Page 12 Daily Mirror - Friday, June 18, 1971

Worshippers greet the boy guru 'straight from Heaven'

THIS was a moment of supreme joy for these worshippers yesterday … the moment when they gathered together to welcome a boy they call "A Lord from Heaven."

The boy is Balyogeshwar Sri Sant Ji Maharaj. He is thirteen years old. And he is barely 5ft. tall.
But to the 200 worshippers who turned out to meet him at London's Heathrow Airport he is rather a cut above other little boys.
He is their Guru - their spiritual teacher.
And he has come to Britain, they say, to save them from themselves.
But it was the mini-sized Guru himself who needed a bit of saving yesterday.
He had to have a police escort to help him to make his way past his excited devotees, most of them English.

Garlands

They fell in homage at his feet. They threw garlands of carnations round his neck. They smothered him with petals taken from a massive sack.
One follower, a white-robed Indian, said that the Guru came from Heaven although the youngster's body, he admitted, came in fact from the Himalayas.
The Guru, whose devotees belong to the Divine Light Mission, is to spend thirteen days in Britain.
He plans to make appearances in London, Leicester, Exeter and Glastonbury, Somerset.
His arrival yesterday was a big success. But it did not exactly convert one airport official.
He said sternly : "They may say he is the Lord, but as far as we are concerned he is just an ordinary passenger."

Pictures by:
VICTOR CRAWSHAW