The DLM Revisionism in Passages

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 'Elan 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' 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 revealed by Prem Rawat and his inner circle of true devotees that during this exciting and blissful period nearly all the premies had misunderstood the Knowledge and had mistaken the Indian religious trappings that his unbelieving, apostate family had promoted for the true experience of Knowledge. Some of the mahatmas were even teaching incorrect techniques of meditation!

They 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 it turned out to be. Prem Rawat attempted to resolve these problems in his Rejoice programs of 1987 when he 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. Unfortunately we held on to the Indianess of it instead of the real practise of Knowledge, you know and incorporating that properly into our lives."
"I, I, I probably endowed him lots of uh extra-terrestrial powers that he didn't have. But he must, he had the power to win my heart and if somebody could do that, for me, that's more powerful than, than, I can't explain but it's more powerful than, than, I can find words for." No problem, George, I can find the words. You, like millions of people, are worshipping a cult leader. It's no big deal, there are hundreds, if not, thousands of them and they win peoples' hearts with very little effort and no requirement whatsoever to be authentic.
"We brought a lot of Indian attachments with us, you know, we thought that because Knowledge came from India we had to adapt some of the Indian things, that somehow our Western way wasn't quite good enough." Well I didn't ever see any Divine Light Mission girl in a sari but at least Ms Collier is telling the truth about herself, if nobody else. But, you did look so hot in a sari, Sandy.
"When I first received Knowledge I was told that I needed to practise an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening and it seemed so unrealistic. I would sit down to practise and after 20 minutes I was just .. that's about all I could do and I didn't try hard enough you know I just kinda let it slide..." 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 think that was the time where he really saw that it was really important to separate the um Indian interpretation of everything so that we vould have a fresh start and and be authentic with ourselves." Isn't it a little late to start being authentic after 15 years of practising this "Knowledge"?
"Maharaji always said right from the very beginnin' he had no intention to create a religion and it seems to me right from day one he's resisted any attempts, oagh, to try and make a religion around him. Whenever anybody, seems to me, throughout his life, whenever we've attempted to build any box around him he's always broken out of it and when he breaks out of it there are some people who prefer to be in the box." It seems hard to believe that a Professor of Religious Studies can be so naive. Cult leaders, even young ignorant ones, who head religions all say they're not starting a religion. They all say they have the true knowledge or in this case, Knowledge. What sounds more likely? Every time Rawat tells new blatant lies and makes's another foolish mistake, some of his followers become disenchanted and disgruntled and stop believing in him or your box metaphor in which only people who accept any and all rubbish from this one of the many Perfect Master wannabes keep making boxes he's got to break out of?
Maharaji began to reinvigorate Elan Vital from 1987 with the Rejoice and Contact tours where he updated and reviewed the meditation techniques of Knowledge with all the remaining Western premies. Charanand was there as always, and in this video he explains the new understanding of the experience of Knowledge, the Simplicity and the Stillness Inside, 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 had been mistaken.
"And so we projected those ideas onto him and that that was a problem, it made it difficult to see him as he was."
"But he was becoming increasingly aware of the need to separate Knowledge from it's Indian cultural packaging. Too many things that were simply a part of Indian culture had been considered incorrecly by Westerners to be an integral part of what Maharaji was offering."