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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Leaders of the Divine Light Mission also expressed sublime satisfaction with the affair though rationalization could easily be read into some of their explanations. Architect Larry Bernstein, who designed the stage, pointed to the scope of the whole project and the professionalism with which it was put together. "Eight months ago I didn't see how they had a snowball's chance in hen of puning this thing off."
Bernstein said the event was designed for the premies and especially for the organizers, who he feels gained immeasurable experience useful for future projects. He also made an interesting admission. "I didn't design that stage for the people in the Astrodome. This event is going to be completely taped on TV , there's going to be a five-record album and a complete movie made from it. That was my audience."
The Perfect City and Related Visions
LARRY BERNSTEIN IS A HANDSOME, gentle man who studied architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright and now wants to build a perfect city for the Perfect Master.
"I've been told the city is top priority," Larry said two days post-Millennium. "Bal Bhagwan Ji (the Guru's eldest brother) called me Sunday morning and said, "Start working—you're the coordinator—start developing the city."
The Divine City is the first major project of the Divine United Organization (DUO) which was inaugurated during the World Assemblage to Save Humanity, on the third day of Millennium. In his November 10 satsang, Rennie Davis said, "With this organization (DUO), we will feed and shelter and clothe every human being who is in need on this planet." (No timetable was given so check with them before you start lining up.)
"The first project will be to build a city and Guru Maharaj Ji calls this city the Divine City and he says it will be a practical demonstration of the feasibility of establishing the kingdom of Heaven on earth. It win be like no city in the history of the world and people will come to this city and see how human beings were meant to be."
So you can see that Larry Bernstein's assignment is, well, challenging. But damned if there isn't a twinkle in this man's eye, and an aura of (peacefully) manic vision about him that makes you think that if anybody could do it...
Bernstein studied industrial engineering and architecture at M.I.T., spent a year with Frank Lloyd Wright and several years as an industrial design consultant. His achievements in architecture and related fields have won him awards and respect. He took the Knowledge and became a fonower of Guru Maharaj Ji early last year. He has long been an ardent student of both physics and metaphysics and says that for 20 years he has been expecting Maharaj Ji to show up. It seems that psychic Edgar Cayce predicted then that a boy born in India in 1958 would lead the world, and Bcrnstein took him for his word.
Larry bought his trailer and his wife and daughter and two dogs and the tools of his trade to Houston three months before the Millennium. He set up shop behind the Rainbow Inn and proceeded to design and coordinate construction of the massive, multi-tiered stage that supported Maharaj Ji, the Holy Family, the Mahatmas, plus Blue Aquarius and other entertainers.
But that's done and gone; now his sights are on the Divine City—a structurally futuristic and functionally utopian concept. I came away halfway convinced that Larry Bernstein will indeed build a city someday. Maybe it won't be Heaven on Earth, but it ought to be a damn pleasant place to live.
The basic building unit of the city would be a six-sided module made of a translucent plastic, a concept Larry developed several years ago. Each module would have a hole in the center, and they would be stacked on pre-fab concrete trunks going up some 25 stories. But each trunk would be only 75 per cent full of modules, so there would be random holes (determined by computer) to make for an interesting cityscape.
He says the modules would be strong, economical and highly adaptable. Since the plastic would be translucent, light would come in evenly and there would be no dark corners. "You've got 20 stories of these little modules, and they're all glowing at night, which would make a really beautiful cityscape—a real city of light."
Larry would like to see the city in a mountain setting. "The modules would be capable of anything from flat terrain to hills to mountains, almost to cliffs—to the same modules going right down into lakes, to actually floating on lakes. You'd park your car outside of town, and you'd come in on the monorail, and you might come into the 12th floor on this one, and the eighth floor here and the first here...And when you come in through one of these buildings, you're looking up through stories and stories of modules. You should be able to love every inch of these buildings. Buildings today are just schlock."
But how would the city itself be organized?
