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.

Between Dark and Dark by David Lovejoy

David Lovejoy, one time President of Divine Light Mission, Australia and Great Britain is the managing editor of the Byron Bay Echo, a local newspaper published in the resort town of Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia.

He has been closely associated with John MacGregor and wrote this letter purporting to refute MacGregor's and Michael MacDonald's (current editor, Byron Bay Echo) criticism of Prem Rawat and his "Knowledge" in 2001 though it actually refuted a "straw argument" of Lovejoy's.

He has written this "memoire" about his life which most people would find extremely boring but is of interest to his friends, family and anyone wishing to read about the "hippies" who became followers of Prem Rawat in India circa 1971 and the Divine Light Mission in Australia in the 1970's. There is a review by Michael McDonald printed in the Byron Bay Echo on August 16, 2005.

Excerpts:

Pages 49 Lovejoy's first contact with Prem Rawat through Brian Kitt, aka Mahatma Saphlanand, the driving force behind the early Divine Light Mission

Pages 67 - 78 Lovejoy's memories of his stay in India at Rawat's ashram.

Pages 162 A bow to the early, exciting days of Divine Light Mission. However Lovejoy writes: "Maharaji is an incomparable public speaker and a wise strategist, and if he chose to hone everything down to the delivery of the techniques of meditation in a respectable, non-religious and noncontroversial way, then he did so in order to maximise people's opportunities for receiving Knowledge." But since Rawat has "honed everything down" the numbers of his students has halved despite 25 years of attempts at gaining new adherents and many of those who consider themselves followers live lives in which Rawat is a very peripheral figure, as has Lovejoy. Of course, Rawat is, in a sense, an incomparable public speaker, there is no-one else any where near as awful a public speaker with whom to compare him.

Pages 165 Lovejoy pseudo-philosophical, "deep and meaningful" page about Rawat's meditation techniques, something he's hardly bothered with for 30 years.

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.