Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave Desert

Abandoned Roads

Jos Lammers

Three years after I floated like a question mark around the Vondelpark in my embroidered Moroccan shirt, I zoomed through The Netherlands in a Van Gils suit and a Triumph 2000 Overdrive, with lease contracts, appointment notes, cashbooks and tax correspondence on the seat next to me. Somewhere along the way, the quest for enlightenment had taken an unexpected turn.

Traveling through the Unites States, Jos Lammers reminisces in 'Abandoned Roads' his five years of devotion to the 'perfect master' guru Maharaj ji, back in the seventies, and his return to normal life. A story about enlightenment that turns out to be just around the corner, mescaline in the Vondelpark and Dylan in the Mojave Desert. A must for flower children, yogis, macrobiotis, pot heads, poppers, sadhus, ascetics, and those who ever wanted to be like that or appreciate they never did.

To Janny

Colophon

© Text and publication: Jos Lammers 2007 - also in Dutch as 'Verlaten wegen'

© Photography: Janny Brasik

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.

For contact and reactions: www.joslammers.nl.

ISBN 9789402163315

Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave Desert

Abandoned Roads

Jos Lammers

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, outside India, 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.

One

My memories of the United States are, to say the least, mixed. The mescaline came from there, pure nature from the Mojave Desert. The woman with the green eyes came from there ('lenses, silly'), the one who rolled the pills in her suitcase to the Vondelpark where I was floating about in my embroidered Moroccan shirt. And the guru came from there, or at least the Divine Light Mission of which he was the financial and spiritual leader. Headquarters: Denver Colorado. The Moroccan shirt had turned into a three piece suit when I was out again on its doorstep after five years of devotion.

Together with Janny I'll have a look around to see what I remember. Finally, after more than thirty years, an attempt to explain why I then abandoned everything, including her. I think, while 'twelve thirty' of the Mamas & Papas is playing in the background. I've never really outgrown that time. And why should I? So in the luggage go The Lovin' Spoonful, The Beatles (sure, Sgt. Pepper's), Dylan (Blond on Blond, obviously!), Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (Déjà vu, no discussion), Melanie (Born To Be) en Pink Floyd (Atom Heart Mother) for a trip cross country USA.

Two

New York. I had forgotten how beautifully worn out this city looks. Rusty fire escapes on bare facades. Pale colors, advertisements taped together. Like a pair of totally threadbare shoes that shuffle so nicely you never want to get rid of them. The scene in the East Village, where we live for four days behind exactly such a fire escape, fits that description exactly. Baggy T-shirts, shoelaces untied, sneakers with holes in them, our neighbor sitting on the stone stairs in front of his house in the sun. Nobody cares.

The first time I was here, more than thirty years ago, I had decided to leave the Divine Light Mission of guru Maharaj ji. I was stopping over on a flight back home to Amsterdam from Denver, where I had maintained contact for the guru with his ashrams in Europe and Australia 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.

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.

[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.

Three

So New York. The moment came that I didn't believe anymore in walking around in a three piece suit. I didn't believe anymore in the daily routine of going to the office, the six complete floors of a heavy stone building in downtown Denver that the Divine Light Mission rented from arms manufacturer Joe Gould. I didn't believe anymore in the meetings on 'international communication systems', 'financial planning and control' and the hidden question: how the enormous stack of bills was going to be paid. I didn't believe anymore in sleeping on the ground in a room with at least five other people. I didn't believe anymore in food that shouldn't be delicious because that would distract you from the straight path, not to mention women. And I didn't believe anymore in a guru that refused to lower his daily allowance of five hundred dollars even by a dime to help relieve the financial burden of his organization. But then again, that was just what triggered it. The life that I led didn't bring me the tiniest bit closer to what I was looking for: being at peace with life. I wanted a normal home and a wife and a kid. I wanted my own life back.