Thanks, Dan.
Anybody can understand the point you make. It is quite evident and true. But Rawat and the premies don't want to admit it, for some reason.
What they want to say is that "Knowledge is an experience, and an experience is not a belief." This assertion is almost true because there are of course experiences involved in the practice of Knowledge and these experiences are not beliefs. But alas, even this assertion must be discounted as false because there is no singular experience that is promoted by the practice of Knowledge that is not attainable by other means, and Rawat's above-quoted assertion about his Knowledge implies a specificity and an exclusivity that just do not exist.
I'm afraid that what he calls "Knowledge" is a sham, and if he would use ordinary language, the sham would be unveiled and the truth would be evident. But instead of using ordinary, meaningful language, Rawat usually relies entirely on spurious negatives: "Knowledge is not a religion, Knowledge is not spiritual, I am not a leader, I am not a figurehead." All these negatives are not balanced by any understandable positive. The result is a vagueness and a whole lot of wiggle room, so to speak, where the guru's message is designed entirely to keep the students studying forever.
My personal opinion is that Rawat is only half-conscious of his own tactics of deception. He probably convinces himself that he speaks the Truth with a capital letter and the Truth cannot be spoken, so any confusion is not his fault.
But confusion there is. And it is his fault. His students don't even know if this Knowledge is an experience of peace or an experience of God. They do not know if what Rawat experiences is what they experience or even if Rawat is God-conscious all the time, or never. They do not know, any more than I do, what Krishna experienced or what Arjuna experienced, what sort of practice they might have practiced, and how that relates to the specifics of what Rawat calls Knowledge.
What is true for me is true for premies and all of us, then and now. And that is that I have an experience of my own "heart" and the makeup of what constitutes my being, whether I call it "within" or not. And my relationship to the "beyond" or the "truth" or "god" is NOT a triangle, by any stretch of anyone's imagination!!!! This triangle business, (in other words, the need for a guru) is complete bunk. The only people who even want a triangle are those who have not learned to rely on themselves, trusting It-As-It-Is. What a silly crutch is Rawat's Knowledge - it is so short and so lacking that when used, one always walks in little circles, around and around the obvious.
What I have stated is probably the basic reason that premies are not able to argue with ex-premies in an intelligent manner. When, for instance, I make a point about Rawat's use of the Bhagavad Gita, Giorgio does not address himself to the point I have made, but simply refers to the size of my penis. This type of discussion is boring for me, and I have yet to actually enjoy an honest and stimulating conversation about Rawat and Knowledge with one of his currently loyal students.
It's funny, though, as soon as a premie becomes an ex, miraculously they are able to talk in a normal manner again and make all kinds of elementary sense that had so eluded them before.
