Prem Rawat in Brussels, 2011*** TPRF has reported less than $10 million expenditure on all its charitable projects in its 20 years of Annual Reports. The Food for Peace program began in 2006 in Bantoli, Ranchi district. The area was described by one Western devotee as "the blue sky and sunshine of a rural timeless countryside passing fields, small towns and country roads, which are punctuated with vegetable and fruit markets, alive with vibrant colors." TPRF did not specify grants for FFP until 2016 but the Bantoli project was a part of their $196,288 charitable outlay in 2014. The Annual Finances Form 990 states that TPRF sepnt $120,000 on Food for Peace in South Asia i.e Dhading, Nepal and Bantoli, India. There were less than 200 people living in Bantoli in 2011. The building of Rawat's lavish residence there probably did more for the local economy. For perspective, TPRF spent $216,350 on a PEP documentary

Simon Keyes is a prat who had trouble even repeating the information given to him and obviously made no attempt to investigate Rawat further.

Rawat is usually long-winded and terribly boring, the points of his stories are obvious but this speech is relatively short. As always his volume rises and falls, shouting at crescendoes and whispering when he thinks he's being meaningful. An audience who are not followers of his must be somewhat shocked by his delivery even in this speech in 2014 when he'd been honing his public speeches to non-devotees for 30 years. No doubt they appreciate that Rawat's minions made a large enough donation to their cause to justify their presence and polite applause. This is a performance meant to enhance Rawat's reputation and provide PR spin so he does not specify exactly what he means by 'peace' or how he has been spreading it for 50 years. His speeches are based on unproven, if not completely false, assertions and he speaks as if he knows everything and is never wrong.

The Bruxelles Declaration "Pledge to Peace" is a phony declaration of the European Parliament organised by Rawat's minions in cahoots with Gianni Pittella, a long time minor politician, member of the useless European Parliament and leader of a "Socialist Alliance" who appears to have been on Rawat's payroll that year. In 2014 TPRF sponsored 10 live events and spent over $500,00 on these "Peace Initiatives and Keynote Speaking Engagements" and less than $200,00 on Humanitarian Aid. They also spent $216,350 on a PEP documentary. Its fair to assume that the dignitaries involved in this 'presentation' received some benefit, personally or to their organisation, from their attendance. There were also enough selected premies attending to provide a full house and the necessary applause.

Prem Rawat in the Gladstone Room at the Houses of Parliament in London, United Kingdom

In June 2014, Prem Rawat attended a ceremony in the historic Gladstone Room at the Houses of Parliament in London, U.K.' where the Pledge to Peace was presented.


Prem Rawat & Simon Keyes

Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace and Prize Prat

Our next speaker, I am told, began speaking about peace at the age of four. I'm not sure I spoke about peace at the age of four my memories of being four was beating up my brother

Much has been said and written about him. I think the the, the, the, the thing which stands out from his career of 52 years speaking about peace is summed up by his biographer who said "Prem is a man who loves life and who is focused on spreading the message of peace" and that feels to me a very good combination. His foundation which supports this peace education work doesn't stop there. It actually has a huge practical function and has raised and spent millions of pounds on food programs, water in places like Sudan, Haiti, etc. So it's a huge pleasure to introduce um Prem Rawat to speak to us about peace being possible. Thank you. (applause)

Rawat: Thank you. It's uh always a challenge to try to convey to people what peace is and what it should mean across the board to this world. Everybody has their own interpretation for what peace is. I'll start with a little story. Because sometimes I think well, at least it will take some of the sleepy eyes away that I have been observing because incredible things are being said here and this is really about a call to peace, action to peace. The story goes something like this.

One day, the tiger came out of his cave and he was feeling quite brisk and looked out and saw the sun and took a big yawn. He saw a zebra standing not too far away and he went over to him and said "Hey, who is the king, of the jungle?" and the zee zebra very humbly said, "You are, you are." Well, this perked him up a little bit more and off he went and he found a hippopotamus and he said, "Hey, you, who is the king of the jungle?" and the hippo looked at him said, "You are. You are you. You're great. I mean, you're incredible. You're so powerful. You're so mighty. You're you're roar just strikes fear in people" and this got him more all perked up and goes over, sees a horse, "Hey, who's who's who's who's the king of the jungle?" and the horse looked at him and said, "Hey, you are. You know, you are the tops. I mean, you're it. Look at your fangs. Look at your claws. Look at your eyes. Look at your roar. Look at your body. Look at, I mean, you're it." By this time this tiger was barely walking on land. So he went over and saw a big elephant and he went over to the big elephant and he said, "Hey, you!" and the big elephant just look down at him. The tiger said, "Hey, Who is the king of the jungle?" and the elephant said nothing. After a little while, the tiger was quite irritated because, you know, here he had his ego and everybody had been supporting him and here's this elephant saying nothing and he says, "Hey, you elephant, I'm talking to you. Who is the king of the jungle?" The elephant looked down. Very irritated. Picked him up in his trunk. Took him, bashed him, bashed him, bashed him, bashed him, bashed him and let him go. The tiger looks at him. "Just because you don't know the answer. You don't have to get upset."

