User:Will Beback/Topical

Durga Ji

• The cracks within the "divine family" became impossible to weld after Balyogeshwar issued directives to that the photographs of his mother were to be removed from all of the centres since she was no longer divine, and in their place were to be put the photographs of his wife who was "the incarnation of the goddess Durga."
  • The World of Gurus by Vishal Mangalwadi - Page 194

• Mataji ... disapproved of his lifestyle and of his marriage to his secretary, Marolyn Johnson, whom he declared to be the incarnation of the goddess Durga.
  • Cults: A Reference Handbook by James R. Lewis - Page 122

• Then in 1974, Maharaj married his 24-year-old secretary, whom he described as an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga.
  • http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/eop_02/eop_02_02916.html

• In 1974 Maharaj Ji married his secretary Marolyn Lois Johnson, who he had discovered was the reincarnation of the ten-armed, tiger riding goddess Durga.
  • http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/Maharaj%20Ji.html

• He pronounced her the incarnation of the ten-armed, tiger-riding goddess, Durga. Whenthe new bride refused her mother-in-law access to their Malibu estate, that was the last straw.
  • Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality By Bob Larson - page 150

• Maharaj Ji had claimed that she was the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga.
  • A Brief Guide to Beliefs: Ideas, Theologies, Mysteries, And Movements by Linda Edwards - Page 278

"Championing celibacy"

• Also, the guru married his Caucasian secretary in 1974 when he was 17, shocking many of his followers (he had championed celibacy until his marriage) and leading to many defections.
  • Richardson, James T., in Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, William H. Swatos, ed., Rowman Altamira 1998 p.141 ISBN 0761989560

• The movement split after Guru Maharaj Ji married his American secretary and broke his vow of celibacy.
  • Olson, Carl. The Many Colors of Hinduism: A Thematic-Historical Introduction. 2007 Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813540682 p. 345

• Since Ji had earlier advocated strict celibacy for his followers, his marriage obviously came as a shock to them. Thomas Pilarzyk estimates that between 40 and 80 percent of the ashram premies (the core of the movement) defected over this issue. p. 45
• When Guru Maharaj Ji married his secretary, after admonishing his followers to lead a life of abstinence, half or more of the core member of the Divine Light Mission defected, hardly suggesting total control by the guru. p143
  • Bromly and Supe, Strange Gods 1981,

• The youthful teacher's strong mother and mentor objected to this marriage (holding that her son had broken one of his spiritual disciplines - celibacy).
  • "Whatever Happened to Guru Maharaj Ji? " Hinduism Today' October 1983 [1]

• To get the most out of being a premie, a follower is encouraged to practice vegetarianism and celibacy as well as abstention from the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. p. 9
• Celibacy, abstention from the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and the mission's highly touted vegetarian diet are stepping stones on the divinely lit path of enlightenment. And in true Hindu fashion, the Mission acts, not as a lawgiver, but as a dispenser of advice. The disciplines are recommended, not commanded. p.40
  • Stoner and Parke, All Gods Children, 1977

• Similarly, in the Divine Light Mission, members are expected to turn over all material possessions and earnings to the religion and abstain from alcohol, tobacco, meat, and sex.
  • Levine, Saul V., "Cults and New Religious Movements: A Report of the American Psychiatric Association", Marc Galanter, editor. 1989 ISBN 0890422125 p. 100

Customs

• A 14-year-old guru hailed by his American devotees as lord of the universe and castigated by his critics as a smuggler, has become the center of a controversy which reportedly has interested en Prime Minister Indira Ghandhi. Customs officials have yet to decide whether to prosecute the pudgy teenage guru, Maharaj Ji, on allegations that he tried to bring in about $80,000 worth of ondeclared currency, precious stones and watches. Maharaj Ji arrived in India from the United States on Nov. 7. Government officials no longer will talk on the record about his case. According to some press reports, Mrs. Gandhi has taken personal interest in the case, The controversy swirls around a briefcase Maharaj Ji brought with him on his return. His critics say it contained the undeclared valuables. His followers maintain the contents of the controversial briefcase, seized at the airport, were part of his divine bank and belonged to his devotees, not him. "Why should Maharaj Ji smuggle anything?" said Arthur Brigam, 22, the guru's public relations man from Denver. "He is a saint who needs nothing." Before leaving for Hardwar, headquarters of the guru's Divine Light Mission, Brigham claimed customs officials had cleared Maharaj Ji, but the officials still have not announced the results of their investigation of the case.
  • "Pudgy Guru, 14, Controversy Center in India", UPI. BRIDGEPORT TELEGRAM, November 24, 1972
• When Maharaj Ji stepped off a jumbo jet in' New Delhi before his cheering Premies, he looked for all the world a kid with the world in a jug and the stopper in his hand. But there was trouble on the horizon. A few hours later customs officials leaked the still unproved allegation that he had attempted to bring into the country almost $80,000 in undeclared American currency, precious stones and watches. THE Premies said he was being falsely persecuted, just as Jesus Christ had been. They said the alleged countraband was part of the assets of the mission's divine bank and was being held in safekeeping for the owners, all devotees. Customs officials, presumably, are still meditating over the case. The holy mother is bitter. "My son is cursing me for having persuaded him to come to India to attend the Hans Jayanti (Maharaj Ji's late father) Festival," she told a newsman here. She charged that customs officials had humiliated Maharaj Ji and his entourage and that the Indian press had given his visit the worst possible coverage. The holy mother said Indians did not appreciate what Maharaj Ji has done for the country. "Isn't it a matter of pride for India that Englishmen who ruled over this country for two centuries now bow their heads in reverence before the young guru Maharaj Ji?" she asked.
  • "Some feel the youth is fraud" Long Beach, Calif., Sun., Dec. 19, 1972 INDEPENDENT, PRESS-TELEGRAM A-27

• The airport arrival of the religious, leader — who reportedly gets his kicks from squirting water pistols, eating mounds of ice cream, watching triple-feature horror movies and wearing Frankenstein masks — was marred when Indian customs officials discovered and impounded a suitcase containing $65,000 in cash, jewelry and watches. According to the guru's disciples, the stash was a Divine Bank that had been put together to support the pilgrims during their month-long sojourn in India. Refusing to buy that story, the Indian government ordered an investigation into the movement's finances and seized the passport of the "prince of peace."
  • "The Mini Guru" By J. KING CRUGER staff writer, February 3, 1973 THE STARS AND STRIPES Page 9
• There has been a spot of trouble with Customs. On the guru's return from a world tour last November, accompanied by 400 foreign devotees, U.S. currency and goods with a total value of $27,000 were seized from his entourage. ... ""Will you be going abroad again?" I relaize I have committed a faux pas; the police have impunded his passport.
  • "The Guru Business", Khushwant Singh, The New York Times, April 8, 1973
• When Maharaj Ji returned to India last October from a tour of the U.S.—accompanied by several planeloads of American followers — Indian authorities confiscated more than $50,000 in cash and jewelry from him.
  • "Slapstick Test Of Guru's Mortality" UPI, Lebanon Daily News, Wednesday, August 8, 1973
• A teenaged guru touring the United States had to post bond of $13,300 before being allowed to leave India to spread his "Perfect Knowledge," the government says. Minister of State for Finance K. R. Ganesh told Parliament yesterday that the guru liad to post the bond because he is under investigation and may be charged with smuggling. He did not say whether the government plans to prosecute Guru Maharaj Ji, the 15-year-old leader of the Divine Light Mission. .. Customs officers seized $35,000 worth of jewelry, watches and foreign currency when the guru and some of his disciples returned to India last November from his visit to the United Status. Spokesmen for the movement say money was collected to finance the stay of 3,000 Western devotees, mostly from the United States, who flew here last November. They, came in seven chartered jumbo jets to meditate for a month and to observe the birthday anniversary of the guru's late father. The jewelry and watches, the spokesman said, were gifts for the guru's family and the mahawmas, the movement's priests. Customs authorities said the guru and a few close disciples who were responsible for the items had not properly declared them on arrival in New Delhi and were suspected of trying to smuggle the things into the country. Six members of the India Parliament, including some from the ruling Congress party, attacked the government for letting the guru leave India in June, after taking his passport earlier in the investigation. "This so-called bhagwam (Hindi for god) has been disgraced even in America," shouted Jyotirmoy Basu, a Marxist member. He referred to an incident in Detroit, two weeks ago, when the guru was struck by a cream pie at a public function. Ganesh said the government had permitted the guru to leave India on the advice of the Law Ministry.
  • "Boy Guru Suspected of Smuggling" AP, Oakland Tribune Aug. 25, 1973
• The allusions were to his encounter with a pie-tossing youth in Detroit and the confiscation in India last November of $35,000 in undeclared jewelry and cash, which the mission has said was forgotten by a disciple. The case has not been settled and the guru had to post $13,300 bond before leaving for his latest world tour.
  • "15-year-old guru uses computer to keep track of disciples" AP. October 21, 1973 Kokomo Tribune

