The Respectability Conspiracy

Maharaji is prepared to do things that seem counter-intuitive and disastrous as was his unilateral destruction of Divine Light Mission, its structure and its administration. He continued to act as if he had a personal authority, nothing had changed and he never looked back.

Maharaji's Total Self-Belief

He believes that he is the only person who can communicate the importance of his Knowledge, convince people to try it, teach them necessary techniques and go on to continue the practice it. He spent the 1980s and 90s flying around to wherever there were enough followers to make it worthwhile and using any new technology to make recruitment of new followers and retention of the old ones work as well as possible.

Prem Rawat's Student Re-education and Re-Training

He was never satisified with his 'students' and tried various training and re-education methods. By 2001 he he had created an organised and highly regimented method of outreach and education of the 'aspirants' before their initiation into the meditation techniques which was now done via a video/computer system. Maharaji was close to making the whole process completely automatic as well.

Prem Rawat's Tech and Digital Evolution

He spent 20 years addembling Elan Vital into an organisation that presents Prem Rawat's message but only through himself. His followers should pay but not play. He succeeded. Retention of current members is still not completely web-based. Rawat still does some personal appearances but that cannot last much longer.

The Dream of Respectability

It would appear that around the year 2000 he decided that it was not going to be enough just being the public leader of this minor meditation/wellness group and being secretly worshipped by a small group of aging people left over from the 70s. He wanted to be known and respected just for himself. The one way he could attain real respect was to publicly admit his career had been bogus from the very beginning. He could sell off the assets he'd fraudulently received and make reparations but he decided to do it his way. His organisations would just pretend he was internationally recognized and respected until he was and he would spend everything they had doing it but not on meaningful philanthropy, on the appearance of philanthropy.

How could he get away with it? Well he'd already done it once before!

The Rebranding Process …