It appears that even before the young Mitch Dictkoff met and worshipped the young Guru Maharaj Ji aka Prem Rawat he was a dickhead, a wanker, an asshole who thought himself the very model of a modern enlightened being-to-be, he thought he knew it all, had it all and even dabbled in existenial despair. He wondered why his parents were so "freaked out." Little did he know how freaked out they were about to become.
I grew vegetables. I grew a beard. I grew further disillusioned with the world. I fasted. I chanted. I prayed. I read the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, the Aquarian Gospel, the Zen Teachings of Huang Po, the collected writings of Chuang Tzu, Meher Baba's discourses, the Life of Milarepa, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Autobiography of a Yogi, the Gnostic Gospels, and anything else I could get my hands on that would help me understand what life was really all about. To the casual observer, I had it all - the house in the country, the girlfriend, and the mellow job on a 200-acre farm, but it wasn't enough. I plastered my house with pictures of all the enlightened beings I could find - Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, and Meher Baba. I stared into their eyes. I prayed to them all.
The Very First Time I Heard About Prem Rawat
It wasn't quite what I expected.
Mitch Ditkoff
Yours truly at 23. Sincere, but trying just a little too hard.
See that guy above? Looks a little intense, eh? Must be on some kind of spiritual trip or maybe he's just protein deficient. I'm guessing he's into Eastern things. Probably reads the Bhagavad Gita and doesn't make enough money to pay taxes. Maybe he lives in a tent. Fruitarian? Vegan? I really don't know for sure.
Wait a minute! That's me! 54 years ago!
Now you know why my parents were so freaked out when I was in my 20's. After all, I was their golden boy, the carrier of the family name, the hope for the future.
According to everyone, I was supposed to be a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. Maybe even a rabbi. I coulda been a contender.
What happened? Why the long hair, sallow cheeks, and penetrating I-can-outstare-anyone look?
Growing up in the suburbs of New York, you'd never think I would have gone off what some people referred to as the "deep end." After all, I had my own room, my own TV, a dog, good grades, played varsity basketball, and went to summer camp. And though my father, unlike Buddha's, was not the King, he had enough money to send me to a good college where I majored in English Literature and existential despair.
I graduated with honors and went on to graduate school. Not in medicine, law, teeth, or the Talmud - but in poetry.
So there I was, in some fancy schmancy Ivy League grad school - hair and shadow growing longer by the day, when I got an invitation to an ultra-hip, faculty-student party - the kind where everyone is either drunk or stoned - or both.
Feeling especially bold after imbibing whatever was in arm's reach, I approached each of my professors and asked them the same question:
"If you could be anywhere on Earth at this moment in time, where would it be?"
Glad for the audience, each of them took turns waxing poetic about their favorite place, the nearest of which was 2,000 miles away. Doh! No one wanted to be where they were! Everyone wanted to be somewhere else!
And me, the wise-ass, longhair, Vietnam-phobic, draft-deferred 22-year-old enduring Beowulf, Wallace Stevens, and iambic pentameter, was aspiring to be one of them? I saw the future and it wasn't pretty. I'd be 45, bearded, smoking a pipe, and sitting in this same room being asked by my much younger alter ego where I wanted to be at that moment in time and it would be somewhere else.
That's when I decided to quit - perhaps the first real decision of my life.
Thus began a series of odd jobs that left my mother somewhat close-lipped around the canasta table: dish washer, waiter, cook, mason tender, hotel desk clerk, house painter, daycare teacher, and food stamp collector.
Thirsty for less, I moved to an island - a pristine place where I could get away from it all.
I grew vegetables. I grew a beard. I grew further disillusioned with the world.
I fasted. I chanted. I prayed. I read the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, the Aquarian Gospel, the Zen Teachings of Huang Po, the collected writings of Chuang Tzu, Meher Baba's discourses, the Life of Milarepa, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Autobiography of a Yogi, the Gnostic Gospels, and anything else I could get my hands on that would help me understand what life was really all about.
