In 1982 Maharishi asked us to make ourselves expert in Jyotish, the Vedanga of astrology. A few of us took the instruction to heart. For me, this was the beginning of decades of complications in my reputation and relationship with the administration of his movement. It seems the administration had the instruction that no one was to be doing astrology, at least not us westerners and yet Maharishi had told us to make ourselves expert in it and the only way to make one's self expert was to do it.
In 1986 we were in Delhi for the yogi flying demonstrations there and for weeks afterwards were meeting in Maharishi's garden in the evenings with Maharishi and every other night, the Shankarachary who had a most interesting affect on us in that the moment he started speaking we would all fall asleep. Very strange. One evening RD, from Canada, got on the mike and asked Maharishi what the difference between free will and predestination was. Maharishi said "They are the same thing." This began an evening long discussion on astrology. At one point Maharishi asked if anyone could see enlightenment in the chart. All the friends around me began to push me up to the front because that is what I had been studying in recent weeks but I had nothing to offer by way of explanation, only questions. I got on the mike and told Maharishi a bunch of nonsense (a fairly typical experience for me) like you look here and here and there and there and perhaps it's could to look here too in the chart. After finally running out of things to say i stopped and Maharishi looked at me across the 3-4' that separated us and said 'Perhaps more study is needed.' This was not a surprise but I was really hoping he would give us some clues as to what to be looking for. In 1994 we were in Holland after completing the Maharishi Jyotish Teacher Training Course in Spain. Maharishi had called our course to Vlodrop and wanted to meet with us. He kept us there for most of that year working on various make work projects, curriculum for various levels of education, a prashna course etc. Prashna is where you make the horoscope for the moment a question is asked. Maharishi wanted us to develop a course that could train people to answer the question without a huge amount of learning time. He was always looking for the direct route to the heart of everything. We were with him one afternoon and discussing with him a particular prashna. He wanted to know what you would look at in the chart to see if success could be predicted. I, again, got on the mike and again began to speak out a bunch of nonsense (this was a downright habit by this time). After some minutes of this I ran out of steam and stopped. Now I had been wondering if he had remember his instruction to me to study some more and this is what he said looking at me across the room 'Seems the study has paid off.' What we don't know to this day was whether he was being sarcastic or not because my answer on the mike was total nonsense. He did give a clue though as to how to answer the question of success so something really good did come of it. Some months later I was growing tired of being there in Vlodrop just hanging out. The environment around Maharishi is always a little intense and in many ways unnatural in that there are many people who are very politically motivated wanting always to know who is seeing Maharishi, and when and why and how often. I had decided that I was going to leave and go home and at lunch, told the people in my group that i was planning on leaving. Well one of them must have snitched because later that afternoon while working on yet another project, the phone rang. Someone answered the phone, said ok, ok and then hung up. It had been Maharishi saying very simply 'No one should leave. Everyone should stay.' Busted!!!! So ok. I had to stay but after another month or 2 I had had enough. This time i was smarter and didn't tell a soul. I went up to my room when everyone was meditating, packed my bags and quietly came downstairs to call a taxi from the pay phone in the hallway. As I was on the phone, Girish Brahamchari came by looking like he was looking for someone. He walked by the payphone once then came back and looked inside more closely. He saw me there and motioned for me to open the door which I did. He handed in to me a note saying Maharishi wanted me to give this to you. The note said 'If you want to leave, you have to meet with me personally and tell me why.' After he saw that I had read the note he took it back from me and left. Well!!! Busted again!!!! I, of course, never did meet with Maharishi to discuss the strangeness of the people around him and only left when circumstances dictated. This would end up being the last time i spent in his environment and one of the last times anyone was going to see him personally. A year or so later he began to retreat to his own rooms and connected with people via video. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.5/1279 - Release Date: 2/14/2008 6:35 PM To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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