Prem Rawat's (Maharaji) Promise of Easy Enlightenment and Instant Bliss
Prem Rawat had extraordinary success in gaining new followers amongst the drugged-out baby-boomers in the West in the years 1970 to 1973. What was the cause of this incredible success? He was not the only Eastern guru promising higher states of consciousness through meditation but Rawat, unlike his more authentic competitors, was preaching easy enlightenment, promising instant gratification on initiation and constant "Higher than LSD" bliss and he had a cadre of young, excited, loud worshippers who were basically lying about their experience or as Rawat's right hand men would shortly admit exaggerating.
Rawat and his minions also claimed that the young Rawat was God Incarnated in a Body on Earth, the Lord of the Universe, the Avatar who was going to inaugurate the Millenium, 1,000 years of Peace on Earth (and that was just the beginning) and bombarded anyone who would listen in 7 nights a week "satsang" sessions of these "facts."
Young Rawat was not wishy-washy, He stated in public many times that if anyone comes to him and:
"asks for true Knowledge of the true self, which you are seeking through relative forms, I can give it to you. Spiritually. The Knowledge is within you, God is within you. And I can show you God if you want to see Him.
The early 1970s Baby Boomer premies claimed that they were always "blissed out" - well almost always.
Anybody who was involved for any length of time would realize this wasn't true but anyone who was involved that long would probably already have been convinced it would be true - soon and if it didn't happen it was their own fault and Prem Rawat's Divinity was not called into question just because your meditation was a dud, everyone else seemed to be blissful. Who wants to be the first to say out loud "I have no new clothes." By a quirk in human nature the premies' faith in Rawat's divinity was confirmed and strengthened each time their doubts were overcome and Rawat taught that doubt was basically evil and a method your mind had to prevent enlightenment so no matter that meditation has constantly failed to provide bliss in premies' lives they still worship Rawat, albeit behind closed doors. Click here for a look at what he said about bliss - in his own words.
Foss and Larkin explained Prem Rawat's Divine Catch 22 succinctly:
Guru Maharaj Ji, the Perfect Master, according to Mission theology, has come to reveal the Knowledge of meditation to suffering humanity; he was not obliged to do this, but as Perfect Master he has altruistically chosen freely to dispense his revelation and thereby shed his Grace upon all who ask for Truth with a guileless heart. The experience of bliss in practicing the meditation is a further manifestation of Grace. However, when bliss fails to manifest it is blamed on the premie, and the problem can be attributed to numerous possible causes: he is insufficiently dedicated, he is in his mind, he has not let go of his ego, he has "expectations" of "realizing the Knowledge" too quickly failing to "let go" and thereby make real progress on the spiritual path, and so forth. In short: if bliss is manifested, this is with Guru Maharaj Ji's Grace; if it is not, this is human failure.
Maharaji's Meditating Monks Who Manifested the Magic of the Mystic East
One of the most
important factors in the early success of DLM were the Indian 'mahatmas', supposedly celibate men and women who lived in ashrams and dedicated their lives to practise of meditation and recruitment of people to Prem Rawat and His "Knowledge". They provided the dash of the mystic and mysterious Eastern magic that imbued the Knowledge Sessions with the necessary potential to believe.
The idealistic and ignorant young Westerners believed these people to be "liberated", "realized souls", "yogis", "swamis", etc. They were thought to be above normal consciousness and to exist on a higher plane. And certainly the few mahatmas that came to Australia, especially Padarthanand, put on a pretty convincing show in this regard.
At first Prem Rawat spoke and acted as if his family was Holy, he called them the Holy Family but when he withdrew their holiness credentials, their photos were removed from the altars and their worship ended.
When Rawat demoted and fired the Mahatmas, changing his teaching that they were necessary for the spread of peace in the world, the followers who had all been initiated by these very mahatmas and had believed they could impart God's grace through their fingertips accepted the demotion and turned off their respect.
Prem Rawat Blames His Followers For The Failure Of His Mission To The "People of the World"
They worship and adore him (in private), they supply him with all the money he's ever had but they're just not happy enough to impress outsiders.
