"Referring to Don's preface, I also remembered those days as filled with love, fun and enjoyment, but only until I learned the awful truth about Prem. Suddenly those positive memories turned into empathy and concern for others who were (and still are) being deceived and exploited by a narcissistic cult leader. I began to regret every action I took and every penny sent to him."Thank you for your post Bob. What you stated above it's crucial.
"Premies" have to give up their investment in "knowledge" a made-up concept by Rawat where "his" techniques are "given" as a magic solution to all questions, including the ones any reasonable and ethical person would ask when confronted with the hard ones and I think a major one would be for them :
Would you become an aspirant and then a premie had you known who the "beloved" master really is, had he not hidden the truth about his dark side from day one ?
if a "premie" admits to themselves they were fooled, seduced, or brainwashed to believe that Rawat has something valuable to "give" to them, then the pain is for some people unbearable, but the relief that comes afterwards it's much greater than any attempt to find comfort in dissociation from reality, the magical solution promised by "meditation"
A premie believes in one way or another to the core religious concept deriving from
Hinduism, that the world is an illusion and that the goal of life is to be one with Zero via yoga techniques, and that Truth is not actual reality but the reality is fake and Truth is zero.
If someone believes that then why would they care if their master is a sociopath ? It's all an illusion anyways. Their goal is to become sociopaths as well, and good and bad are just concepts.
Believing the above makes people separate the unethical (and criminal) behavior of their "master" from the "experience" of "knowledge", and following their masters lead become sociopaths as well, who see their master causing pain to acquire worldly power and wealth, and they don't care about his victims, it's their fault for being in pain, they should know that the world is an illusion so it's their problem.. why don't they just practice those techniques and feel good about everything? This is the classic premie response where the victim is blamed instead of the victimizer…