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.

Newsweek magazine (March 8, 1976, page 14)
Tithes for the Guru

Page 14

Within four years after Indian guru Maharaj Ji brought his Divine Light Mission to the U.S. in 1971, the pudgy teenager had acquired 50,000 American followers, a wife who was once an airline stewardess, a fleet of cars and a $400,000 retreat in Malibu, Calif. His organization, meanwhile, was running up a $650,000 deficit, and in 1975 the Perfect Master was nearly toppled from power. His mother, disgusted with her son's "playboy" life-style, announced that she had ousted Maharaj Ji as leader of the movement and awarded the title to one of his brothers. The family feud is now being fought in the courts of India, but most of the Divine Light Mission's 1.2 million adherents throughout the world have remained faithful to Maharaj Ji.

Fewer Americans are joining up these days, but more members are donating 10 per cent of their incomes in the mission's coffers. Such tithing bas reduced the debt to $80,000 and kept Maharaj Ji living in style. Now 18 and the father of a year-old daughter named Premlata, the guru generally keeps a low public profile, but he turned up in Washington last week to speak at a luncheon sponsored by the United States Citizens Congress, whose founder is a controversial religious leader himself: Rabbi Baruch Korff, Richard Nixon's die-hard defender.

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.