The DLM Revisionism in the Passages video
From the late 1960's when westerners first stumbled, stoned and bedraggled into Dehra Dun, to the early 1980's when Prem Rawat renamed 'Divine Light Mission' to 'Élan Vital', closed the ashrams and terminated all public satsangs where his followers earnestly preached to the public and each other, thousands of young westerners became premies: followers of the Guru Maharaj Ji, the Perfect Master: Prem Rawat. They created a publicity buzz way beyond their numbers, youth and inexperience should have allowed. They published magazines, books and created movies such as "Satguru Has Come", "The Lord of the Universe" and "Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji?" By 1978 groups of over 20,000 would gather for festivals that included the largest darshan lines ever known in the West.
Yet it was not until the late 1980's that it was taught by Prem Rawat and his inner circle of "true devotees" that during the exciting and blissful period up to 1982 nearly all the premies had misunderstood the Knowledge and had mistaken the Indian religious trappings for the true experience of Knowledge. This mistake had been deliberately promoted by his unbelieving, apostate family for their nefarious family business interests. The Mahatmas who Maharaji had selected and empowered to reveal the Knowledge techniques and pass on His Grace had also been passing on this fals eunderstanding. Some of the Nahatmas were even teaching incorrect techniques of meditation!
The Western premies had even mistaken the effects of meditation thinking it resulted in a thundering experience of big Divine Light, loud Celestial Music and gushing Nectar and not the quiet, calm experience Rawat now taught that it was. This raises the obvious problem: did they actually experience this gushing experience while meditationg up to 1987 or just believed they were supposd to - or - did their experience change from intense to a quiet and calm once they were told is should.
In his Rejoice programs of 1987 Rawat altered the meditation techniques and requirements as his foremost disciple, Charanand, explains.
"Mahatmas came to give Knowledge, it was a way of spreading Knowledge. In the ashrams then I found were um a way of disciplining yourself,
your life, in terms of practising Knowledge.
Bobby Hendry, Prem Rawat's cook
Even some of his closest devotees such as Ms Linda Pascotto, President of the Prem Rawat Foundation had been unable to practise meditation properly, if at all, no matter how much inspiration Prem Rawat gave her and all his premies, until 1987 when the required daily meditation time was cut from 2 hours a day to one hour giving her and doubtless many others a glimmer of hope that she would be able to begin to meditate properly at last.
"I remember when Maharaji started having these er Rejoice programs and uh giving people Knowledge reviews that was the time he began really talking about the simplicity and that stillness inside. So one person said "Oh Maharaji, I want to thank you so much that today you made something so clear to me. My friend and my brother always used to tell to me they would see big light and they would hear celestial music and taste nectar and this and that but I would feel only that peace, that calmness inside. And I would always feel bad that was wrong with me that I don't have these thundering experiences but today you made it clear that's very calming and quiet experience."
Rawat began to reinvigorate Élan Vital from 1987 with the Rejoice tours where he changed the meditation techniques of Knowledge with most of the remaining Western premies. In this video Charanand explains the new understanding of the experience of Knowledge that Maharaji now began to teach his students. They were now taught that the big thundering of Light and Divine Music and tasting of Nectar they had been told of in the 70's, and that they assumed each other had been experiencing, had been mistaken.