The Golden Age Number 31, July 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."
For those who haven't heard, pseudo-Knowledge is a term for doing all the external activities associated with the practice of real Knowledge - going to satsang, working for Divine Light Mission, sitting down for an hour morning and night, speaking softly (or loudly, depending on your concept), eating vegetarian - without really meditating. The thesis on which this alarm has been sounded runs thus: Guru Maharaj Ji says, and certain premies experience, that through the practice of (real) Knowledge, one's life becomes balanced, fulfilled, exciting and full of love. In other words, mind doesn't effect you, and the Knowledge does. However, many young Australians who have supposedly been practising Knowledge for two or three or four years, still find their lives going violently up and down, still experience paranoia, still have trouble giving satsang, still find it hard to get on with this person or that person. So something, it has been surmised, is wrong: either Maharaj Ji's got his wires crossed and Knowledge isn't what he says it is, or else we're not practising it properly.
6 Crossing the Wall of Infinity
Terry: But not everyone experiences that, even though they might be doing satsang, service and meditation. I'm sure there are people who look at their lives and say, "Okay, I'm doing service, satsang and meditation, so why - when Guru Maharaj Ji says that this Knowledge is gorgeous and beautiful and all this sort of stuff - why am I experiencing confusion?"
Since Divine Light Mission first began in Melbourne almost four years ago, over 400 people have received Knowledge. So much has happened in that time. The Mission has attracted an assortment of people from everywhere. People from all walks of life have been drawn to our community, if only to enquire. In the early days our notoriety was so often due to the outlandish concepts and ideas we sprouted about the Knowledge. We became well-known for our overt propagational tactics ("The Lord of the Universe has come to us this day"), blue and white buildings, our jumble shop and general obviousness, particularly around Fitzroy and Carlton.
12 The Whole Idea Is To Find The Ultimate Goal
Guru Maharaj Ji speaking in Madrid, Spain, on 10 May 1976.
In the midst of this, we are so lucky that we are able to receive Knowledge in this lifetime. So, there are two facts right there and if you look at them, they'll apply to your life, if not one way, if not through the examples I've given you, then they'll apply to you some other way. But they will apply to you because it is a fact that we are very lucky that we have Knowledge and it is a fact that Knowledge is beautiful and Knowledge is the answer to this world's problems.
Half the time we are so unconscious we don't even know what we are thinking. You sit down to do your meditation, and you figure you're doing it fine, that everything's fantastic, but really you're just sitting down there in your thoughts. And for as long as we keep on doing that, we are never going to be able to progress, we're never going to be able to go into that experience. It's really only when we're breaking through, when things are really happening that we feel that we are experiencing Knowledge. I know that there have been times for me when I've figured I've been doing all the right things, but still nothing seemed to be moving. And looking back, I can see that in those times I've just been unconscious. Sometimes we can even meditate in an unconscious state, which sounds ridiculous but I'm sure if you consider it for a moment, you'll know what I mean. It's a really big trap to fall into.
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Divine Light Mission President Bob Mishler speaking at the Opera House on 19 October 1975.
But the point that I'm trying to make is that Guru Maharaj Ji is not here to change anybody's religion. He's not here to convert anyone. What he is here for is for those individuals who have come to that point in their life, because of the circumstances that have taken place in their life, where they've recognised the importance of knowing that power which is within inside of them; which is responsible for life and death and everything besides. That power which is just beyond the grasp of our reasoning.
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