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.

The Young Prem Rawat (Guru Maharaj Ji) Arrives In The West

This is part of a transcript of Passages an Elan Vital video containing propaganda about the Elan Vital and Divine Light Mission guru, Prem Rawat who formerly called himself Guru Maharaj Ji.

"Just got this new house in Golders Green which had sort of been a big step forward from this little tiny basement flat we had in in West Ken Kensington. And it had a pay phone and I remember I was walking out and the going to work and the phone rang and I picked it up and there was this voice from India eeah it wasn't Maharaji it was a this girl woman ringing from Bombay sayin' um Maharaji ??? wants to come to the UK umm you know are you ready you know to organise events for him and uh it was like 'Yes! ah yes yeah where when's he coming?' 'Two weeks' it was like I was like fell through the floor you know it was like totally totally and utterly stunned." In all their publications Rawat's followers claim that he was "invited" to come to the West and is invited to go to all the places where he speaks. In reality, as Professor Geaves inadvertently reveals here, he chooses where and when he goes at all times and has since 1971. The "invitations" are a legal fiction that enables his luxury travel expenses, including the costs of his personal jet, to be paid by a charity.
So it was as a teacher that this 13 year old schoolboy had been invited to fly the 6,000 miles from Delhi to London on his school vacation. Actually he came, not as a 13 year old boy, but as the Perfect Lord Of Love, the Giver Of Light, the Lord of the Universe, the Perfect Master, the only living Master, the Savio(u)r, the Satguru, the ice-cream guzzling Godboy, who will Show you God and is Greater than God. He was the successor to his father, the last in a long line of Perfect Masters the Incarnation of God who come(s) in(to) the world as Krishna, as Buddha, as Jesus as and He invited Himself.
"Maharaji was coming, we were excited, nervous, apprehensive, umm, it was just an extraordinary day. Ahh we'd got the main thing sorted out umm we'd got a house for him to come to, we'd managed to find someone who knew who knew somebody ahh who had this very nice house where a house way beyond sort of our sort of expenditure prepared to allow us to have this house on on reasonable terms in Chelsea just off the King's Rd." Professor Ron Geaves
"It was such an experience seeing him getting off the plane like with coming with such a message with such feeling that I know I felt so much and so many other people did just like we'd been waiting forever somehow just for that moment." Janet Wallace is a one time initiator and extreme devotee of Rawat's.
"And he just steps off the plane in Heathrow here with hehe and just walks out into that eeah into a world where he doesn't know anything that's going to go on, what's going to happen to him yeah whether we're going to look after him or not you know whether he's going to get fed or not ." The young Rawat was unlikely to starve. His family was wealthy and he had a return ticket to India.

Maharaji gave his first public address in the West at the Conway Hall in London on the 19th June, 1971. Rawat, or Guru Maharaj Ji as he then called himself, sat on a makeshift stage and spoke in broken English about the mechanics of car engines. It was not a great success.

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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.