Ron and Bina "Give Satsang" 2012 video
Background intrumental song "Oh My Lord" by the Holi Band
This 2012 video presentation of Professor Ron Geaves and Dr. Bina Chintalapuri shows them at a meeting of the Reflections Dhruva student club in India shilling for Prem Rawat. This may have been part of a tour as they came with 3 Rawati$m videos to show and were prepared to answer questions and give discourses about their personal experience. They only mentioned Rawat's "behavior technology" aka Knowledge once and 'meditation' not at all. Geaves was pugnacious, loud, forceful. Ms Bina was quieter
While watching this video I wondered whether they would interest me if I was transported back to my teenage 'seeking' persona. Why was I attracted in 1973. Everyone involved was young, only half a dozen had 2 years experience of meditation, everything was new, everyone was excited, everything was exciting. Some of the people were attractive and interesting and engaging speakers, others less so. There was definitely a groupthink but there was humour and many tales of transformation and transcendence. The transformations had mainly come about through learning about the Knowledge and being initiated but there was promise in the air of satsang. The promise of realisation, enlightenment, transcendence was one of the paths in satsang on which you could concentrate.
1973 - 2014. There was really no comparison possible. Two old, unnattractive, uncharismatic, charmless long-term meditators with no aura, created no atmosphere of promise, proved no inspiration or excitement and left the room full of dead air. No amount of Geaves' bluster or Bina's self-depreciation could make their spiel intersting. A dull, mediocre academic claiming to
Premie Irony alert: Ron Geaves, a self-professed professor of religion, is not going to talk about his subject, religion, while taking about Prem Rawat. Bina makes the totally unwarranted assertion: "So our attention if it goes there (our breathing) we will begin to also enjoy and appreciate" - Putting our attention i.e. thinking about our breathing and its fundamental importance in keeping us alive is not something that makes people satisfied and at peace.
Ron has had decades of talking over uninterested, bored students so he is quite forceful in his talk, pugnacios in his stance. You have to give him some credit. He has not had an illustrious academic career at the most prestigious universities but in vacation time he's still prepared to speak to a handful of students at a student club in the hope that one or two young minds can be attracted to Prem Rawat.
Some slick videos created by TPRF and WOPG were shown. The first presented an adulatory view of Rawat's post 2000 career though there was no mention of what he had been doing in the first 30 years of his 40 years talking about peace. There was a WOPG video in which he was fixated on 25,550, the number of days a person who died at 70 might be expected to live.
Then the Ron and Bina Roadshow for Rawat was on:
MC: Am I audible? Yeah. So I should mention that Reflection Dhruva Club accepts all kinds of books from various authors and organizations which are helpful to the students in particular and to faculty even.
So if you are if you would like to make us aware of some books and so that we can keep them here for sale we would be very happy. So the books are available for sale outside after the program and if some of your friends would like to have this book you may like to contact at dhruva.iitm at gmail.com and also we will be distributing some flyers which we had printed during our major program today mega event yes in 2012, September 2012 Youth Empowerment Solutions so some flyers related means we had printed then so we would be giving them away and it gives a good idea of what Dhruva Club is. So now I would like to invite Professor Ron and Professor Bina for interactive session.
You may ask your questions and some concepts can be discussed. Thank you. So you may sit if you like. You may sit.
Ron: Thanks. Okay can everybody hear me? Wonderful. Okay can I just say first of all that as two academics we are very used to this situation. So this is our territory standing here with students in front of us or faculty members in front of us. But this time is a little bit different for us I think because neither of us are givin' a lecture on our chosen topics. I'm a professor in the subject of religion. Bina, psychology. So we're not going to be talking about religion or psychology here. So what we want to do is to address any questions you may have from the video presentations that you've just seen concerning Prem Rawat. Um we have both been associated with him and known him for many years in our lives. First of all I would like to say that I don't intend and I will not and I'm sure that's true for Bina too, speak on behalf of any organization. We are speaking only on our own behalf and we're certainly not speaking on behalf of Prem Rawat. He is more than capable of speaking for himself. And if you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak take it. So we're just speaking on our own behalf and our answers will can only come from our experience right or wrong. But please the floor is yours. If you have any questions, any comments, any reflections go ahead.
Aud: Indistinct:
The concept of today. Okay. Do you want me to start? Okay fine.