• Maharaj Ji was accused by customs officials of trying to smuggle eighty thousand dollars of jewels into his native land.
  • Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality By Bob Larson, 2004
• A few days later, however, Maharaj Ji made headlines not to his liking. From New Delhi Aug. 25, 1973 the Associated Press repotred that before he was allowed to leave India he had to post a #13,300 bond becuase he was under investigation on a charge of smuggling. A year earlier, it was revealed, customs officers had seized $35,000 worth of jewelry, watches, and foreign currency he and his disciples ad with them when they returnd from an American trip. The movement insited the riches were used to support 3,000 Western devotees who came to India to meditiate for a month. Chicago newspapers carried the story.
  • Superstition and the Press, Curtis D. MacDougall, Prometheus Books 1983 p.437

• The top level investigation, in which Premier Mrs Indira Gandhi, as head of India's intelligence services, is taking a personal interest, began last November when Customs men at Delhi Airport had a tip from America that one of the divine bags was stuffed with jewels for the guru's mother plus sterling, dollars and travellers' cheques. The boy said they were nothing to do with him. Top executives in his mission team claimed that the money was to feed and house 350 American converts-in-the-making, who had flown in with him in the chartered jumbo jet he called his silver steed and were going on a three-week course at the imposing training academy on the banks of the Ganges. Special investigators from the revenue department have been trying to find out just how much he is worth and how much wealth the mission has accumulated in other countries. It is an offence in Indian law to have a bank account abroad without permission from the Treasury, but the guru set up in Britain as a charitable trust which banks all the income. Now the Indian Government will decide whether or not a charity abroad benefiting Indian nationals is contravening the law. The Indian Special Branch has its own interest in the guru. It fears that with or without the knowledge of the mission's hierarchy, spies or CIA agents might use the security of the mission as a cover. The Indian Home Office is also watching the boy.
  • "The 'boy god' with a taste for ice cream...and the good things of life" Richard Herd Daily Mail, Thursday, July 12, 1973 - Page 21

• One senior member of the government said Indian diplomatic missions in countries where the guru's Divine Light Misson operates—including the United States and Britain —have been asked to investigate financial aspects of the movement. The government, he said, wants to determine whether the mission is violating Indian law, particularly regarding restrictions on Indian nationals having bank accounts and capital assets abroad.
  • "Gifts for a Guru" AP, printed in Stars and Stripes November 15, 1972.

• Within a year Guru Maharaj Ji's following had grown so enormously that after his 1972 tour eleven jumbo jets were required to carry a small fraction of the Western devotees back to India with him to celebrate the annual three-day festival in honor of his late father. A hostile Indian religious group asked the government to arrest Guru Mahraj Ji at the airport in New Delhi and force him to submit to a medical examination to determine his true age, which, the group asserted, was twenty-two. The request was denied but an embarrassing incident occurred nonetheless: customs officials found $80,000 in jewels, watches, and money in the briefcase of Joan Apter, who was then serving as the Guru's secretary. Spokesmen for the Guru explained that the money was to pay the expenses of Western devotees during their stay in India and that the watches and jewelry were gifts for the Guru's mother, brothers, and mahatmas. Smuggling charges were never filed, but the Indian government was at last report still looking into the Guru's taxes.
  • Current Biography Yearbook 1974

Millennium 73

• Only 20,000 people showed up and the group felt it was portrayed poorly by the media.
  • MARK FORSTER Los Angeles Times Jan 12, 1979 pg. A1

• Balyogeshwar reached the zenith of his popularity during the Millennium Festival 1973, in Houston. There his devotees declared him to be "the savior of the world" who was ushering in the thousand years of utopia. It would not be an esaggeration to say that at that time is popularity overshadowed that of all the gurus and religious leaders in the world. But it did not take too long for it to dwindle to almost nothing.
  • Mangalwadi, Vishal. The World of Gurus. Vikas Publishing House New Delhi 1977. p.219

• "The 'Millennium 73' festival, a test of the guru's popularity, was a failure." [Marty 1984]
• "Perhaps because of this failure, Maharaji transformed his initial teachings ..." [Hunt 2003]
• "...first of a series of events which gradually led the Mission to withdraw from the public scene." [Melton 1986]
• "The disastrous 1973 rally changed the situation" [Bromley & Shupe 1981]
• "a major setback" ""the event failed; attendance was miniscule" [Melton 1986]
• "great disappointment...grave financial crisis" [Chryssides 2001]
• "fell far short of expectations" "a variety of millennial expectations, such as the arrival of world peace, failed to materialze and the whole undertaking left members of the movement disillusioned and in debt. "[Galanter 1989]
• "When the anticipated large crowds of people failed to manifest, the movement fell into deep debt, which effectively crippled it." [Lewis 2005]
• "In 1973, a disastrous rally at the Houston Astrodome left the movement in the United States in dire financial straits and bereft of credibility."

Lifestyle

Reporter: It's hard for some people to understand how you personally can live so luxuriously in your several homes and your Rolls Royces.
Maharaj Ji: That life that you call luxurious ain't luxurious at all, because if any other person gets the same life I get, he's gonna blow apart in a million pieces in a split of a second....People have made Rolls Royce a heck of a car, only it's a piece of tin with a V-8 engine which probably a Chevelle Concourse has. (see quote #14 below)

Quick reference using quotes available elsewhere in Wikipedia (see Talk:Prem Rawat/scholars and/or footnotes in Prem Rawat for context):

• "Opulent" - Hunt 2003
• "Materialistic" - Schnabel 1982; Mata Ji (quoted in a 1975 English-language newspaper);
• "Pampered" - Schnabel 1982;
• "Luxurious living/lifestyle" - Foss&Larkin 1978; Galanter
• "Lavish material luxury" - Foss&Larkin 1978;
• "Lived in luxury" (before his father's death) - Galanter
• "Life of luxury" - Barett 2003

--Francis Schonken (talk) 22:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Quotes

1. Colorado Satsang, Prem Rawat 9/17/71

   What is materialism? To have a beautiful car, to have so many things around you, this is materialism. Sometimes the car breaks down, then you pay money for it to be repaired. It is a fine. Sometimes a television breaks down and you pay money for it to be repaired. It is also a fine. Really it is a fine. You are being fined. So why do you have things for which you will be fined?

2. "Gifts for a Guru" AP, printed in Stars and Stripes November 15, 1972.

