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.

Prem Rawat's Holi Festivals

The festival of Holi is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March every year. Originally a festival to celebrate good harvests and fertility of the land, Holi is now a symbolic commemoration of a legend from Hindu Mythology. Today Holi is an excuse for Indians to shed inhibitions and caste differences for a day of spring fever and Big Fun. Teenagers spend the day flirting and misbehaving in the streets, adults extend the hand of peace, and everyone chases everyone else around, throwing brightly colored powder (gulal) and water over each other. Elan Vital, however, is a cult based around one Supreme Leader and so rather than interact with each other, his followers stand, shoulder to shoulder in anonymous crowds and await their Master spraying them from atop a huge throne-like stage. Their practice of Holi is a quintessential example of their practice of "Knowledge". And you know what they say about men who need to have really, really big guns

Prem Rawat is also an inventor of sorts. Here he uses a powerful gigantic water pistol to delight his followers in his modern version of Holi. .wmv file 3.0M

The colourful Holi wet dhoti scene from the Contact video, India 1988.

Scenes of Holi and darshan in the mid 1990's from the 'Like The Rain' video of 1997

Prem Rawat, the would-be internationally-known teacher of Inner Peace trying to teach Inner Peace and Contentment.
He and his followers also celebrate annual festivals. Hans Jayanti in honour of his father. Guru Puja in honour of himself. Holi ...
In India, Holi is celebrated as a very democratic carnival in which Hindus shed inhibitions and caste differences for a day and throw buckets of water and coloured powder over each other.
Prem Rawat and his students have a relationship in which he is the all-powerful divine guru and they are the powerless supplicants.
This relationship is mimicked in their celebration of Holi where he stands atop an extremely elevated stage and fires enormous streams of water over them from an extremely powerful pump.
It is a microcosm of their everyday relationship with him. They acknowledge him as the source of their life, love and devotion which he gives as a gift and for which they must feel gratitude.
They respond with their usual adoration, devotion and gratitude.

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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.