"Yes I guess that people did put like God on him, you know and that he he would know everything so not only did he, was he whatever we would imagine a realised soil soul an enlightened soul that somehow meant he would know everything."

His followers were taught he was God and he publicly proclaimed he was revealing the direct experience and Knowledge of God in exactly the same way as Jesus, Buddha and Krishna before him but it was ridiculous to believe he knew everything. Anyone who heard him speak immediately learnt that he didn't even know English very well.

"And so we projected those ideas onto him and that that was a problem, aah it made it difficult to see him as he was and to really see Knowledge as it was and I think that has been one of his greatest challenges is to preserve the real recognition that people were having in their hearts for both him and as they experienced it for Knowledge." - Timothy Gallwey

Many false ideas were projected by Rawat, the ideas he was proclaiming: that he could reveal God through the secret meditation techniques, that he could bring World peace, that he was a realised soul, that he deserved to live a life of luxury but that he was completely detached from materialism, that everyone should surrender to him because he was the Perfect Master, etc.

"I'm I'm as guilty as anybody. I, I, I probably endowed him lots of uh extra-terrestrial powers that he didn't have. But he must, he had the power to win my heart and if somebody could do that, for me, that's more powerful than, than, I can't explain but it's more powerful than, than, I can find words for."

No problem, George, I can find the words. You, like millions of people, are worshipping a cult leader. It's no big deal, there are hundreds, if not, thousands of them and they win peoples' hearts with very little effort and no requirement whatsoever to be authentic.

"Well I was quite shocked with everybody, ergh, I think, the feeling was, we still had that residual feeling that the Hans had married to bring peace to the world. Master didn't need worldly things, you know, he didn't need to get married, he would always be the Master. Phhwoo. We were quite blinded in a way cause Maharaji's father had been married and had kids."

Well maybe Master didn't need worldly things but Glen know very well that Master wanted worldly things.

"I was married and had a child of my own and in some ways I thought "Humm, this is pretty interesting, you know, this is sort of the normal thing to do, people get married, people have children and he's sort of breaking the mould and I liked that."

"I told her that, Mata Ji your husband was married and had two wives and if Maharaji got married which kind of rule he broken, broke, and why are you worried? Ultimately he would have to get married, sooner or later, instead of later he got married sooner, what is the difference, what is the problem? She was really upset, really upset".

Mahatma Sampuranand

If she had not accepted her youngest son as the Perfect Master, why would she be so "really upset?"

"Mata Ji had her own plans hahahah for Maharaji's marriage organising with such a big pro procession like in the Ramayan we read that when Rama Ji married the whole country knew and she had the idea that all the world, all the premies from all over the world were going to be invited and there would be big procession in Delhi and all kinds of things so she used to express her feelings like that so when that happened I said, 'Oh Maharaji is Maharaji, He can do anything he wants', then this whole thing happened and I was in between both of them, both of them, in my heart there was one prayer to see both of them happy. That was all I could do. When I saw that was not going to happen then I had to make my decision so it was not that easy time for Maharaji and for, you know, many of us."
Oh Maharaji is Maharaji, he can do anything he wants'."

The First Commandment of Rawatism:
Maharaji is Maharaji, He Can Do Anything He Wants.

 Whitaker explains how Maharaji and his family and the early premie administrators were all deceiving the public and the premies about the status of Rawat's family. So much for sat, chit, anand.

"It was quite challenging that this whole dust-up should happen and the harmony that had existed in the family just broke up so easily, and it's as if his own family couldn't accept him. Now we know now in retrospect that this had been simmering for a long time, that the famiy had always been a potential bomb, time-bomb really ticking away, ready to explode the family situation. Maharaji himself has taught about it, that he was never properly accepted as the Master by his own family and I knew the family, I could see what was happening, that they saw it as the family business."

I suspect that this later 'teaching' of Maharaji's is a lie. After the death of Shri Hans, everything the family said and did proclaimed young Prem Pal as the new Perfect Master. It must have been a terrible blow to their credibility to fire him after 8 years as Guru Maharaj Ji. If they were in it for the money they would have accomodated themselves to his marriage.

He wrote a letter to Mata Ji, and and in the letter he said, you know, basically "Dear Mata Ji, I just" uh, he almost apologised but he said, "If only you could understand that I'm just a puppet, a puppet of my Guru Maharaj Ji and I, I dance to his tune" and you know that says a lot.

Sure does, it's one of the weirdest things he's said since he was 8 years old and he spoke of the voices in his head telling him "You are the One!" and the night his dead father resurrected to talk over some things with him.

The surprise "Cemetery Satsang" of 1977.
"What is the purpose of this human life? Just to fight a fight that is never going to be won? You know? And it's just like, flying over here, you could see all these gravestones, you know. You, you could see all these graveyards and these headstones on the graveyards. And these, obviously these people - that's what they've done for so much such a long time: just fighting for sort-of an endless reason. And then there they are, six feet under the ground, with a little slab saying born in 18-something and uh died in 19-something and "He was a good guy." You know and that's about it! And that's the result of your whole fight. That's the end of your fight. That's the beginning of your fight. That's the, that's the motive of your fight. And yet there's so much of a greater purpose in our life that we can realize, that we can understand, that can manifest within inside of us. And that's where we have to concentrate; that's where we have to motivate ourselves for."
The full text of this speech is available at Divine Times - September/October 1977 Volume 7, Number 6 and The Golden Age Number 40

But he was becoming increasingly aware of the need to separate Knowledge from it's Indian cultural packaging. Too many things that were simply a part of Indian culture had been considered incorrectly by Westerners to be an integral part of what Maharaji was offering.