   But he said the government is concerned about the growing financial resources of the Divine Light Mission abroad, especially in the United States, where the American devotees recently purchased two small air planes for the guru's use. Brigham, however, said all money received by the mission has come from private donations and all purchases are made with a logical purpose. Defending the purchase of the two planes, Brigham said: "There are so many hijackings of commercial planes. This is why he needs his own planes. Guru Maharaj Ji's life is supremely valuable."

3. "Junior Guru", Time Nov. 27, 1972:

   The grateful faithful have also laden their lord with gifts, including a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes and two private planes.

4. "Through a 'Third Eye' Comes The Divine Light", By PHIL HASLANGER (Of The Capital Times Staff), Capital times, 2/16/73

   If suffering is not a problem, neither is wealth. "If you are perfect," Mahatma Ji [Mahatma Ji Parlokahand] maintained, "material things are good so long as tkey do not poison you." The Guru himself reportedly is personally wealthy. The Mahatma explained, "People love him, so they purchase for him an airplane, a car (a Rolls-Royce), all these things. He doesn't want all these things but their love is so strong."

5. "What Is He—a Lord or an Incredible Fraud?", Nicholas Von Hoffman, The Capital Times April 27, 1973

   The Yippie God-King is also into expensive motor cars and electric trains. If that sounds preposterous, all religions do to non-believers...It makes good sense if you believe, and none if you don't.

6. San Francisco Examiner, 7/21/73, as quoted in "What's Behind the 15-Year-Old Guru Maharaj Ji?" Gail Winder and Carol Horowitz, The Realist 12/73

   The boy guru, 'the perfect master,' picked up his $50,000 car yesterday, along with his 45 strong-arm 'disciples.'

   As the guru, looking like an overweight schoolboy, inspected the Mercedes 600 - with cocktail bar, fridge, intercom and TV - his guards repeated 'The prince does not wish to talk about his car . . . Go away . . .'

   The guru, who came to Britain to spread his word, has three planes, based in the United States, TV and radio stations, and an IBM computer. His temporary home is a $125,000 'divine residence' in Highgate, London, with his mother and two brothers.

   When asked why he doesn't distribute his money to the poor, he replies: 'I have something far more precious to give them than money and material things - I give peace.'

7. "Bliss and a Regular Coffee", New Yorker, 10/1/73

   ...it is being operated by deotees of Guru Maharaj Ji, the chubby fifteen-year-old "perfect master" and Rolls Royce fancier who may or may not be God. p.32

8. "The guru who minds his mother", By MALCOLM N. CARTER, AP. 11/4/73 Stars and Stripes

   He likes gimmicks and wears an electronic digital watch, flies an airplane and fiddles with quadrophonic stereo equipment to hear Hugo Montenegro or Ray Conniff. Members of the public relations staff, which numbers more than 50, met recently to talk about the guru's image, concluding he was seen as a "fat 15-year-old with pie in his face ... and a Rolls-Royce ... who was arrested for jewel smuggling." ... He has a sprawling $80,000 split-level house here, plus homes in Los Angeles and India. There are two Mercedes- Benz automobiles for use in the U.S. and two airplanes. In London, his followers have given him a Rolls-Royce. Queried about this opulence, he asks whether he is supposed lo throw away gifts the mission accepts in his name. However, he once said: "We haven't to touch this materialistic world, because as soon as we start touching it, the vibrations of imperfection start touching us, and make us imperfect." ...It's a far cry from the headquarters of only last April, when the mission was paying $200 a month for a building that also housed the staff, the guru and his family. Today the rent is $3,500 monthly, and 120 disciples work there. Where does the mission get this kind of wealth? Donations, the executive disciples answer, refusing to detail them. The mission is a tax-exempt religious organization with a host of subsidiary corporations In the most recent tax return available, it declared only $5,646 in total assets at the end of 1971. The growth since then has been clearly a wonder. For example, the mission keeps track of devotees with an IBM computer it leases for $2,400 a month. It has just bought a $69,000 printing press and expends about $70,000 monthly on publications, films and recordings. It owns about 100 automobiles and a half-dozen trucks. ... ONCE A FOLLOWER receives knowledge, he can ask to join an ashram — typically a big old house with sparkling windows, picnic benches in the dining room, a "satsang" room, shared chores and crowded bedrooms. The devotee fills out an application for "personnel" with much more detail than the usual employment application. Besides questions about skills, education and arrests, two of the application's four pages ask for minute financial information, such as conditions attached to any trust funds, obligations on cash value of insurance policies, assets and mortgages....And the 29-year-old publications director from Tallahassee, Fla., Mac Avery, likens the mission to a family enterprise: "His father gave up the business, but it was up to him to do something about it."

9. "'You're a Perfect Master'", Newsweek November 19, 1973

   Such ascetism forms a provocative contrast to the guru's own life-style. In London, Rolls-Royces, Jaguars and a $100,000 town house permanently staffed with two cooks await the Perfect Master's visit. In Denver, a chauffered Mercedes limousine and an opulent split-level mansion stand ready, and he has two estates elsewhere in the U.S. All these trappings are said to be gifts from disciples, whose offerings include two airlpanes, the Perfect Master's digit wristwatch, his quadrophonic stereo equipment and his motorcycle. ... The luxuries that such lolly can supply are scarcely distateful to the youthful religious leader or to his three older brothers who, with their mother, compose the "holy family" that makes them the Rothschilds of the guru busiiness. Yet followers see no conflict between the worldly and spiritual riches. "Maharaj Ji's luxuries are gifts from a Western culture whose fruits are watches and Cadillacs," explains spokesman Richard Profump. "He isn't saying, abandon the material world. He's saying it our attachment to it that is wrong."

10. "Oz in the Astrodome" Ted Morgan, NYT 12/9/1973

    Q. Why don't you sell your Rolls-Royce and buy food for the people?

    A. What good would it do? I could sell it and people would still be hungry. I only have one Rolls-Royce.

    In the lobby of Houston's Warwick Hotel, on the first day of Millennium '73, two lange men with Texas drawls were talking. "What's this here guru preachin' about, conservation?" the first one asked. "Naw" said the other, "it's the who am I to refuse gifts from my followers kind of thing" The question of his emerald green Rolls-Royce, his Mercedes 600, his houses in London, New York, Los Angeles and Denver, and his private wealth and jewelry keeps coming up. "What do you expect him to do," a premie said, "travel from LA. to Houston on a donkey? Christ came on humble; well Guru Maharaj ji comes on like a king, we want him to have the best." In Houston, the best was the Astroworld's six-bedroom Celestial Suite, with its P.t Barnum Circus room, its Tarzan Adventure room, and its Sadie Thompson room, with real mosquito netting over the bed. It goes for $2,500 a day, but the guru got a special rate. To come here from India, he had to post a bond to recover his confiscated passport while his assets are being investigated following the seizure at customs of cash and gold watches worth $65,000. More than half of it was later confiscated. "If he really was a smuggler," a premie said, "all he had to do was give each premie going to India a gold watch to put on his wrist."

11. "BLISSING OUT IN HOUSTON", Francine du Plessix Gray, New York Review of Books December 13, 1973

    By the hangar of the Hobby airport premies weave garlands of carnations and snapdragons, and complete the festooning of the emerald-green Rolls Royce which will carry Perfect Master back to the city.

    Reporter: 'What about your Rolls Royce?'

    Maharaj Ji: 'If you're going to feed a child this morning he's going to be hungry again this afternoon…all a Rolls Royce is is a piece of tin. If I gave poor people my Rolls Royce they would need more tomorrow and I don't have any more Rolls Royce to give them.'