Prem Claims Humanity is Coming Unglued (Subtext: Because They Don't Worship Him) - Wishful Thinking on His Part

Prem Rawat 2014

For the reason why I say this, I'll tell you the story, because there's something fundamentally amiss. When you talk about peace, it causes more questions than it gives answers. This reminds me of an age that we all used to live in. Well, not us. It was our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfathers perhaps. They looked out. They didn't see Earth moving. They saw the sun moving and they naturally concluded, "We on this earth are the centre of the universe. Everything else is going around us and of course, at that time to have a different opinion other than that was simply heresy." I see us living in the same age when it comes to peace. We're not making observations. We're not taking the basic science, which is the power to observe and applying it in the field of peace We're simply taking peoples' opinions and ideas and saying "That'll do. That'll do and that'll do." It will not do. Peace is not a luxury. Peace is not a luxury. Peace is a necessity without which, despite our efforts, the very fabric of humanity is coming unglued and it will continue to do so because there is not a fundamental recognition of what a human being is. Now what? What is the platform that I have to stand on to make such a incredible, if you will, statement.

A Greek Prisoner Begs to Return to Jail to Finish His PEP

A few days ago I was in Greece and while I was being driven to my hotel, the driver was telling me all the things that are happening in Greece. He told me that there is a correctional institution in the middle of Greece somewhere, where they are showing the Peace Education Program. It's a 10 step program specifically created for the prisons to help the inmates not come back and we have had an incredible success with it. In fact, it all started with just a very small test programs and in San Antonio, Texas, the University of San Antonio that was closely monitoring the progress of the inmates noted that people who had gone through that progam had the lowest rate of return and they were shocked and there were a lot of programs. So he tells me, in Greece, that there was an inmate and he had been through the seven steps of the Peace Education Program. Anyways, his time was up. So he was released. He got out of gaol and do you know what he did? He went to the warden and he said, "Can I come back to continue attending the rest of the Peace Education Program?" (scattered applause). Of course at at the at the meeting that I had, the event that I had in Greece, I believe the warden was there too, because that took him back a little bit. He had never received such a request.

Face To Face Because I Believe In That

Satpal Maharaj Face to Face
Prem Rawat's brother Satpal Maharaj doing a face to face

The goodness is in every single human being. Peace is in every single human being. Please don't try to create peace. Peace is a process of discovery. When you try to create something that doesn't need to be created, already exists, you compete with something that you will never win in that field. I see so many people across the world. Just this year, the first segment of my tours. I got to see over a million people face to face. This is not on television. This is face to face because I believe in that. I believe to go to their countries to be in front of them and to remind them, who they are and what their deepest wish is, that this is being human, wanting to be in that place of simplicity, in the place of fulfilment, in the place of contentment and believe me when the world leaves out peace as the basic foundation of progress, that is a building that is doomed to fall and so if you see the buildings falling there is a reason.

People Do Not Answer, "Why Do I Need To Know Who I Am?" To Prem Rawat. He Has Never Spoken To Random People Face To Face.

There is a reason why a human being - I'm not talking about any religion here. Mind you, I'm not saying a Hindu, I'm not saying an American, a Canadian, a Mexican. No, I don't, I don't believe in these things. I'm sorry. I don't believe because I have seen from the age of four just human beings and I have done everything to preserve that because I just want to see human beings. That's who we are. Well, let me remind you that first of all that practical aspect begins with you. You, you understanding who you are. People go, "Why do I need to know who I am?" Of course. Again connecting to Greece and Socrates saying "Know thyself." You know and another thing that Socrates said, "It is not what it is, but how you use it that matters" and that's profound. I think that's profound.

