Maharaj-ji at Ram Lila Grounds, on the 9th of November 1971 

Prem Pal Singh Rawat, known as Balyogeschwar, adresses his laks of devotees in Ram Lila Grounds, New Delhi, India, at the age of seven. He is the Lord of the Universe, the Saviour of Humanity, the Living Reincarnation of his father Shri Hans, Satguru himself.

Maharaj-ji giving Pranam, Delhi, India, 10th November 1971 

What does he teaches : He reveals the knowledge of everlasting life within yourself. Be the word, see the light, hear the music, taste the nectar. Once done, you have realized everything you can and you are a free bird for ever. From than on, your life becomes exclusively three definite actions 1) Tuning to your true self (meditation) 2) Express truth (satsang) 3) Act for the service of humanity (service). You understand that there is nothing else to do and you become very, very happy, if you do not let doubts enter into you mind, the one key to stay tuned. But doubts are always looming around. Beware of these tricky bastards!

Prem Nagar Ashram, Hardwar, Utar Pradesh, India, dec 1971

We went on from Delhi to Hardwar on the Ganges and spent some memorable weeks at Prem Nagar Ashram. People were great, a big loving party. I was invited to his house in Dehradun, uper up in the Himalayas, where I met his family (mum + 3 bros), played all sort of games he was calling the sweet word of lilas. Quite crazy sometimes. We organized his memorable 14th birthday on the 10th of December and went on to Patna for another festival that could make a full novel in itself. We flew back to Europe in January 1972, impregnated with knowledge and bang lassis. (note: that's bhang lassis, bhang is a liquid derivative of cannabis, lassi is a yogurt drink)

Switzerland, February 1972 

In February 1972, his mother (Mata-Ji), two brothers (Raja-ji and Bole-ji) and their substantial court landed in Germany and came straight over to Switzerland. They were sort of counting on me to organize everything, which I assumed quite well as a producer now empowered with the ultimate knowledge of life. It does make things quite easy, if you stay tuned and do not let doubts enter into you mind, the one key. But doubts are always looming around. Beware of these tricky bastards (second warning).

Neuchâtel, Panespo, February 1972 

Prem Pal himself joined us late February and we had quite a hectic festival meeting in my hometown of Neuchâtel. The young wonder guru was making news and the "religious" world is not the friendliest, we all know this by now. And I was in charge of all that fuzz! My god!

With Ron Geaves, London, 1972

Maharaj-ji went on to London and I followed, establishing a production to edit the film I had shot in India and that became the 45 min largely known documentary "The Lord of the Universe"

New-York, Juny 1972

The next 10 days (my first time in the US) I took the airplane 14 times with Joan Apter to present the film "The Lord of the Universe" in 12 universities around the country and address the students to convince them to join Maharaj-ji at Montrose, a week long festival in the Rockies of Colorado that took place in July 1972. I must have brought there some thousands of people! The rest of the time in New York, I spent at the residence pushing Maharaj-ji back and forth when he exercised with a boat in the swimming pool! He always had the weirdest ideas.

Prem Pal in Denver, July 1972, 14 years old.

At this time, with fourteen, Guru Maharaj-ji was at his best. The premies (followers) were mostly formed by the cool post hippie generation and everything was for celebration, music, lighthearth and joy. Later on, let say starting in the early eighties, when he began to take himself seriously and when his surrounding became deadly stiff, the whole story went a different and awfully boring way. Even the Lord of the Universe has his time of grace and his time of disgrace! Luckily for me, he kept me with himself during the graceful period.

We had equipped the production with the best Kem editing tables. We produced there "Satguru has come" (16mm, 26 min), "Who is Guru Maharaj-ji" (16mm, 85 min, Special Jury Award Atlanta Film Festival) "Duo" (16mm, 18 min). We also delivered material on the Eastern religions to several outside productions and televisions.

Another time, we were riding around Bel Air in his Rolls, he cornered a Mini-Cooper and bought it straight away with hard cash. Back at the residence he went into tuning the engine, than invited us for a blind race down a nearby valley that freaked us out. He said "This engine needs some more tuning, don't you think ?" looking at us with a questioning smile, his hands full of grease. Than he invited us back for a deadlier blind run down the dangerous valley we all really enjoyed this time. It was a question of trust. You had to understand that he was going behind limits, but that he "knew", somehow.

Ron Clearfield, premie musician USA 

Yes, he was joyously and extravagantly spending the money of his followers, even with a good portion of bad taste, but somehow it didn't disturb me and I could not judge him on this. Anyway I was profiting of it. He was cool with me, I was cool with him, final dot. But when I learn that in the past 30 years, he changed of jet (he flies himself) ten to twenty times on the back of his followers, I feel pity and I tell myself, poor master, can't you free yourself of the greed of this world ? One can be perfect on one side and a sort of a fool on the other. Especially when you want to give the impression of freing your devotees of a worldly burden by zapping the money out of their bank accounts! This, any second zone preacher does and it is not worth any respect. There are more clever ways to make money.

I do not know why this remarkable teacher had to be plagued with such a lack of taste for the worldly life! Maybe the key will be given to me once. And in fact, it doesn't interest me much. We all have the same inner potential and we all wear another outer appearance. But this doesn't justify the fact that anbody could choose to live without a sense of ethic!

