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.
Wheen's World
Thursday July 14, 1999
The Guardian
Francis Wheen on: Divine intervention at the Daily Mail
The Mail man, the Maharaji and the exploding love-bomb
The Daily Mail seems to have appointed itself as the official newspaper of the solar eclipse. Not content with chartering a ship and a plane from which a lucky few competition-winners can witness the event, the paper is also offering an Eclipse Horoscope by "Britain's foremost astrologer", Jonathan Cainer.
Mail executives must have forgotten what happened the last time a group of simpletons failed to notice the difference between astronomy and astrology, when the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 prompted members of the Heaven's Gate sect in San Diego to commit mass suicide. The Daily Mail denounced the dead cultists as "freaks" whose "bizarre gospel" - that salvation could be found in a comet - reflected an "obsession with the stars which was a throwback to thousands of years ago". Jonathan Cainer, however, described Hale-Bopp as "a herald… that undoubtedly signifies imminent worldwide change on an impressive scale". Two years on, he is making identical claims for the eclipse: "It heralds the start of change, on an unparalleled scale, for the whole world".
This Cainer is a man who needs watching. Although the Daily Mail is proud of its record in exposing sinister cults that brainwash converts and break up families, as proved by its epic 101-day libel battle against the Moonies in 1981, it seems unaware that its own astrologer is a devotee of just such a cult.
The object of Cainer's veneration is the Guru Maharaj Ji, who came to the west as a tubby 13-year-old in the early 1970s and persuaded thousands of ex-hippies to join his Divine Light Mission. Such was his appeal that by the end of the decade he owned 93 Rolls-Royces and had run up a $4m bill for back-taxes. In those days the guru described himself as the Lord of the Universe and the Exploding Love-Bomb. Since then, the Divine Light Mission has changed its name to Elan Vital, and its leader now prefers to be known as Maharaji, Perfect Master. But his methods and lifestyle remain the same: when not touring the world in his $25m Gulfstream private jet, exploding love-bombs all over the faithful, he retreats to a vast Malibu mansion, nursing his duodenal ulcer and counting his loot.
Rather coyly, Jonathan Cainer never mentions the guru in his Daily Mail column. In cyberspace, however, he is less discreet: he runs a website (www.enjoyinglife.org) devoted to the cult, and in April this year he travelled all the way to Malaysia merely to hear one of Maharaji's speeches. "There are so many newspapers and magazines," the Perfect Master told his audience. "Imagine if one of them just said: 'Everything is fine… go and enjoy yourself and don't waste your time.' Even if that newspaper sold just one copy it would be a worthwhile exercise to print it."
On his website, Cainer describes this idea as "magnificent". Maybe he should suggest it to the Daily Mail.
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.