From my understanding of my life all that I have actually is today. I can imagine tomorrow, what it might be. My imaginations might be come real. They may not. I can do something also now that might affect what is going to happen tomorrow. Past is gone. I cannot bring it back. I can think about it, the past. I maybe can learn from it, from my mistakes. But in actual fact the only moment I have to enjoy and to experience anything is now. When the human being goes too much that way and too much that way, past, present, actually we lose now. We don't lose this moment. When we bring this moment down, down, down, down to exactly this moment now, what is it? From my understanding and that comes from also from learning from his teachings, it comes down to one breath being given to me at this moment in time. Yeah? No breath, no no now. What he is teaching is this is the appreciation of that breath, of that moment. Okay? So that otherwise in my experience we are losing them. Because we don't actually know how to appreciate them. So when he said 25,550 days, in actual fact another measurement could have been how many breaths? Ha ha ha. Each one of those is bringing now. Without one breath you don't have a now. So that that to me is is my understanding, through his teaching, what is today, what is now. You want to say anything?
Yeah? Hello? Yeah, I can hear you. It's better without it, I can hear you.
Aud: Indistinct. I am not I am not thinking about my family so much. Like I may become stupid but that will be today at this moment.
Do you want to answer it and then?
Serious young man: I would like to add one more thing. Okay. In that video they mentioned that be content if everyday. Fulfill yourself with any your activity whatever you like. But if you do things which you like and you will be content with those activities but intentionally or maybe sorry unintentionally somebody is getting hurt of it so then other person will not be content. So if this loop goes continue so how will be everyone will content with this and how will be everyone will fulfill will have fulfillment in their life.
Ron: Okay, so these are similar issues.
Bina: All that we need to do is we generally take it for granted, when this is coming and going (breath raises and lowers hand in front of chest). We don't even focus in any manner that this is bringing us lot of life. If this is not there I don't think we are there. So our attention if it goes there, we will begin to also enjoy and appreciate what is that which is coming, how much it is I am benefiting out of this. I don't think that reflects on your selfishness, it is self-life which is coming. If you appreciate it, that is not going to be selfish. It is a beautiful self interest, your realization and your ability which you are trying to appreciate. By doing this you are not denying anything to anybody. You are not.
Ron: Can I also add that if just one to go back to the video presentation, there was a contrast which Prem Rawart gave us at one point. He used the term a troubled mind and a fulfilled heart. Can I ask you the question then which person out of those two the person with the troubled mind or the person with the fulfilled heart is more in a better position to take care of others around them. You ask me the question yourself. The person with the troubled mind or the fulfilled heart which one will be in a better position to look after their family and those around them.
Aud: Fulfilled Heart
Thank you.
Bina: This question. Young man your question is answered? Or you forgot your question?
Serious young man: Yeah, I mean we have been saying about being in the present and not thinking about the future and try not to recall much from the past except for the thing that we learned from it. But the design of the modern world, the scenario that we have in front of us doesn't really allow us much to be in present or live it today. They want you to dream, so dream do this do that. So yeah basically the way the outside is it's difficult to be in today be in the moment or do things. So how do we basically, you know
Bina: That is not going to be easy we need to make an effort we need to make certain decisions that if I remember that I have to keep a quality of my life and I need to appreciate present now we need to tune ourselves to that and remind ourselves and slowly we will be able to accomplish that. It is not a big Brahmavidya but however our consciousness and our effort will definitely direct us towards that because most of the time we make a decision that "Okay let me dream, you know, many times it is my choice. I can also tell myself stop dreaming now get up and get going you have a class and you have to listen and you have to go on. So this is some kind of a game which memory plays but I also have to have some control, not in the control sense, but I have to make these decisions and it is possible for us lot of intelligent things which we carry on, we do it extremely well now here. So we should be able to do that.
Audience: Indistinct. Something about ambition
Bina: Not a story, he's not even touching on your ambition, he's just trying to say there is the coming and going, you need to appreciate that because this is something like life and once you begin to do that, perhaps a lot of things keep flowing much more smooth matter and a beautiful life. Ron.