The only salient parts of Indian culture considered to be integral parts were those that Rawat, himself, ordered and ordained. These included agya, arti, ashram, bhajans, charanamrit, his divine dancing, darshan, pranam, holi, holy breath, his Holy Family, his Divine Incarnation, lila, his Lotus Feet, that Jesus was a Perfect Master, Krishna, that he was the current Perfect Master, his father had been the prior Perfect Master, being the Supreme Power in Person, surrendering to him, worshipping Him among others and he continued to promote until the early 1980's. I attended a Holi at 17 Miles Rocks Road, Brisbane in 1981 or 82. It's the only thing my children remember as being fun in Divine Light Mission.

"We brought a lot of Indian attachments with us, you know, we, we thought that because India, uh, Knowledge came from India we had to adapt some of the Indian things, and that somehow our Western way wasn't quite good enough."

Well I didn't ever see any Divine Light Mission girl in a sari but at least Ms Collier is telling the truth about herself, if nobody else. But, you did look so hot dressed in Indian gear, Sandy and you look a lot more joyful then than you ever did in this video, well James looked joyful.

"Mahatmas came to give Knowledge, it was a way of spreading Knowledge. In the ashrams then I found were um a way of disciplining yourself, your life, in terms of practising Knowledge. Unfortunately we held on to the Indianess of it instead of the real practise of Knowledge, you know and incorporating that properly into our lives."

"I did a talk once at a Young Conservative Association I was invited it to it because my cousin was engaged to the president of the Young Conservatives at this particular town and he was interested and he invited me to give a talk so I did and it was very successful and they all thought 'Well we'd like this.' So they asked where, how they could go further. And I told them where the nearest ashram was and next Friday there will be a meeting there and they went there but very few people turned up after that. The week after that about 30 people went to the ashram that night but the week after only about 3 went, (sniggers) and the week after that none went (pause) because they came across that white sari brigade."

"I didn't, I wasn't fascinated with the whole Indian culture, that's why when I first went to hear him speak and I saw these women in saris, I thought, Oh I don't want to have to wear a sari! I mean do I have to do that to listen to him and to be in this company and to receive Knowledge because I didn't want to do that."

Linda Pascotto, President of the Prem Rawat Foundation

"Maharaji always said right from the very beginnin' he had no intention to create a religion and it seems to me right from day one he's resisted any attempts, oagh, you know to try and make a religion around him. Urgh, you know and whenever anybody, seems to me, throughout his life, whenever we've attempted to build any box around him he's always broken out of it and when he breaks out of it there are some people who prefer to be in the box."

It seems hard to believe that a Professor of Religious Studies can be so naive. Cult leaders, even young ignorant ones, who head religions all say they're not starting a religion. They all say they have the true knowledge or in this case, Knowledge. What sounds more likely? Every time Rawat tells new blatant lies and makess another foolish mistake, some of his followers become disenchanted and disgruntled and stop believing in him or your box metaphor in which only people who accept any and all rubbish from this one of the many Perfect Master wannabes keep making boxes he's got to break out of?

For some people the changes that needed to take place were confonting. They had become attached to a lifestyle they associated with Maharaji and Knowledge that was based on Indian tradition

"I had friends who lived in the ashram, um, who stopped practising when the ashrams closed. They felt betrayed, abandoned."

"And it was difficult, it was challenging for Maharaji. It was challenging for everyone. But he, umm, I think that was the time where he really saw that it was really important to separate the um Indian interpretation of everything so that we could have a fresh start and and be authentic with ourselves."

Isn't it a little late to start being authentic after 15 years of practising this "Knowledge"?

"He undertook the challenge to get rid of the, the fluff, the conceptions that might have attracted people that in fact some people loved more than they loved the real thing and that left people with a choice. Do I love my quote religion, my Maharaji religion or do I love my actual recognition, my actual understanding, what I've seen and experienced and some people said 'No, I'll take my religion, thank you very much'. (snigger, snigger, snigger) God (under his breath) and some said this is real enough for me that I'm going to stay with it."

As people came forward wanting to help Maharaji, organisations sprang up dedicated to promoting his teaching. Maharaji often found that they had difficulty understanding how best to support such a unique endeavour.

"His ability to keep true to himself, to resist the pulls of organisations that wanted to do things the worldly way. I know one person who was a who was the most responsible position in the organisation coming to me to say 'Help me persuade Maharaji to charge for Knowledge', (rapidly shakes his head up and down) to charge money for it and he made a concerted effort to this would be much better as a business so we should make it a business and you know Maharaji totally rejected anything that would any external influence that would compromise the integrity of his message and what he has to offer."

"The organisation at certain times become the second Mata Ji. Try to control him but those organisations doesn't have the purpose to organise him. Their purpose is, their purpose is very simple to organise his message to be conveyed properly. But what message should it be, it had to come through him.