Mr Green wrote:Shanti Bhavan was almost looked down on by most of the Seniors and considered a place where the poor struggling Brothers were kept.
It is funny you say that because many people used to aspire to live there as a sign of surrender and commitment, and for spiritual support to keep away from "impure" worldly rented accommodation ... but, looking back, I suspect the real respect from the Seniors would go to the ones that had their own homes, their own business, a high income. I wonder how many generations of young men were conned into thinking they were doing something great by being "allowed" by the senior Sisters whose permission was required to stay there.
Perhaps it was the notable rate of "failure" of its inhabitants that lowered the Seniors opinion of it ... a place for fermenting "Brothers' Maya" which usually meant "questioning what the senior Sisters were up to". Eromain, Julian Boles (Ranjana Patel's lover) and that other guy who went off to become a drug dealer all used to live. Mike George too.
I remember the amount of confusion, and also subtle condemnation or looking down, on the Brother (or it may have been two Brothers - one was Chinese) who went to buy a flat with a mortgage. How could they buy a mortgage when the end of the world was coming!?! This was in the early 1980s when everyone thought the end of the world was coming are between 1986. The Murli used to say the Confluence Age, "50 year for Destruction, 50 years for Creation".
The mortgage will be paid off, probably upgraded, the Brother will have financial security, a home, a retirement plan and made money on the rising property market by now. All the "surrendered" Brothers will have nothing. I hear all the older dedicated BKs are going into local government old folks homes.
They bought Shanti Bhavan, did not they? Is it paid off? Do surrendered BKs still have to pay rent to live there now it is rent free? Where does themoney go?