12. "The New Messiahs attract youthful converts" By VICTORIA GRAHAM Associated Press Writer, Dec. 22, 1973

    The Divine Light Mission is an Indian sect led by Guru Maharaj Ji, a plump, high-living 17-year-old compared by his followers with Jesus, Buddha and Krishna.... Maharaj Ji lives with his wife and child in a Malibu, Calif., mansion and has two airplanes, a Rolls Royce and three Mercedes Benz autos.

13. "Guru's Followers Meet Here Nightly" By SUSAN LANDON, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL , January 12, 1974

    Dave Miller noted that the guru had been criticized because he drives a Rolls Royce. "IF GURU sold,his car, the money he received would only feed poor people for a couple of days," Miller said. "It's more important to feed people spiritually than to feed them physically."

14. "Guru Maharaj Ji: Over the Hill at 16?" Ken Kelley, Ramparts February 1974

    Cars, particularly, dominate the divine homily-not surprising, since at last count he owns six-mostly Rolls Royces and Lincoln Continentals.

    "Guru," the woman from a Houston radio station drawls, "if you're so concerned about the poor, why don't you sell one of your Rolls Royces and buy them some food?" He answers, "if I gave them a Rolls Royce, they'd just come back in the afternoon and ask for another one, and I don't have another one to give them."

15. "Goom Rodgie's Razzle-Dazzle Roul Rush, Saturday Review/World 1/9/74 p.18

    The guru owns airplanes, real-estate that includes several expensive houses, and a burgeoning investment portfolio. Like any red-blooded teenage lad who happens to be a Perfect Master of the Universe, he pops wheelies with his motorcycle, tinkers with his two Mercedes-Benz automobiles and his $30,000 Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce, and eats hand-dipped Baskin-Robbins ice cream concoctions to his ulcer's delight.

16. "Jet Set God" By Kathleen Jeremy, Pageant February, 1974

    The adolescent god lives in considerable luxury, traveling around the world in Rolls-Royces and private planes. He has a personal cook who prepares his vegetarian diet and is on duty 24-hours a day - in case his plump, young master should require sustenance in the middle of the night. The guru's "Divine Residence" in London is worth $125,000 and is only one of his many homes around the world.

17. Time, Feb. 11, 1974 [2]

    A.C. Bhakivedanta, Swami of the Hare Krishna movement, at a news conference in Hong Kong last week denounced a rival guru: self-styled divinity Maharaj Ji, 16, now counseling his disciples in California. The ascetic swami, whose followers constitute a kind of saffron-robed Hindu version of the Salvation Army, began by saying, "You've got to decide whether he is God, or a dog." Noting the young leader's luxurious life style, the swami declared rather ominously, "He is cheating people, but he will be cheated in a bigger way. When God meets cheats, he can be a better cheat than they."

18. "Godhead Hi-Jinx" Richard Elman, Creem, March 1974

    Among the non-profits the guru has amassed are a $12,000 Mercedes Benz, a $26,000 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, a $30,000 Cessna Cardinal single engine plane and a $190,000 twin-engine job, as well as enough motorcycles to fill your average aircraft hanger.

19. "An East Indian Teen-Ager Say He Is God", Ken Kelley, Vogue March 1974

    Shunning the austere, simple life of traditional godheads, he has decided to make the best of his self-proclaimed divinity. At last count he owns six cars (all in the $15,000 to $30,000 range), two airplanes, a string of mansions from Los Angeles to Long Island, and real estate running into the millions of dollars. "Last time around the Messiah came as a beggar," says Rennie Davis. "This time he's come as a King!" ... Guru Mahraraj Ji lives a life of royalty on a sale with King Farouk, whose younger pictures he more than slightly resembles.

20. Levine, Richard. "When The Lord of All The Universe Played Houston: Many are called but few show up" in Rolling Stone. Issue No. 156, March 14, 1974, pp 36-50:

    To the side, a group of girls is decorating the hood of the Guru's emerald-green Rolls Royce with a heartshaped floral arrangement of red and white carnations. It is the most blissful of devotional services, and they are singing, "Maharaj Ji, Maharaj Ji/ We love you, we love you/ Satguru, Satguru . . ." to the tune of "Frere Jacques." The car's California license plate spells HANSA, which is, according to one of the girls, the Hindi word for "swan," the symbol of the Holy Family. Inside the Holy Limo one secretly glimpses a telephone, a framed picture of the Guru on the dashboard and a stereophonic tape deck loaded with a cassette recording of Your Saving Grace by the Steve Miller Band.

    Reporter: It's hard for some people to understand how you personally can live so luxuriously in your several homes and your Rolls Royces.

    Maharaj Ji: That life that you call luxurious ain't luxurious at all, because if any other person gets the same life I get, he's gonna blow apart in a million pieces in a split of a second.... People have made Rolls Royce a heck of a car, only it's a piece of tin with a V-8 engine which probably a Chevelle Concourse has.

    Reporter: Why don't you sell it and give food to people?

    Maharaj Ji: What good would it do. All that's gonna happen is they will need more and I don't have other Rolls Royces. I will sell everything and I'll walk and still they will be hungry.

    But there are only a handful here today, largely because a memo has been circulated directing all premies to look for jobs during the Christmas season in order to make up the organization's considerable debt. In normal times the DLM's $250,000 monthly operating budget is met through gifts from wealthy premies (at least one premie has donated a trust fund of over $100,000), the income from ten Divine Sales rummage stores across the country and several other small businesses ("Happy People Make Good Workers," reads the advertising handout for Divine Painters, Inc.) and the salaries of the 1200 premies who live in ashrams, most of whom hold outside jobs and must hand over their paychecks to the Mission. However, the expense of putting on Millennium has left the Divine Light Mission several hundred thousand dollars in the hole (aside from the $75,000 Astrodome rental fee, DLM officials refuse to divulge the costs of the event), necessitating the emergency measure.

21. "Who Was Maharaj Ji?" Marjoe Gortner, OUI, May 1974

    And cars. . . . He talks about cars quite a lot in his parables. Probably because he loves them and has so many: Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, motorcycles, and that sort of thing-all gifts.

22. Current Biography Yearbook 1974

    The mission is supported by members (many of whome turn over all their worldly goods to it) and by thrift shops and various other Divine Light business enterprises p. 254

    But he is no "ripoff", according to Khalid Shah, a correspondent for the Illustrated Weekly of India: "In India there is a guru on every corner, and every guru has a guru; the competition is very fierce. But I do not think guru Mharaj Ji came here for the money. He is a member of the highest of the high Brahmin caste. His family is quite wealthy. p.255

    At a press conference given during Millennium '73 a reporter asked GUru Mahraj Ji about his much publicized (and much criticized) Rolls Royce. "If you're going to feed a child this morning he's going to be hungry again this afternoon..." he replied. "All a Rolls Royce is, a piece of tin. If I gave poor people my Rolls-Royce they would need more tomorrow and I don't have any more Rolls-Royces to give them." p.255

    [Premies] are also encouraged to turn over their fortunes and incomes to the Mission. Complete devotees are provided with all necessities of life, but receive no salry, unless they bring in one from a job outside the ashram. There are approximately fifty ashrams in the United States, in addition to the stores and other enterprises run by the Mission. p.257

    In Denver, state and city sales tax agents have been investigating the legality of some of the tax-exempt purchases made by the Guru and his followers. But it is unlikely that the tax-exempt status of the Divine Light Mission can be successfully challenged, so wrapped is it in constituional protections. Tax experts cite a March 1, 1974 ruling in which a federal judge in California declared, "Neither this court nor any branch of this government will consider the merits or fallacies of any religion." p.257

