsang, service and meditation.

TIM (from Dublin): Maharaj Ji, I'll be scalped by the Irish premies if I don't say this, that before I came I asked a lot of premies was there anything I should say to you; and nearly every one of them thought and couldn't come up with anything except 'thank you'. So I thought I'd pass it on to you.

BRUCE CORBIN: Maharaj Ji, a lot of premies expressed their interest in AMP in terms of, is it just a monetary contribution towards supporting the organisation or is it a dedication. Because the streamlining of the organisation is such now that with just a very, very small national office the quantity of money coming in they feel is more than enough to support it. So they need some clarification on what exactly is AMP.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: I'm not being optimistic about you, it's just the question that you asked; the question that I was expecting in Lima and South Africa popped up here. You see, there is a lot of difference between dedication to Guru Maharaj Ji and the active membership programme. See what I mean? Just in terms of that, the active membership programme was really, really needed, and it is still needed for the organisation on whatever scale it is to run; but it's not what you call dedication to Guru Maharaj Ji, direct dedication to Guru Maharaj Ji, that people give to me when they come in the darshan line or whatever the systems are. It's not that kind of a dedication. It is for the organisation.

Now if I say, yeah, that's really true, that we don't need that much more money to keep the organisation going on, then that would be really something else, because then 'pouf whatever you have, nobody is going to give anything. So that's a really smart question you know; but the way it's put, it's such a circular question that it's hard to tap in, to get the answer out of it, unless something is worked out more properly with it, you know. And I think that that active membership has done some bad things for this organisation in terms of where people don't have enough money to give 10 per cent of whatever they make; they don't make anything. And there has been a line sort of drawn - you've the bad guy, and there's this other guy who would give this 10 per cent to a beggar anyway, who gives his 10 per cent, and doesn't really practise satsang, doesn't really practise, doesn't do any service, and he is a perfectly O.K. active member. And he is respected.

It's just like, if you look like a Mercedes then you are a Mercedes; if you have got that monogram on it then you are a Mercedes. If you don't, you don't. But this other car, this one car, really isn't a Mercedes but has a monogram of a Mercedes on it and everybody is calling it a Mercedes; and this other car is a Mercedes but is missing the monogram. Because it's sitting on the other one, people say that it's not a Mercedes. So it's that kind of a difference; but I explained to you the pros and cons about the question - I didn't answer it. So it's like, how would you answer that?

DAVID LOVEJOY: Well, as far as the U.K. is concerned, Maharaj Ji, there is no question that the A.M.P. can go down because the liabilities that we have nationally are going to extend.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: But your liabilities are also going to increase if you are going to do any more propagation.

DAVID: Yeah, right. Like instead of it all being nonsense, some of that expenditure can be real propagation. At the moment it's just like keeping the past from catching up with us.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: You mean you're two miles an hour more, huh?

DAVID: Yeah. We're just avoiding bankruptcy.

GARY: Maharaj Ji, in Canada, what we were thinking we would like to do is just make it less of a pressure for the 10 per cent but encourage everyone to make a regular donation based on what they could give - in other words make A.M.P. just not as specific if possible.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: You're asking me now. This is not a spiritual question. That's not something that I really answer because it's not really a spiritual question. Find out, you know; maybe it'll work out. You are responsible. If the community goes down you get shot in the head. That's the only non-spiritual thing that I want to connect myself to. I want to see the communities grow where spiritual things can happen; and you've got things to do and you are responsible.

BRUCE CORBIN: Maharaj Ji, we would like you to come to the UK, but when Leicester happened,

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many of the premies weren't satisfied at the way it was got together because the hall was far too small so would it be possible in future if you could do, say, 2 or 3 programmes in the UK, or is this asking too much of you in the practical sense of your time? We were thinking in terms of one programme in Scotland, one in the west and maybe one in London….
(Tom Oglesby)
…. and one in Ireland, one in Dublin,

BRUCE: Oh and one in Ireland.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: It depends how fast Mr. Lee can drive. That depends.

So, what else do we have? That question about can I come or can I not come, it depends. When demand is good, if premies really want that, that's the way that they would like it and it is virtually impossible for them to get together and maybe get a bigger hall or something like that, then it might work out. What else do we have?