To the casual observer, I had it all - the house in the country, the girlfriend, and the mellow job on a 200-acre farm, but it wasn't enough.
I plastered my house with pictures of all the enlightened beings I could find - Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, and Meher Baba. I stared into their eyes. I prayed to them all.
And then I got the letter - the letter from my best friend, Ed.
Ed was the real deal - a practicing Zen Buddhist, calligrapher and a kind of spiritual big brother to me. Five years older (and maybe several lifetimes, too), he was deep, soulful, and cool. A man of few words, he had a huge BS detector and always had a twinkle in his eye. A full tilt individual, Ed was not the easily influenced kind. Nor was he a joiner of anything that smacked of group think.
I trusted him.
Which is why I was so intrigued to get a letter from him one fine summer day. Ed, the man of few words, had a lot to say in this missive. Apparently, since the last time I'd seen him, he'd "received Knowledge" from a 13-year-old boy guru from India, known as "Maharaji" (now known as "Prem Rawat") - the experience, Ed explained, of a person connecting with the deepest part of who they are. Their true nature.
The first thing I did, after reading Ed's letter was stuff it in a drawer.
Something in me knew the jig was up - that all of my seeking was about to come to an end. But I didn't want it to end. I liked seeking. Seeking was cool. Seeking was exciting and a proven way to meet the ladies. Seeking gave me an identity - "the seeker." And so I procrastinated.
I knew in my gut that Ed's letter was a direct response to a deep prayer of mine, but the immediacy of it all made me anxious. Ed was relentless and not about to concede to my procrastination. Two weeks later he called, inviting me to make the five-hour journey to his home for the weekend.
I went.
The first thing I noticed in Ed's apartment was a framed picture of that young boy from India. I found it odd - especially since my image of "The Guru" was very different from the one in Ed's frame.
Where were the sallow cheeks? The long hair? The ancient look in the deep-set eyes as if to say: "Come, my son, I know you have waited lifetimes for me to incarnate and HERE I AM - crossing the universe to come for one of my favorite (and most humble) disciples of all time." Prem Rawat as a young boy speaking at his father's funeral
Ed, God bless him, didn't care in the least. He just kept on talking and laughing and smiling.
When we went for a walk, I couldn't keep up with him. He was a ball of fire - glowing, buoyant, alive. Gone was the Zen minimalist shtick. Gone was the dude who mindfully chewed his rice 100 times before swallowing. In its place? Radiant, child-like wonder. Fun. Mojo. Elan. And something neither of us had talked about in any of our esoteric conversations - true fulfillment.
When I returned home, I had a lot to think about.
Could it be? Could this young boy from India be the one (at least for me, that is)? Could all of my praying, fasting, chanting, yoga and attempts to meditate have invoked this moment in time? Was Prem Rawat's appearance on the scene in direct response to an inner calling of mine?
I didn't have to wait long for the answer.
Two weeks later Ed called to tell me that one of Prem's emissaries was going to be in Boston and that if I wanted to receive Knowledge I should go.
The cost? Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch. There was no charge, Ed explained, because what I was about to receive I already had.
I went. I asked. I received.
It was, quite simply, the most extraordinary experience of my life. Like coming home. Like waking up. Like discovering I was made of pure love. Everything became so simple, so perfect, so full of essence, energy, and peace.
I could have pulled Redwood trees from the ground.
These, of course, are only words. If you ask a hundred people who have received the gift of Self-Knowledge from Prem Rawat (and practiced it), you'll probably hear a hundred different descriptions. But all of them will be spoken with the kind of feeling that will catch your attention and give you pause.
Suffice it to say, for now, that I find myself very fortunate to have met this man - fortunate and grateful beyond measure. And though my hair is much shorter now than in was in 1971, my love of life and my ability to be fully alive in this present moment continues to grow.