Hear Yourself by Prem Rawat
In 2019 "Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in a Noisy World" was published. Amazon ranked it: #134,563 in Books. Unlike his earlier publications, this is an actual book not just a collection of edited transcripts of his speeches. The (ghost) author * has used all Rawat's best stories and quotes he'd gathered over the years and padded them out with extra information that Rawat had never used before. It contains a lot of sensible, if banal advice. It also contains a large amount of Rawat's spiel for his "higher consciousness teachings" though the method for attaining this is not specified. Rawat's career has been based on lies and deceit and he has removed specifics from his teachings as he tries to divest himself of his embarrassing past and evolve with the changing times. In this book he presents other revisioned stories of his life leaving out as much detail as possible. In the end though, its all about his original claims and promises.
From his beginning in the West Rawat has spoken from a perspective that he Knows whereas all other lesser mortals can only believe unless they recognise Him, obey Him and realise His Knowledge through meditation though none of them have ever attained to his level. Until 1983 he was quite explicit about this and used his Divine Status as the Incarnation of God on earth as His authority. Since then the narrative he has spun to provide himself with legitimacy was the fact that he had a significant number of "students" who support him financially and go to enthusiastically hear his speeches and involve themselves in activities he promotes. He usually presents with an arrogant, patronising smugness as the so-called Knower who offers the hapless public a helping hand along the road of spiritual enlightenment or in later years personal development. He also uses a mock humility if he considers it appropriate.
In this book he has used parts of his life, removed the specific details, and retold them in a vague but upbeat manner. He has revisioned/rewritten the events at the time of his father's death and his accession to Perfect Master status. This had already been revisioned and retold a number of times. He has removed all the interesting, colourful, superstitious, magical, divine and Hindu-ish details leaving a story similar to one that could be told about the funeral of any father with many friends.
Rawat's mother deposed and disinherited him in 1974. This did not much hinder his Western organisations but lost him all of the Indian organisations and infrastructure and pretty well all the Indian premies. He has never forgiven her. He has added one chapter in his book, THROWING COINS TOWARD GOD, to make fun of her again as a died-in-the-wool, staunch Hindu ie someone who believes but does not Know as Prem and his true believers Know. He quotes his father: "Give me the money, and I'll make sure you go to heaven." He also uses this story to claim that his "father was free of similarly strong beliefs because he wanted to Know rather than just believe. "For him, wisdom wasn't to be found in the books - Shri Hans Rawat wrote his own scriptures - and it wasn't enshrined in masonry - Shri Hans Rawat began building a shrine to Himself in marble" and masonry and that's still being enlarged as you read.
Prem has a small but important chapter called FAMILY MATTERS
Governments need to support the family. Businesses need to support the family. But, most of all, we need to support the family. And what can we all do to empower the family? Start with our own.
In 2019 when this book was being published, Hans Pal Rawat, Prem Rawat's eldest son accused the father and mother of sexually abusing him when he was a child.. In a telephone discussion with his son and two daughters, he did not deny the charges but claimed he had only done what was normal in his Indian family and religious cult. Hans Pal also reported that his father usually started drinking in the afternoon, was habitually drunk on cognac and this induced random fits of rage at whomever was there, including his young children.
A very important and nearly certainly false story has been added to Rawat's life in this book. Rawat has to demonstrate how he attained his super-consciousness state in a way acceptable to New Age sensibilities. This is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual legitimacy in the 2020s amongst the wider community he wishesd to impress. His brains-trust have come up with a very good retelling of the standard story of the sudden illumination often described as Cosmic Consciousness in the garden with a nice touch - under the magnolia trees. Rawat has spent 50 years without ever telling this story and has denigrated the reality of any "realisation" claimed without His Knowledge.