20,000 fill pasture to see Guru Maharaji

Keay Davidson
Sentinel Star

A cult leader is trying to buy land for mass rallies south of Orlando, his close aides said at a secret, heavily guarded convention of approximately 20,000 followers near Walt Disney World Monday.

Addressing a pasture crammed with Guru Maharaji's rain-drenched followers, an unidentified speaker asked each person to contribute $10 for paying the eight day rally's debts and buying the land leased for the rally.

The rotund, limousine-driving guru hopes to own a "city" somewhere south of Orlando another aide told a Sentinel Star reporter who penetrated the meeting by posing as a cancer victim seeking the Maharaji's "divine healing."

Rallies would be held at the "city" said the aide, identified as "Michael," who said he had helped organise the jet-set mystic's activities for seven years.

The rally was held in a large field off a dirt road north of U.S. Highway 192 near Walt Disney World.

God's wearing orange caps and carrying walkie-talkies guarded the end of the dirt road and refused to tell passers-by what the rally was about.

Inside the guru drove a bus in circles around the pasture as hundreds of followers chased him shouting, "We love you!"

Security was also tight inside the rally, located half a mile down the dirt road in a pasture filled with circus tents and hundreds of pub tents.

The convention grounds were crisscrossed with fences, patrolled at different points by guards who questioned persons not wearing identification cards.

A Sentinel Star reporter persuaded a guard to allow him to ride one of nearest buses transporting devotees down the dirt road to the rally.

Then the reporter was closely queried by several of the guru's aides before they allowed him to attend the late-night rally where the 5-foot-4 guru spoke.

As the guru's aides launched fireworks nearby, dozens of the guru's followers told the rally about their conversion to his Divine Light Mission.

Devotees who new sign language translated the speakers' remarks for deaf persons.

Muscular guarde grabbed a young woman as she tried to run onto the stage before the guru arrived.

Guru cover page 2-C.