Divine Light Mission finished it's early growth period by the end of 1973. It had large debts following the Millenium 73 festival. It suffered terrible publicity following the 16 year old guru's wedding to his 23 year old "secretary," his mother's disowning, disinheriting and deposing him as the Satguru and the young guru's opulent lifestyle. It is possible that his greed and materialism and his personal use of the majority of DLM's financial resources were as detrimental as the bad publicity as it severely hampered the organisation's ability to function with up to 60% of the total income going to Rawat personally.
Michael Dettmers became involved in the administration as he was one of the few premies with management experience in a large organisation. One of his ideas was to have focus groups amongst DLM administrators to determine exactly how they felt about their roles, Rawat's role and their lives. Sophia Collier wrote that "It had all started the month before (11/75), when Maharaj Ji came to the Denver community meeting and said that all the people in DLM should have "understanding." He seemed very emphatic about this, although it was rather vague just exactly what he wanted people to understand. Each person, according to her/his nature, interpreted Maharaj Ji's statement differently. Michael Dettmers and some of the other executives assumed people on the HQ staff needed to understand the organization and their commitment to it more fully. To this end, in the middle of December (1976), they set up a large conference for the entire staff at the Hilton Hotel. They secured the services of a premie who was a professional in group dynamics. Maharaj Ji came to the conference and told everybody that he was completely behind this effort and the premies should relax, cooperate, and 'not be paranoid.' "
These "training workshops" used basic brainstorming and synthesizing techniques to get members to think about what the organization was actually trying to accomplish. They were told to reflect on their experience of "Guru Maharaj Ji" and Knowledge and what is Rawat's role in spreading knowledge, what is the best way to "spread this Knowledge", the ashrams, etc. The administrators encouraged people to leave the ashram as they and most others were not actually "experiencing" the bliss that that had been promised to them. Many of the administrators were in illicit sexual relationships (illicit for ashram residents that is) and they wanted out. It was already obvious to them that Maharaji's "Knowledge" was not producing the results he had originally and so blithely promised and many administrators thought the ashrams were creating problems in their members. David Lovejoy head of DLM, Great Britain reported after a meeting held in Leicester during Guru Maharaj Ji's visit there, with members of DLM, Bob Mishler and Jos Lammers that premies had failed "in the development of responsibility and maturity as we practise Knowledge for a long period of time" except for other people like himself who believed they didn't require "intensive care" any longer. Lovejoy returned to Australia shortly thereafter and turned his attention to a career and chess.
A decision was made that the best way to present Maharaji was as a "humanitarian leader" and the instructions to premies and the publicity began. Mishler believed Rawat had agreed to these changes. This was truly bizarre as Rawat had been promoted as the boy God, the Lord of the Universe, the Lord of Universal Peace, who proclaimed he had come to rule the world with more power than any Perfect Master before him. While premies were obedient and changed the way they spoke about Rawat publicly (while not changing their beliefs) the media were, understandably, not so obedient. As Bob Mackenzie had written "The 16 year-old guru Maharaj Ji has decided he is God, I understand. That is not a bad job for a 16 year-old kid, except that there's no chance for advancement." There also is no possiblility of an acceptable and reasonable demotion.
In an unlikely scenario, an extreme right-wing lobby group, The Citizens' Congress, that wase well-known at the time for their strong support of President Nixon, invited the Guru Maharaji to speak at a Bi-Centenary function at the Mayflower Hotel. Speakers at the luncheon included U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz who was convicted of tax-evasion in 1981 and who resigned in disgrace after making his most famous speech: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." and Senator Strom Thurmond. Rennie Davis would have rolled over in his grave had he been dead.
As Dettmers explained DLM were going to be audited by the IRS due to the publicity re Prem Rawat's luxuries. DLM was incorporated as a church and the spending on and by Rawat as the church leader was far beyond the amount acceptable to the IRS. Bob Mishler, who had come to see Rawat up close and personal from the time of the "family feud" was completely fed up with Rawat's alcohol abuse and out of control spending that was destroying the organization, decided to sell the Malibu mansion and haul in the reins of Rawat's spending binges.
