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.

The Golden Age

International News

Maharaj Ji on tour

Eleven cities in six weeks lie along the route of Guru Maharaj Ji's European tour, scheduled to begin in May. Final preparations for the tour were begun at the recent European conference in Amsterdam. Amsterdam members will host Maharaj Ji's visit along with those in Athens, Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid, Milano, Hamburg, Paris, Lisbon, Stockholm and London.

Before Maharaj Ji's arrival, community directors will focus interest throughout their countries on the tour's potential to inspire personal and collective growth, and for developing an increasing sense of Europe working together as part of the international community.

Each city's program will feature one night-time event with Guru Maharaj Ji, followed by darshan. Throughout the day, groups will come together to discuss the "twentieth century premie," the DLM community and its relationship to the community at large.

In July Guru Maharaj Ji will tour the United States, giving programs in Gainesville, Providence, Indianapolis, Denver and San Francisco. This tour replaces the convention planned for July, which was cancelled due to difficulties in obtaining a suitable site at short notice. Each program will be a one-day event with an afternoon program and an evening program featuring Guru Maharaj Ji.

National Conference

As this issue of the Golden Age goes to print, staff members from every DLM centre in Australia are meeting in Sydney with their colleagues from National Headquarters. The conference site is the boy scouts' Baden Powell Memorial Conference Centre at Pennant Hills, 45 minutes drive from the city. Perched on a small plateau, the complex is surrounded by bush-land complete with waterfalls, campfire sites cut into rock, and totem poles. For meetings and meditation, there's a wood-panelled hall heated by an open fire.

The conference, which will last for five days, aims to develop the participants' individual and collective understanding of what it means to serve on Maharaj

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No. 29, May 1976

Ji's staff. When people with different viewpoints on the development of the Mission come together, the opportunity for sharing inspiration and information is obviously to be utilised to the full. During the first couple of days the head of each department at NHQ will present his or her plans for the rest of 1976 putting them in the context of the Mission's over-all goals. Later on in the week, workshops and group meetings have been scheduled, so that everybody has a chance to contribute, to ask questions and generally to clarify and develop in the understanding and cooperation that are the cornerstones of Maharaji's Mission.

Community Directors change places

Over the last couple of months, several Australian communities have said goodbye to the well-known face of their Community Director, and welcomed someone new. Gregg Sherwood, former Sydney Community Director, has taken up the same post in Hobart. Nils Koren has moved from the apple isle to replace Paul Mayberry in Melbourne; meanwhile, Paul has come up to Sydney. Over Easter Gregg, Nils and Paul met in Melbourne with Derek and Terry from the National staff, Adelaide's Director Vic Marsh, and Julie Collet, our initiator-on-training who flew down to conduct a Knowledge Review with Ira.

In Melbourne, National Director Derek Harper explained the recent changes to the Golden Age correspondent:

"The main benefit of these changes is that they'll keep everybody involved - the Directors and the communities - on their toes. It is very important that a Community Director be as objective as possible. When a person spends a long time in any one place, he naturally gets very familiar with the circumstances and may tend to lose his objectivity. So it is really beneficial that Paul and Nils and Gregg can change around so that they can each bring new views and new understanding to the services that they are now doing. Plus it gives the community the opportunity of seeing various Directors, different people practising Knowledge, different satsang so that they don't get too familiar with the people that they are dealing with, because as they say, familiarity can breed contempt. So this is just a means of making sure that everybody is kept awake."

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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.