To Ji or Not to Ji - The Trans Guru
In 2024 the half a dozen people (still alive) who were supposedly Prem Rawat's closest advisers and administrators in the early 1980s were asked about the discussions held before the termination of Divine Light Mission, the closing of the DLM ashrams and his rebranding from Guru Maharaj Ji to Maharaji. None of them could remember any such discussions. Like everyone else in DLM they were blindsided though Michael Dettmers, at least, thought it was a good idea.
Different people remember the events occurring at different times though everyone agrees it was in 1982 or 1983 or both as the changes rolled around the small premie world. In fact, what he was going to be known as had not been definitively decided, or no-one had bothered to ask Him, how he was to be addressed. What was His new brand name©™ to be? Was his new name and title 'Maharaji' or "Maharaj Ji" and it took some time before Rawat was safely settled as the uni-verbal 'Maharaji' and not the bi "Maharaj Ji."
It seemed from the 1982 "People Finding Happiness" booklet that 'Guru' was never to be mentioned again but somehow it took a while for the message to get out.
January 1981 in Baltimore, He was still Guru Maharaj Ji and there was still singing of Arti
July 1981, he is Maharaj Ji but Guru Maharaj Ji when he is quoted in an earlier speech, "Guru Maharaj Ji," "Perfect Master" and 'devotion' are stll kosher
Maharaj Ji, Melbourne, Australia, 23rd March 1982:
The crowd greeted him with Bolie Shri Satuguru Dev Maharaj Ki Jai! He said Guru Maharaj Ji over 30 times
Maharaji, Miami, Florida, 9th December 1983:
It was his birthday, so emotions ran high and one premie started to shout Bolie Shri Satuguru Dev Maharaj Ki Jai. The tape was cut off but somehow it ended up on PMT 256. A salute and a fond farewell from the Unknown Premie to his personal "Sieg Heil"
Maharaji, Auckland, New Zealand, 14th March 1983: The word 'guru' was totally absent and never made a comeback
The 1982 new look, fashionable full color booklet, "People Finding Happiness" was a glimpse into the guru-less future. Maharaj Ji, though, the non-guru could still assert that Guru Maharaj Ji had come into the world to show you God, and the "force about which I speak is already within you. It is happening within you right now. It is the force called life, for it is what gives you life, it is the force of God, the Knowledge of life, the Knowledge that is God."
Maharaj Ji …
Not that I am arguing against anybody's perception of God along those lines, but I am saying that the glory and the perfection that I see are far, far different. That difference for me is rather like the difference between what a medical student learns in textbooks and what he learns in the actual practice of medicine after he has studied the textbooks. All of a sudden, now it makes sense. All of a sudden, the theoretical becomes the practical. All of a sudden, the mystery disappears and the Knowledge is truly revealed.
Well dear premies, we have this little chance here just to share some satsang just to understand, try to understand a little bit more because the experience of Knowledge only manifests for those who can truly go inside because that's where it is. It's like you know if I lose something in this world and I try to look for it try to find it somewhere I can look where I want to look but I will never find it until I look at the place where it is/. Cause the object itself is not lost, the object is there wherever it is and it's so much the same for that experience of Knowledge cause never, ever, ever does that ever get lost but we get lost, that's very easy to do. Ocean has millions and millions and billions of gallons of water and every time I will touch water it will get me wet but if I stand just uh one millimetre away from that ocean in all its power it won't be able to get me wet. Why not? Why isn't there just like an overflow because I'm so close why doesn't it, it just get me wet but it can't. A river that flows day and night with all that water just moving and moving and moving right along you know all I have to do is segregate myself, separate myself away from that river, just so far, just one millimetre or one one hundredth of a millimetre if I want to and it would be completely incapable of getting me wet. It's the same way with Knowledge. Knowledge is that river flowing beside, Guru Maharaj Ji comes in this world to give us that Grace to give us that Knowledge so that we can go inside and experience the experience of this life, so that we can experience that truth, that reality.
Put quite simply, the distinction is between believing because one is taught to believe and believing because one knows. The day that you see God, the day that you feel God - that is when you believe. It is as the great Swami Vivekanand said, when recounting the story of his teacher's reply upon being asked if he had ever seen God face to face: "I have seen God closer than I am seeing you right now, and I can show you God."
Still, trying to describe the actual experience is like trying to describe the flavor of sugar to one who has never tasted it. Sugar is sweet. So? But a few grains sprinkled on the tongue tells all. Experience is the teacher.
I am not saying I can give you that experience. What I am saying is that the force about which I speak is already within you. It is happening within you right now. It is the force called life, for it is what gives you life, it is the force of God, the Knowledge of life, the Knowledge that is God. And all I can offer to do is to show it to you so that you can experience it yourself.
This is not something that I can take out of my pocket and pin on you like a medal. It is already within you. If you want it, you can have it. If you do not want, do not take it, and that is all right, too. Perhaps at this time you do not see a necessity for it. Perhaps at another time you will. It will still be there, within you, the Knowledge of God, waiting.
I am sometimes asked, "What's the catch?" There is no catch, none whatsoever. It is not as if one stepped up to a counter and paid a fee and walked away with the Knowledge of life. You would not he very smart to pay a dime for it, for it is already within you. It is yours.
In his book 1984, George Orwell had predicted there would be reality shifting vocabulary changes that would reprogram peoples' ability to think clearly and rationally and in the case of the premies of Prem Rawat he was a visionary. By 1984 the people who attended Elan Vital conventions and heard speeches by an exciting new Speaker, Maharaji, were starting on a new linguistic journey and within a few years would speak in ways that very few others would understand. But all good things must come to an end and so it was that an evolution occurred after another 20 years or so and Maharaji would melt away into the mist as if he had never been.