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.
Although this study is based largely upon the transcribed accounts of premies, questionnaire information was also gathered in the initial stages and I feel obliged to comment on it here. My original interest in using the questionnaire was to discover if the stories of the eighteen Boulder premies were similar to those of premies living elsewhere in the country. The questionnaire was constructed after the completion of about half of the interviews, so that it would reflect the issues premies regarded as influential in their development.
Besides the standard sociodemographic items, such as age, sex, race, education, employment, and parents' occupation and income, the questionnaire probed premies' attitudes about family, church, school, and friendship. For each of these areas, they were asked to characterize their experiences on a Likert-type continuum ranging from very good to very poor.
Family issues covered the incidence of broken homes due to divorce or the death of a parent, and the number and sex of siblings. Open-ended questions, which were not amenable to quantification, touched upon the quality of early family life and attitudes toward their parents.
Premies were asked to describe their religious background and to specify any denominations or sects in which they had been active. They were asked to identify religious practices in the family, to report whether they had left the church and, if so, to discuss their reasons for leaving and to specify at what point in life they had left.
The questionnaire also asked them to evaluate their school experiences through college and to discuss their friendship patterns. Friendship questions were primarily intended to discover if they had been socially isolated, which turned out not to be the case on the whole.
On the issue of drugs the questionnaire asked whether they had tried psychedelic drugs, what specific hallucinogens were used, the number of occasions on which they had been taken, the period of time over which they were used, whether they had discontinued their use before receiving the Knowledge, and, if so, what had influenced them to quit. There were also broader questions dealing with the impact of drugs on their general attitudes toward life and toward themselves, and the effect of hallucinogens on their spiritual awakening.
Curious to know what other experiences might have prepared them for commitment to Divine Light Mission, I also asked if they had been involved in any other eastern movement or religion before receiving the Knowledge and what influence such experiences had had on their spiritual interests.
Finally, they were asked to describe how they had come into contact with the Mission, and when and where they had received the Knowledge.
Besides the 18 local premies, 13 premies from Kansas City, Missouri, and 10 from Atlanta, Georgia, completed questionnaires, bringing the total premie sample to 41. In order to compare followers with nonfollowers, 40 nonfollower college students were drawn from two upper-division sociology classes at the University of Colorado. I intentionally selected upper-division students in the social sciences in order to roughly duplicate the age and college interests of the premies I had interviewed. To see how premies compared with followers of another eastern religion, the questionnaire was also given to 29 Krishna followers active in the Denver Hare Krishna movement. In each group, every member was given the opportunity to fill out a questionnaire, on a volunteer basis.
On those items in which interval level data could be justified, as in the case of age, income, and Likert-type factors, a difference of means test was used. A difference of proportions test was employed for items in which arbitrary values were applied. Typically, these consisted of yes/no responses.
Comparisons between the Boulder, Kansas City, and Atlanta premies revealed a striking similarity. The 41 premies were young, with an average age of 23. Ages ranged from 19 to 29. All were white. They tended to come from middle-class families, with the average estimated income of the father being $21,000. On the average, they had attended one and one-half years of college.
On only two variables was there a statistically significant difference between the 18 local premies and the nonlocals. More local premies (66 percent) had been involved in other eastern movements before their initiation into the Mission than premies from Kansas City and Atlanta (34 percent). This difference might be explained by the fact that The Church of World Messianity (Johrei) was localized in the Boulder area and had attracted quite a number of premies living there. Also, while Boulder premies tended to rate their earlier church experiences as "poor," nonlocal premies were significantly more likely to rate their church experiences as "very poor."
Comparisons between the group of 41 premies and 29 Krishna followers indicated no statistically significant differences. Like premies, Krishna followers were young, white, and middle-class. However, there were a few apparent differences worth noting. Krishnas were considerably more critical of their college experience than premies. Premies, on the average, rated their college experience slightly below "average," but Krishnas tended to rate theirs as "very poor." Krishna followers were also more likely to have come from broken homes. Among Krishnas, 27 percent had come from broken homes as compared to 17 percent of the premies. Although the followers of Krishna had used psychedelics about as often as premies and over a similar time period, only 45 percent reported religious experiences while tripping, as against 65 percent of the premies. This would tend to confirm the view that the Krishnas' turn toward spirituality was influenced as much by social factors as by drug experiences.
Most differences between the 41 premies and 40 nonfollower college students were slight. However, on four variables there were statistically significant differences. Premies were likely to rate their school experiences through high school on the "poor" side, while nonfollowers tended to rate theirs as "average. " Premies also were less likely than nonfollowers to have been affiliated with a church in their youth: 21 percent of premies reported no church affiliation versus only 5 percent of the college students. This suggests that premies were somewhat less likely to have a strong religious orientation, a fact which might have made them more receptive to a new religious outlook. However, this view has to be tempered by the finding that only 11 percent of the Krishna followers had no earlier church affiliation, which diminishes the importance of that factor as an explanation for their conversion.
The most statistically significant differences between premies and college students were in the area of drugs. Among premies, 95 percent had used psychedelic drugs. Among Krishnas, 89 percent had, while only 67 percent of college students had. Equally important, premies and Krishna followers had tripped many more times and over a longer period. Premies also reported having many more spiritual experiences under the influence of hallucinogens.
Although not statistically significant, there were a few apparent differences between premies and college students which might warrant further investigation. Premies tended to be considerably more critical of their family experiences. They were more likely to rate their family experiences on the "poor" side than nonfollowers, who tended to rate theirs as "average." Premies also tended to come from homes where there was less equality between their parents: 25 percent of nonfollowers viewed the relative dominance of their parents as "equal," while only 9 percent of premies and 10 percent of Krishnas felt that way.
There were also a number of similarities between the two groups. On an average, neither premies nor college students were likely to have come from broken homes, the figures being 17 and 15 percent, respectively. Their early religious affiliations were compatible, with about the same percentages of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in each group. Most striking was the fact that college students had dropped out of church at a, rate comparable to both premies and Krishnas: 82 percent had left, as against 87 percent of the premies and 86 percent of the Krishna followers. Yet, college students judged their experiences at church somewhat above "average," while both premies and Krishnas rated them as "poor. " Perhaps this is to be expected, since they were looking back after becoming enthusiastically involved in a new religion.
Premies and college students also shared a common evaluation of their success in making friends, both feeling they had above "average" success. Satisfaction with their college experiences showed only a small difference. College students were only a bit more pleased, judging their college experience to be just above "average," while premies evaluated theirs a little below "average."
Although drug use appears to be the major difference between premies/Krishnas and the nonfollower social science students, it is not wise to place too much emphasis on the influence of drugs as an isolated factor. The conversion process has to be viewed in its entirety to discover how people are led step by step into deeper involvement. For the premies in this study, drugs were just one of many factors.
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.