Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave Desert

Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave Desert

Abandoned Roads

Jos Lammers

To Janny

Colophon

Web design: Coen Zimmerman

Published by the author. Reproduction of text or photographs, in any form, only with permission.

The cuttings about the Divine Light Mission are a small selection from the ‘collection Simon Vinkenoog’, box 145 folder 02, available for study at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam.

Colored and distorted

This story about a trip across the Unites States, consists for a major part of memories of the Divine Light Mission and guru Maharaj ji in the period 1971 - 1976. I was his follower for five years at that time. The first function I held within his organization, the Divine Light Mission, was ‘manager Divine Sales’: organizing in the Netherlands the collection of junk and the sale of it in the ‘Divine Shops’. Next I became ‘general secretary’, the director of the Dutch branch of the Divine Light Mission. Finally, I was called to the international headquarters (‘IHQ’) of the organization in Denver, to work as ‘international coordinator’ of the national branches in Europe and Australia.

Back then the Divine Light Mission was a big organization, with hundreds of followers in the Netherlands and tens of thousands worldwide. Why all these people followed guru Maharaj ji, I obviously can’t judge. What set him apart from the many other wise men from the East that received a lot of attention back then, is that he aimed for the highest. He didn’t present himself as a teacher of gymnastic exercises from yoga books or diets of soy and seaweed, but as the living ‘perfect master’. The one (the only!) that could show the real seeker the way to god. Being his follower meant, especially if you wanted to live in one of his ashrams like I did, total devotion and abandoning all social ties and earthly pleasures. In that respect too, he aimed for the first prize. And so did I. Until I finally saw what everybody else knew all along, of course.

My memories of this time are undoubtedly colored and distorted. Therefore, I do not pretend in any way to tell the truth. These are just my memories. For that reason I have changed names, wherever I thought that was necessary in order to protect the privacy of the people concerned.

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