Ron: Can I address that please. You're talking to a very ambitious man When I got my BA with First Class Honours I wanted MA Distinction. When I got my MA Distinction I wanted Ph.D. When I wanted Ph.D I wanted professorship. When I want-when I got my professorship I wanted 100 articles in peer reviewed journals. Okay, so I have achieved them all, so I am not a man without ambition but I am also aware that that ambition has its downside too. There's an upside and there's a downside. The upside is when I achieved it, the downside is when I if I don't, yeah, because then my peace is vanishes. I am also aware that when it comes down to some very, very real things that ambition is not there. In about 8 years ago I had a heart attack, possibly also the result of ambition, okay, so when I was in the hospital with all the wires coming out of me, I didn't think at that time about the next journal article, ok, I didn't think at that time about the professor. There was a very basic thing. When the consultant came in and spoke to me he said to me some really true words, he was straight, he was a very direct man, he said it's the it's the first night which is is the deciding one. If you're still alive in the morning you'll probably live. (laughs)
Okay I was there, maybe I won't be alive in the morning. It all vanishes at that point. To be honest, to come back to this person here, at that point, even your family members vanish because you can't do anything for them and they cannot do anything for you. You're on your own and all that is in front of you, if you've been told that you may or may not be alive in the morning, is one breath comes, I'm still alive, one breath comes, I'm still alive, one breath comes, I'm still alive, one breath comes, I'm still alive and I was very curious to know where would, if the last one came (laughs) what would happen when it went out (laughs). Where would I go? You know, so at that point it all disappears, it becomes really really basic, so ambition is great, no problem, and I agree completely about busy lives. I, for the last 25 years I've probably worked 60 or 80 hours a week. You know that we have those kind of lives in the West these days in order to keep up with everything so I know that, but in that I need to have my own resource, I need to have my own centre, I need to have my own focus where I find my own being and I can be secure in my own being. From there I can go out like a tortoise, yeah, the head comes in and then it goes out to the world but it has a place to come back to its own shelter. We need that and what is beautiful about this man's teachings is that you don't have to disappear from the world, you don't have to hide from the world, you don't have to spend hours in a cave or, you know, on top of a mountain. It's with you at every moment, it's with you whether you're working, whether you're doing your examinations, whether you're resting, it's with you, okay.
Aud: Why are we not happy all the time?
Why we are not simple? It's a simple thing of focus.
Aud: How do you do that?
That's what he teaches, how to do that, how that focus can be maintained.
Older man: I think what we heard was you know one day is enough just one day is enough it doesn't matter how many days you've lost one day is enough and through his teachings you would have experienced lot of moments or days of contentment probably if you could share that that will give some more clarity one experience was there what you said where you start breaking away from the past but then there must have been other moments of contentment fulfillment
You want me to share those?
Older man: Yeah probably the examples will give more clarity.
Old man: Good evening I just want to make a point of view a different perspective on some of the same things which you are talking about and Prem Rawat is talking about I'm trying to actually bridge the gap between you and also the young gentleman here. I did alumni of IIT Madras, I worked in corporate life for 35 years and now I do teaching and training. Now one of the things which he is talking about is today ambition future now in corporate life as also in our individual lives we always say look what am I today what do I want to be tomorrow? Now when you say what do I want to be tomorrow means you have a vision and the mission is what you are today and then we always think of what should we do to achieve that desired tomorrow so the question of, you know, coming back to the fact that what do I need to do today in terms of, you know, even the individual breadth as you talk about is what you need to do today to achieve that desired goal or dream or vision this is the way I look at it so this way I think you know all of us would have a view that look it's not that I am just going to depend on my breath and you know okay next breath next breath. No I should think about my future I should think about my dreams and my vision but also the question is what do I need to do today so that I can achieve that desired tomorrow. Thank you.
Ron So I think what we're hearing there is that the two are not contradictory (ha ha).
Ron: So sorry yeah umm I think when I look back on my life, I I first met Prem Rawat when I was traveling in India and at that point in my life I was not actually sure where I was going um I could easily have ended up writing the book that was the second book on sale out there I could have easily have gone down the road of becoming a Ind European Indian Swami, that could have been very easy. It didn't I met I met Prem Rawat. At that time you may find it very hard to believe but he's actually 10 years younger than me so umm almost exactly and to accept-at my age then I was 21 so think of his age in terms of, you know, so he was 11 so and a 21 year old doesn't easily accept the advice of an 11 year old. I have a 10 year old son back there and um I cannot think of a 21 year old who probably would accept his advice, so, and I actually saw him in his school holidays. He used to, where other children would play and do other things he used to do tours, events, across northern India at that time and I actually saw him in the first event where I saw him um there were about 10,000 people in a town called Ghaziabad near Delhi and he spoke in Hindi um at that time I had no knowledge of Hindi whatsoever. So I I sat for about one hour listening to an 11 year old boy speaking a language I didn't understand but one thing was very clear to me, that this boy sitting on a stage, was not memorising anything. He hadn't learnt it, he was speaking very much from his heart with passion with enthusiasm and at the end of that event he asked me to come and he had seen me in the audience and he asked me to come to meet him.
He was playing with a tape recorder and like I guess any other 11 year boy, you see, that he's a trained pilot, he may have caught that, he's very good at technology, very, very good, he designs software um he's always had this interest. So at that time he was playing with a tape recorder and fiddling with it and I sat and I watched him playing with the tape recorder and then he looked at me, he gave me a, and when he looked at me he asked me a very simple question, in fact he asked me three or four questions but the first one was "What is it that you want in your life?" No one had ever asked me that question before and I certainly didn't expect an 11 year old to ask it ask it to me.
