Prem Rawat (Prem Pal Singh Rawat) whose devotees call him Maharaji (meaning Ultimate Ruler) first came to attention in the West as Guru Maharaj Ji - the self-proclaimed Perfect Master and Lord of the Universe ridiculed in the media as a fat, squeaky-voiced God boy. He had inherited his titles and position as the Satguru, The True Revealer of Light and Spiritual Master of the Divine Light Mission, India (Divya Sandesh Parishad) when his father died in 1966. His father, Hans Rawat, was a successful Indian guru, self titled HRH (His Royal Highness) Yogiraj Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj. As a child the youngest Rawat son was informally called Sant Ji, more formally Balyogeshwar ("Born King of the Yogis") and even more formally Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Sant Ji Maharaj. In the West Rawat dropped these more verbose titles in the early 1980's and instructed his followers to call him Maharaji. He has also changed the names of his organisations many times: Divine Light Mission (DLM), World Welfare Association (WWA), World Peace Corps (WPC) and Divine United Organisation (DUO) became Elan Vital in the early 1980's and in 2001 The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) was created and from 2010 his major orgs are Words Of Peace Global (WOPG) registered in Holland, Words of Peace International (WOPI) in the USA, HDSK (Human Development through Self Knowledge) in Great Britain and Raj Vidya Kender (Royal Knowledge Society) in India. He no longer claims to be an Incarnation of God but an internationally famous humanitarian leader and teacher of peace. He's neither.
Dear Premies, can you hear me? Being here, I realize that I have something to tell you that's so beautiful, that's so wonderful, that it's almost impossible to tell you. And I realize that this service that Guru Maharaj Ji has given me is so very precious, but yet at the same time very difficult. Because it's so hard to tell you, and to tell the world, what we're feeling, and what is really happening. Yet we try and we try in so many ways.
So, once again, I'll try to make it more clear to some people who really don't understand what we're feeling. One way of telling you this is to explain the situation that the world is in in the form of a little story.
It could start out where there's a village of people. These people feel deep inside that there is some reason why they're there, that the life that they're living is a very precious thing. They've also been promised by the Creator of their life that there is a very special day for them, and that this special day is going to come soon.
So everyone is filled with excitement, because all their life they've been waiting for this day. This day is the most precious thing to them. And then the news starts coming. They're to make a trip. They have to go to this special city.
Everyone in the village is so excited. This is the day of the parade. It's the great parade that everyone in the village has been waiting for. It's the parade to heaven. They all know this deep inside, and they all know that they're going to get to go. So everyone is excited, and they go on this little journey.
When they get there, they have to stay in this hotel because they're tired. There's something about this hotel in that it has a very distinctive quality of trying to lure them to sleep. It not only lures them to sleep, but it puts them in a dream state.
So all the people in the village go in the hotel and they stay there, they check in. They still remember that there's a very special day happening the next day, but they start to fall asleep, and they start to dream.
They dream of so many crazy things; they dream of having so much pain and so much suffering. Yet other people are dreaming that something very exciting is going to happen, but they can't remember what it is! They have completely forgotten about the parade. They can't remember that it is the parade to heaven, and that's why they even came to this hotel.
They slept the whole night, and they kept sleeping and dreaming. They were very anxious even in their sleep, even in their dreams.
Then the parade started. Slowly, the master of the parade sent out people who were already in his parade, and told them to go wake up the people in the hotel and tell them that the parade is starting; the parade to heaven is now going on.
So these few people ran up and they said, "Wake up! Wake up! The day has come; it's morning! It's time now! Everything you've been waiting for is here. This is the day!"
But the people said, "Go away; leave us alone. We're tired. What are you talking about anyway?" They didn't even remember that this was the most special day of their whole life.
Yet slowly, one by one, the people started waking up. And as soon as they got out of the hotel and into the parade, they realized fully why they were there. They were completely awake then. They started playing instruments that they'd never played before, and they played them perfectly. They played them harmoniously. They played every instrument they picked up so beautifully, and each one had a part, and each one's part was perfect. As they marched in the parade, they became so full of love, so full of joy. It really was the parade to heaven; they knew that they were on their way.
This is the situation of the world. We've been sleeping. We're really here for a reason. We're not just here to exist and to not know why. We really have a purpose. But you must know that purpose. And Guru Maharaj Ji is saying, "I can show you that purpose."
When he does, and when he wakes us up, we're so full of love and happiness. Because we really are in that parade to heaven. Heaven is not when someone dies. Heaven is now. The kingdom of heaven is within us. Guru Maharaj Ji shows us that. And that's the most precious gift that any one of us can receive.
Once we receive that, we know it. There's no doubt about it. It's so beautiful that it becomes too hard to even explain the way it really is. Yet we try in all these ways to tell people that this is really it; this is the day. He's really come.
9
Prem Rawat's "Knowledge" has three parts: regularly listening to his speeches, doing voluntary work for organisations serving him or donating money and daily meditation correctly practicing the four techniques he recommends. The techniques are so simple it's hard to see how they could be practiced incorrectly. First technique ("Divine Light") involves sticking your thumb and middle finger on your eyeballs (NB: with eyes closed) and your index finger between your eyebrows. Second technique: ("Heavenly Music") poking your thumbs into your ears and listening. Third technique: ("Holy Name") thinking about your breathing (NB: continue to breathe). Fourth technique: ("Nectar") curling your tongue backwards and tasting. Rawat's father taught slightly different techniques but either way it's difficult to see how these could produce the benefits claimed for them especially as Rawat claims His Knowledge is the only method of attaining real happiness and love in this life.