A Journey Within
1972: Even before my trip to India, which in a way was unintentional, I was on a search.
I was 22 at the time. I had been studying chemistry at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. I had started the course in 1968, thinking that if I could understand the chemistry and physics of the Universe around us, I would reach an understanding of the meaning of it all, including myself.
By the time I graduated, I had realised that I was wrong. Although science consists of achieving the same results from the same observations or reactions, so much of it was and still is based on theory and belief.
Before I had left the UK in 1972, I had read books that greatly influenced me such as The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, in which he draws parallels between modern science and ancient religion, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception and John Lilly’s The Center of the Cyclone, which discussed states of consciousness especially on hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD.
By this time I was convinced that there existed a means of heightening my consciousness to some sort of “transcendental” level. I had no guide, no teacher or Guru. I had just my own thoughts and experiences.
One other thing I did have was a copy of the I Ching, a book of ancient Chinese oracles, that I had been given by Diane in 1972, an English girl I had met in Delhi and travelled to Kabul with.
Months later, after returning to the UK, at first I went to my parents in Barry and spent a week or so in hospital, recovering.
Whilst in hospital, one day my mother came to visit and brought me a newspaper and a few letters. Neither she nor I knew what a profound effect they would have on me.
In the newspaper there was a short article with picture about a “Boy Guru” from India. He was born in Haridwar, the place where I had become ill, in an Ashram that I had intended to visit.
In 1972, he was just 15 years old. His name was Guru Maharaji, or Prem Pal Singh Rawat, and he was visiting the UK for the second time, the first visit having been a year earlier when he had spoken at Glastonbury festival.
Guru Maharaji was saying that he wanted to bring peace to the world, as he had promised his late father who, coincidentally, had been his own Guru, called Hans Ji Maharaj. The term Guru, generally understood to mean teacher, more specifically meant “One who takes us from darkness to light”. I thought the world certainly needed that.
Another letter was from Australian Paul! He told me that he and Lorraine had given up smoking cannabis and were now meditating on something called “The Knowledge” and were followers of Guru Maharaji.
What a weird set of coincidences.
I thought the Guru must be some sort of con, being just a boy. Maybe, I thought, he was some sort of prodigy for the Beatles’ guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
I began to read scripture – the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist works and the Koran, which I admit I struggled with. I can’t say they made much sense and seemed in may ways to contradict each other, as if there may have been a secret key to understanding them.
Whilst it seemed that Christianity was about Love and Faith and a loving God, the Old Testament was about Faith and Trust for a jealous and vengeful God (Jehovah). Buddhism seemed to be about acceptance and karma whilst Islam meant Peace.
I pondered on which path I should take. Transcendental mediation, Hare Krishna, Christianity, Buddhism, drugs like LSD? Islam did not appeal to me and I could not become a Jew as that was by birth.
I started using the I Ching to guide me. I went to a Hare Krishna evening with great food, chanting and dancing. It was a great evening but that route did not appeal to me.
I went to a lecture on Buddhism that seemed quite complicated and a talk by “Jesus Freaks” that did not appeal to me at all. The I Ching also seemed to steer me away from those routes.
Then one day whilst I was sitting in my front room alone, I decided simply to ask the book to give me some guidance – a more general question. I threw the three coins six times and noted down the results which would lead me to the correct “Hexagram” to read.
I was very keen to read the advice but just then there was a knock on the door. It was Paul and Lorraine and a man they introduced as Alastair. That man was beaming and greeted me with hands as if in prayer. He sat on the floor cross-legged.
I was a bit annoyed that they had turned up just then as I knew Paul would do a lot of talking. So I asked them if they could just stay silent and drink some tea whilst I read the Hexagram.
The Hexagram was number 5: WAITING There were a few lines that maybe changed my life more than any other. They read:
‘Entering into the cave
There are uninvited guests,
Three people come.
Honouring them, in the end good fortune.’
I wondered did it mean “father, Son and Holy Ghost” or maybe “Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva” before realising it may well have referred to that very moment and those very three people in the room, Paul, Lorraine and Alistair, who were surely uninvited guests.
So I put down the book and started to listen.
Paul immediately started talking about “The Light”.
Now, as I understood it, “seeing the light” meant understanding and was not to be taken literally. Of course I knew about light and the speed of light in a scientific sense and I knew that scriptures said that “God is Light” but “God” was not so much in my realm of belief. I had also read that God was omnipresent and therefore God was “in me” although I had never see him, her or it. The only light I had seen was through my eyes. But I listened to Paul for a while and then asked him.
“When you talk about seeing the light, do you mean understanding something, like when you suddenly get the answer to a question or riddle?”
Paul explained that he did not mean that, he meant looking inside, meditating, through the “THIRD EYE”.
Paul said “If thine eye be single the whole body will be full of light.”
He explained that his Guru Maharaj Ji had shown him four techniques of meditation, ways to look inside to see the light, hear the “music”, taste the “nectar” and feel “peace”.
