Julie Collett, Former Initiator of Prem Rawat's "Knowledge"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.
Julie Collett, Former Initiator of Prem Rawat's "Knowledge"
Julie Collet was the second devotee of Prem Rawat or Maharaji (then calling himself Guru Maharaj Ji) to return to Australia from overseas. She did not know of David Lovejoy in Sydney and she commenced proselytising in Melbourne. Her role can probably best be described as the "heart" of Divine Light Mission in AUstralia. Her satsangs were inspirational, devotional and often contained references to the "family" of premies and the love for each other engendered by practising the Knowledge.
There was considerable excitement and heightened expectations and intensity whenever she was at satsang in centres throughout Australia and "Mahatma" Padarthanand was the only devotee more revered in Australia. I recall times, sitting on the floor of the "satsang hall" completely rapt in what she was saying. These times were amongst the most intense and "blissful" experiences of my life. I don't know whether this was based upon my expectations or those of the people around me or the intensity of her feelings or some combination therof. Such a shame that it was all nonsense based upon an imaginary relationship with Guru Maharaj Ji.
The following is my transcript of an old tape recording of her speech done by someone in the audience at the Chevron Hotel Ballroom in Sydney on October 26th, 1974. The tape had deteriorated in the intervening 30 years and unfortunately the person with the tape recorder had a very bad cough.
So Jai Sat Cit Anand, a very beautiful Jai Sat Cit Anand to everyone. We certainly do have a very, very beautiful Knowledge and we’ve just seen that beautiful film and really it comes to a point where you, you just want to feel it. It’s very, very difficult to put it into words and each one of us who has Knowledge, each one of us who’s practicing Knowledge has this beautiful song of love to Guru Maharaj Ji in our hearts and it’s so beautiful just to give it through, just to be able to really sing that song and some of us have the opportunity of coming up here and saying it in words, some of us have the opportunity of being down there and singing it and playing music, some of us have the opportunity of expressing it in so many different ways and each one of us is different, each one of us has this feeling of love and we’re just able to channel this out in our own particular way and this is what we’re here for and this is just what this family is all about. When Guru Maharaj Ji said that we could have a, a Guru Puja festival here I kept thinking how beautiful it would be, you know, just to see everyone, to have everyone all together and really now that it’s, now that it’s here, you know, it feels so right, it feels so natural, it feels so right that the whole family is here and it doesn’t feel like a big 'ooh' and a big 'ahh', it’s just so natural and it’s just so right. Because this love is something that is with us all the time and it doesn’t matter whether, whether we’re physically separated or whether we’re all together, you know this love is with us and it’s holding us together and this is the thing that really is enabling us to really go out, far, as far as we have to go out, to really let people know that this incredible gift that Guru Maharaj Ji has where we look around and we see the, the suffering of man, where we see how far man has fallen and we can see the ignorance of man and now that we have Knowledge we know that this just comes, you know, from ignorance and we know that Guru Maharaj Ji can like that! Turn away the ignorance, like that! Can show us all who we are, what we are and that after all this time we, we can actually live as human beings, we can actually live our life from that point of love, where each and every single relationship, each and every single glance that we have with someone can come from that point of love, can come from that point of realisation and it’s so beautiful to have this gift, to have this ability, of being able to really try to live our life from that point of meditation. You know from that point ever so subtle, ever so profound, that thing that Guru Maharaj Ji has shown us and each one of us knows what a stimulating, what a demanding, what an exacting task it is to be realising this truth that Guru Maharaj Ji’s shown us and each one of us as we practice, practice Knowledge gets completely filled up and what do we get filled up? We get filled up with a love, we get filled up with a realisation, we get filled up with a vibration, we get filled up with an embrace and it’s immense, you know this is our ???, this is what we have. You know this is the point, you know not from the ceaseless chatter of ??? but it is from this point, from this vibration, that we really can embrace ourselves and embracing ourselves, embrace each other. You know Guru Maharaji Ji shows us practically so often because we need to be reminded, you know, just what he’s doing. You know he even takes us and he marries us because this is what he’s doing, you know Guru Maharaj Ji’s vibration has always been here and we are the little ones that have got lost, we are the ones who’ve gone astray and now he’s just shown us how to come back, he’s shown us how to really experience being one in that love. And Guru Maharaj Ji all the time is doing his part and it’s so beautiful to have this opportunity that we’re able to do now. We’re being able to step by step take all those necessary moves to be able to really ???, to be able to really drench ourselves in this love, in this vibration. And this vibration is, is growing inside us all the time, it never ceases, not for one second will this Knowledge let us down. Not for one minute do we need to wonder why we’re here. Every minute of the day, every breath that we take we can be in this moment and in this love isn’t going to take all the problems or the difficulties away, you know, it’s going to give us that ???, it’s going to give us that strength against everything that we have to face. And really when we’re facing it, when we’re really practising Knowledge, you know the difficulties are replaced by choice, you know the separation is replaced by, by oneness. And these are the gifts that Guru Maharaj Ji has and this is why each one of us is here tonight to see Guru Maharaj Ji, to be with him, to be sitting there each one of us in our silent place, in our silent gratitude. Thank you Guru Maharaj Ji for everything that he’s done, not only for us, but for so many people. Thank you Guru Maharaj Ji for this fight(?) to do. When you really look around and who is there? Who is there? You know that is taking man, one by one, group by group, family by family, throughout the whole world, the whole world and lifting them up. Who is there that is showing man who they are? Who has that gift? Who has that Knowledge to be able to enable us to see beyond the surface, to enable us to feel inside the heart of every human being. No one has this gift except for Guru Maharaj Ji. And so all we can do is open our hearts to Guru Maharaj Ji and thank him (person with tape recorder has coughing fit) meditation to really experience all that he gives. Thank you.
I may be confusingd some of the events of 1974 with those of 1975 but I recall that after a long delay while Rawat apparently enjoyed a late dinner at an expensive restaurant he arrived, was introduced by John Miller who reiterated that Rawat's speeches were so simplistic that we would miss their incredible depth and wisdom if we didn't listen without judgement and then the Perfect Master gave this lame and uninspiring speech.
Stories about her often appeared in the Australian DLM magazine, The Golden Age.
Snippets of information about her were often printed as her "career" in DLM continued to grow in importance until around mid 1977 when only Prem Rawat and his family were featured in the magazine.
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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.