ALAN SAUNDERS: Maharaj Ji you said that A.M.P. is not a spiritual matter and you don't want to discuss it, but we still connect your name very much with it and we tend to kind of push it, I suppose. Do you have any comment on that?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well as BBJ put it, I'm the goose that lays the golden egg.
(Laughter)
I never could lay one for myself.
(Laughter)
Well, you tell me what is so spiritual about it.

ALAN: What is so spiritual about AMP? Well, only in terms of a dedication to your mission,

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yeah, that's true. But a lot of that money is just blown - money that is blown, not towards propagation, but towards unnecessary things. Where do you think that those 150 dollars that they are giving around to people for bus fares is coming from? That means, literally, for one premie who is living in the ashram there's one person who is living in the community, has a nice steady job, and is paying for this other guy's bus fare for leaving the ashram who he doesn't want to pay for. So there is a lot of craziness involved there.

I think what Gary said was really good because it was like not looking at it as a necessity in terms of a requirement of, well, we need money, so let's get together. Not have something fixed like that. I know I was aware of that thing in England a long time ago that happened - everybody was talking about money, money, money, money, money, money, nothing but money. I know that one guy got up and said something very very nasty and walked out of the hall.

DEREK: In, say that situation with AMP coming from you and ! having sent out a letter to the AMP members putting your support behind it what Gary's suggesting by playing down AMP, brings us into the area of how much discrimination the national director should have on behalf of the people in his community to alter things that have been going for some time. Say, in a situation that I'm thinking of in Sydney, there's a small group of people who are very much what you could say 'hard-liners' on whatever has been in the past, on whatever has been said. Now recently we started a 'coffee shop' type situation in the satsang hall one night a week - we already have satsang 6 nights a week - so that the premies in the community could have an opportunity to get together in an informal way and just in the majority of cases they do talk about the Knowledge and satsang in that sort of situation. But these small groups of people say "Never delay in attending satsang . What do you thing you're doing by removing satsang from the community?" In much the same way, if you say, O.K., let's make AMP a sort of a voluntary type of thing, what I want to know is how much the community director or the national director should try to interpret what is going on for the benefit of his community?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: That is really up to the discrimination of one director. If he is making the community unsatisfied then he is obviously not doing his iob pretty good. There are things that have happened in the past; and what I have said, is 'forget about the past four months'. Because the letters that were sent out on the active member member-ship programme, that were domestically sent out or internationally sent out, I'm quite unpleased with the way that they have been used. There are just a lot of pros and cons about it. There are premies who would rather see that the 10 per cent of the active membership that they give goes towards Maharaj ji in terms of like affording his house or affording his cars, affording programmes, affording his air tickets. Well, that's really a different story, because it's like that's just all crumpled out in terms of what the mission can afford any more. See the mission says that they can't afford my residence now, while I go down and I see so much unnecessary expense is going on. And then it is like for me to look back and say, well, would premies like to see of the 10 per cent that they give, maybe 5 per cent of it to be utilised for Malibu to be utilised for food, to be utilised for automobile expenses, maintenance, what have you,

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for the premies who are living with Guru Maharaj Ji? Would they like to see that just go into paying people's fares who are just leaving the ashram who are spaced out? Or see the money … so that's a question I could never answer because I was the one who was asking it.

DEREK: It's not so much like say that specific question because in Australia the AMP situation isn't a problem. But I'm more concerned with this particular example of these premies who were saying you say never delay in attending satsang, and now the organisational or the community council who've been representing the community have decided with their own discrimination to have a coffee shop and you've got a group of premies who are a small group who are saying, 'This is directly contrary to Guru Maharaj JI's agya that you are encouraging people to delay in attending satsang'. Like they're being very literal on everything you say, and I'm just wondering how much discrimination … like presumably the director in the community does what is good for the community and that should be enough.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Your problem, your specific problem is a problem that is affecting you, or your community, or those people; but it is a very simple problem, in terms of there ought to be an initiator there who could explain, 'Now listen, it's OK, the satsang is still going to start at this point, this period." Maybe people are just having coffee before that or they're just coming together and they're still having satsang. But we're not having satsang because it doesn't quite say that, because those are the same kind of people who are taking the sense in the wrong sense. Now maybe - and it's really hard to say because maybe what you're doing is wrong. Maybe what the community is doing, instead of blowing time on coffee, maybe they should really be using that time and that energy in satsang and be in satsang. And if there has to be a coffee shop, if there has to be a coffee thing happen, let it happen at somebody else's house or in a small hall that some-body goes out and rents and throws a party in. Because you have to provide satsang for people, - to me it's like there should be satsang going on somewhere all the time. Like you meet a person on the street, and he is interested, he wants to come, he wants to listen to satsang. What do you tell him? Well, here is the address; come, any time come down, listen to some satsang. Yes, we have satsang going most of the days but that one particular day you don't have any satsang going on.