The Cost Of All SETI Programs Is About $20 Million Per Annum, Not Billions And Billions

A kitchen knife can cut your hands, kill a person or help feed you. How do you use it? How are we using our resources in this world? We're destroying the very branch that we sit on you, using those resources that cannot be renewed. Excuse me. You know and this is one of the things I said in Las Palmas and also in Greece. You know I'm a pilot so I don't have a problem with science and all this new technology mean more the technology the better means it's all wonderful stuff but there has to be some basis in fact. There has to be some base from where it begins. People are looking for life out there and spending billions and billions and billions and I don't have anything against it but I would say first can we just explore the life here. I mean what are you looking for? Are you looking for life? Come to me. I'll show you life. I'll show you life from India to America to Europe to Great Britain to Ireland, all the places that we live. You fly over a desert and you look down there and it is incredibly desolate. Sand, sand, sand and everywhere and then all of a sudden you see a little road and you know that is made by a human being.

We have the resolve but we also have to have the understanding. We have the brawn, we have the power but our ship has to be pointed in the right direction if it wants to take advantage of the wind that blows and this is why it is so important that people like yourself are interested in peace. Beginning with yourself, understanding that it is the common quest of all people on the face of this earth. One half of the food that is generated on this planet Earth is wasted, wasted. This is by the Army Corps of Engineers, their statistics, half of the food is wasted.

Prem Rawat Ended Up In Ranchi Because He Chose To Build A Lavish Residence There

Prem Raway 2014 In Ranchi, believe me, somehow I ended up there. It is one of the remotest parts of the world and I love it and the people are so incredible, so simple and I said to the people around, I said "What would you like?" and they said "Food." This one guy that I talked to. In fact he's in security. He does the security at the airport and he's also in charge of the security for a major Indian Airline and so he and him and I were talking and and he got saying "This is, these kids they actually steal the food from the rats. The rats make a nest and they store food in the middle and these kids know they they they figure out where to go and dig and they steal the food from the rats."

So I said "Okay, let's set up a food for people facility here." I said, "We're not going to run it. We're going to supply the equipment. We're going to supply the building and we want the chiefs to be involved in running it so there is no politics, no wars and who comes there? They will decide." So we said, So we set it up. I was just there in the beginning of the year. Ecstatic. The changes that the one time meal has brought to this these people, the crime rate plummeted. One time food. Crime right plummeted. How could that be? That's impossible, but it happened. For the first time from that area, children are going to graduate and go on to university. (applause) First start and these are the kids when this facility started were only this high and now they are taller than I am and I had a chance to interview them. One time food alleviated the burden on the families and not just food. Because food comes there. But it's the wrong kind of food. They don't eat it. The food that they are used to. I know. I know what it is like when, when? When I have friends who live in Great Britain and they're like "I am going into London now. Where are you headed off to?" "Oh fish and chips." When they've been dying for that. This is what they like. I mean, I could give them a lecture of how unhealthy it might be or this or that. But I'm not going to. Yeah, this is when I go to India. Yes, some real Indian food. Yes. So I said, "No, food that they're used to eating, not some soya bar that they could look at and its like "What is this?" Made all the difference, made all the difference.

"We Are Hoping To Start More And More Facilities" - TPRF Has Built No More Food For Peace Facilities Since 2014

You don't think we could do that for everyone. Since then we have started a facility in Ghana in Africa. We have started a facility in Dhading, which is in Nepal and we are hoping to start more and more facilities because one it is so simple to do and two, it has the most incredible impact. The level of education climbing, crime rates dropping, people becoming successful and priceless is the big smile on their face, not having to worry about tomorrow but starting to dream about the challenges of tomorrow. This is what happened there, they actually, for the first time, they were asked what are you going to do after you graduate and with a big smile on their face, one said "I will be a doctor." The other one said "I'll be an engineer" because they could finally start dreaming. All of us are quite uh travellers. How far do you think they have travelled? In one of the interviews that I did with them I asked them so how big is your world? Five kilometres. Just as far as they've been. I mean I I I that takes me a few seconds flying at 45,000 feet at Mach decimal nine 0 a few seconds (clicks fingers) five kilometres are gone. This is their whole life and one of them has a bicycle. His world is 15 kilometres. They have not been to any of the major cities in India at all.

Look. How can there be this disparity? There are more schools now than they ever have been. There are more rich people on the face of this earth than they ever have been and in fact there's more people on the face of this earth than there ever happy and yet we live in a world of uncertain. We live in a world where there are some faces of babies who may never see smile in their lives. Always one should have a list. They call it the bucket list. But one should have a list that is not the bucket list. But the list of those of those things. There is a human being. They would like to see rest of the humanity. Do you have that list? Have you made that list? And what would be on that list? Would it be about the ideals, "Oh yes. Everybody should have roads." You can live without roads, believe me. What can't you live without? What are the quintessential things for your existence? You need food. You will die without food. There's the rules of three. Three minutes without air. You're gone at least, we owe to all the fellow human beings that we have, to have clean air because it's important for us to look that we need in our lives. Three hours without warmth. Hypothermia. You'll die. We need a place we can call shelter. I didn't say home shelter where we can keep this body one. Then you have three days without food. Maximum. After that you might have and then I would like to add one more and that is fundamentally we need to be able to live in peace and peace.

