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.
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Paper: Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
Date: July 27, 1986
Flower power. Power to the people. Peace, love and Woodstock. Right on. But right on to what? And where did all the hippies, their gear and their gurus go? It seems like a faint memory now, a paisley print washed too many times. Kent State is just another school in Ohio. The Vietnam War is long lost.
Volkswagen doesn't even make bugs anymore. And most of the gurus have been booted out for back taxes or vanished into obscurity. What's left of the '60s? What tokens of The Revolution have made it to the '80s? And which are as dead as the lava lamp?
Here's the view, 20 years later:
NO GO`S
*Guru Maharaj Ji. Remember when the Cosmic Kid, age 15, declared himself "The Lord of the Universe", "The Perfect Master" and owner/operator of the Divine Light Mission in Denver? The group claimed a following of 6 million worldwide (150 of them in Charlotte) during its early `70s peak. Ji preached celibacy and an end to materialism.
By 1975, his mother renounced the pudgy fellow's guru status, saying he was a playboy (at age 17, he married his 24-year-old secretary) and lived the good life - including a $400,000 estate in Malibu. In 1979, the group moved its national headquarters to Miami, Fla. and into obscurity.
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.