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.

A constant quest Excerpt from Guru Maharaj Ji's satsang, Cartagena, Colombia, 25th March 1980. So dear premies, again we have this occasion to be able to come together and really be able to just submerge in the experience of satsang. Sometimes I get a feeling that there is an evolution for every devotee. And we all start off in this world like - I mean, the case history is so similar for every one of us. It doesn't matter, literally, if we were born naturally or cesarean, or however. But bam, here we find ourselves, under the blue sky and above the brown earth and a round ball shining on us. And it's exactly the same tray that we all end up in. And then for some of us it becomes very necessary, becomes very important, to find something that's real. Because we want to search out, we want to reach out, for something that's perfection. Because in our hearts we can feel that as long as we stay a part of whatever constant quest this is … it's fine. I mean, you can live in it and you do live in it. But there is more to it. There is a greater experience to be had. There is a finer experience to be had than the mundane experiences that we experience every day. 9

"It is a must that our evolution
be completed, it is a must. Other-
wise we are going to be incomplete.
This is not a process that takes life-
times. No. One is enough. And
in one it can all be done."

to be complete drives us again and again. And I see that for every single devotee, in his lifetime, that evolution gets completed when that devotee who is destined to meet his Perfect Master, who is destined to experience that Knowledge - when he does, when he truly surrenders himself, his evolution is completed. He becomes a part of the perfection. He becomes a part of something that doesn't need to go on. He becomes a part of something that doesn't need to constantly look out. He becomes a part of something that doesn't constantly need to reach out into this world for happiness, for satisfaction, for peace - whatever we call it - but it becomes submerged. It becomes like that ocean, like that river which constantly flows and flows and then as soon as it merges with the ocean, its identity is lost.

The Ganges is considered such a holy river in India. People go and people bathe in it and people think by bathing in it they'll reach salvation and everything. Nobody thinks like that with the ocean. Nobody thinks if you go bathing in the ocean you will have salvation. And yet that Ganges river at one point joins that ocean and becomes a part of that ocean, and loses every concept that flows behind it, from every little section.

Because there is Hardwar, the holy place, where "definitely that river is holy." A certain section of it is holy, it's pure. And if you bathe in that you will attain liberation. And people go and travel through many hardships and jump in that river and think that's it. And then after a certain point that river has no meaning except for irrigation. It becomes to the farmer only an irrigation river. They make little rivers out of it and it goes into little fields.

And then comes a certain point where it becomes the "holy river of death," where when you die, if your ashes are floated upon it, then you will definitely receive salvation. So you can literally follow that river to where it reaches a certain point where it's nothing but a little place where everybody can dump their sewage, and then it all becomes an ocean. It's where, to a farmer, it's not irrigation anymore. To a lot of people, it's not a holy place where they can bathe anymore. All those concepts about that little stream all end. And its destiny - whatever it is - is ended.

I see the same thing for so many devotees that have been able to be with their Perfect Master. Because it all started just like any history you can take account of. Confused, sad, unhappy, miserable - you name it. It all astarts out with the same credits, same world, same rut, that we follow.

And then something happens, because Guru Maharaj Ji comes in this world and we get a chance to surrender You know, for many of us, maybe it's compulsory or maybe that's the way it's put in front of us: it's compulsory, it's mandatory, that we surrender. It's not mandatory that we surrender. It's a part of that evolution that we surrender. It's a part within us that wants to surrender. It's a part within us that wants to become complete.

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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.