We are more concerned about life out there than life, than life here. Something is wrong. Hey, something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Having said all that I also the one who acknowledges there is a lot. There is right because there are people like you who are interested in peace and it will be incumbent upon all of us who are interested in peace to educate others. If nothing else, we need to educate people about peace. Everybody says yes. The man's father apart. Policies are not working. People are being killed. As soon as someplace even starts to experience a little bit of peace on the horizon another war breaks out. People living in the same country are willing to take the risk of destroying their own fellow citizens. That's not right. That makes no sense whatsoever. It is so, so important, so incredibly important for the quintessential preservatives of life that we look after each other. So much to say. Many, many questions and I hope I have posed those questions that you're going to think about and of course, if you don't know the answer, don't get upset. Thank you very much. (applause)


Question: Hello. My name is Niri Ravi and I'm a student at Cambridge University. I have a question for Prem. My question is as sort of young people at university and starting off in our careers. Feel a lot of pressure to but academic success and for career accomplishments. I often feel that there's a lot of conflict between these external successes and accomplishments and an internal feeling of a self worth and happiness and I was wondering whether you could provide some advice on achieving sort of peace between these internal and external conflicts. So that was my question.

No, there is no conflict. There's absolutely no conflict in external success and internal strength. Peace is an internal strength. Success on the outside is external strength. Look, there can be a person who is incredibly successful but they can be also incredibly sad because happiness manifests from inside out. The externally we can be this. We can be that. We have achieved this. We have achieved that and sometimes it is life changing moments that all of a sudden you realise "My goodness it had nothing to do with any of that" and what I'm talking about is just a simple peace coming from inside, the place that you are, the strength that you have already, to explore it, to understand it and and and to run with it and to and to feel it and to feel it every single day of your life and to have that harmony, to preserve that balance. Without that balance, yes, there is no limit to what you can achieve on the outside but how are you going to feel within inside of you and so I do not see a conflict between the external and the internal because there are two different places. (applause)

Question: Melius is my name and I'm the chief executive of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, England. You talk there quite a lot about peace but is peace just the absence of war or is it more than just the absence of war and if it's more than what is it that that is an extra thing which makes more than just the absence of war.

There have been times on this face of this earth where there were no wars, then you would wonder what happened. How come wars got started if there was already peace. Wars, poverty, ignorance, all of the things are just symptoms. They are not any real entities in themselves. You cannot take a bucket and try to fill the bucket with darkness and throw it out the window and hope there'll be light. It would not happen in a million billion trillion years. It is not possible. If you want to remove the darkness, you have to usher in light and that's how it is. I'm not making the rules. I'm just observing how it is. There are many, many symptoms when the person has not understood who they are.

I'm just gonna dip right into the SOS program a little bit because it is related. The peace education - there's also a Peace Education Program for the returning veterans and right now it's extremely extremely successful in in the United States. When I talk about peace, I'm talking about empowering that person. There is when I used to have relatives that were soldiers. One was a captain. One was a major and everything was fine till the war broke out and when the war broke out everybody was in tears and these guys had to go and these were young kids and they had to march off. I was very, very young then I must have been maybe 8, 7, 8 something like that. [India China War of 1964] They, off they went and there was a possibility one day that one may not come back and the whole family was in shambles. There are, there's a price for war that is not understood. There are kids who will never see their father, their daughters who will never play with their mothers or their father. It isn't just about a political right or wrong. I I like the old days when the king had to be in the front, because he thought twice about going out. There's like, "Do I really wanna do this?" No, it's it's strategic decisions that are being taken in remote places by remote people. What is our expenditure on war and what is our expenditure for peace? How much did we spend last year on peace? How much did we spend on war? I mean we're talking about combined effort of all the all the places of creating the weapons of mass destruction and all of these things and then going "Yeah well yeah peace would be nice to have."