And that was the problem in South Africa too. Maybe. Whatever you do, do it right. Don't get into the thing of this bunch of premies, and that bunch of premies, of particism, of separation, because of the literal meanings of things. I think that is where an initiator can help because he can take the edge away from things. And also more communication between Guru Maharaj Ji and premies can help take away the edge from things. And really clear understanding between everybody can.

DEREK: This comes into another area. What else is involved is that these premies wrote to Ira Woods, who was in Australia for some period of time and said that they have started off this coffee shop in Sydney and it's wasting everyone's time, whereas the majority of people in the community and some of the other national directors I have spoken to have said that this has been a real help in their community, bringing premies together in an informal relaxed manner. And Ira Woods wrote back to these premies saying this is obviously the wrong thing to do, without knowing very clearly what is going on in Australia. And he has just written back and said it and these guys get up in satsang and read out this letter from Ira Woods saying this is the wrong thing to do; and he has sort of put his finger in on what's happening in the community, whereas the majority of the community think it's OK and now he's suggesting that it isn't.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Maybe we should ban coffee.
(Laughter)
No coffee, no problems. You can't ban satsang, you can't ban Knowledge, you can't ban premies. Man, you can ban coffee. And then say, 'Yeah, we would like coffee shops every day and there'll be no coffee in Australia. There'll be no coffee, so there won't be any coffee shops, and we'll have some satsang.

See, the thing is, if this is what people want to do, then let them do it out of sight, but not at the core place, not at the central place. Know what I mean? It's like there's a community; premies want to do it and let there be purpose happening; let that happen. And if the community wants to get together for something … it's just like, if the community wants to get together for a picnic, I hope you don't go into the hall and go and have a picnic. Because it won't make such a decent picnic; you'll all crowd in the room, everybody will have plates on their hands, and it'll be a big mess. But you do it out of sight if that's what they want to do, so that other premies can … Because in one sense these premies are right. What if they really do want satsang, if they don't want to have coffee. They don't like coffee maybe, and so they don't want to sit there and have coffee, while for the majority of the community it really helps them. So do it out of sight, not as a major thing; and still have a programme that night. Like just pretty much have it in a way where everybody comes in and everyone is having coffee and so on and so forth and all of a sudden you blow the whistle and everybody puts their cup down and sits down on a chair and listens to satsang. And then afterwards they pick up their cups and then go home. These are funny situations, these are very particular situations.

DEREK: This is why I'm trying to get the understanding on this because personally I think that to close the coffee shop and have satsang 7 nights a week is just going to put the community back to the last 3 years where everyone has gone to satsang 7 nights a week, night after night after night; and now we've got a situation which does seem to be of benefit to people and to have it changed just because a few people are wanting to be literally correct in every way to me would be regressive. Like my opinion is that I think it's a good idea and if this means that I go back and close it, then I think it would be a disadvantage to the community.

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GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, you have to find a compromising situation. I'm not telling you to close it, am I? You have to find a compromising situation; hold a coffee shop an hour before satsang programme. Find a compromise in the situation, if it's too much of a headache. Now some places you just can't do that. You cannot find a compromise and you know that and that it's really not detrimental - this is where you have to use your discrimination.

DEREK: Well, if I use my discrimination, I think it's fine for me …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: … Also, where is your Knowledge experience at?

DEREK: Well, for me it's fine.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, I mean, what is your standard of fine?

DEREK: Well, the practice of Knowledge keeps me for the great majority in a very nice place. I feel calm, I feel content, I feel completely satisfied. I meditate quite a bit and to me Knowledge is fantastic and life for me is beautiful.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well, if you think you're clear and you are clear, and the community is clear, then this is a totally different story; then it's not a problem.

