John is a bilingual technical author and former Prem Rawat follower and supporter. In 2007, he interviewed Prem to mark the 50th anniversary of his taking on his mission to propagate ‘The Knowledge’ in the West.
John was among the first to join the major donor team and continued donating until 2018. He finally moved away from all involvement with Prem Rawat and his organisations in 2019.
This is his story.
Prem Rawat: Knowing Me Knowing You Aha! — Part 1
How I lost many battles to be one of Prem’s ‘chosen few’ but won the war to escape his personality cult.
Before beginning my ‘premoirs,’ I want to provide insight into why I’ve decided to set out on what could be a high-risk literary escapade. I’d also like to clarify my perspective on the 13-year-old ‘boy god,’ known as Guru Maharaji, when I came across him in 1971.
Firstly, I’m writing for my benefit, aiming to understand exactly how I became an active member of what I now consider to be a personality cult. I’m convinced that documenting my experience will encourage me to understand how that lifestyle choice affected my emotional well-being, my intellectual understanding, and the ongoing development of my psyche or (in ex-Catholic lingo) my soul. I’m also hoping to connect more with self-compassion by acknowledging and, to an extent, letting go of regrets about past actions that had a detrimental effect on some of my relationships.
So, my premoir-writing process will become part of my attempt to make the world slightly better by cleaning up my relationship with my shadow. Some might say it’s a little late in the day (I’ve just turned 74 and have only been truly free of the influence of Prem Rawat for the last five years), but better late than never.
Let me take a few lines here to flesh out my cult resumé. I became a premie (‘official’ follower of Guru Maharaji) in May 1972 when, as a very naïve 22-year-old, I received what was known then as The Knowledge. I remained a premie off and on for 50 years. I say “off and on” because I haven’t constantly engaged with Prem Rawat’s methods or his supporting organisations as they came and went.
However, over the years, I’ve had extensive periods when I was a decidedly active participant with varying degrees of responsibility. In between, I’ve taken breaks, some lasting a couple of years or more. But until I decided to walk away for good, I’d always come, almost religiously, back to the fold; a serial lost sheep, you might say, and something, perhaps, of a would-be prodigal son.
At this point in my life, I no longer have any personal axes to grind against Prem Rawat or his family members or even against his most ardent followers, not even those who may have, intentionally or otherwise, given me good reason to resent them over the years. I will admit this hasn’t always been the case, and I have until relatively recently, held on to resentments and grudges.
But after stepping off the path of devotion and working on my holistic well-being for a few years now, I’m confident I can give a reasonably both-and account of my experiences. By offering as factual a story as I’m capable of, I hope other independent-thinking premies might be encouraged to trust their own ‘inner guru’ in the same way Prem Rawat himself does.
Finally, I hope that my premoirs will help shine a light on some of the potential pitfalls of having any guru-centric approach to spirituality. I sense that the time of so-called spiritual leaders is passing into history. I see them not only as no longer necessary but also as obstacles to individuated awakenings and independent thought. Some people may think this statement is too strong, but honest statements often are, by definition, too strong.
Premoir One
I still recall, with inexplicable clarity, standing on crowded tube trains in the early 70s and knowing, without any doubt, that the answers to all my unanswerable questions (such as What is Life? Who am I? Why am I here?) were within, and available to me as a blissful flow of being, in which I knew exactly who I was and precisely what I was here for.
In this state of awareness, I would look at fellow tube travellers and wonder why they seemed unaware that they, too, had unlimited access to the same uplifting state. I was so sure this novel perspective was the only truth I offered them leaflets about Guru Maharaji and the Knowledge of the Self that he was revealing.
Ignoring any adverse reactions, facial and sometimes verbal, I would soldier onwards in the belief that I was repaying my guru’s compassion for bestowing his priceless gift on worthless little me. The thought never crossed my mind that maybe I wasn’t so worthless as I was regularly being told at premie meetings and events with the guru himself. Or perhaps I wasn’t one of an enlightened chosen few who now knew the right path for everyone.
My, albeit misguided, ‘state of grace’ lasted several months before starting to lose some of its dazzle. By then, I was hooked on the notion that the only way to get my ‘blissometer’ to peak again was to blindly follow the advice of Guru Maharaji and his anointed and appointed mahatmas.
My devotion to my guru, though eight years my junior, was untouchable and gradually became obsessive as I was drawn, without even noticing, into becoming a card-carrying personality-cult member. It took me many years to recognise that my sincere devotion was the only transformative element of this unusual relationship. Aside from being a communal focal point, the guru himself had very little to do with it.
Sadly, the guru himself, outside of his ‘mission,’ to which I believe he remains loyal in his own mind, became increasingly disappointing. To the extent that, these days, I see him as little more than the head of a cult, which he manages and manipulates to actively promote himself as the only person on the planet currently offering what he used to refer to as ‘Knowledge of the Self.’
This personality cult provides financial support for his hyper-rich lifestyle, and I have been duped into parting with more money than I should have over the years. More recently, I have come to learn things about Prem Rawat’s private life that have made me feel physically sick. This is a new development and one that has prompted me to add my own story to those of other ex-cult members.
I have three main motives for this:
• First, I’ve realised that what Rawat claimed to be his unique message was no different from any other guru-centric approach to peddling the notion of enlightenment.
• Second, I believe Rawat’s original message and sincere fervour to propagate it has been almost totally undermined by his materialistic and seemingly insatiable desires. I tend to believe that his materialistic worldview accounts for his consistently derogatory statements about nearly all forms of spirituality.
• Third, at this point, I think that his propaganda machinery, in prisons, schools, and elsewhere, should be shut down; in my experience, it has become, at best, little more than the publicity arm of the Rawat family business.
I also believe that Rawat should publicly apologise for the emotional and psychological damage he and some of his fanatical followers have caused. I believe this would help mitigate certain individuals’ unresolved issues and benefit Rawat and his supporters. I say this because Rawat has always been notoriously reluctant to acknowledge any adverse side effects of his activities, and premies tend to take their lead from him, regardless of the evidence. The result is a hierarchical network of followers that operates in a climate of fear about reporting any negative feedback to him.
In addition, Rawat’s organisations, especially Priyan, should be legally obliged to make financial reparations for extracting funds from those who could ill-afford to donate on the pretext that millions of pounds were required to finance his tours. These tours resulted in the creation of materials for his Pay-to-view channel (Timeless Today) and sales of his books to fill the coffers of the family business.
The story of how I moved from a sincere devotee through an increasingly disillusioned cult member to my current viewpoint will be challenging to narrate. So, I’ve decided to write it as a series of Premoirs and see how far I get; at least I’ve made it to the end of the first one.