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7.9 on the Richter
scale lasting 2 minutes.
2,300 known dead, 14,000 injured and 13,000
feared dead.
The Loma Prieta Quake of 89 in the San Francisco
Bay Area was 7.1 and lasted 15 seconds with 65
dead. Everything in our house that could be moved
was smashed. Unlike our usual 5 point quakes, it
was violent enough to throw me to the floor and I
crawled to a door-frame for cover. The house was
cracked but inhabitable unlike many of our
neighbors'. We lived on a hill from which we could
see the explosions and fires in the Marina sending
up a black cloud of smoke like a mushroom. Then the
sun set and the city was in darkness because there
was no electricity. All you could see was the glow
of the fires in the Marina. Everyone came out into
the streets to compare notes or because they were
afraid when the aftershocks began.
The quake in Bhuj was 7.9 and lasted for 2
minutes.
If you look at a map of India (there's a link at
the bottom of this post) you will see that the
triangle whose west leg is the Indus valley, east
leg the Ganges and south leg the 20th parallel is
Aryan/Vedantic/Mogul India from which all of M's
devotees come. The Beas cults began in Punjab close
to Gujerat on the west coast. The Gujeratis have a
history of Radhasoami gurus and swamis that date
back to before Shri Hans.
The largest diaspora of Gujeratis outside of
India is in South Africa. The banya (merchant)
caste came to Natal/Kwazulu in the 1880s. Ghandi
lived there for 21 years and his grandchildren from
his oldest (estranged son) still live there. Brides
are still brought from Gujerat to Durban and many
of the wealthiest banyas still own family
properties and other real estate in Gujerat.
Shri H's mahatmas arrived in Gujerat in the
early sixties and immediately went to South Africa.
There are premies in South Africa who have ''had
knowledge'' long before Mr Rawat. (Perhaps I will
one day incur Jim's wrath when I describe the
saintliness of the two bais, lady mahatmas, whom I
got to know before they died in the late 80s. It
may too subjectively novelistic for his objective
evidentiary tastes.)
There is a strong cross-cultural tie between
Gujerat and South Africa. Emigrants from the states
of Gujerat and Tamil-Naidoo (in the southern
dravidian part of India) represent the largest part
of the Indian diaspora. The former emigrated
voluntarily and the latter as servants indentured
to the British East India Company which managed the
Raj.
Although both groups went to the same countries
(South Africa, the British West Indies, Mauritius,
Fiji) only Gujerati banyas follow M and they are
loathe to let people from other states or even
castes in on the secret. (One day I will tell how
Mr Rawat prevented Knowledge from being given to
anyone in South Africa in the seventies except
Gujeratis and Europeans.)
Many of the Gujerati banyas in the USA are from
the Patel clan and have cornered the motel business
or perhaps your local cheap hotel is owned by a
Patel. The highest clan on the banya totem pole are
the Sonis, ''jewelers,'' who bankrolled M in South
Africa until Mata Ji denounced her youngest son as
a playboy in 1974. They then withdrew their
financial support. I visited them once in their
beach cottage - more like a mansion - where M had
stayed during his trip to Durban with Milky Cole in
1973.
The point of all this is that outside of the
Aryan triangle of north India (the states of
Gujerat, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh as well as the
nation of Nepal) the only other Indians who are
devotees of M are the Gujeratis of the diaspora.
They all have relatives back in Gujerat. They are a
very stoical, conservative, pious and
family-oriented race of people (in South Africa
they are called ''brown Jews'') and will be
grief-stricken by this earthquake.
These are the people (and the Jewish communists)
alongside of whom I fought against apartheid in the
early sixties and with whom I went to jail. These
are the people whom my white trash family called
''coolies.'' These are the people who showed me in
my anti-apartheid days and in my two years living
in their ''ashram'' in Durban how decent
civilization could be if we all worked hard, cared
for the poor and loved our children. They spoil
there kids rotten with kisses and kindness and
don't give them a penny unless they work for
it.
The Gujeratis are the largest group of educated
Indians who are premies and I think they deserve a
more honest guru than the one they got or even
better - no guru at all. Many of the kids of these
old-fashioned merchants are scientists and are now
on line. They would just like the facts. This forum
is probably quite distasteful to them. I hope that
they will read all the information on EPO before
looking at FV.
I also hope that they don't see it only as group
therapy for anonymous spoilt white brats whining
about how they were the subjects of a failed
experiment by a Hindu ''holy man.'' I hope they
will look deeper and see that the anger expressed
here by former ashram premies was caused by their
guru's incompetence and callous disregard for the
people on whom he was conducting his
experiments.
I also hope that, if you have any evidence of
civil tort (perhaps employer sexual harassment) or
criminal wrong-doing (such as the alleged vehicular
manslaughter) by Mr Rawat, you have a corroborating
eyewitness and, if you have a non-disclosure
agreement, please remember that a criminal
investigation over-rides it.
In other words, if you wish to bring serious
charges against Mr Rawat, please be sure that they
are provable. I personally cannot do so and the
only contribution that I can make towards
discrediting him is philosophical in that I believe
that the tradition of bhakti-guru is no longer
necessary or desirable for anyone at all or either
it belongs only in India or the Indian diaspora
where they know how to take their gurus with a
generous pinch of salt and a lot of garam
masala.
PS I know that the group therapy on FV is
necessary for most of us and am not criticizing it.
It is simply that it is confined to a couple of
thousands of white people and is a fairly small
problem in the world-wide scheme of things. FV is
also a highly addictive interactive soap opera and
I know I will still enjoy watching all of us
thrashing it out so conscientiously.
Map
of India
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