Prem Rawat's Promised Millenium - A Thousand Years Of Peace
Prem Rawat or Maharaji as he calls himself (meaning Ultimate Ruler) or Guru Maharaj Ji as he called himself until the 1980's has no compunction stating he is a unique person with power possessed by nobody else alive.
As a young boy He declared Himself, and was declared by His devotees, the Lord Of The Universe and the Perfect Master ("as a matter of fact, I am the Perfect Master") and taught he was going to usher in the Millenium of peace on earth in this Kali Yuga and often voiced apocalyptic fears if people did not help him in his mission. He declared his mission to the world at "the most holy and significant event in human history." A full explanation of Divine Light Mission's purpose was printed in the Divine Times, Millenium '73 Edition:
why does Divine Light Mission exist? We are only a small group of people, numbering six million throughout the world, but we have come into this organization for one reason. We have been let in on a secret. And the whole purpose of Divine Light Mission is to let everyone in on this secret, for once this happens, peace will be established on earth! The secret is that there is concrete proof that the Lord is walking on this planet today! This proof exists as Knowledge, a direct experience which Guru Maharaj Ji reveals,which establishes peace in every individual who makes this connection. The secret is that the Lord has come this time for one reason only: to liberate every human beingand establish peace on earth for 1000 years. He has chosen America for the advent of the Millennium!
With appalling but prophetic timing Rawat announced the Divine United Organisation and his establishment of the kingdom of heaven and peace for the whole world on April Fools Day, 1973"
"And I challenge this, to the whole world, that by Divine United Organization, and by the Grace of Almighty Lord, and the power of Knowledge, the bliss of the Knowledge, again peace in the world can be established, in the same way as people have dreamed of, and the kingdom of heaven on this Earth will be possible and is possible, if you work together, with cooperation and in the manner I have explained to you, of Divine United Organizations." - Prem Rawat
Enthroned as the Perfect Master at 8 years old, Rawat had years to think about how he would create world peace once he could leave school and he realized that he would have
to rule the world himself and destroy evil. Luckily he had manifested with more power than Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Mohammed (Maharaj Ji Jihad?) all combined.
He published this message in thousands of magazines:
Dear Reader, There has never been a time when the Lord of Creation did not manifest Himself in human form, and come to this planet Earth to do away with evil and spread the True Knowledge. But history is a pendulum which is always in swing. There have been so many scriptures, but still people have never been able to understand Him. Divine Light Mission wants to bring world peace by sharing the Knowledge which is within us by the grace of Almighty Lord. In this magazine, we hope to give information about the peace which lives within us, which Guru Maharaj Ji reveals. … Sant Ji Maharaj
Professor Ron Geaves a prominent devotee of Rawat's wrote in his paper, "From Divine Light Mission to Élan Vital and Beyond," wrote: "many of the devotees had crossed over from alternative political discourse, where they espoused a strong commitment to world peace, now rendered possible by the ideal of internal individual transformation leading to better societies." The guru confidently taught, "don't think that world peace is impossible. I'll tell you one thing, you might be surprised about it but it's one of the most easiest things."
Thomas Pilarzyk in his paper, "The Origin, Development, and Decline of a Youth Culture Religion," wrote: "The Millennium festival in the Houston Astrodome in November, 1973, marked the single most important development in the short history of the American movement. It was billed by the international DLM as the most significant event in history, which would establish a thousand years of peace on earth." This astonishing claim was reported in diverse publications:
Rolling Stone magazine: A short time later I received a press handout in the mail from the Divine Light Mission announcing "for immediate release" … the Millennium.
The rest of the release was equally forthright, explaining that during the three-day "world assemblage to save humanity" at the Houston Astrodome,
Maharaj Ji would reveal a "practical plan" to save mankind and would kick off a thousand years of peace on earth ("for people who want peace" - a small copout I ignored at the time).
I could be one of tens of thousands of people attending "the most holy and significant event in human history," bearing witness to "the dawn of a New Age." Some
invitations are hard to refuse, and this is why I found myself in Houston early in November, feeling a bit like a tourist lured into a shady nightclub, but sustained in some
deep recess of my professional ego by the tiniest particle of hope that I was in for, well, the Perfect
Scoop.
Saturday Review magazine:
His Serene Holiness, Pratap Singh Rawat-Balyogeshwar, Satguru Shri Maharaj Ji, Perfect Master of the Universe, at the almost intolerable earthly age of sixteen, has a bit of a weight problem and a bleeding duodenal ulcer.
