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Guru Maharaj Ji's in-laws live in Imperial Beach
Still beautiful
Two years ago the Reader had a story on an ashram of followers of the Guru Maharaj Ji on La Jolla Shores Drive.
Since then lots has happened to the Maharaj Ji movement. There was Millenium ’73, the convention of followers held at the Houston Astrodome. There was the rather shocking conversion to Divine Light of anti-war activist Rennie Davis. There was the pie thrown in Guru Maharaj Ji’s face by an underground paper staff member in Detroit. There was the marriage of the 16-year-old Guru to Marilyn Johnson, a United Air Lines stewardess from Imperial Beach. And now there has been the attempt by the Guru’s mother and older brother to dethrone the young Guru, followed by suit and countersuit filed in civil court in India. Though supposedly wholly unrelated to these facts, the La Jolla ashram has in the meantime disappeared.
That isn’t to say the San Diego Divine Light Mission itself has dissolved. Indeed, 25 or so of the followers gathered in the Park last week for a Premie picnic (“ ‘Premie’ means ‘lover’ in India,” they explain.). And Carly and Richard, two of the leaders of the San Diego Mission, are only too willing to review their undaunted faith in Guru Maharaj Ji after the picnic in a room in Richard’s pink house overlooking the canyon near Park and University.
“Sure, a lot has happened in the last few years. But as anyone who has received knowledge can tell you, the important thing is not the things that are reported in the papers, but the experience that has been given to us by the Guru Maharaj Ji. Everything else doesn’t really matter.”
Richard, a handsome carpenter in his twenties, says he came from Philly (as if you couldn’t tell by his accent), spent several years in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and while on a visit back East, met one of the Guru’s mahatmas, or disciples.
“It was really weird. I saw this person with a total sense of peace. There were no games. I felt I was meeting the first person in my life that I could trust. I wanted to just stay around him. He said he had gotten his gift by being with the Guru about seven years.”
Richard, like all those who have received knowledge, went first through a satsang, or truth-discussion with the mahatma. Then there was a “knowledge-session,” where the transformational experience took place.
“It’s like you’re finally aware of God, or the creative intelligence or force that unifies the universe. You know, 1 had had these feelings before that electricity was liquid, that our bodies were basically just energy, and that’s what you realize - that there is this energy behind everything in the universe.”
Carly, who works in a store in La Jolla, seems to be a few years younger than Richard. She is probably the archetypal Southern California searcher. She was raised a Catholic; her parents had some sort of travel service in Mexico. About 5 or 6 years ago she had been looking in lots of places for the answer to her anxiety about life’s real meaning.
“I was living in Santa Barbara. It was the late ‘60’s and I had decided that politics were useless. People just kept replacing those in power with the same thing, and the same things were happening. I began reading the Bible. I began reading Vadanta (Hindu scripture).
"I went to Hare Krishna meetings. I went to the Theosophical Society. I was doing ZaZen-Zen Buddhist meditation. Then one day I saw this poster with a picture of the Guru Maharaj Ji saying he was coming to Santa Barbara. At the time I was having all kinds of mystical experiences. And 1 kept flashing on the Guru’s face from the poster. So I went to the meeting and it turned out it was cancelled. But I waited around and this girl asked me if I wanted to go to L.A. to see him. That was his first visit to the States and there were only 7 Guru Maharaj Ji followers then. After only a day of satsang, I knew. It just clicked. I received knowledge. It’s too beautiful to describe. I can’t. I’d had mystical experiences before, but this was it.”
Carly, then, is one of the original American premies. She did a lot of travelling with the Guru herself, and she went to India twice for an intense period of satsang and service in the seat of the Divine Light — Prem Nagar, the City of Love. (“The organizational headquarters is New Dehli, but the religious headquarters is Prem Nagar, right near where the Guru Maharaj Ji grew up.”) Carly says it was only in India where she’s encountered any outright hostility. Though there are 3 1/2 million who have received knowledge in India, there is even a political party that has as one of its main tenets hostility to Gurus. “It was the party that Shri Hans, Guru Maharaj Ji’s father, belonged to before he became a Perfect Master... India is the only place where I’ve experienced hostility. They stoned us there.”
Though Carly and Richard insist that historical events have little to do with their religious experience, they explain that if the Guru’s mother and brother, who have denounced the Guru as a playboy, were to come to San Diego, they would not accept them. Since both the mother and the brother have up to now enjoyed a status in the movement something like sainthood, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do. But premies Carly and Richard take it philosophically, “Guru Maharaj Ji says obstacles are a part of life. All we can say is that he’s given us knowledge. We can’t make judgments about other people, because we don’t know what their experience of knowledge has been.”