The second question to me was on the nature of peace because at that time I'd come from a background of peace activism. I had been campaigning against the Vietnam war and these things back in that time in the 1960s and he asked me what kind of peace is it that you want? Do you want a peace that's manufactured or do you want a peace that already exists, has existed and always will exist. No one had ever indicated to me there were two kinds of peace, a manufactured peace and a real peace, and all the time I was thinking this is an 11 year old that's saying this to me.
He then said to me, the third thing he said to me was "By the way this is India you're in, it's full of babas, sadhus, pirs, you know, you name it it's full of them. South India, North India, East India, West India, millions, thousands of them. You're young" he said, "I think you're about 21 so go and search search India, if you can't find that peace that's within you so come back to me." "Use me in reserve" he said, "Cause I'm even younger than you. I'll still be around." No one has ever said that to me before either. So these three things together I said to him "I think I've come already to the place where peace can be found." He said "Okay if you think that then you can stay here, no problem." From that day forwards I cannot say that my life has always been like that and nor actually would I have been content if it had been like that, because I don't like flat lining. I'm the kind of person who likes excitement, you know, so so yeah there have been ups in my life there have been downs in my life but the place which he showed me to go back to inside myself very simply, it took a very short time to show me that, was always there for me and has given me the most extraordinary, not just peace I would say, peace is not, it doesn't really say it, it's it's an aliveness, a sense of just of fulfillment but also being intensely and beautifully alive.
Loving life, enjoying life, appreciating life, having gratitude for life and one thing I know that I can say because one thing I always wanted even when I was young is I never wanted to be that kind of human being, that on my deathbed, I would say "I regret this, this and this and why didn't I do that that and that." I always wanted to be that kind of human bein' that on my deathbed I could say "Yeah my life has been great, it's been a wonderful gift and I've enjoyed the ride, even the ups and downs of the ride but I've loved the ride. Standin' before you, not dead or on my deathbed, very much alive, I can say that in every day of my life, even in those days where there have been difficulties and I've had to face those difficulties, I can say that my life has been the most extraordinary gift to me and I love that bein' alive, not because I've achieved this or I've achieved that or I have a beautiful son or I have a beautiful wife or I have a nice house. They're good things too but because I'm simply alive. In that life there is contentment, gratitude, joy, appreciation, wonder and we all as human beings feel those things. We all feel them what he teaches is a way to tap into it and make it more available to us and that's it. So it's not just I could find like moments, "I could say this happened or that happened, it's been a lifetime."
Bina: Did Ron confuse you further? No it's been a great experience for me too being with, learning from Prem Rawat. I've known him from about more than 15 years and according to me he's a very wonderful, like he said, he's a software, you know, he does lot of things with gadgets but to me he has put in a very innovative manner, something to do with how to understand life. There is several things which he had done which were very innovative in terms of expressions, in terms of how to take this life forward. There was once he he told that when you are driving a car how long you want to look at the mirror, and drive you have to look in the front. Don't keep looking back. What you see in the mirror is what you see is happening in the back. Don't go on like that. Life is not to be which means it's today now forward is something which is very real, which really impressed me a lot in my life. I always feel that that is something which I have to cherish and take it forward where my life is concerned. So like this, he is teachings are extremely beautiful to me, it is something like a behavior technology and what he gives which can take you, which can make you feel peaceful.
The Knowledge, which he calls it, which we can experience, so persons who are interested can know more about it. This is just the beginning. Thanks to Dhruva that they have called us so that we will be able to show this and share our experiences with you but this is just the beginning, this is not the end I am sure you will be given these cards where you can go on to the some of the websites and know more about this. Oh it's been an extremely wonderful learning for me. I am ever a teacher. I am also a teacher but then when it comes to my life I feel that I have learnt a lot. I teach a lot of students but then for my life I had to learn these things, yeah.
Older man: I think, thank you for sharing, (you are
MC: any other doubts?
Aud: Have you got Beatles live show in Liverpool have I got Beatles Beatles Beatles live show Beatles
Ron: Beatles there is a Beatles museum in in Liverpool yeah yeah and also they do a they do a tour what are they what's that tour called the Yellow? Dominic what's that yellow vehicle called you can't remember anyway they have this vehicle that goes on water and also on land, amphibious vehicle duck marine thank you and it's yellow like the yellow submarine yeah so it brings you out of the water up onto the land and then it takes you on a tour of Liverpool of all the sites like the Beatles houses where they lived where they grew up and so on yeah so I think a lot of our students come to the university because they know and there's two things actually there's three things they say okay our students about the university, why they come to Liverpool. Some say because of Beatles and we're, you know, Liverpool Football Club and really pretty girls.