    The site of the wedding was the $80,000 home that the Divine Light Mission maintains for Maharaj Ji on Dahlia Street in the Colorado capital. The DLM also provides him with expensive residences in London, Los Angeles, Old Westbury (New York), and several Indian cities. In addition to his automobiles (A Rolls-Royce in Los Angeles and Mercedes-Benzes in Denver and New York), the Maharaj Ji has received among other gifts from his followers, two Cessna airplanes (which he can pilot), a cabin cruiser, a motorcycle, and gold digital watches. p.257

23. "Investigation under way into Guru's business activities" AP Jun 24, 1974 GREELEY (Colo.) TRIBUNE

    The mission reportedly has used its sales tax exemption in purchasing each of its 56 cars about $5,000 in sales taxes when and trucks and one motorcycle. Included in that fleet are a Maserati, Rolls Royce and three Mercedes-Benzes which are reserved for the personal use of the guru and his immediate family. The five cars are worth more than $80,000, meaning the mission managed to avoid paying about $6,000 when it bought them. Moreover, its exemption from specific ownership taxes saves the mission more than $1,000 a year on those five cars alone. Other items purchased without paying the sales lax include dresses, suits, formal wear, luggage, socks, underwear, wristwatches, patio furniture and a 22-foot ocean-going power boat. Many of the items have been purchased in leading Denver department stores. One of the mission's favorites is Joseph Magnln, which sports a higher priced line of men's and women's fashions.

24. "Guru Maharaj Ji--mystic and business mogul", Patsy Sims, Chicago Tribune, 7/14/74

    [The operation is] One that owns at least 56 cars and trucks, plus another $80,000 worth of Maseratis and Rolls Royces reserved solely for the guru and his family...Is the guru a savior, a Christ reincarnated as his followers claim? Or is he just an expert fuind raiser, or even a dictator whose followers follo without question?

25. "Teen guru--God to some, a 'bunch of bunk' to others" Patsy Sims, Chicago Tribune 7/15/74

    A movement whose leader lives luxuriously with three houses (at least one of them with a swimming pool)$80,000 worth of Maseratis and Rolls-Royces, and two Cessnas, while his followers turn over to him their salaries and their possessions in return for a place to sleep (usually on a thin rubber pad or a sleeping bag), $1-a-day in vegetables, and whatever clothes the mission decides they need. A movement that, after talking those salaries sometimes forces followers to seek extra jobs or to turn to parents for additional money to pay fopr services at clinics and schools set up with their incomes. A movement which has at times encouraged its followers to try to talk parents into signing over inheritances sometimes amounting to millions of dollars....With one exception, the mission's far-flung use of its tax-exempt status has not been challenged. That exception os a current investigation by the Colorado Sales Tax Division into the tax free shopping sprees by the guru and his followers. The likelihood of any serious repercussions, however, seem doubtful. One attorney interviewed by the Denver paper said the guru's personal use of several fancy automobiles and the tax exempt purchase of luxury items vilated "standards of reasonableness"... In Houston, Arthur Lord, Houston bureau cheif for the National Broadcasting Corp., said that the mission left about $150,000 in unpaid bills after last November's Millennium. Some of the businesses have received all or partial payment, but at least 25 have received no money at all. Cliff Bowden insists he and fellow followers bestow the expenisve cars, houses, and boats on their leader "because we JUST love him so much." Besdies, Bowdon says "to me Guru Maharaj Ji is not living a luxurious lifestyle." Luxurious or not, even a disenchangted follower agreed the areiches are not contrary to what a "spiritual" leader should be. "It would" the former premie shrugged, "be equally silly for a guy who's trying to be God to ride around on a camel or in a Volkswagen."

26. "GURU'S HELPERS DEFEND PURCHASE OF BOAT, 56 CARS" UPI Los Angeles Times; Jun 24, 1974; pg. 2

    Officials of Divine Light Mission say there is nothing illegal about their using their religious tax exemption to buy beach umbrellas, a boat, and 56 cars, including a Rolls royce, for their 16-year-old guru. "All purchasing activities are in accordance with state and federal laws," said Cliff Bowden, a spokesman for the Denver-based mission which claims more than 60,000 followers for the guru Maharaj Ji in the United States. Officials at the Colorado Sales Tax Division and the Denver sales tax office think otherwise and have begun field audits on the mission's use of the tax exemption.

27. "Notes on People" Albin Krebs, New York Times November 30, 1974

    The Maharaj Ji, the 16-year-old guru who has a penchant for sports cars, has a new car, a 1974 English Jensen four passenger touring model. Joe Anctil, spokeman for the youthful guru, who is said have 6 million followers throughout the world, issued the following explanation in Denver: "We had been looking for some time for an open-topped car which Maharaj Ji could ride at festivals, parades or large gatherings. When we found this car we snapped it up because it was such a bargain." The bargain price was $22,000

28. "Growing Pile of Unpaid Bills Beneath Guru's Spiritual Bliss", Deborah Frazier, Denver (UPI) 3/23/75

    Garson said one method used to balance the budget is asking rich premies — those who have recently become devotees — for donations preferably their entire savings. He said one woman, Darby McNeal of Canada and her $400,000 trust fund, is a good example of that. "Bob Mishler, the mission's executive director, talked Darby into signing over power of attorney shortly after she joined," said Garson, who says he was instructed to collect the money for the mission. According to Garson, the mission has been given several trust funds and several families, ineluding Miss McNeal's, are contesting the action.

29. "Newsmakers" Los Angeles Times; Mar 23, 1975; pg. 2

    Beneath the spiritual bliss of the Guru' Maharaj Ji's Denver-based Divine Light Mission lie more than $300,00 in unpaid bills and a never-ending fund drive, according to the mission's former financial director, Micael D. Garson. Garson quit his job in February "because I could not tolerate the contradictions." He said there was a continuing $300,000 deb caused by declining revenues and the demands of the recently married 17-year-old guru. "Whn the guru wants something, be it a $30,000 car or a new house, he gets it," Garson said. Meanwhile, other mission bills go unpaid. For example, Millennium '73, the mission's huge festival at the Houston Astrodome, was paid for only after mission equipment and property had been repossessed. Many of the problems are caused by a lack of business understanding that stems for the mission's contention that it is a spiritual not a business organization, Garson said. "There are some people that are trying to get the mission on the right track," he said. "But it takes a lot of money to keep a guru."

30. "THE NATION" Los Angeles Times Mar 25, 1975 pg. A2

    A spokesman denied claims by a former aide that the Divine Light Mission was in serious financial trouble as a result of expensive tastes of its leaders, teenaged Guru Maharaj Ji.

31. "MOTHER OUSTS 'PLAYBOY' GURU" in Los Angeles Times. Wednesday April 2, 1975, PART II, p. 6A

    [Abstract: "The mother of Guru Maharaji Ji, the 17-year-old Indian religous lea[d]er now-living in Malibu, Calif, with an American wife, renounced her son Tuesday and accused him of being a playboy instead of a holy man."]

    [Susan Butcher, speaking on behalf of Shri Mataji (Rawat's mother), said,] "He has not been practicing what he has been preaching....He has always preached and recommended to his devotees to live a life of vegetarianism, celibacy, and abstention from alcohol, and all excessive forms of materialism. Now he himself is indulging and encouraging his devotees to eat meat, to get married and have sexual relations, and to drink. He's not living a spiritual life. He's being a playboy."

32. BELKIND, MYRON L. "Guru's mother rejects him as religion chief" in INDEPENDENT (AM); PRESS-TELEGRAM (PM). Long Beach, California, Wednesday, April 2, 1975 - 9:

    KNOWN as Shri Mataji, or holy mother, she said her son, "under the instigation of certain bad elements in the United States Divine Light Mission, has continuously disrespected my will by adopting a despicable, nonspiritual way of life."