Comments are likewise muted about local Marilyn Johnson, the blonde stewardess who received knowledge, and now as the Guru’s wife, gives satsang herself. “I think she received knowledge in Los Angeles... Her parents, who live in Imperial Beach, well, they have come to see that she and Guru Maharaj Ji are very happy ... No, the parents haven’t received knowledge themselves yet, but they are seeking it. They come to some of our satsang meetings, and Guru Maharaj Ji comes to visit them in San Diego.”
One of the happier anecdotes that Carly and Richard like to share is the conversion of Rennie Davis, formerly famous as one of the Chicago Seven.
Rennie was on his way to Paris, where he was going to participate in the Vietnam war crime trials. He was flying Air India and happened to meet an old friend who had also been involved in the anti-war movement. The friend had become a follower of Guru Maharaj Ji and was on his way to Prem Nagar to do satsang and service, and he offered to take Rennie with him. So Rennie went on to India and didn’t go to the War Crime trials. Of course, since then, he gets some criticism at meetings. There are those who can’t believe he would say not to pass judgment on others like President Nixon ... “But Rennie’s a beautiful person. He’s really beautiful.”
As to the question of forming religious communities, or ashrams, Richard and Cady don’t see an immediate need for one in San Diego, though there are somewhere around 150 premies in town. The La Jolla ashram itself may not have been a real ashram, at least the way ashrams are run nowadays. Now, to join an ashram, one must take almost monastic vows, pledging vegetarianism, chastity (one may have sex with a spouse), practice of satsang and service, and other rules. And a person might live a good life even without ashrams. The closest ashram to San Diego is the one in Los Angeles.
Right now, the San Diego followers meet about four times a week in different houses to do satsang, but currently satsang is suspended while premies are preparing for the upcoming visit of Mahatma Gurucharnanand. This Mahatma, who’s coming to Balboa.Park on June 8, is the one who gave knowledge to Carly back in 1970 in Los Angeles, and is apparently one of the Guru’s insiders (he was a follower of the Guru’s father back in 1950).
“He’s just beautiful, comments Carly. Whatever the direction of the San Diego premies, or whatever the external events, it does seem that the faith of mystical premies will be hard to shake. Probably one of the reasons is that premies don’t even use the word faith. Either a person has knowledge, completely certain, or he doesn’t.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Guru Maharaj Ji's in-laws live in Imperial Beach
Still beautiful
Guru Maharaj Ji's in-laws live in Imperial Beach
Still beautiful
Two years ago the Reader had a story on an ashram of followers of the Guru Maharaj Ji on La Jolla Shores Drive.
Since then lots has happened to the Maharaj Ji movement. There was Millenium ’73, the convention of followers held at the Houston Astrodome. There was the rather shocking conversion to Divine Light of anti-war activist Rennie Davis. There was the pie thrown in Guru Maharaj Ji’s face by an underground paper staff member in Detroit. There was the marriage of the 16-year-old Guru to Marilyn Johnson, a United Air Lines stewardess from Imperial Beach. And now there has been the attempt by the Guru’s mother and older brother to dethrone the young Guru, followed by suit and countersuit filed in civil court in India. Though supposedly wholly unrelated to these facts, the La Jolla ashram has in the meantime disappeared.
That isn’t to say the San Diego Divine Light Mission itself has dissolved. Indeed, 25 or so of the followers gathered in the Park last week for a Premie picnic (“ ‘Premie’ means ‘lover’ in India,” they explain.). And Carly and Richard, two of the leaders of the San Diego Mission, are only too willing to review their undaunted faith in Guru Maharaj Ji after the picnic in a room in Richard’s pink house overlooking the canyon near Park and University.
“Sure, a lot has happened in the last few years. But as anyone who has received knowledge can tell you, the important thing is not the things that are reported in the papers, but the experience that has been given to us by the Guru Maharaj Ji. Everything else doesn’t really matter.”
Richard, a handsome carpenter in his twenties, says he came from Philly (as if you couldn’t tell by his accent), spent several years in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and while on a visit back East, met one of the Guru’s mahatmas, or disciples.
“It was really weird. I saw this person with a total sense of peace. There were no games. I felt I was meeting the first person in my life that I could trust. I wanted to just stay around him. He said he had gotten his gift by being with the Guru about seven years.”
Richard, like all those who have received knowledge, went first through a satsang, or truth-discussion with the mahatma. Then there was a “knowledge-session,” where the transformational experience took place.
“It’s like you’re finally aware of God, or the creative intelligence or force that unifies the universe. You know, 1 had had these feelings before that electricity was liquid, that our bodies were basically just energy, and that’s what you realize - that there is this energy behind everything in the universe.”
