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.

Hippies In India find the young Guru Maharaj Ji

From the late 1960's onwards many young Western "hippies" travelled to India searching for a guru that could impart wisdom and enlightenment. This trek, which in hindsight appears to have been a nearly total failure, was an opening for the young Prem Rawat. A few of these "sincere seekers" arrived to check out the young Guru Maharaj Ji (now known as Maharaji or Prem Rawat) though only very few of these stayed to worship at his feet. Prem Rawat, was then and is now, seriously "uncool". He was very short, pudgy to grossly obese, jowly and sweaty and spoke in squeaky platitudes based on his fascination with Western technology rather than Eastern mysticism and was unable to maintain even a pretense of asceticism or "god-consciousness". However, he had a considerable infrastructure in Haridwar on the Ganges, could attract crowds of hundreds of thousands of exotic Indian devotees and appeared to have thousands of renunciate "Mahatmas" who at first glance appeared to the young Westerners to be realised souls. Prem Rawat was dismissed and ridiculed by nearly all who had a deeper knowledge of Indian spirituality than can be learnt from reading "Be Here Now" and "The Autobiography of a Yogi" and smoking a lot of charas (marijuana).

It may be that in many ashrams young Westerners were initiated into practices that produced powerful spiritual experiences and deep and long meditations but this was not the case with the Divine Light Mission premies. A good feel for the experiences of many of the early Western premies can be had by reading this excerpt from "Between Dark And Dark" by David Lovejoy, the former President of Divine Light Mission in Australian and Great Britain. Mr Lovejoy fails to mention that many of the premies he praises in his book, including Suzy Bai Whitten, Mike Donner (ex-President Divine Light Mission, USA) and the "Western" Mahatma Saphlanand later rejected Prem Rawat and became strong, public critics of him despite what they had thought when they were young and inexperienced "true believers".

Their is little doubt that Rawat's early success was based on the enthusiasm and preaching these early followers took back to their countries of origin and it must be said because of the grossly inflated, if not completely false, claims they made for the cosmic results of the meditation.

(left) The western pilgrims at Prem Nagar ashram: Peter Lee is on the far right in a blanket. Lovejoy is fourth from the right clutching his hands Glen stands next to me, Suzie Bai sits at Lovejoy's feet and on her right is Jeannette and next to Jeannette is Anne Lancaster. Next to Glen is Patrick and next to him Saphalanand. On the far left is Venetia Stanley-Smith, second from her left is Peter Potter and third from his left is George. David Thorp can he glimpsed behind Saphalanand. Notice how only Saphalanand seems to be really enjoying himself.

Further insights into their condition of confusion as they wandered around India stoned and depressed can be seen in this testimony by some of Prem Rawat's most fervent devotees, Joan Apter and Gary Girard from the book "Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji?".

Dr. John Horton, Prem Rawat's personal physician, wrote of the early Western premies in Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji?:

It was hard and I was always thinking about going off into the mountains and meditating. When I'd go into town to get drugs, I'd see all these sadhus, all these saffroned holy men, walking along the streets and they all looked very beautiful, very mellow and lovely. Then I'd look at people in the ashram and none of the premies struck me as very together. I'd wonder, if this guy was supposed to be Satguru, then what are these freaky people doing here? Why aren't the beautiful sadhus here? I'd listen to satsang and hear that the Lord comes for the average people, for those who don't have it together. If that was the case, these freaky people were very important, they were his disciples.

Despite becoming devotees of the Perfect Master and meditating on the Divine Knowledge these new Western devotees found they could not give up their cigarettes or marijuana (Lucy Dupertuis reported that "the reputation-conscious Mission, worried about customs, offended my counter-culture sensibilities by conducting a heavy-handed "dope raid" - in my tent among others - to confiscate hashish" ¹) despite the promises of total and instant perfection they were promised by the young guru. In 1972 Dr. Edward Hanzelik, long-term devotee and physican to Rawat reported that the guru's followers have "a lot of dysentery and colds and emotional problems, mostly in people who want to get closer to the perfect knowledge. When they are not close to the knowledge, they get depressed and unhappy."

In just a few years the "hippies" were looking like public servants and office staff though these British premies were a pretty unattractive lot. (David Lovejoy, standing 3rd from right)

"The Company Of Truth" - Ph.D Thesis

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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.