God Goes to the Astrodome
The Maharaj Ji has fused the New Left and the flower children, galvanized serious college-educated young people, and promised a new era of peace. And it was all supposed to begin in Houston.
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Well, they didn't pack the joint and the show was spotty: it had its up moments but the rest would have put a speed freak to sleep. Most of what was promised in the way of special effects either didn't occur at all or simply wasn't large enough in concept to cope with the vastness of the Astrodome experience. But if it was indeed a failure, those aren't the reasons. In fact, it's pretty amazing that this crew of amateur showmen was able to pull off as tight and professional an operation as it did.
The real problem, from this humble observer's perspective, was one of content, or should we say, lack of content. They didn't have much to say, and they said it over and over again. Basically they're talking about an experience that can't, by their own admission, be communicated verbally. The only way to know what the Knowledge is, is to receive it through meditation with a Mahatma. And the only way you can realize that Guru Maharaj Ji is for real a Big Dude is to have that Knowledge.
You certainly couldn't tell it from his reported erratic behavior, his recently diagnosed duodenal ulcer or his hefty penchant for Rolls Royces, airplanes and expensive homes. And you wouldn't know it from hearing him talk. He's difficult to understand, his voice is changing and far from eloquent, and if you strain for the words, you hear repetitive, empty aphorisms.
During his three hour Millennium oration he must have made at least a dozen analogies involving automobiles. (He appears to have a fixation.) And he went into one long rap comparing God to the Astrodome (with either one, if you haven't experienced it personally, you don't really know what it is). And there was the one about the poor fellow who tears Houston upside down looking for a Superman comic book, fails in his task and ends up hassled and discouraged. When who should appear but a smiling five-year-old kid who walks up and hands him—wonder of wonders—a Superman comic. (You don't have to look for it; it'll come to you.)
And those stories were high points. He mostly droned on and on with his basic message: "You want peace? Give me a try. I'll establish peace for you. It's a simple deal." It's hard to accept a God without even a little charisma.
The three days of the festival were inundated with satsang—long, rambling, repetitive testimonials to Maharaj Ji and his Knowledge—by members of the Holy Family, Mahatmas, and leaders of the Divine Light Mission. Only Rennie Davis' satsang on the final night reached anything approaching an oratorical peak.
At other times, the affair was more like a rock festival with long sets by Blue Aquarius, the SO-piece band led by Bhole Ji, the Guru's brother. (Bhole Ji, who is even plumper than his brother, wore a dazzling silver-sequined costume that rivaled Elvis at his gaudiest. At one point I observed, in a moment of rhetorical excess, that Bhole Ji was bouncing and bobbing like a rhetorical dumpling in Mata Ji's chicken soup.)
Blue Aquarius was capable of generating some real excitement, although the one time they really got the folks up and boogie-ing, a sign was flashed on the scoreboard saying, "Attention, Attention/Please do not run and dance/Thank you, Guru Maharaj Ji." The entertainment also included recording artist Eric Mercury and a beautifully choreographed and executed dance called Krishna Lila, performed by the Divine Light Dance Ensemble.
The size and scope of the Houston Astrodome, however, tended to dwarf whatever theatrical effects—visual or aural—were attempted. Though the multi-level stage and slide projections and light shows may have appeared massive on paper, they failed to overwhelm in execution. Even the Guru himself—high atop a flame-shaped throne—was a mere speck in the concave universe of colored seats and memories of home runs past.
Perhaps the most effective tool was the massive Astrodome scoreboard which served as the constant carrier of messages ranging from the sublime to the mundane. (To some sensibilities, however, it was a vehicle more of electronic overkill than of enlightenment.) When Maharaj Ji appeared on his throne the first night, his arrival was announced on the scoreboard by the same fireworks that greet Astro outfielder Cesar Cedeno when he clouts a hanging curve into the centerfield stands.
But the scoreboard has never honored a Cedeno blast with the slogan "Truth is the target/The mind is the bullet/Ready. Aim. Fire."—followed by a verbatim rendition of the Lord's Prayer. Or: "The Holy Breath will fill this place/And you will be baptized in Holy Breath."
