Strange and Curious: Is It "Knowledge" or "Self Knowledge?"
Whatever word Param Hans Shri Satgurudev might have used to describe his form of meditation and worship it was certainly neither Knowledge nor Self-Knnowledge as he did not speak English. In our records of speeches and official publications of Divine Light Mission, Guru Maharaj Ji as Prem Rawat then called Himself, never once used the term "Self-Knowledge." His wife, Durga Ji as she was then known never once is recorded as saying "Self-Knowledge."
In my extensive collection of speeches by Maharaji as he called himself from 1983 to 2005 and Prem Rawat as he was known from 2010 he is not recorded as using the term "Self-Knowledge."
It was used once in the June 1976 issue of Divine Times in a report of WWA folk singing in an old persons' home in Holland. The World Welfare Association was a short lived brain fart by Rennie Davis in which he imagined a few thousand ex-hippie premies were going to magically alleviate all the world's social problems.
Prem Rawat's British organisation was named Human Development Through Self Knowledge (HDSK), presumably at a time when Rawat had okayed the use of "Self-Knowledge" and then was never renamed during perions when only the word "Knowledge" was auhorised.
In 2024 Monical Winslow, long time Mistress of Prem Rawat's and Executive Director of Intelligent Existence, one of his latest organisations, explained: "I just want to briefly run through what peace education and Knowledge is and basically that is the Knowledge is Self-Knowledge. Prem Rawat teaches Self Knowledge and the tools of Self Knowledge enable a person to take their attention from the outside and turn it within to an experience very unique to every person."
Prem Rawat continually states that his Knowledge is not a religion or spiritual path. His critics agree to a certain extent. They claim his Knowledge is a false religion and definitely not spiritual. Many of Rawat's followers believe they are on a spiritual path and are having the same experiences that the great saints and mystics had in prior times. Even in his later personae of Maharaji and Prem Rawat he has continued to identify himself with such famous dead saints and mystics as Kabir They are not able to convince many others of this though.
It is very easy to take Knowledge and to take what I am doing and put it on the parallel tracks of religion but this is about as far from religion as it gets. Because religion is a discipline so that after you die you go to heaven. You do all, you do everything right, then you got the Indian heaven, you got a Chinese heaven, you got you know this heaven, you got that heaven, busy place."
"I'm not saying that those people who don't have Knowledge are gonna go to hell." "But can they be happy?" (voice from audience) "Huh?" "Can they be happy?" (voice from audience) "Can they be happy? Without going to hell? Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Um. Uh uh."