DEREK: Right! (Laughter)

DUBLIN PREMIE: Maharaj Ji, we have a problem that's a little bit similar in that there's a very small group of premies in Ireland, in Dublin, who have been causing disturbance at satsang and we've tried several different techniques; one is just to let them do it - in fact that's been the main technique. They get up there; maybe they play music when they're not asked to or they just insist on going up, and one technique was to just let them do it and then the second technique was to carry them out of the chair, which wasn't good because it just caused factions and now we've just gone back to …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Who are these people who are … ?

PREMIE: Well, it's a sort of - Tom could explain it better than me …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Tom!

TOM: Yeah?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Is it you? (Laughter)

TOM: There's just one particular guy and Arthur met him; and in fact Arthur at the time said like if he's causing that much trouble get him and take him out of the chair and he won't do it again. But when we did- that the premies weren't satisfied with that - not that they want particularly to listen to this guy, because he just gives them a lot of head anyway but they don't like the idea of somebody not to be able to have free speech and maybe he speaks for quarter of an hour, or half an hour, and they can get over that; and maybe they just meditate, but he does it constantly. And he's not forcing himself into the satsang chair any longer, but he does go up there and maybe play a song and give a bit of a spiel before it. Few minutes, like something really heavy like, 'You guys are not meditating, meditate! ' I'm quite willing to speak to him and I just feel that I can deal with it, but as Tim has said it to you I'd like your idea on it.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Give everybody headsets. (Laughter)
… And you give the satsang. Satsang goes on in their headsets and, this guy, you can give him the satsang.

TOM : What we have done anyway was to switch off the mike at different times; and we tried that as well, you know.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Have you ever tried talking to him?

TOM: Over and over again, all the time you know.

DEREK: I think that like the crunch is, Maharaj Ji, the whole situation is similar to mine - the crunch is just how much trust and how much weight are you putting behind the discrimination of the director in each council. Because if the premies know that, OK this community co-ordinator is OK by you then they will …

GURU MAHARAJI JI: Yeah, but I'm not putting a dime worth of my authority on it. Believe me, that I'm not going to tell him, 'Yes he's the supreme authority in your community', because I have already done that in Denver; and I guess that is the reason why everybody is so cockabunga confused you know; because I took a little bit out and I said, 'Here, you have this much'. And everybody is, you know, you give them an inch and they just take a mile. And nobody, nobody except Guru Maharaj Ji can exercise his authority because everybody is a premie. How can there be a superior and an inferior complex? But, I hold you responsible.
(Laughter)
Totally, totally responsible, because your job is very simple. You are looking in terms of

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love and understanding, not in terms of dictatorship. And there is a lot of dictatorship that has happened in the past - authority, superiority and inferiority complex. But I am not going to put mine behind it and I don't want you to gather that in your community, become authoritarian in your community. But try to do it in a nice simple way, and not in a sophisticated way. The key is simplicity.

TOM: Just about Dublin again. It's a very communal situation - it just doesn't hinge around me, say, or the community council. It's quite nice there, but say we have 7 people in sort of an ashram situation, what can we do? We're on hold at the moment, in that there's a transition into the new system. And for maybe the 10 people in Dublin who would want to live in the new situation, we need an ashram supervisor, so what do we do in the meantime before an ashram supervisor can be sent?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: What do you think you should do?

TOM: For somebody to take over the position or to continue as it's going.

GURU MAHARAJ Jl: Position of what?

TOM: Well to run the ashram, to just run the ashram.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Either to just put it on hold or …

TOM: Either to just let it go to January, when everybody's going to break up because the house is going to go - that's the way I feel it - and everybody's going to take their own way. Or in January we get a new house because we are going to lose this one, and continue as we're going. On hold. We're not particularly obeying the rules of the ashram but we're staying within the code, and it's financially run as an ashram. And the feeling is that the people want to continue as an ashram because they were disappointed when it happened, when it broke.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well if people want to continue then that's what should happen. Continue. Because this new structure should be - all the information that you need for this new structure will be coming very, very soon. So do whatever you feel like with their co-operation of course.

TOM: Right. If, say, we can't meet a requirement of 6 people, to get a house for 6 people, and keep it financially viable, can I recruit new members at this stage?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: To live in the ashram?

TOM: Yeah, to move into the ashram. Because we had that on hold as well.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: See, all of a sudden you ask me. See, it's like I need some more information; I would need some more information; I would have to be really living in your community to be able to tell you what to really do because it's such a specific and such a down problem you know. It's a problem OK; we'll see what we can do about it. We'll put it into our blender and find out what comes out.

