| Message: |
Let's go back in time, a time not too long ago...in fact it was December 1994, in Long Beach. Maharaji is speaking at one of the sessions and he's saying something like this:
You know, there's really alot that isn't fair in this world. You can be in business and you have a little business, and along comes this big guy and just cuts you right down. It's not fair, but it happens.
Now of course, when m was saying this it was in the context of his usual rap...the world is bad and the only place you can be safe is within and in your connection to Maharaji.
Yet for myself, while I understood then and still do today the context in which he was speaking, I couldn't help but think to myself when I heard him say this, 'Is m talking about Amtext here?'
Because you know he's always talking out of his personal experience...those people, places and situations that he's most familiar with, and as I've already made it clear I hope...he's certainly familiar with Amtext.
Now, there's a history of dissension within the world of Amtext premies, and much of it revolves around encouraging people, even supporting them in a sense to enter into a business situation as book buyers, presumably of course to supply books to Amtext, only to later sponsor someone else to compete against them.
In this situation the 'big boy' premie buyers who are doing all the sponsoring, benefit somewhat because they do get a sponsoring commission of 2% (which is less than what is available elsewhere, but heck, you know who gets the difference and who's benefit it's all for).
This system of pitting premie against premie has worked to maximize the Amtext windfall going to m over the years, and so it stays.
And fuck the dissension. The sensibilities of a few puny, whining premie book buyers can't be allowed to get into the way of maximizing profits for m. Never! Not in his world. Not at Amtext. That's just the way it is.
That's why I couldn't help but wonder... was m somehow referring to Amtext. AND, I remember being impressed by what I THEN felt was a genuine kind of empathetic feeling on his part for the plight of these Amtext premies..the 'little guys', who have been screwed by Amtext's Let's do it ALL for the BOSS! approach, when it comes to the subject of competition, market saturation and so on.
But was m really being sympathetic to these premies? Was he in fact even thinking of them when he spoke those words? I really don't know for sure, but in any case this is just part one of the story. For Part 2, we have to flash forward to Long Beach 95, and the following which was told to to me in part by Barbara Brogan who along with her husband Shawn, are the lead premie buyers for Amtext and also are are the only buyers, premie or non, who are part of the Amtext management team. (As I've described them before, Barbara is the brains and Shawn is more like the gofer boy of the team)
They, therefore have a very prominent position in the world of Amtext. They've made alot of money with Amtext and of course they've given alot of it to m.
Ok , on to part 2.
At Long Beach 95 two floors had been rented for m and his family at the Sheraton so they could have some place to hang out betweem sessions.(They would return to the residence at malibu at the end of the day.)
The Brogans were staying at the Sheraton as well, as were the other well connected pams, and as Barbara explained to me, they had a very 'important envelope with a very important message inside' which they wanted to get to m.
But there was a dilemna. The very important message was of course a sizeable financial contribution to m ( in fact this incident is apparently well known by pams and I've heard a couple of varying descriptuons of what was actually in the envelope....one source claimed it was a check for $100,000 and another claimed it was the actual registration papers for an Astin Martin Hansi was asking Daddy for) and they didn't want to have it spaced out by handing it over to the wrong person.
Thus the dilemna. Who to trust with the envelope?
Well as fate would have it, and it must have appeared to the Brogans that Maharaji himself was answering their prayers, they see Amar walking down the hallway, and they decide to go for it. They approach Amar and ask him if he would be so kind as to give the envelope to his father and Amar graciously accepts.
Later that evening the Brogans start to have misgivings about giving the envelope to Amar. Afterall he's only a boy and what if he spaces out the envelope and it doesn't get to m, they begin to worry.
They decide they're going to check with one of m's security people at the Sheraton if they did the right thing. They ask this guy about giving the envelope 'with a very important message' for Maharaji to Amar, and he lambasts them.
'How can you do that?! Don't you know that Maharaji doesn't want us to use members of his family as the post office. You've shown a lack of respect for his family, and also for Maharaji himself.'
Well now the Brogans are totally freaked out. They wanted to PLEASE m, but now they're told that they most likely offended him. What if they actually DID offend him?! OMIGOD!! Its panic time and now its 2am in the morning and the Brogans can't sleep. They need some reassurance that they haven't offended m , and if they have, then they need to know what they can do about it.
They knock on David Smith's door and wake him up. They tell him the story and ask him for his advice. Smith tells them that m is very strict in wanting premies to do things the proper way and that by giving the envelope to Amar, the Brogans had not done what m would want them to. He advises them to write Maharaji and ask him for his forgiveness.
Now the Brogans are about to die. They can't take it anymore. It's gotten so bad for them that they now find themselves in the situation of having to write m and beg forgiveness. Oh Lord!!
They decide to knock on Yoram Weiss' door to get his opinion. Yoram tells them to relax...Maharaji is very forgiving...not to worry, everything's going to be alright.
The Brogans found out during the next morning's session that everything had in fact turned out ok, when m spoke:
I was reading this beautiful message...these people had given Amar an envelope to give to me and he brought it to me...and it was just a beautiful message inside...
(Now remember m 's empathy for the little guy during Long Beach 94? All of a sudden after mentioning the envelope and the 'beautiful message' inside, m now gets onto this track.)
You know some people don't like rich people. They have this idea or that idea of what it is to be rich. But they really don't know. It's not easy to be rich. It isn't. Once you've made your first million , you need another to protect it. Then you have two million, and you'll need another two million to protect those two million. Then you'll have four million and you'll need another four million to protect those four million, and then you'll have eight million. Of course then you'll need another 8 million to protect those eight million and then you'll have 16 million... it isn't easy, it's not what you think.
End of story
|
|
