Prem Rawat's "Holy Family" Soon To Be Dis-Divined and Un-Holied
In traditional societies, such as Tibet, it is possible to invest ultimate spiritual and secular power in a young boy and ensure by his education and the cultural rules under which he lives that he fulfils his role as expected. Famously, the 17th century 6th Dalai Lama refused to abide by the monastic rules and indulged his passion for drunkeness and fornication with women at will. Prem Rawat was able to see the possibilities for a life free of convention as he was growing and chafing under his mother's rule. No doubt the Hindus also have adages like "spare the rod and spoil the child" but once his fearsomely brutal father died only his mother could discipline the Lord of the Universe without fearing the eternal consequences.
As events unfolded those young Westerners who were attracted by the Divine Light Mission spiel were those most sympathetic to rule-breaking and hedonism. Young Prem took the first opportunities to indulge himself once he gathered an entourage he could trust even while preaching that all the new "Western" converts should live rigidly constricted lives of celibacy, poverty and order for their spiritual benefit. There was bound to be a clash of generations - if not civilisations - once his family and the Indian hierarchy of Divine Light Mission discovered this state of affairs.
In 1975, Prem Rawat's mother disowned, disinherited and deposed her youngest son as the Perfect master. He sued her and his eldest brother to gain control of his father's property and lost. A fuller exposition of this sordid affair is found here. The theology of the "Holy Family" was published in the Millenium edition of And It Is Divine magazine and their biographies in the Divine Times Millenium Edition. Prem Rawat and his followers now claim that from the death of Shri Hans Rawat, the Perfect Master of his time and Prem Rawat's father in 1966 and April Fool's Day 1975 when his mother announced his dethronement the family kept up a deception pretending that they believed he was the living Master, the Guru Maharaj Ji, the Satguru, the Perfect Master of our time while all the time they were running the religion as a money-making family business.
In London on the 23rd September 1973 at the Palace Of Peace, the young Rawat spoke about his holy family:
So in 1974 I bet you something is gonna be really beautiful because the the plans that are being made for that is that you'll be able to watch me in television. We are making this new system, propagating at this Knowledge in which premies can just send letters in all the all the questions they want to ask and we'll just answer them on the television and sometimes there like there'll be a special point where, where all four, the whole holy family would be sitting, Mata Ji, all four brothers and some Mahatmas answering the questions for people and then that would be like something really really people need.
The Young Prem Rawat Traded In His Rolls-Royce on a Mercedes 600 So He Vould Travel With His Whole Holy Family Together
Rawat even traded in his Rolls-Royce so he could travel with his whole holy family:
every press reporter was saying "Guru Maharaj Ji has a Rolls Royce. Guru Maharaj Ji has a Rolls Royce. Guru Maharaj Ji has a Rolls Royce." So we were going to find this other car which was a used Mercedes and uh see this is really beautiful the way it worked out because the whole Holy Family was there and they were unable to fit into one, into one car so we figure we better buy one more car so we went there and there is this big beautiful Mercedes 600 limousine type standing there so Raja Ji really got excited and said "Let's, let's have it, let's buy it" and I said "Okay, we'll make a trade." We gave him the Rolls, gave a little money on top of it and bought the Mercedes in which the whole Holy Family could be seated very easily.
During this time, in public, they gave devotional, worshipping satsang and brought thousands of people to Maharaji and the Knowledge. His mother was instrumental in providing the support for the early Western premies that allowed Divine Light Mission to get off the ground in the West. Many darshan stories of the divine lilas of the Holy Family that they had personally experienced were enthusiastically related at satsangs throughout the world by the premies who had been to India. Maharaji's second older brother, Bhole Ji, headed up a big band of premies who recorded an album and the soundtrack for DLM movies. And all the time, it is now claimed that Prem Rawat's elder brothers and mother were engaging in deception to make money while not accepting him as the true living Perfect Master and Prem Rawat, himself, knew this and kept the secret.
It is hard to believe that the young Rawat could have believed this, it seems far more probable that he was lying when he taught this version. While none of the general run of the mill Western premies or students knew the whole story it is certainly a concern that none of the DLM administrators and premies close to Maharaji publicly alerted anyone else to the secret, bitter family disputes that were common knowledge amongst them at the time according to evidence given in the Passages video. From the beginning it seems Maharaji's organisations had a culture of secrecy, deceit and phony public relations.
Under the Smiling Faces There Was Growing Tension As Prem Rawat's Behaviour Became Unacceptable To His Mother
The family put on smiling faces for the cameras but Prem Rawat now claims that he knew that the older members considered him nothing but a figurehead for the family business and not the true living Perfect Master. Of course, Prem Rawat was and is really a figurehead for the family business and is not a Perfect Master even if such a being exists or if it is possible for one to exist.
Prem Rawat's father had married twice and had a daughter from the older wife. Whether she was a full part of the Holy Family or some sort of semi-divine figure was never satisfactorily sorted out. This became moot when Rawat created a New Holy Family with his brother, their wives and children. When this family was split up by divorce and no longer fitted into the new, improved style of Rawat's teachings from the mid-1980's he let the concept lapse. After all, as he had supposedly downgraded his divinity so he couldn't have a divine family.
"This rare footage traces the development of a highly publicized and controversial career. Of
all the well known gurus, the youngest, Guru Maharaj Ji Ji is easily the hardest for the skeptical Westerner to believe in, particularly in the light of publicity concerning his family's struggles for control of the organisation which he nominally heads. What few people realize was that he was proclaimed Perfect Master and
named head of the Divine Light Mission after his father's death. His father founded the worldwide organisation in 1961 and died five years later when the boy was just
eight years old. He now claims millions of devotees around the world. Many of them, Rennie Davis, included, have braved the ridicule of family to follow this path to an experience of consciousness."
Joe Anctil of the Public Affairs Department of Divine Light Mission speaks on control of the organisation. Unfortunately, the social service programs he mentions were more pipe
dreams than reality and all attempts to do this were stopped once Prem Rawat fired Bob Mishler and took control of the mission's direction.
"The question has come up several times as to whether Guru Maharaj Ji is still in control of this Divine Light Mission. Honestly, he has always been in control and always will be as far as his followers are concerned. Because many things that were reported in the media were not reported corrctly. Actually under his direction what's really happening is that people who are practicing this meditation are coming together in communities all over the world and they're opening food co-ops and they're uh starting medical clinics and there are social service programs, for instance here in America there are 250 ongoing social service programs in prisons, in old folks' homes, in childrens' hospitals because whenever you are experiencing love then it is something you want to share."