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Faith There are a number of things that I am passionate about and one of them is my faith. While being brought up as a Catholic as a child and being made to go to church by my parents, I did not really believe in God, I went because I had to. I can remember being embarrassed to have to tell my friends that I could not come out with them on Sunday mornings because my parents wanted me in church. I thought through high school that science and evolution basically showed there was no need for a God. It was during 1974 while in College doing grade 11 that things changed. A friend and I were in the Hobart CBD when someone gave us a tract about a group called Divine Light Mission (DLM). We accepted the tract and thought the whole thing a bit of a joke. We took the tract back to College and showed it to a couple of friends. One of those friends told me that a student whom I had been through high school with was a member of DLM . I talked to the guy who was in DLM and before I new it I was being initiated into the cult (though at that time I did not see it as a cult). DLM had its origins in hinduism and revolved around the worship of what was then a 16 year old Indian boy who went by the name of Guru Maharaj ji. What did impress me however was the sense of the supernatural. Strange coincidences would happen, things that could not be explained by chance. As I mentioned before, during my high school years I had concluded that God, if he existed was very remote and Jesus was someone who if he had existed had died 2000 years ago. This sense of the supernatural made me conclude that what I was into must be true as I had not seen it in christianity. However a spanner was thrown into the works. Not long after I had joined DLM some christian friends came to visit my parents (who through me had also become involved with DLM). These friends started to talk about Jesus as thought he were a real person alive today. They talked about miracles happening in peoples lives - people who were sick being healed, financial provision, restored relationships. This took my quite by surprise as I had concluded that Jesus died 2000 years ago and the guru was the current "lord of the universe". My whole world view was rocked. To be continued...
To find out more about Divine Light Mission from an ex members perspective visit http://www.ex-premie.org/ I have attended Grace Christian Church in Hobart for the last 14 years.
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