Well, this was a wonderfull period of insouciance. But when I went back to Los Angeles in 1997 and attended one more fund-raising evening (there was some sort of urgency for a new jet plane!), I discovered many of my fellow premies from this time perform dully the same routine as 30 years before without having had any other experience in their life and exposed to the old age without any sort of social benefits. I felt very very sorry for them.

Three Indian mahatmas of Divine Light Mission, Sampuranand (actually Rajeshwaranand) in centre, Adharanand on right

Young Bal Bhagwan-ji

When I landed back in Los Angeles early 1973, there was a new visitor at Pacific Palissades residence : Bal Bagwan-ji, the oldest and most clever brother of Maharaj-ji. I had met him in India where he trusted me with some valuable historical 16mm footage that did constituate the core of the film "Satguru has come". But this needs some explication : Shri Hans-ji Maharaj, the founder of DLM in India, had four sons : Bal Bhagwan embodying the Light (the Reason), Bole being the Music (the Devotion), Raja the Breath (the Word, the Force) and Prem Pal the divine Nectar (the Will). But who of these four brothers would become the Raja (the King, the embodyment of the four elements), the Balyogeshwar (born awake), the Satguru? At Shri Hans' death, everybody expected Bal Bhagwan to be the new incarnation, but to the astonishment of the family and of the followers, Shri Hans had designated Prem Pal, his youngest son! It is clear that this provoked a disturbance in the family and a resentment from the part of Bal-Bhagwan. This explains largely the schism that broke the family in two early 1974, Bal Bhagwan taking over the essential grounds of his father in India with Mata-ji and the submitted Bole, on the other side Prem Pal keeping the new territories he had gained and some Indian scarce ashrams with Raja.

Bal Bhagwan with John Berzner and myself in Disneyland, 1973 

Well, I started to hang around a lot with Bal Bhagwan. He did not have the rough power of Prem Pal, but he had a very refined mind, was sensible and open to anything new. And he liked me a lot. It is during this period that Millenium and the Soul Rush were conceived, and he was definitely one of the architects of these projects. He was also the one who instilled in me the idea to film Millenium in 35mm cinemascope, and he also was the one who supported my idea to include the festival into a fiction feature. He worked on the script with Mickey Cottrell and myself. This might be the reason the film was never finished nor released, but it is not the true motive in my opinion. What would Maharaj-ji have done in 1974 with a commercial feature film, when the mood of the time was to keep a low profile ? I know that the material was kept (but in which state is it?). I even heard rumors that there were intentions to work on it. It would in effect be an unique testimony on the spirit of the Seventies. But, luckily enough, nothing can be done without me! The mission owns the film, but I own the copyright, and in the USA you cannot fool around with copyright!

What was one of the greatest disasters (there were quite a few) of the movement in this time was censorship and I believe it is still so today (or maybe it is not necessary because there is no attempt at expression anymore). It was totally ridiculous. I saw my films progressively chopped, because this or that scene was not anymore proper, with a total deny of artistic identity. God being more paranoid and demagogue than the Soviet Union, frankly ? I do not know a film of the Russian communist period that started with 85 minutes and finished with 22! This was the case with "Who is Guru Maharaj-ji?". A shame.

Maharaj-ji, myself and a blissed out Rennie Davis, Prem Nagar ashram, Hardwar, May 1973

Once in India, we learned that Rennie was at Prem Nagar ashram with Maharaj-ji, so we rejoined them in Hardwar and discovered a blissed out Rennie Davis. We spent than some memorable days alone with our Sweet Lord. After some three weeks, still no visa, and the Americans were barely holding their embassy in Saigon. We decided to move nearer and fly to Thailand, but Larry Canada gave up and flew back to the States, leaving us with just enough cash to complete our round-the-world trip! Once in Bangkok, we obtained immediately an authorization to fly in a broken down airplane to Vientiane, Laos, that was already in communist hands. We were the only Westerners in an empty hotel, but could not get the authorization to reach Hanoi, some 200 miles away. We watched on the TV the helicopters hauling the last Americans out of the Saigon Embassy but we never reached Hanoi. We concluded our tour with stays in Hong-Kong, Tokyo and Hawaii, and filmed a lot of material on several subjects. We returned to Los Angeles three months after our departure and Rennie Davis became one of the leading figure of the mission of that time.

"Holi Festival", Miami, april 1974, I climb the ladder to establish myself on top of the trailer, Maharaj-ji sprays my $25,000 camera with paint.

I'm living now since 38 years (more than the half of my life) with the teachings Maharaj-ji gave me and do practice knowledge very naturally. Not like a schoolkid but as a mature human being. This I will do until my last breath (that will propulse me at high speed into Heaven). However, I do not need to look again for what I have gained already. Once you have your driver licence you do not waste your time trying to pass it another time. We did not get this knowledge to be stuck with it. It would be pretentious of myself to wish to speak with him again after all he gave me and I'm not looking for it.

But if it would happen, I would ask him three questions:

• Why so many airplanes ?
• Why such a waste of unused film footage ?
• What provision did you take for the old age safety of your ashram premies ?