Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

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at his ‘International Headquarters’. In the five previous years, when I was his follower, I would never have even thought about making a tourist trip like that. Because the visible world around us is nothing but ‘maya’, Maharaj ji taught 1 . Illusion. False temptation for the seeker of enlightenment. Only the truly enlightened one could handle it and was allowed to play with it. That’s why guru Maharaj ji could enjoy himself in his mansion on the hills of Malibu Beach, with a Maserati Convertible, a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, a Cadillac Seville and a Mercedes SEL all sitting in the garage. And could dream about his own Grumman Gulfstream 12-person jet, his biggest desire then. I knew the brochures that were passed around within the Divine Light Mission with a whispered explanation of the divine play of the guru. After all, as ‘Jesus returned’, the earth and everything on it was his. It was the true devotees’ honor to be able to deliver it to him. Sometimes literally, like when the German ‘general secretary’, head of the national branch of the Divine Light Mission, flew to London with a hundred thousand German marks taped to his body, to complete the deal of the guru’s new Rolls Royce. 1 At that time the name for Prem Pal Singh Rawat, born in 1957 in Hardwar, India. By now Maharaj ji seeks publicity as Prem Rawat, with the support of the organisation Elan Vital. 12
But a good follower kept far from material things and other illusions that could drive him off the path to enlightenment. For that same reason I had seen next to nothing of the United States in the year and a half that I lived in Denver and worked at the IHQ. And what I did see, I experienced with a face turned away, so to speak. An attitude that had unexpected results, by the way. While before that, floating around the Vondelpark, I had no idea how I’d ever connect with the world of offices, jobs and making money, and didn’t really want to either. But as it turned out, with my face turned away, I could do almost anything in that exact same world. In the more than three years before I got the phone call to come to Denver, I established junk collecting services in four Dutch cities, along with sorting businesses, wholesale to processors of rags and used metals and retailing the usable stuff in our own shops. Where in the previous, normal life I found my job as a nurse’s aid utterly overpaid, as a follower of Maharaj ji I generated cash flow that supported the divine play of the guru in such a way that his ‘international president’ called me to his IHQ. 13
Page 1 and 2: Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave De
Page 3 and 4: Colophon © Text and publication: J
Page 5 and 6: Colored and distorted This story ab
Page 7 and 8: One My memories of the United State
Page 9: Two New York. I had forgotten how b
Page 13 and 14: his organization. But then again, t
Page 15 and 16: of sand on a coffin. But I bravely
Page 17 and 18: Pity. I think, when I sit here over
Page 19 and 20: good friend, said he would stay wit
Page 21 and 22: ling Indian mahatmas of Maharaj ji
Page 23 and 24: without the protection of car steel
Page 25 and 26: only meant for those who understood
Page 27: After that he taught to listen to t
Page 30 and 31: y now, almost familiar Chinese woma
Page 32 and 33: and devotion. Or hand it over, as e
Page 34 and 35: Seven From New York’s LaGuardia J
Page 36 and 37: circles, just like the songs. The m
Page 38 and 39: early in the morning at the end of
Page 40 and 41: the double row and remove me from t
Page 42 and 43: When I looked through the rear wind
Page 44 and 45: quarters (a door, a window frame, n
Page 46 and 47: listened to their endlessly repeate
Page 48 and 49: Ten Right. Denver it is. For me sti
Page 50 and 51: pillows on the porch. And the paint
Page 52 and 53: which I used to look out on the pav
Page 54 and 55: huge dusty parking lots alongside.
Page 56 and 57: that stuffed a large plastic crate
Page 58 and 59: Twelve It was about the greatest ho
Page 60 and 61:
Even in Denver they agreed in the e
Page 62:
efore we could open our Divine Shop
Page 65 and 66:
meeting about international program
Page 67 and 68:
When I was in Denver for about a ye
Page 69 and 70:
the Rutgers foundation for the pill
Page 71 and 72:
Everything looks dusty, hot and sle
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temple to praise the beauty of natu
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Fifteen At about four in the aftern
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The man behind the counter there, a
Page 79 and 80:
Sixteen So there I was. In a city w
Page 81 and 82:
vice principal. And won. We all got
Page 83 and 84:
Seventeen Ludlow apparently knows i
Page 85 and 86:
The more the road descends, from ab
Page 87 and 88:
there. I walk over to the suitcase
Page 89 and 90:
The man follows the bird with his c
Page 91 and 92:
Afterward At this moment, over thir
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Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

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