Prem Rawat's "Holy Family"

Prem Rawat's mother disowned and disinherited her youngest son and 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.

Prem Rawat and his followers now claim that from 1966, the death of Prem Rawat's father, Shri Hans, the Perfect Master of his time and the wedding of Prem Rawat to his Californian sweetheart, Marolyn Johnson, the family kept up a deception ¹ pretending that they believed he was the 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.

During this time 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. 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 Prem Rawat's brothers and mother were engaging in deception to make money while not accepting him as the true living Perfect Master and only Prem Rawat, himself, knew and kept the secret hidden. It is no wonder he was hospitalised in 1973 for an emergency ulcer operation at St Luke's Hospital Hospital in Denver, Colorado.

We will probably never know why Maharaji kept this secret for so many years or if he was lying when he taught this version. While none of the 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 was common knowledge amongst them at the time. From the beginning it seems Maharaji's organisations had a culture of secrecy, deceit and phony public relations.

The family puts on a smiling face for the cameras but Prem Rawat 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.

"This rare footage traces the development of a highly publicized and controversial career. Of all the well known gurus, the youngest, Guru Maharaji 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 Anato 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 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."

More scans and clips of Prem Rawat's family will be added here shortly ...

1. from the Elan Vital video, Passages, 1999 @Visions International