TOM: I feel that there's a lot of communities in that position; you know, maybe even in the U.K.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Are there?

PREMIE: And Canada. What's his name said it was in Canada.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Australia.

DEREK: We still have the ashram.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: And one too many kangaroos. Because you know again you don't want to make the mistake of letting people in who are just going to stay there for 2 days and then split, or are going to break the code of the ashram. That's a good question, that might give us new guidelines.

JOHN SHERIDAN: Maharaj Ji, we've got a situation in London where we've got quite a few aspirants and with the cutting back and the streamlining of the organisation - like originally maybe two or three years ago, service used to be something that was reasonably easy for aspirants to understand, in a simple way; because they could go along and they could do all kinds of service in the ashrams and in the Palace of Peace and places like that; but now with the situation we've got - we have not got any ashrams, we've just got one office, and we've got quite a few aspirants - the aspirants are a bit confused about what they should do for doing service. And I've had a lot of questions lately from them that the} would like it if you maybe could this evening or some other time give some satsang more closely tied around that point, because it's very much more difficult for the aspirants to relate to a consciousness attitude like that because …

GURU MAHARAJ JI: They don't have Knowledge.

JOHN: Right, absolutely.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: O.K. I'll take that into consideration.
Any more?

RAMESH: The premies in Leicester feel that they need a regular place for satsang and they feel that if they can do it legally and financially, if they're O.K., can they buy a hall?

GURU MAHARAJ )1: That's your community affair. Just - you are representing the Indian community?

RAMESH: Yes.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Yeah, well, that's a community affair. I don't see why not. It's a community affair.

RAMESH: About the Indian initiator, there is a community in Leicester and there are a few premies, around 70, in London, a few around Leicester, and there are a few interested around the country. At present I feel that we wouldn't be able to use Mahatma Ji full time in one place.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: You have Mahatma Padarthanand there.

DAVID LOVEJOY: I was thinking whether he could stay on for a lengthy period of time?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well that's hard to say: maybe he can, maybe he can't. Whatever the schedule says, make your request. If you want him to stay for a longer period of time you must just put it in and see - and help to make schedule.

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RAMESH: I have been doing this service of community co-ordinator for three years, but for the future it's up to you.

GURU MAHARAJ JI: Well no, right now you just go as you're going until we see what's coming. Because, you see, this is going to take time; it's not going to happen zip-zap overnight. It's presenting you with the opinion that some changes are conceivably going to happen.

DAVID LOVEJOY: Will the European co-ordinator more or less have to go round and either confirm or appoint or recommend back to you …?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: He just gives me any information that I need; that's what he is there for. He's going to tell me. If I don't need something then he's just going to sit there tight.

DAVID: Yes. In a lot of places, because premies have got a lot of freedom to organise non-essential stuff. The co-ordinator has actually been elected, or it's been a consensus thing. But premies obviously only want to do directly what you say, and the difficulty in the last few months has been to find that out a little bit. So if you've got a European- co-ordinator, they're going to want all of the people like community co-ordinators to be examined in a way, or just so you know about them, so that you can say yes or no or that the situation needs to be examined. So I was wondering, does that mean the co-ordinator is going to make a grand tour of all the communities to give you that input?

GURU MAHARAJ JI: If that's what I need. If I don't, if I'm quite satisfied with the communication that I have from the community, then that's the way I'll operate.

DAVID: You see, the national office in England actually deals with 60 communities of a tremendously different size, from London down to a place where there's only 12 premies. But in between that there's a tremendous diversity, but there are at least 60, and it grows, because we find little pockets of premies

GURU MAHARAJ JI: It's like, let's see what happens. Let's put it that way, let's see what happens. It might not happen that way, if it's too complex, or it might happen that way because it's better. It might happen different here to what it does in Latin America.

The evening programme was held in a hall inside the hotel at which Maharaj Ji was staying. The audience for the programme was made up of the conference delegates, premies from different parts of Germany and a few assorted gatecrashers.

Everyone expected that Maharaj Ji would come late to the programme as he had finished the conference very late, but in fact he came down after only two premies had given satsang. He waited in the wings until Peter Ponton finished giving satsang and then came onto the stage. He sent John Miller down to give a short introduction and then he gave satsang.

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