GURU DATA: I Am Curious (Maalox)
The Satguru (Perfect Master) Maharaj Ji is a plump little porkchop of self-proclaimed divinity. When the little one took human form some fifteen years ago, his dad (himself a Perfect Master and the original perpetrator of the Divine Light Mission scam) had the blueprint already laid out.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
GURU DATA: I Am Curious (Madox)
The Satguru (Perfect Master) Maharaj Ji is a plump little porkchop of self-proclaimed divinity. When the little one took human form some fifteen years ago, his dad (himself a Perfect Master and the original perpetrator of the Divine Light Mission scam) had the blueprint already laid out. "The Perfect Master," he proclaimed, "has finally come who will be able to do the fullness for which he has come. He is so great I can but prostrate myself in front of him." But Pop never did see the bountiful fruits of the salvation show he hustled into being; he prostrated himself forever when his son was eight.
The Maharaj Ji made his first Western appearance in 1971 at England's Glastonbury pop festival. He cruised up to the stage in a white Rolls Royce and harangued the crowd about peace and the one true path to salvation until a merciful stagehand cut off the power on his microphone. Considering his subsequent record, that he even appeared is something of a miracle: it seems that the perfect one has a propensity for showing up hours late and sometimes not at all, thus making him the Sly Stone of spirituality.
What he's pushing is not so different from any other Hindu-based snakeoil. Among his followers" claims: that he is God or even greater than God, that he will construct an entire city in California (to begin sometime next year) that will bring Western technology to its knees, that even Mao Tse-tung will be a follower by 1975 (that one courtesy of Rennie Davis, member of the Chicago 7 and the closest the Guru's been able to come to a superstar convert thusfar) and that he will bury you (with love) by the end of the decade. As you might expect, only through the Maharaj Ji can you hope to escape the apocalypse. "Divine Knowledge is like money in a bank," the pint-sized prophet has been known to say. "It is my money. I have the checkbook. But only after / write on that check and sign it can you draw the money." Heh, heh. As might further be expected, all vices — drugs, alcohol, dirty love — are frowned upon, save those which the Guru in his infinite wisdom sees need for: Baskin-Robbins ice cream, for example.
His Divine Light Mission claims a following of four million spread pretty thin over 63 countries; 35,000 of them in North America (which is not even one-tenth the audience Mary Tyler Moore has). The organization is reported to gross over $150,000 per month. Not bad for a non-profit organization. Among the non-profits the guru has amassed are a $12,000 Mercedes Benz, a $26,000 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, a $30,000 Cessna Cardinal singleengine plane and a $190,000 twinengine job, as well as enough motorcycles to fill your average aircraft hanger. Oh yes, and the Perfect Master, keeper of Knowledge and possessor of the divine light, has ulcers.