I'm I'm I'm taking a look at it in reality. There is a, there is, the reality is, there is no war that can be won. Even after you so called, say you have won it, you actually lose because if it is the war that we wanna get rid of then we have to have people who are much much stronger from the inside. We have to take care of our problems before, not after, that they happen. The world is a open book. You know people are surprised. It's like "Oh my God. That happened there" is like yeah that was a long time coming and you could have taken care of it. I mean we pride on ourselves on language, don't we? I mean isn't that one of the human things that we have been able to do is have this language that is really incredibly complex and sophisticated and we can convey "Well, why don't we talk?" Why don't we believe in talking? Why don't we sit down and I know I know I know there are people here going "Hey wait a minute, that's never going to happen." I say to you is that all your horsepower you're using? Your mental horsepower to come up with the grand answer of "No." I invite you to come up with an answer of "Yes." You you may have to think a little bit because I don't think it takes a whole amount of thinking to just say "Eh eh that's not happening." Remember Dad when he didn't want something to happen, what the answer was? "No no." There was no explanation. "Dad I want to go to a movie." "No. You know, "Dad, can I have an ice cream?" "No." Simple so I invite those people who say no to come up with an answer of yes, how can you do it?

They are human beings. We label them soldiers. Excuse me. That's mistake number one. First look at them as human beings. We say "Pilots." No look at them as human beings. We say "Lawyers." No. First look at them as human beings. We say "Politicians." First look at them as human beings. All of the world has to start taking off these different coloured glasses and saying can we look at the same day, the same way, like we're supposed to and look at it, that here we are in the possibility of making something beautiful happen for every single human being on the face of this earth. One person dying for no reason at all is a price too much. Take away your father, take away your Dad, take away that equation of growing up in this world. How much of a penalty is this world going to keep on paying? Our prisons are getting full. United States over the past, quite a few years, has quadrupled the prison population. 296% and to find out nobody knows where Dad is. That Dad is important, that mother is important, that family is important and unless our initiatives are balanced these are the consequences that the society will have to pay.

We are living in those dark ages where people did not know, did not know that the sun did not go around the earth?

Question: Yeah, I'm ??? I'm from Future Foundations, working with National Citizen Service and my question is not necessarily to anyone in particular, but to all of you. You've said quite a lot about peace and what kind of governments can do, what individuals can do. But what can young people do in society? Because kind of working with national citizen service, they try and make young people kind of give as much back to their community and it might be very difficult for young people to kind of influence government or influence kind of large scale activity. So what do you think that young people can do in their kind of own society or community to try and create peace?

Rawat:Well, what I want to say is that you know, in your heart, the flame and fire that you have for peace. Please. Fly with it. You, as a young person have a unique perspective. You do. You have an empty pallette and you have a full pen? Write? Write and write and write and write. Don't try to take care of the symptoms. A good doctor doesn't, a good doctor says "OK let's say your tooth hurts, your head hurts, your eyes are bad. Let's find out. Let's find out what's wrong with you. I can give you an aspirin. I can give you something for your eyes. I can give you this, I can, that's okay. But let's find out why is this happening.

I know as a pilot if you get, if you see a problem, you have to say, "Why is this happening?" Because if I don't take care of that problem, I'm only going to make it worse. You have have the possibility and really a fantastic chance to see a new horizon. Fuel the passion for peace and run with it. That's what I would say. Run with it. Because it doesn't matter how much passion we all have. Sometimes our viewpoints are not fresh and you're unique. You have that. It's a blessing. Run with it. Make it happen. Go. I was once talking to this gentleman who is involved in the in the process of negotiations and peace and so on and so forth with United Nations and I said to him, I said, "You know, we all know there is a very green pasture on the other side of these very wicked hills. We know that. We know that. The only thing we don't know is how to get to the pasture and so we're all trying with our little formulas." Some people are well, let's build the tunnel. Some people are saying, let's fly over them. Some people are "Let's do this. Let's do that." Fine. Point is to get there and you have a fresh perspective. You have the energy, you have the fire, you have the passion. Go with it. Run with it. Stay with the passion and this is in a way like the Olympic torch. One day you'll be as old as I am and hopefully there'll be a young person like you is before me and you will say to them "You're young, you're fresh, run with it and hopefully this torch will come and go on running and running and running and running by powerful legs that will carry it across all horizons and make it possible for one day, one day to truly have peace on the face of this earth. (Applause)


The criticism of Prem Rawat and the Prem Rawat Foundation in this article is not meant to suggest that there was no worthwhile activity in ameliorating hunger in the proects mentioned but that Rawat and the Foundation exaggerate the importance and the extent and the cost of the charitable activities and use it to claim a reputation for philanthropy that Prem Rawat does not deserve. The POrem Rawat Foundation spend far more money on Rawat's luxurious lifestyle and his activities as a guru of a religious cult.