When Maharaj Ji completed his Saturday night satsang, celestial music filled the dome, strobe lights flashed and the scoreboard overloaded. On one side it trumpeted scripture like, "Yea all kings shall fall down before him/ All nations shall serve him," while the other panel was flashing a giant yellow "REALIZE." It was, to be truthful, a bit eerie: like the setting for a futuristic ascension. For the Christian devout, it was surely the pinnacle of sacrilege; for the cynical, the height of pretension; and for the stoned, merely another manifestation of the cosmic giggle.
One time the scoreboard flashed "Sugar is Sweet/So are You/Guru Maharaj Ji." In fact, had the staff of The National Lampoon been placed in charge of the scoreboard, they probably wouldn't have changed a thing. They certainly wouldn't have cut this number: "All premies interested in doing/Propagation in Morocco please contact/Millennium Information at the Royal Coach Inn."
In total, however, not much of the event was burned into our memory (or our notepads). We are left with a montage of impressions, like random stills from a Shri Hans flick. For instance, we have a sharp visual after-image of the thousands of premies, mostly jetted in by special airlifts from India and Europe, who packed the floor of the Dome. The field was covered with a bright red carpet which the premies transformed into an impressive multicolored embroidery.
And we certainly can't forget the incredible bureaucratic run-arounds with the World Peace Corps (described by one journalist as "a Guru goon squad of tough-looking teddy bear types from Britain"). Those premies drafted into bureaucratic service were often so mindless in their devotion to arbitrary principles of order that the term "guranoid" was coined in their honor.
And then there were the Divine Sales concession stands that peppered the area, hawking their spiritual souvenirs. (I even gave in and bought a rainbow-colored Guru button for my collection.) They did a booming business in items ranging from Millennium tee shirts ($2.75) to shoulder bags ($2.50) to Guru Maharaj Ji stationery ($1.50) to opera glasses and ear plugs. (Ear plugs?)
Austin artist Kerry Fitzgerald tried to give Divine Sales a little friendly competition and they put the World Peace Corps on him. Kerry—in the spirit of cosmic free enterprise—brought a bundle of special Guru tee shirts that he designed and had printed up. The guranoids expressed disapproval because Kerry's version of Maharaj Ji wasn't smiling and because one of his eyes was abstracted into a starburst. (Kerry said the starburst eye symbolized the comet Kohoutek and was inspired by a Maharaj Ji utterance: "Peace will come in the twinkling of an eye.") Informed speculation was that Divine Sales preferred to corner the market.
There were also interesting side trips with some of the personalities and media figures who were wandering around. Reformed evangelist Marjoe Gortner was covering the event for Oui magazine. Houston's listener-sponsored radio station KPFT-FM did "bliss-to-bliss" live coverage from the Dome, anchored by and featuring often sardonic commentary from Realist editor Paul Krassner, former celebrated pot prisoner and White Panther leader John Sinclair, Texas' gift to the Yippies Jeff Nightbyrd, and Jerry Rubin, Chicago Eight co-defendant with Rennie Davis.
KPFT aired a live debate between satirist Krassner and Millennium organizer Davis on the topic, "Resolved that Guru Maharaj Ji and the Divine Light Mission serve to divert young people from social responsibility to personal escape." Davis responded with poise when Krassner challenged him about the "Divine Ulcer" and the incident in Detroit where a staff-writer for the underground Fifth Estate threw a shaving cream pie in the Guru's face and later suffered a fractured skull at the hands of two over-zealous premies bearing lead pipes. (The DLM later disavowed the action.)
Krassner swore that, "if a giant pie had come down from the sky and hit the reporter in the face, I would have been converted on the spot." He suggested that the Guru movement might be a calculated diversion from the harsh realities of politics in this country and called Maharaj Ji "the spiritual equivalent of Mark Spitz."
But one side trip there wasn't. This has to be the only time in several years that I have been in such a large crowd of young people—many long-haired and freaky—and not once smelled marijuana fumes or seen the signal-flare of joints being passed and puffed in the black.
On the whole, if you weren't an initiate (and didn't have access to the press area), Millennium '73 fell flat. You might say it was the Guru's second Peace Bomb, if you catch our meaning.
Every premie we talked with, however, thought the event unquestionably Divine; their ability to consume with relish whatever was thrown at them from the stage rivaled the boredom-absorbing power of the delegates at the '72 Republican Convention.
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