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.
A Manmut (manmath, manmat) is Rawat's Hindi word for an apostate, someone who was once a devotee or at least "received Knowledge" ie was initiated and has realised that Rawat was an ignorant child who was proclaimed to be God incarnate but is no Master and his "Knowledge" is a puerile set of meditation techniques. He declared some of the most prominent followers of his father manmaths in a letter to his administrators after they rejected him as Satguru. These included his mother, his elder brothers, the administrators of Divya Sandesh Parishad (Divine light Mission in India) that were appointed by his father including Ram Babu and Professor C.L. Tandon and Mahatma Satyanand his father's senior mahatma.
Rawat preached and ranted that manmuts ie apostates would rot like a house full of vegetables and would break apart into fragments. This does not appear to be true, especially as the overwhelming majority of one-time premies are now manmuts. On 27th August, 1978 in Philadelphia, he said
And mind says. "But I promise you more than that." Mind has always promised us but never given us anything. Guru Maharaj Ji has not only promised us. but given us more than what he has promised. Always. Always. And as that battle begins, the things get even more tense. And if that faith is not there, if that faith is not completely in Guru Maharaj Ji, you're going to fall in so many fragments that you wouldn't be able to count them yourself. You will run right out of count. Right out of it. You will go beyond zillions, billions, everything.
On the 2nd May 1974 in Denver, Colorado he taught an apostate premie would rot like 3 tons of vegetables
But I think the premies who are not meditating, you know what they are doing? They're getting three tons of vegetables in their house and not eating it. You know what that means? When it'll start rotting, phew, it's going to rot like a hell. I mean, if it was one vegetable, one teeny weeny vegetable, it would dry out somewhere in the closet, doesn't even matter. But if you had three truckloads of them, and they start rotting, man, you are looking for some real trouble. And that's the way this Knowledge is. But this Knowledge, it's like you've got the vegetables of the whole universe with you. And if you don't meditate, can you imagine how it's going to rot?
On Memorial Day satsang, Malibu, California, May 28, 1978 he defined 'sin':
It's just like our love for our Guru Maharaj Ji can never, can never, cease to exist. If there is a definition ... Okay, this is a little harsh way to put it. But I'll put it: If there is a definition to sin - if there is one - then it definitely applies to the place of ever leaving that Love, of ever forgetting that Love of Guru Maharaj Ji.
In Munich, Germany on April 10, 1977 he compared an apostate premie to a corpse
And it's just like, okay, mind and trips and so on and so forth. You can look at it any way you want; but to me, satsang, service, and meditation are food, you know? To keep me alive, when Guru Maharaj Ji is my life. So, if I leave Guru Maharaj Ji, and I keep on eating, then it's like a corpse trying to eat food: what would be the point?
At the Hans Jayanti festival in Kissimmee, Florida on the afternoon of Thursday 8th of November, 1979 he taught that to be a manmut is to be the worst, in hell of hell and told a strange story about his violent and abusive father who regularly beat people with timber and his shoes:
You know what manmut means?
Manmut is what has been described as a devotee who is not a devotee, who has been sent beyond everything. A manmut is the worst. That's it. If there's the pits, then that's the pits. That's the end. That's the back room of hell. That's the hell of hell. And what manmut means is: the follower of mind. But before being a manmut, you have to be a devotee. First you have to be a devotee, follow Guru Maharaj Ji, and only then you can become a manmut. Because you leave Guru Maharaj Ji and start following your mind. And then you end up in the pits. That's it.
And so many times, this guy'd be just completely blissed out. He'd come there, stand there, make himself known. And there'd be Shri Maharaj Ji in the backyard or something. And he would say, "Let him come here."
So many people would come so many times in a day and they would all be turned away at the gate. There were these devotees, I guess, who try and try to have an experience of Knowledge. And they haven't really done anything wrong. And they're just told, "Go back. Come later."
But whenever this guy would show up, even when Shri Maharaj Ji was out driving and he would be standing there: "Stop the car." Right at the gate, he'd come out there and there'd be this guy. It's like, he was the luckiest manmut. He was the most fortunate sinner in this world, I guess, in one sense. Because every time Shri Maharaj Ji - somehow, sometime - he would get a whoof of it...
And one time I was travelling with Shri Maharaj Ji and somehow he got a whoof of it. Shri Maharaj Ji saw him on a roadside. And the car was going really fast. And Shri Maharaj Ji spotted him and said, "Back the car up. Go to him." Stopped in front of him, got out and let him have it.
It's just beautiful. In one sense it's just beautiful because so many premies never could get Shri Maharaj Ji's darshan. This guy would not only get Shri Maharaj Ji's darshan but personal attention. Somehow in that maybe the devotees will find the bliss. (Not being manmut. You don't have to go out there and become a manmut so that's what Guru Maharaj Ji will do to you every day.) But Guru Maharaj Ji has that compassion. And Guru Maharaj Ji has that love.
Because to me, that became obvious. If Guru Maharaj Ji didn't have that love, why would he say, "Stop the car"? There is this, you might say, highway. And this guy is standing on the side of it. And, "Stop the car", or "Back it up."
The car would go past it. "Was that him?"
"Yes, Maharaj that was him." "Okay. Turn around. Go back."
And then for ten, twenty, fifteen minutes, this would go on. And then, "... and I never want to ever see you again." Close the door and go off.
Two days later he would show up at the residence. Same thing would happen, "... and I never, ever want to see you again." Turn around and that stuff.
But you would see that sometimes he would get angry at somebody and say, "Get out of here. Go away."
Then two minutes later, "Where is he? Call him back. Send people out. Call him back. What's happening to him?"
See Site Policy for statement regarding copyright.
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.