    Susan Butcher, a. 30 year-old Canadian devotee of the Divine Light Movement, said the Guru's relatives in India were upset with the way Maharaj Ji was living in the United States.

    "He has not been practicing what he has been preaching," said Miss Butcher, who became a devotee of the Guru when he visited Toronto in 1971. Speaking in behalf of the Guru's mother, Miss Butcher said, "He has always preached and recommended his devotees to live a life of vegetarianism, celibacy and abstaining from alcohol and all excessive forms of materialism. Now he himself is indulging and encouraging his devotees to eat meat, to get married and have sexual relations and to drink. He's not living a spiritual life, He's being a playboy."

33. "Guru Tries to Take Control of Mission" in The Ruston Daily Leader, April 9, 1975:

    Earlier this month, the guru's mother issued a statement in New Delhi saying she had disowned her son because of his pursuit of "a despicable, nonspiritual way of life." [...]

    Sources close to Rajeshwari Devi said she was upset because of her son's materialistic lifestyle, including a fondness for expensive homes and sports cars, and because of his marriage last year to his secretary.

34. Time Apr. 07, 1975 [3]

    Even Guru Maharaj Ji, 17, Perfect Master of the Divine Light Mission and well-known lover of sports cars, cabin cruisers and good living, may soon face some economic problems. At least he will if a British Columbia court believes Michael Garson, 35, the guru's former financial analyst. Garson claims that the mission has been more than $240,000 in debt for over a year and its donations declining. He testified as a witness in a case seeking to prevent U.S. Heiress Darby McNeal, 31, now a British Columbia resident, from signing over an estimated $400,000 inheritance to the Divine Light Mission. Each week about $35,000 in donations and income flow into the mission's Denver headquarters, said Garson, and "approximately 60% of the gross receipts are directed to maintain the life-style of the Maharaj Ji and those close to him. So far as I could see, the whole function of the organization was to provide an opulent existence for the Maharaj Ji."

35. Greenfield 1975

    In one or another of its corporate incarnations, Divine Light Mission owned Csssna airplnes, Rolls-Royces and Mercedes automobiles, and palatial "divine" residences in Denver and Los Angeles. Its total real worth was prbably somewhere around the million-dallr mark. p.14

    In interviews, speeches, and public appearances it had fallen to Rennie Davis to convince both the youth of America and their parents that Guru Maharaj Ji was not a smuggler, an ulcer-ridden puppet who drove a Rolls Royce while thousands starved in his native India, or the boss who had ordered a Detroit reported beaten unconscious. It was a task no sane Madison Avenue public relations firm would have attempted. For once those issues were dealt with, the questins of where allof the guru's money came from had to be answered. And, like any true nightmare, that question occurred again and again. p. 35

    At a post-Millennium meeting in Denver, Guru Maharaj-ji sugested to his disiples that they go to work to help pay off the organization's debts. Quickly, save for an occasional joke in some gossip column or natural news like the guru marrying his twenty-four-year old secretary (after having obtained permission from a judge because he was underage, with wedding gifts which included a silver Maserati), or an advisor being indicted in a stck swindle, the activities of the Divine Light Mission have passed from the pages of newspapers and magazines and now are of interest to disciples only. p.275

36. "Young Guru's Mother Replaces Him" Los Angeles TimesApr 12, 1975; pg. A2

    Interviewed Friday in the Mission's headquarters in New Delhi with her new guru sitting beside her, the 49-year-old mother blamed the downfall of her youngest sone on a handful of American associates, including his 26-year-old secretary, whom he married last year. "They have spoiled him," she said, speaking in Hindi. "These people, because of getting so many donations, have corrupted themselves and Maharaj Ji. They are using him like a hen that lays golden eggs, as a tool to get more and more money and gifts for a few American followers who live in a high style." Shri Mataji angrily denied she had renounced Mahraj Ji because she and Bhagwan Ji wanted a share of the funds collected in America. "There is no jealousy about this," she said. "No guru or holy person should want money."

37. "One Lord Too Many", Time Apr. 28, 1975

    Nowhere is the boy guru's universe better furnished than in the U.S., to which he brought his movement in 1971: a string of 45 ashrams (retreat houses) and information centers in 110 cities across the country tend to the spiritual needs of the Divine Light flock, whose tax-exempt offerings have furnished the teen-age Lord with, among other things, an $80,000 pad in Denver, a $400,000 estate in Malibu and an armada of limousines and racing cars.... Taxmen have been picking over the Divine Light Mission's finances. Even as contributions have been rising, the guru's bookkeepers have been busy juggling some $206,000 in debts; only recently they paid off the Houston Astrodome for a 1973 rally proclaimed "the most significant event in the history of humanity."

38. "Seventeen-year-old guru likes pizza and sports cars", DEBORAH FRAZIER UPI Santa Fe, July 13,1975 THE NEW MEXICAN.

    The guru Maharaj Ji is 17 years old, likes pizza, drives a Masarati, sports a mustache and is Master of the Universe to millions of followers. Groomed to lead since birth, Pralap Singh Rawat Balygeshwar Satguru Shri Maharaj Ji picked up his taste for sports cars and gold watches since bringing the Divine Light Mission to the United Stales in 1971. "A wealthy Boston premie (a term for the guru's followers) gave Maharaj Ji the Masarati for his wedding, just as you or I would give an apple," said Joe Anctil, a former Houston, Tex public relations man who now is the guru's press secretary. Anctil said he was hired after reporters asked the guru about his sex life.

    "It does take a lot of money to keep a guru and he does live well, but what he teaches I will believe in for the rest of my life," said Michael Garson, the guru's former financial analyst who left the Mission because of management disputes. In his first three years in the United States, new converts were common and their contributions led to the Maharaj Ji's homes in three states, a fleet of cars, a wardrobe of flashy clothes and two airplanes. Followers are encouraged to live in ashrams, communal houses where the virlures of celibacy, poverty and meditation are practiced. "If I gave poor people my Rolls-Royce, they would need more tomorrow and I don't have any more Rolls-Royces to give them," the guru once said in defense of his worldly goods.The guru has had money problems. By 1973 the mission was $682,000 in debt, disorganization was thinning the ranks of the faithful and worldwide criticism was beginning to sting.

39. "LEADER OWNS LUXURY CARS" Los Angeles Times Apr 10, 1976; pg. A27

    The Divine Light Mission, a religious sect headed by Guru Maharaj Ji, 18, has an annual income of $3.78 million from gifts, tthes and earnings, a spokesman says. ...The mission owns property in Malibu valued at $554,000 and a hhome in Denver worth $86,000 which the guru uses when here, Anctil said. He also revealed for the first time the guru's private ownership of two cars, a Lotus and a Mercedes-Benz, as well as two Honda motorcycles. In addition, Anctil said the mission owns a Jensen, a car valued at $22,000 and used for ceremonial purposes only, as well as a Maserati, two Mercedes-Benzes and a mobile van. ... Although the sect's leader pays for his own clothes and those of his family from a personal account, Anctil said the mission makes mortgage payments on the two pieces of real estate, provides him with insurance, and pays for his travel. Despite its income, Anctil said the mission is still faced with a debt, although is has been reduced in recent years. A deficit of $650,000 three years ago has been cut to $80,000, he said. The Divine Light Mission ... now only claims 15,000 regular financial contributors.

40. p.143 Enroth, Ronald. Youth, Brainwashing, and the Extremist Cults Zondervan 1977

    If nothing else, the movement has clerly furthered the financial status of its teen-age leader. The guru smiles all the way to the bank in his $50,000 refrigerator-equipped Rolls Royce... His affluent life style, which hardly befits the ideal of traditional Indian gurus, caused a family feud when his mother, charging that Maharaj Ji had become a playboy, named her oldest son to replace his brother as new guru of the Divine Light Mission.

