Prem Rawat Tried to Turn Back The Tide

Like King Canute, Prem Rawat was surrounded by sycophants and ass-kissing brown-nosers who went even further than the warriors in Canute's Court. Premies didn't just say he could turn back the tide, they told Him He was the Lord of the Universe, The Satguru and the greatest ever top gun pilot with the most beautiful golden skin. Despite all this worship there was one thing that always bothered Prem from the time of his mind-boggling success attracting people to His Knowledge in the early 1970s.

Why Did So Many People Reject His Knowledge Once Initiated?

It seemed, at first, that there were always bigger and bigger crowds, more and more people being initiated by the Mahatamas, more and more donations and presents, more and more fun. But sitting atop His throne in the Houston Astrodome He realized there was only a fraction of the 144,000 young Western premies He'd been told to expect and only a fraction of the number who had been revealed the Knowledge. What had happened?

It wasn't too long before those bores, Bob Mishler and his offsiders, started talking about it as well. They decided that all of these manmats must not have been properly educated and that He and His offsiders had been hyping the whole thing up with exaggerations beyond the bounds of credibility and maybe He was wrong when He said:

"this Knowledge is so holy, so perfect, that one spark that comes out of this Knowledge is so perfect, so, so perfect, wherever it goes it hits, it makes it perfect. And wherever it goes, again hits, makes it perfect. Wherever just one spark of this Knowledge shines out, absolutely perfect."

So Mishler tried to calm down expectations: "I know premies who, because of their expectations of meditation, rather than their practice of meditation, are miserable most of the time. They expect some cataclysmic occurrence within their own being rather than suddenly recognizing and subtly perceiving the miracle of their own life. … I think there are some people who are still into hyping things, but those of us who are working in the headquarters have gotten beyond that for the most part."

Of course there was a fair bit of hype in that as well but they came up with a plan. Before "Receiving Knowledge" people would have to do a Knowledge Course and once initiated they'd receive a Knowledge Kit to keep them on the satsang, service and meditation drudgeway. It came a little too late as the pool of people who'd give credence to the young Guru Maharaj Ji aka Lord of the Universe had pretty well dried up by 1974.

In the early 1980s Prem, then still calling Himself Guru Maharaj Ji, made a radical change, He closed down Divine Light Mission, changed His name and became Maharaji who supposedly was no longer divine and worshipped by his followers, half of whom left the fold presumably disgusted with his inexplicable and inexcusable behaviour. How can God resign? It took until 1990 before the premie drop-out problem came up for review, there were more important things to worry about.

In 1999 he came up with the solution. He couldn't trust any of his followers to do the job of bringing people to realize the importance of receiving the Knowledge and practicing it once they had been initiated. He would have to handle it all by Himself, personally.