"Unlike the commercial orientation of cities throughout the ages, the marketplace would be replaced by the spiritual centers and the cultural centers. Ballet and dance would dominate; the marketplace would be there, but to serve man, and not as the heart of the city."
"When you'd have a festival the whole city would be alive. It would be very conducive to performance—the pavement would all of a sudden swoop up and provide a beautiful podium for someone to give satsang, or here it might dip down into a natural amphitheater, or there it might swell into a place for the band to play..."
As he goes on, he becomes a tour guide in Fantasyland. It's like he's been teleported into his vision of this place; suddenly he's there in the flesh, his surroundings animated and in day-glo colors.
Would this city just be for premies? No, but if you're a premie, you just walk into a store, hand them your premie card "and they'd give you a suit or a meal or whatever you needed." But there would also be non-Ashram types, property-holders, who would pay for the same goods.
Larry says a book and a movie about the Divine City are currently in progress and that a design center is being pulled together. "We already have people from all over—Norway, Spain, Italy—who want to be a part of it. Carpenters, designers, architects, artists, engineers. We're looking for land. We want to prototype the city in a modest way somewhere on a couple hundred acres. And hopefully. within two or three years..."
We can understand why a visionary architect would want to build a city, but why for a 15-year-old chubby kid from India?
"I came to the realization several years ago that God is simply unity itself. And the only difference between me and that unity is the degree of realization. I am an aspect of the infinite that has not yet realized itself.
"We happen to have on the planet now a soul who has perfectly realized this energy. A soul who has so perfected himself in past lives, or in this life, that he's actually become one with that consciousness. And when you realize unity, you can operate omnisciently, omnipresently. I mean, this guy Maharaj Ji could right now pop out of that body and go play in an entire universe."
Wait a minute. You mean that ulcerated, chubby little...
"I think he appears as a fat little kid just to confuse us. You know, after I took the Knowledge, I freaked out over the outlandish things Maharaj Ji would do. I kept saying to myself, you know, this is a hell of a way for a God to act. I mean, this guy must be a fraud...".
There's a Hindi concept called lila which is sort of like Divine play. Larry Bernstein figures that the kid God knows very well what he's up to.
"All I know is that Maharaj Ji is not from around this neighborhood. He is a power that you and I don't know how to handle, yet. And he has his own way of doing things. He's going to do things for the good of his overall plan. And it's not going to jibe with anything we consider realistic."
Well, you can't argue with that, can you? The kid's weird because he's got something Big up his sleeve. Maybe a hit of that Knowledge stuff would make it all come clear. I'll ten you this much, Larry: at least I like the city.
Cheap Thrills at the Millennium
WE HAVE TWO FRIENDS WHO figure they got higher than anyone else at the Astrodome. They climbed to the top!
Gary and Diane got bored with the proceedings inside and, up for some cheap thrills, they opted to reach for the heavens. With the help of scaffolding left by workers mending the roof, they scaled the outside of the Dome. They climbed to the very top and, after basking for awhile in the breathtaking scene, discovered that in the very center there was an opening into the stadium. They climbed down into a wire mesh catwalk and were standing, suspended in air, with 360 degrees of Millennium below. Maharaj Ji—way down there—was delivering satsang.
After taking in the dazzling scene, they happened to glance upward. And there, divinely centered in the circular hole through which they had climbed, keeping guard directly above the Astrodome, was a perfectly full moon. The sky framing it was crystal clear and the moon was the brightest of whites.
DOWN ON THE FLOOR, TRUE believers from distant places were blissing out as the scoreboard flashed apocalyptic gospel and the Guru compared true peace to the carburetor of a Mercedes. Convert Rennie Davis was scurrying around doing the Lord's busywork, while in a radio booth far above his former compatriots wondered if he'd lost his New Left marbles.
As for Diane and Gary, the spectacle phased them little. They were still way up on high, sharing that catwalk with the full moon and figuring that if anyone at the Millennium had a mystical experience it was they. Knowledge notwithstanding.
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