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.

Pictures of God

Satsang of Bal Bhagwan Ji, Guru Maharaj Ji's eldest bother, Divine Residence, Hobart, March 9, 1974.

So premies the most important thing is to meditate and there is no hard rule in this and you can just investigate for yourself what meditation is, so all the people who have received Knowledge, they must continue this practice.

This place is very quiet, isn't it? It is really very quiet, no pollution, but still the mind is spinning. You can go up to the Himalayas but that place won't help you, the mind still spins. Meditation can only pacify minds, can only give tranquillity to mind, otherwise this mind will to round and round. And propagation is very important because, have you seen the film called Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? Now a very big film will be coming out, Millennium '73. It is going to be a very big feature film for about four hours. You can see the entire Millennium program before your eyes.

You can really see all the scriptures. Have you read the Aquarian Gospel? Jesus talks about the Holy Breath and different things. You can really see for yourselves that other scriptures also corroborate this Knowledge. There is a book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and that describes Knowledge actually and all the scriptures talk about this Knowledge. Once Mohammed Sahib went into a cave and a holy angel came and said that he should meditate on the name of Rab and now Moselm people don't understand what the angel said, so now they keep a beard, like a goatee, and they say this is Noor. Noor means light so when they go to Mecca and after they return from Mecca, they keep a beard and that signified that this person has come to Mecca. Noor means light so beard is not light.

Within Your Heart

If you go to Arab countries you will see them and they sit on a big minaret and they have their fingers and thumbs inside their ears and they shout, "Allah Ho Akbar", which means they are calling Allah, they are calling God. Yes, and they don't understand that. There was a very famous pool called Gallib and he was drinking wine in a mosque and the priest came and said, "This is blasphemous, you should not drink wine in this holy mosque". So he says, "Okay, tell me first where there is no God so I can go there and drink this wine". God is omnipresent, God is everywhere and you have to search within your heart, within your body.

There was a Moslem poet who said, "Khuda ke mehrab me sun goar se/ Aa rahi dhun tumko butane ke liye". In the natural dome of the natural mosque and this body is the natural mosque, a temple. He says in the dome of the natural temple the sound is coming and the sound is calling you and the sound is from God. Hear that sound. Even the astronauts who went on the moon reported that they were hearing music in their ears. They went down hearing music and people thought that it was cosmic interference because there were cosmic rays coming into their ears. People thought that cosmic rays weiv making different sounds but the most important point is to concentrate, because this mind, if this mind is captured, that is really liberation. There is only one system, one technique that can do it. People are chanting mantras and many different things, many people say Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram and before they start Ra and before they end Ma the mind just goes round and round and comes back. This is just a physical exercise. Guru Maharaj Ji has given us a technique that we can even sleep and meditate because if your mind is completely in unison with the Word, this is meditation.

Pictures of God

There is a premie called Lindsay in Melbourne. He is somewhere near fifty, I think, isn't he? Sixty. He was a very sick man. He had about seven operations. Every day he used to talk about his operations because this was the only thing he had to talk about. Finally, he had a Knowledge session. He had a stroke, his heart was beating fast. So he knew that if he would take medicine, he would create a furore in the Knowledge session so he just stood there and waited and waited and got Knowledge and finally after the Knowledge session, he was a new person. Now he doesn't take any medicine, he is very fine. That is why Jesus says in the Bible if you have faith, that faith will heal you. It's just like if anyone wants to take a picture, his camera has to be very steady. In the same way, if you want to take pictures of God, this whole mind has to be very steady otherwise if the mind wavers, it fluctuates and the picture that is experienced will be very blurred. That is why people talk about concentration of mind.

So I give blessings to all the premies and you must do meditation and co-operate with all these people and do propagation. Propagation is very important. Thank you.

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.