41. All God's Children - 1977; THE CULT EXPERIENCE: SALVATION OR SLAVERY? CARROL STONER AND JO ANNE PARKE 36 The New Religions ... Why Now?

    The guru began leading a life that was not in keeping with his image as a holy man, and his mother fumed. He countered by saying that the "souls" in the United States were "poor in spirit but not in body," which by implication says one must live frugally only when trying to evangelize among the poor, and not the affluent.

42. Foss & Larkin 1978

    For instance, Guru Maharaj Ji's enjoyment of lavish material luxury (when celibacy and poverty were enjoined upon ashram residents) has from time to time been taken for an enormous lila. It is not that the premies necessarily find anything the least strange in his collection of cars, planes, Divine Residences, tape machines, and other baubles. After all, why should they begrudge him a white Mercedes if they would not have felt the same about Janis ("Lord, won'tcha buy me a Mercedes Benz") Joplin? Nevertheless, the flaunting of conspicuous wealth by religious dignitaries is alien to the religious traditions of the middle class from which most premies derive (though not to the religious traditions of the Fundamentalist lower classes, both black and white) and is the object of the contempt and derision of the media, middle-class parents, and rival sects; so the subject kept cropping up in satsang, especially with non-premies around. The premies retorted that it is all lila, a gigantic joke played upon a money-crazed and contraption-collecting society in which Guru Maharaj Ji holds up a mirror to a debased consumer culture. This is proof that he is Perfect Master of this Age.

43. Pilarzyk, Thomas. "The Origin, Development, and Decline of a Youth Culture Religion: An Application of Sectarianization Theory" in Review of Religious Research. Autumn 1978, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 23-43:

    The youth culture's response to the DLM was somewhat ambiguous, combining indifference with some instances of overt hostility. Its most visible response came from media accounts by youth culture publications.² Most of these responses were made from a decidedly leftist political ideology. Such criticisms usually focused upon the alleged phoniness of the "blissed-out premies" (followers of the guru), the "hocuspocus" aspects of the meditation, and the "materialistic fixations" and the physical condition of the guru (Reed, 1973; Kelley, 1974; Levine, 1974; Baxter, 1974). These accounts commonly pondered the authenticity of conversions of past political activists who became premies. Others questioned the use of movement funds (Kelley, 1974. Morgan, 1973). Premie and former political leftist Rene Davis became a popular target of such publications (see Davis, 1974). In general, most accounts have been quite negative and full of distortions from the DLM's point of view. However, it should be noted that the movement has received positive comments from such youth culture "folk heroes" as anti-war activist Rev. Daniel Berrigan, radical lawyer William Kunstler, and singer-songwriter Cat Stevens. Typical reactions by DLM converts to the negative reports varied from bewilderment and amusement to extreme defensiveness. [...]

    At the local ashrams, dissension among premies emerged over the reported leadership conflicts, the guru's physical image and his increasingly materialistic lifestyle. His marriage also held important implications for membership disintegration. For example, reactions to their spiritual leader's marriage included the departure of an estimated 40 to 80 percent of ashram premies nationwide as members redefined their own lives regarding celibacy and marriage. Stories of spontaneously-planned marriages between some ashram premies circulated between local centers. At one commune, the ashram membership dwindled to 9. A New York ashram also was reduced drastically in size from 48 to 28 full-time members. Therefore, the marriage of the movement's symbolic leader led tot a critical re-examination of premie life and to a subsequent mass exodus of ashram premies across the country. This decline in ashram residency had profound effects on the whole movement. Foss and Larkin (1975) note that conversions declined in 1974 to less than 6,000 nationwide.

    ² For example, one can compare reports by establishment mass media with youth movement sources. For the former, see Newsweek (August 2, 1971), Pfarrer (1973), Morean (1973), de Plessix Gray (1973) and Baxter (1974). For the latter, see Jacobi' (1972), Reed (1973), Kelley (1974), Davis (1974) and Levine (1974).

44. Downton 1979

    Luxury and service were his birthright and later became his peronal life-style when he was elevated to his father's position as Perfect Master at the age of eight. (p.2) Reports in the media were unfavorable, repeating often that he seemed to live more like a king than a Messiah (p.5) Then, of course, there were the numerous newspaper accounts of the guru's life-style, which pictured him as more interested in accumulating wealth and power than in changing the world.(p.188)

45. Rudin & Rudin 1980

    The Mission incorporated in Colorado as a tax-exempt church and grew into a multi-million-dollar a year business enterprise. According to <Michael Bergman, he group's Executive Finance Director, between January and June, 1973, its business concerns grew 800 percent. They invested in real estate, operated prinintg businesses, a band, and restaurants. Income came also from large gifts, tithing of all members, and from the assets turned over by premies whol lived in the ashrams. Maharaj Ji rode in a green Rolls Royce, a Mercedes 600, a Lotus sportscar, and on several motorcycles. The group owned houses in London, New York, and Denver. In 1974 the Mission purchased the four-acre Anacapa View estate in Malibu, California, for Maharaj Ji and his new bride. The mansion on the ocean with swimming pool and tennis court costs a half a million dollars. p.63

    The guru's mother was so upset over the marriage and her son's opulent lifestyle that she disowned him... p.65

46. p. 207 Larson 1982

    The Astrodome gathering rang up huge debts, and questions were raised about the Guru's true age and materialistic preoccupations...Maharaj Ji's passion for automobiles extended to a Jensen, Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, Lotus, and a mobile van.

47. Melton J. Gordon Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. New York/London: Garland, 1986 (revised edition), ISBN 0-8240-9036-5, pp. 141-145:

    [Around May 1974] Premies purchased an estate in Malibu into which the couple moved. Mataji, Maharaj Ji’s mother, disapproved of the marriage and the life style of the now successful guru. Relations within the Holy Family were strained considerably. Accusing her son of breaking his spiritual disciplines, Mataji took control of the Mission in India and replaced him with his eldest brother.

48. Galanter 1989

    He began dressing in western clothes and adoped a luxurious lifestyle that incluided setting up residence in a mansion and being ferried about in a limousine. p.24 In 1984 Maharaj Ji moved again, with his wife, four children, and considerable assets. This time he went to the affluent beach community of Malibu in West Los Angeles but did not ask his followers to join him. p.25

49. p.105 Levine 1989

    ...true believership is in by far the majority of instances a temporary phenomenon. It is followed...by a stage I call "seeds of doubt." This is typifeid by the member seemingly suddenly being aware of two major issues which had for many months (usually) or year been buried. The first is the apparent inconsistencies and hypocrisies in the group itself: for example, living at subsistence level in the Divine Light Mission while the Maharaj Ji lived in ostentatious opulence.

50. Messer 1989

    But we share the habit of expecting holy men to have renounced material pleasures--witness what we pay our preachers--and to be aged and erudite. This leader of sime five million devotees is really a child and a lover of machine-age toys: cars, airplanes, stereos, rock band equipment, even computers, which fascinate him. p.52

    Divine Light Mission operates almost entirely without capital, and this is the source of great numbers of "grace" stories. In 1972, for example, the Mission wanted to buy a small plane to transport Guru Maharaj Ji and his family around the United States. They had negotiated a price and secured a lon from the bank. The down payment was nearly $18,000, with no serious chance of generating it even in donations. The owner of the plane eventually put up the money himself, to satisfy the bank, because he "liked Guru Maharaj Ji." p.66

51. p.117 Hunt 2003

    Leaving his more ascetic life behind him, he does not personally eschew material possessions. Over time, critics have focused on what appears to be his opulent lifestyle and argue that it is sported largely by the donations of his followers.