Carly, who works in a store in La Jolla, seems to be a few years younger than Richard. She is probably the archetypal Southern California searcher. She was raised a Catholic; her parents had some sort of travel service in Mexico. About 5 or 6 years ago she had been looking in lots of places for the answer to her anxiety about life’s real meaning.
“I was living in Santa Barbara. It was the late ‘60’s and I had decided that politics were useless. People just kept replacing those in power with the same thing, and the same things were happening. I began reading the Bible. I began reading Vadanta (Hindu scripture).
"I went to Hare Krishna meetings. I went to the Theosophical Society. I was doing ZaZen-Zen Buddhist meditation. Then one day I saw this poster with a picture of the Guru Maharaj Ji saying he was coming to Santa Barbara. At the time I was having all kinds of mystical experiences. And 1 kept flashing on the Guru’s face from the poster. So I went to the meeting and it turned out it was cancelled. But I waited around and this girl asked me if I wanted to go to L.A. to see him. That was his first visit to the States and there were only 7 Guru Maharaj Ji followers then. After only a day of satsang, I knew. It just clicked. I received knowledge. It’s too beautiful to describe. I can’t. I’d had mystical experiences before, but this was it.”
Carly, then, is one of the original American premies. She did a lot of travelling with the Guru herself, and she went to India twice for an intense period of satsang and service in the seat of the Divine Light — Prem Nagar, the City of Love. (“The organizational headquarters is New Dehli, but the religious headquarters is Prem Nagar, right near where the Guru Maharaj Ji grew up.”) Carly says it was only in India where she’s encountered any outright hostility. Though there are 3 1/2 million who have received knowledge in India, there is even a political party that has as one of its main tenets hostility to Gurus. “It was the party that Shri Hans, Guru Maharaj Ji’s father, belonged to before he became a Perfect Master... India is the only place where I’ve experienced hostility. They stoned us there.”
Though Carly and Richard insist that historical events have little to do with their religious experience, they explain that if the Guru’s mother and brother, who have denounced the Guru as a playboy, were to come to San Diego, they would not accept them. Since both the mother and the brother have up to now enjoyed a status in the movement something like sainthood, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do. But premies Carly and Richard take it philosophically, “Guru Maharaj Ji says obstacles are a part of life. All we can say is that he’s given us knowledge. We can’t make judgments about other people, because we don’t know what their experience of knowledge has been.”
Comments are likewise muted about local Marilyn Johnson, the blonde stewardess who received knowledge, and now as the Guru’s wife, gives satsang herself. “I think she received knowledge in Los Angeles... Her parents, who live in Imperial Beach, well, they have come to see that she and Guru Maharaj Ji are very happy ... No, the parents haven’t received knowledge themselves yet, but they are seeking it. They come to some of our satsang meetings, and Guru Maharaj Ji comes to visit them in San Diego.”
One of the happier anecdotes that Carly and Richard like to share is the conversion of Rennie Davis, formerly famous as one of the Chicago Seven.
Rennie was on his way to Paris, where he was going to participate in the Vietnam war crime trials. He was flying Air India and happened to meet an old friend who had also been involved in the anti-war movement. The friend had become a follower of Guru Maharaj Ji and was on his way to Prem Nagar to do satsang and service, and he offered to take Rennie with him. So Rennie went on to India and didn’t go to the War Crime trials. Of course, since then, he gets some criticism at meetings. There are those who can’t believe he would say not to pass judgment on others like President Nixon ... “But Rennie’s a beautiful person. He’s really beautiful.”
As to the question of forming religious communities, or ashrams, Richard and Cady don’t see an immediate need for one in San Diego, though there are somewhere around 150 premies in town. The La Jolla ashram itself may not have been a real ashram, at least the way ashrams are run nowadays. Now, to join an ashram, one must take almost monastic vows, pledging vegetarianism, chastity (one may have sex with a spouse), practice of satsang and service, and other rules. And a person might live a good life even without ashrams. The closest ashram to San Diego is the one in Los Angeles.
Right now, the San Diego followers meet about four times a week in different houses to do satsang, but currently satsang is suspended while premies are preparing for the upcoming visit of Mahatma Gurucharnanand. This Mahatma, who’s coming to Balboa.Park on June 8, is the one who gave knowledge to Carly back in 1970 in Los Angeles, and is apparently one of the Guru’s insiders (he was a follower of the Guru’s father back in 1950).
“He’s just beautiful, comments Carly. Whatever the direction of the San Diego premies, or whatever the external events, it does seem that the faith of mystical premies will be hard to shake. Probably one of the reasons is that premies don’t even use the word faith. Either a person has knowledge, completely certain, or he doesn’t.
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