Word: maharaj
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Followers of the teenage Guru Maharaj Ji are among the many Harvard evangelists who have tried to offer students salvation for the past three years. Ministers of the Church of Scientology pressed hard on campus a while back, charging thousands of dollars to "clear" people of problems by using skin-sweat detectors. At the same time, figures caped in black and necklaced in silver swept down on the Square to proselytize for a religion called the Process, which installs Satan, Lucifer, and Jehovah as equal rulers in its universe. Neither of these religions has any visible following at the College...
...speaks of the current project of the Divine Light Mission: a rally at the Astrodome next November, which he says "will reveal to the world who Maharaj Ji is, what is life and what is the purpose of life." ("How much will it cost?" demands a heckler. "It's free," Davis beams...
...sect's theology is, well, eclectic. According to his followers, Maharaj Ji is the last of a line of Spiritual Masters which has seen such past greats as Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus and Mohammed. He is the highest manifestation of God incarnate; yet each individual on earth has portions of Godhood within. The religion incorporates Hindu notions of reincarnation and Nirvana; its American adherents sing gospel songs with "Maharaj Ji" substituted for "Jesus." Meditation, service and satsang are primary, but the group is self-consciously life-affirming...
Given normal campus weirdness levels, for an arcane religious group the Harvard-Radcliffe Divine Light Club seems pretty straight-laced. Their hair is shorter than average, their clothes neater, and they seem more certain of their directions--all according to Maharaj Ji's prescriptions...
...possible explanation of the sect's success in the U.S. is that the Guru Maharaj Ji is indeed (gulp) God. If this is an unpalatable hypothesis, there are more mundane explanations. Perhaps the attraction is to a group with all the psychic benefits of old-time religion, but without the stigma attached to them in a liberal society...