'Bliss' in His Own Words:
"So what do you know? You know about being happy how you need that in this life. You know that. You know how you need the joy in this life. You know that. You know how contentment is important to you, you know that. You know that you dislike sadness, you know that. These are the simple rules that are yours, not somebody else's. To be content, to be in that joy, to be in that happiness. What kind of happiness? Not the kind that is created but the kind that dwells in the heart of every human being on the face of this earth. The joy that already is that that doesn't need to be brought from somewhere else. The process of awakening is not a process of creation. You don't have to create it. Awakening is awakening to that which already is. Then with this heart awakened to the possibility of being fulfilled. Then in this life know that you can be fulfilled. Know in this life know that you can be content and that is the simplest of request that has always been." - 1998
Question and Answer Session, Portland, Oregon, June 29, 1972
When you become Lord of the universe, you become a puppet, really! Nothing else; not "you." Not "I," not "you," no egos, no pride, nothing else. One with humbleness; servant. Very, very beautiful Always in divine bliss. Creating your own environment -- wherever you go, doesn't matter. Like my friends used to play and I used to sit right in the corner of my ground and meditate (laughter)
Even 10,000 times more far out experience you get when you are divinely blissed with the Knowledge. Then
Knowledge just takes you, and takes you into an environment never thought of; never thought of, beautiful. When one
can really get into the Music, get into the Word, get into the Light, it's so beautiful; so blissful. Just grand, you know!
When someone has mastered it, really very far out! So that's what I tell premies: "Meditate, and get somewhere." Yes?
Élan Vital, Volume II, Issue 2, Summer 1978
Guru Puja, Montrose, Colorado, July 27 1972
Many people, many youngsters say okay that when Lord Shiva came, He came with a bag of, of marijuana. And this is not it. He came with a bag of marijuana, but not marijuana was not that you smoke or eat. That marijuana was the marijuana of this Knowledge. When people got it, they really got blissed out. If they just went into it, they really got blissed out. That's what He had, He had not these marijuanas and so on and these - this is not the Word, this is not all the things you are too!
Man takes LSD, till he has-he has got his effect of LSD, he is okay, LSD finishes, he is not okay, because he is not in the bliss thing. So what actually he is doing, he is flying over rough, rough weather. He goes up; he goes down. He goes up; he goes down. It's not going to help him. What I have is a constant LSD. It's not LSD, it's a built-in LSD which God provided you with when you were born.You get into it and you're always blissed out. No need to come out from it.
Perfect Master Tape #003 and and It Is Divine, Volume I Issue 8
Millenium '73, Houston, Texas, November 9, 1973
This Knowledge, it's beautiful, it's fantastic, and you know something? You'd better receive it, you'd better get hold of it, and as soon as possible. And I'm telling that to you for your own good. It's going to help you, it's going to make you rich. Want to become rich? Rich in anything? It's going to make you rich. It's going to make you fantastic, it's going to make you blissful.
If you want to know this Knowledge, if you want to recognize it, you are most welcome, ladies and gentlemen, you are most, most, most, most, most welcome. You can recognize this Knowledge, you can realize this perfection and peace in this very lifetime. You can. And if you realize it once and you get into it, I don't even want to say what's going to happen to you next because you'd better figure it out for yourself. It's just fantastic, it's just so blissful
And It Is Divine magazine, June 1974, Volume 2, Issue 1,
Chicago, 18th February 1974
That is why we must go to a person who has and who is the source of this infinite bliss of the, the infinite Knowledge, of this perfection we go to him, ask him and he reveals us that truth then that is the perfect bliss that we are searching for, that we are looking for and this is why it's like there are so many people going around in this world. …
You see and that is, that is the main reason that why this world is not reaching a point of satisfaction and that is why always a Perfect Master comes from time to time to time to time to time to time. Comes into this earth and reveals people, shows people that perpetual, that perfect movement which is inside of us, that beautiful, beautiful vibration and he shows us, he reveals us that and when he reveals the bliss that he has experienced with that is completely, completely unbelievable because it's perfect. It's like a man has never experienced perfectness before and instantly, in a split of a second, the next thing he knows that he is merged with infinite and the bliss of there is I can't even describe it to you because it's completely fantastic …
It's like you have seen that uh series Gilligan's Island (laughter) and when they see a aeroplane nearby (the guru can hardly stop from laughing) how, how, it means how blissful they feel about it and this just again from one kind of misery, from a kind of misery you are going to the b kind of misery but it's still the same you know it's like it's still, still the same, it's completely still the same and so how blissful it is going to be for actually a human being merges into a complete infinite and the complete bliss because you see when there is a drop of water in the dropper it can be identified as a drop when it is put into a glass it is no more a drop it is the whole glass of water and when there is water in the glass it can be identified as a glass of water, glass in the water or in measurements but once it's poured into the ocean then that identity, that little drop of a glass of water is no more a glass of water, it's the whole ocean because that identity is now merged with the whole ocean.
Perfect Master Tape 019