Plans to create an investment fund to allow Rawat to maintain his opulent lifestyle were decided upon but the DLM cash flow dropped enormously as people left the ashrams and stopped donating their entire salaries and premies became involved in a more normal life. Rawat came to Denver to meet the Executive Committee of DLM, fired the non-sycophants (as Downton so quaintly phrases it: "the guru took the initiative halfway through 1976 by asking two members of the Board of Directors, including the President, to step down from their posts and to assume a different form of service within the movement.") and installed Dettmers as his Personal Manager. Rawat stated "Knowledge without devotion to Maharaji is nothing". He took steps to ensure that his total control would never again be challenged and began a new era of devotion, along with a reinstatement of the ashrams.
In Andrea Cagan's sleazy "biography" of Prem Rawat she writes that by July, 1976, the organisation's administrators' had so little respect for him they were saying that he should have only a figurehead role. She also wrote that Rawat claimed that during the summer tour he had given Bob Mishler a place of honour and asked him to speak first. However, it was not uncommon for Western premies or his wife to speak first and remind everyone of the need to pay attention to the young Rawat's "satsang" as he was so simplistic and his English so poor that his "incredible depth and wisdom" might be missed.
From an article in the Golden Age magazine it can be seen that 20% of ashram finances went to the help defray DLM administration costs. While it would never be published we know from ashram residents that 20% was sent directly to Rawat to help pay for his opulent lifestyle and the remaining 60% went to support the ashram residents themselves. In Australia ashram income was $AU600,000 pa so we can deduce that the US figure would be (ballpark) $US6,000,000 so from there alone Rawat's annual income would have dropped $US1,200,00 as would DLM's.
Excerpts from a tape recorded by English national director David Lovejoy, summarising a meeting held in Leicester during Guru Maharaj Ji's visit there, with members of DLM in Britain, Bob Mishler and Jos Lammers.
Well, I guess the largest part of the time was taken up with the question of the ashram. We've had a generation of ashram premies, some of whom have been in the ashram for five years now, and in many cases their development seems to have gone contrary to what we would like to see in the development of ashram premies-counter to what Maharaj Ji has expressed that he would like to see in the development of responsibility and maturity as we practise Knowledge for a long period of time. It just seems that the very controlled environment of the ashram, by reducing choice and reducing initiative, has in fact had the opposite effect on many premies-that they've not increased in maturity and they've not increased in responsibility.
On the other hand, there are those ashram premies that have survived, intact, the rigors of the ashram system, who are maybe in positions of direct service and coordination and who do feel that they've got their discipline together internally. They have more or less been in what Maharaj Ji called the intensive care unit for four or five years now, perhaps, and they are just beginning to wonder why they need to be in such an intensive situation when they have got their practise of Knowledge pretty much together. They are committed to serving the movement, to serving Maharaj Ji, and yet the contradictions, the paradoxes of the lifestyle of the ashram are beginning to build up on them. It's like, `Are these chaps going to continue in this exact same lifestyle for another five, ten, or fifty years?'
The meaning of ashram has undergone a shift from having been external-a practical arrangement to spread Knowledge by people committed to the task (still many times on a small basis of understanding but with a lot of sincerity). We used to call the ashram the spiritual nucleus of the community, and the ashram premies were some sort of avant-garde in the spiritual revolutionary work. Then we understood that everyone is a spiritual nucleus himself, and that every practising, active premie belonged to the avant garde of human-kind. The shift went from external arrangements to internal understanding on an individual basis. In that process many ashram premies had to face their passivity and reevaluate themselves and their living situation. Many took the consequences of that. Many still have to follow through with this reevaluation, I believe.
In November, of 1976 at the "Frankfurt Conference" Rawat reinforced the simplistic, fundamentalist view of himself as the Lord of the Universe and only source of true Knowledge in the world. Those followers who found a broader view of life more attractive voted with their feet.
References:
This appraisal of the changes in DLM in 1976 is based upon:
and the newspaper articles listed above and personal memories.