This crossed my mind when "Goom Rodgie," as his adoring American followers pronounce Guru Maharaj Ji, put down recently at Houston, Texas, in his twin-engine Cessna with the "Holy Family"- his widowed mother and three older brothers.
The guru's arrival was the triumphant moment of a worldwide "Soul Rush," which had brought an estimated 25,000 of his followers to Houston from all over the United States and thirty-six foreign countries. They had come to attend, in the Astrodome, a three-day festival of rock music and religious razzle-dazzle, which they called Millennium '73.
The specific promise was that on the final Saturday evening, in a sermon to the multitude and media, the guru would reveal his plan for 1000 years of peace on earth, with perpetual renewal options. Organizers of the affair called it "the most holy and significant event in human history."
Now a claim of that sweep and magnitude will not be swallowed lightly. Predictably, church groups failed to yield the point, to put it mildly. And as the drama unfolded, the news media took a harsh and suspicious view of Guru Maharaj Ji himself.
The Guru promises nothing less than a "Peace Bomb" - peace
in our time within one generation. And unlike other religious leaders, his peace promise is peace on earth, not simply peace within. Much of his reported speech has a
familiar ring. He is quoted as saying: "Come to me. I will relieve you of your suffering. I am the source of peace in this world." To the Guru's followers this kind of echo is
perfectly acceptable; for they believe that their fourteen-year-old master is God in man, just as Jesus Christ was nearly 2,000 years ago.
Los Angeles Times: FORMER STREET-FIGHTING MAN TURNS STUDENT OF DIVINITY - Like writing on the wall, the inevitably facile captions that would be invented to explain away the matter stood out in capital letters - Rennie Davis, the antiwar activist, member of the Chicago 7 and organiser of the 71 May Day demonstrations in Washington, D.C,. has traded in his radical fatigues for a seersucker suit as he goes about the country speaking on behalf of Guru Maharaj Ji, the 15-year-old boy who Davis claims is "the Lord of the Universe come to establish peace on earth."
The Harvard Crimson: The guru claims to have a practical plan to achieve world peace. This plan will be "fully revealed" during the coming year, a spokesman for the Divine Light Mission, the organization of the guru's followers, said Saturday. Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? An official biography says that he was born in India 15 years ago, the youngest of four sons of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, "Perfect Master of his time and founder of the Divine Light Mission." His followers claim that Maharaj Ji, who first gave discourse at the age of two-and-a-half, (and his first English discourse at six), became a Perfect Master at eight, barely two weeks after his father's death. A Perfect Master is "one who can teach the Knowledge of God." The guru's Boston visit is part of his third "world peace tour," which will culminate in a three-day celebration planned for November in the Houston Astrodome. … Marshall Lentini, who joined Divine Light after working with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), urged people in "the movement" to "check out Maharaj Ji." "Maharaj Ji has a practical plan to bring about world peace by providing the necessities of food, clothing and shelter along with the Knowledge," he said.
Associated Press: DENVER, Colo. (AP) - Guru Maharaj Ji, the 15 year-old from India, promises to reveal God and achieve world peace. …
The mission has rented the Houston Astrodome for $75,000 and booked 35,000 beds in hotel rooms.
"This is just warming up," says president Mishler who declares that world peace is "inevitable."
The Miami Herald, July 10, 1989: GROWN-UP GURU RETURNS WITH UP-TO-DATE MESSAGE Maharaj Ji, the pudgy child guru who in the 1970s preached world peace from a Miami Beach mansion and sprayed an Orange Bowl full of followers with colored water, was back in Miami on Sunday with a very 1980s message for about 6,000 followers at the Miami Arena.
Los Angeles Times: "The aim of this mission is to establish peace on this earth. Here I am. I say I can establish peace in this world. It is quite possible. I would very much like all the press would cooperate with me in doing this."
Sociological Review: The Divine Light Mission as a Social Organization - Premies believe they have the answer to their own private problems, anxieties and fears and to those of the world. Meditation on knowledge brings peace of mind to each individual who receives knowledge and this is ultimately the way to achieve world peace. If all people, particularly statesmen and politicians, had knowledge, wars could no longer be fought. The emphasis on world peace in the mission's propaganda was prominent in the early conversionist days and DLM appeared to be another millennial sect, predicting that a thousand years of peace would be ushered in by Guru Maharaj Ji. This emphasis has almost disappeared today, premies being far more interested in their own state of peace than in that of the world. The change probably reflects both the signal failure to convert the world's millions and the general counter-cultural shift from a concern to change the world towards exploration of the self. It is also in accord with the current introversionist phase dictated by the leader. Another change in emphasis has been from extolling the virtues of knowledge in satsang, to extolling the virtues of Guru Maharaj Ji himself, not merely as the one who has revealed this knowledge, but as the source of life, the guiding force in people's lives, the creator and Lord of the Universe.