So I attended some Satsang meetings and then went to London a few times to listen to the Mahatmas. I did not get to see the Guru himself as he was not in the country. It still did not seem to make much sense; there was a lot of praise for “Maharaji” but not really any explanation of what this “Knowledge” was. I realised that it had to be experienced and for that one had to ask a Mahatma. Despite my University education and travels, I was still quite shy, and even though I was sometimes gently pushed towards a Mahatma, I just couldn’t ask.
By this time it was approaching Christmas. I remember one day back in Norwich, I shook my fist at the sky and said “If you are real God, I want Knowledge on Christmas Day.” Of course, I didn’t believe that was going to happen, but …
A few days before Christmas I was staying with a “Premie”, a “devotee” of Maharaji, in London. Premies are named after Maharaji’s given name, Prem, which means love. I was staying with this guy in Earls Court. In those days some Premies volunteered to accommodate “aspirants” (people that wanted the Knowledge) and I was sleeping on his floor.
I also started going to an Ashram in Muswell Hill, where a Mahatma spoke. That one was a lady from India called Prakash Bhai. I didn’t like her, she seemed rather stern and I did not want to ask her for Knowledge.
After one session, a guy came into the room and said “All those who Mahatma Bhai has said can have Knowledge, go into the other room and write your name on the list.” Well, I had not even asked but I went and wrote down my name anyway. That little bit of dishonesty did not bother me as I still though it was all a con and probably at some stage, I thought, we’d be asked for money.
Actually, that never happened.
It was December 24th that we went to a hall for Satsang in the Swiss Cottage area. Several Mahatmas spoke and at the end one of them announced that there was to be a “Knowledge Session” the next day, Christmas Day, for fifteen people. He had a list of the names of the people that could go along to the house in Muswell Hill. Maybe my demand would be met, I thought.
As he read out the fifteen names he asked the people to shout out if they were there. By the time he reached number fifteen, only thirteen of them were there and I was not one of them. So he told the people that if they knew the other two, tell them to come tomorrow, but if not then numbers sixteen and seventeen could go.
But only fifteen could get the Knowledge as Guru Maharaji had stipulated a maximum of fifteen.
I was number sixteen! Would I get Knowledge on Christmas Day after all?
I was very embarrassed when almost everyone in the hall started shouted, “let him have Knowledge” but the Mahatma said only if the others did not turn up.
The following morning, Christmas Day, I got up at about 5 o’clock and walked all he way to Muswell Hill. When I got there all fifteen of the others were there. They and I sat in a room waiting for the Mahatma Prakash Bhai to arrive. She spoke for a while and asked me to read a few lines from The Bible. I was thick with a cold, nose running and sneezing, but I read the lines which I remember to this day.
“For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
“For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
“What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
That was heavy stuff. Although written about the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Mahatma said it was the same Knowledge. It was a warning!
After that she said that the fifteen named people would receive Knowledge that day but the other two would have to wait! In other words, I would not be one of the ones to be shown anything that day!
I did argue. I told her “but Guru Maharaji said not to put off til tomorrow what one can do today!”
“That’s right,” she said, “but I cannot give you Knowledge today because Guru Maharaj Ji says maximum fifteen, and if I give to you one of the others will have to wait. You must come back in three days!”
I was not at all pleased. I was quite angry. Some sort of divine joke? That God I had made my demand to had let me down.
I stormed out of the house and found my way to the start of the A11 road, intent on hitch-hiking back to Norwich, however hard it was going to be on Christmas Day.
I stuck out my thumb as the first car approached. It stopped. “Where you going mate?” asked the driver. “Norwich,” I said. “Oh I’m going there. I can take you all the way!”
The journey took about three hours and by the time we reached the outskirts of Norwich it was starting to get dark. Moreover, I was starting to feel very silly to have reacted like that. I asked the driver to stop at the ring-road roundabout, which he did. I got of the car, crossed the road, stuck out my thumb to go back to London and the first car stopped!
“Where you heading?” asked the driver. “London,” I said. “Oh I can take you there! What part of London?” “Earl’s Court,” I said “near the tube station.” “Oh that’s exactly where I’m going! I can take you all the way!”
Some hours later, I was back in my mate’s bedsit in Earl’s Court, sleeping on his floor, telling him about my day, listening to his Satsang, and waiting three days to head back to Muswell Hill where I hoped to receive the Knowledge..
Being sceptical though, I was determined not to be drugged or hypnotized, so I refused to eat or drink anything and pinched myself all though the “Knowledge Session”. There were fourteen other aspirants.
She told us we had to make some promises to Maharaji and to ourselves. First was not to reveal the techniques. Second was to practice the techniques twice daily and “give yourself a chance” and third was to “leave no doubt in your mind.”
One thing I want to say is that from the first time I ever read anything he said, Prem always said that he is not a god, that he is a human being, and that he is here to show us how to find the Knowledge of God and self within. It is not his knowledge, he does not give it to us, he just shows the way to find it.
Now , in 2024, I feel fulfilled and grateful for the Knowledge that peace and love and joy are within inside of me and for the techniques for finding that place.
Taken from: My Piece of Peace
ISBN 9781838440121