52. p.101 Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions. Zondervan 2006

    Though his following continued for some months, gradually the numbers lessened because of the extravagent lifestyle that many observed the "incarnate" youthful god to be living in the United States. A passion for automobiles, real estate, and the best of foods convinced many that hey had been duped.

53. p.219 Cagan 2007

    [Describes his lifestyle as] affluent [and] privileged.

Behavior

• Maharaj Ji stays up in the Celestial Suite that afternoon watching the program at the Astrodome on a closed circuit television; but at one point he sends down his personal bodyguard, a black-belt karate instructor named Joe Lopez, who promptly sprays the crowd with pink foam confetti from an aerosol can. It is a lila, an example of the divine play that is the principal way devotees relate to Maharaj Ji, and the premies scramble for the stringy pieces of foam to keep as momentos. Every premie who has been around the Holy Family can tell a story about the time the Guru sprayed him with shaving cream, squirted a water pistol at him, threw a pie in his face or-the favorite lila-pushed him into a swimming pool at one of the three Divine Residences in the United States. Occasionally, the lila take a more ominous turn. Jacques Sandoz, a Swiss premie who heads Shri Hans Films, tells about an incident that took place at the Divine Residence in Los Angeles, where he held the end of a balloon between his teeth while Bal Bhagwan Ji stood on a balcony 40 feet away and shot at it with a BB gun to test his devotion. Another premie describes the time the Guru fired a pistol at a number of prized vases in the backyard of the L.A. Residence "to teach us the worthlessness of material possessions."
  • "When The Lord of All The Universe Played Houston". Richard Levine, RollingStone Magazine March 14, 1974

• Maharaj Ji has other worldly tastes--Batman comic books for one, squirt guns for another. He loves to play jokes--known as "lilas" or "God's game-playing"--on his disciples: at a recent festival in India he doused followers in red paint.
  • "'You're a Perfect Master'", Newsweek November 19, 1973

• His devotees live in large houses called ashrams and they tremble with joy at the thought of seeing him in the flesh. When they do, divine protocol calls for them to instantly kiss his feet. Cleaning the bathroom that the Guru will use is one of the holiest functions in the Divine Light Mission, and those followers fortunate enough to have been pushed into a puddle, dragged on a motorcycle, or pinched in the face by the Guru--three types of affection he is fond of bestowing--are considered near-saints.
  • "An East Indian Teen Ager Says He Is God", Ken Kelley, Vogue. March 1974

• The next movement in this dramatic form is for the premie to describe the masochistic depths to which he or she would go to grovel at the toes of the Lord, the more self-humiliating the better. the Kid himself dotes on inflicting such punishment; numerous tales abound of him dragging his followers into the mud, pushing them into rivers, and nearly slaughtering them on his motorcycle. (One ecstatic woman told me of the incredible rush she felt, when, late at night before the first day of Millennium, The Kid came barreling around the corner of one of the Astrodome halls in a golf cart, nearly mowing her down, before caroming off the wall and puttering off.)
  • Kelley 1974 Ramparts

• Off stage, according to his entourage, Maharaj ji is an uncomplicated, fun-loving teen-ager, who likes to push his followers into hotel swimming pools, Ethel Kennedy style. Joe Lopez, his karate instructor security chief, told me: "I've been with Guru Maharaj ji days and days and days and days; he doesn't put on airs. Like, he'll call me over to the car and I'll put my head in and he'll close the electric window and catch my head in it. Another thing ... he's not really fat, he's just strong. I go swimming with him, and I can tell you, he hasn't got a paunch."
• "Oz in the Astrodome" Ted Morgan, NYT 12/9/1973

• Maharaj Ji's favorite form of lila is to throw devotees into his swimming pool.
  • "BLISSING OUT IN HOUSTON", Francine du Plessix Gray, New York Review of Books December 13, 1973

• He is also fond of pushing his top aides into swimming pools (Rennie got dunked seven times one day) and occasionally trying to run them over with his motorcycle.
  • "DEATH OF THE SALESMAN" Robert Sheer, Playboy, June 1974

• Robert Mishler, the Mission's former president, reports that the guru often humiliates premies. "He would have followers strip in front of others." He says that Maharaj Ji once poured a can of oil over a premie who was servicng his car. Mishler and the Mission's former vice president, John Hand, Jr., accuse Maharaj Ji of sexual and physical assaults on his followers. Mishler says the guru frequently beat premies with his fist or a cane and that he (Mishler) was "kneed in the groin once for no resaon at all." p.67
  • Rudin, A. James and Marcia R. Rudin. Prison or Paradise?, Fortress Press Philadelphia 1980

• Among his favorite lilas (divine pranks) is squirting people with a water pistol.
  • Current Biography Yearbook 1974

• Maharaj Ji, who frequently acted like a teenager that he was in public, was seen as immature and hence unfit to be a religious leader. p.144
  • Melton 1968

• Guru Maharaj Ji is well known for his penchant for spraying his followers with paint, water, and silly foam. All such dousings are regarded by premies as important religious experiences. p.161
  • Foss & Larkin 1978

• It's a tribute of Maharaj Ji's powers, or evidence of Rennie's exhaustion, that he could buy the Guru on first sight, considering what that first sight was. Ji turned up according to Rennie, dressed in a business suit, with cowboy boots which zipper up the front — and riding on a motorcycle. "He drove it around in circles, tried to run people over, tied a bed to it, and dragged people in the bed around, and people were relating to him as the Lord of the Universe. Every day he played, but everything had a credible lesson. He rendered 150 adults to the level of a child. At one point I thought he wasn't God, bnt the King of the Yippies."
  • "What Is He—a Lord or an Incredible Fraud?", Nicholas Von Hoffman, The Capital Times April 27, 1973

• That is the spiritual leader, but one who happens to be 15 years old and a playful adolescent as well. His followers bask in his jocularity, feeling privileged when the guru pushes a devotee into the swimming pool. Or looking for the message when he grabs a mason's trowel and tiles a follower's face.
  • "Guru, 15, Gives 'Light' Lives the Good Life" Los Angeles Times Sep 23, 1973 pg. A2

• During this period of disillusionment, Mark thought back on the many festivals he had attended over the years. He tried to recall the feelings of light and love that images of the guru could sometimes engender. But more and more often his thoughts shifted to the many abuses he had witnessed, the times Maharaj Ji had berated and humiliated disciples who were beggin and pleading at this feet for a sign of love or a word of kindness. Such humiliations had always been excusable before; if Maharaj Ji treated his subjects in this way, there had to be a reason, part of God's plan for acknowledging his Being on earth. Yet less and less were Mark and Sandy able to justify past abuses and the present sense ofloss and hurt that they were experiencing. p.24
• Abusive practices within the Eastern-based groups generally took on a different meaning, as physical and psychologuical punishment were tied to the act of surrender and a test of commitment. In these circumstances, followers would be judged according to their willingness to endure pain and humiliation for the leader. Thus, Divine Light followers spoke of times when the guru would kick a groveling devotee or force liquids down a person's throat for the purpose of proving that he or she would do anythig for the lord. p.94
  • Jacobs, Janet Liebman. Divine Disnchantment:Deconverting from New Religions. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989 ISBN 0253323967

• He was after all, still a teenager, not above spraying his coterie with shaving cream for fun. Such pranks led them to speak of his "heavenly playfulness."
  • Galanter, Marc Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion

• He loves to play jokes-like the time back in India when he jumped onto his motorcycle and roared away, scattering dust and gravel on some people who had prostrated themselves to kiss his lotus feet.
  • "Goom Rodgie's Razzle-Dazzle Roul Rush, Saturday Review/World 1/9/74 p.18