On January 1st, 1975 Prem Rawat proclaimed to the world: "I still sincerely think that this Knowledge, the Knowledge of God, the Knowledge of our Creator is our solution. …
I think this Knowledge which I have to offer this world, free of charge, is the answer. For if everybody can understand that everybody is a brother and sister,
and this world is a gift, not a human-owned planet, and have the true understanding of such, we'll definitely bring peace, tranquillity, love, and Grace which we need so badly.
I urge this world to try. I do not claim to be God but do claim I can establish peace on this earth by our Lord's Grace and everyone's joint effort.
It has often been argued by devotees of Prem Rawat that he has indeed brought peace to the world exactly as he said he would because he did not mean anything else than that he would bring peace to those people who became his followers and practised his Knowledge correctly and followed his instructions obediently and didn't lose faith in him and that there are now at least a few people practising his Knowledge in many, if not most, countries in the world. He has even said this himself. They claim it was simply a misunderstanding caused by many of his early followers mistaking his real meaning and passing on these false concepts to the press and the public. However there are still copies of newspapers and magazines, audio and video tapes published by his organisations that contain transcripts and recordings of many of his speeches.
You may read a series of quotes taken from Prem Rawat's speeches in which he discusses the peace that he has brought and is going to bring to the world and decide for yourself by clicking here. Of course it can also be argued that no ordinary man can bring even this limited version of peace on earth to come to pass. But Prem Rawat also claimed to be the unique and only Incarnation of God currently manifesting on the planet and that he comes into the world time and time again as he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and of Buddha and of Krishna and even of Mohammed and all the other bona fide incarnations of God that have incarnated on this planet in the past. He claimed he is the Lord, he is the Perfect Master, he is the Saviour, he is the Ultimate Ruler, the Guru Maharaj Ji who is perfect then if these claims are true he probably can bring peace to the world. If he wished he could appear in the clouds to everyone on the planet at the same time and order them to receieve his Knowledge, meditate and experience peace but he chooses not to do that. Rawat is already over 50 years old and appears somewhat unhealthy as he is extremely fat * but he still has time to surprise the world. There is still time for his plan:
"I have a plan for world peace, you see. And if we all work to it, I'm sure we can get It. I can see how its going to work out. It wasn't very hard reaching the hearts of six million people, right? So it's not going to be hard for six million people to reach the hearts or one person each -- and that makes it 12 million. And it's not going to be hard for 12 million people to reach the hearts of one person each and that's going to be -- go ahead multiply it! And that's it, there you are."
A selection of sections of his speeches available here reveals some surprising assertions about the peace on earth he was giving and his person. He was quite positive that he would bring peace and harmony to the entire universe, not just the earth and that God's play (lila) was going to be finalized in a very, very excellent way after he had destroyed evil on the planet. I can hardly wait. He also had a very high opinion of himself, he shouted out to a huge crowd that the "great leaders think that I have come to rule and yes, they are right! I will rule the world, and just watch how I will do it. Even the lion and sheep will embrace each other. Has there been such a king before? Krishna was not such a king, Rama was not such a king. There were lesser powers in Ram, there were lesser powers in Krishna, but I have come to the world with full powers." So far the great leaders are still pretending they know nothing about Prem Rawat ruling the world. Had he been born a year later, it would have been too late to save humanity but he can prevent warfare, "the only one who can settle the governments down is the Perfect Master, the incarnation of God Himself, who comes to Earth to save humankind." Prem Rawat is the Perfect Master so he must also be the Incarnation of God Himself and who has the key to the existence of this entire universe resting in his hands.
"So understand this Word that I want to give you today. I don't come as a politician or anything else, I just bring my Word to you. This Word is not only for Americans, but this Word is for the whole world. And you see, by the Grace of God, I'm sure that this time the kingdom of heaven is going to come. I'm very sure about it. If the whole world receives the Knowledge we can bring it soon. This Knowledge is completely true; I have experienced it. - Guru Puja Festival near Montrose, Colorado, on July 25, 1972
* This reference to his appearance is not meant to offend but to bring attention to the guru's poor life choices and unhealthy lifestyle, possibly caused by excessive hedonism or anxiety and depression due to the stresses of his role. Either way, he does not qualify as a person, Lord of the Universe or not, able to provide guidance and inspiration