Revealing the Knowledge "Secret of Secrets"
In the 13 year old guru's first chaotic days in the West with only one Mahatma by his side Maharaji could not afford to be choosy about who was allowed to "receive Knowledge." He was journeying out of India to save the world by bringing peace to it one person at a time or 20 or 30 if that was how many you could get into a "Knowledge Session." However the techniques were really pretty simple and apart from the Holy Name i.e. breath meditation were embarrassingly silly. So it was imperative to keep the techniques secret until the initiation in a darkened room by a mystically monkish Mahatma else if the techniques became public Guru Maharaj Ji and the Divine Light Mission would be washed away in a tsunami of laughter and ridicule. Luckily for the young Prem Rawat he had a relatively large group of supposedly celibate, supposedly "realized" Indian males who were available and this gave Divine Light Mission a competitive advantage over the growing competition from other Indian gurus, swamis and maharishis out to take advantage of the new free market in spirituality.
In the lead up to the "Knowledge Session" this secrecy, though not the reasons for it, was stressed over and over. The least terrifying was that once you revealed the techniques they would not work for you but you would become a manmat, destined to rot away in a corner. There were worse threats. Mahatma Rajeshwaranand who supposedly had a successful legal career and was a judge threatened:
"If anyone, who is not directly appointed by Guru Maharaj Ji to do so, shares these secrets with others who have not been initiated, they will spend their next 10,000 incarnations as a cockroach!"
In Guru Maharaj Ji's early days in the West, Prem Rawat's mahatmas conducted "Knowledge Sessions" face-to-face in small groups (usually no more than 30) that lasted 8 hours. Until the mid-1980's everyone had to repeat the following vows, out loud, before they were initiated:
Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji, I dedicate myself to your lotus feet. I am weak and ignorant and am filled with the impurities of this world
Oh Guru Maharaj Ji, please take my mind and purge me of the impurities I possess. Reveal to me the knowledge of all knowledge
Strengthen me, uplift me and reveal the kingdom of heaven within inside of me
Bring me from hate to love, from darkness to light, death to immortality
I will OBEY you implicitly and will never reveal this knowledge to anyone for any reason
I will keep in contact with you through my DEVOTIONAL LOVE, satsang, meditation and service
Thank you my LORD for everything
And they really had to bow down too … These vows could be considered controversial so they were toned down considerably during the 1980s. He came up with an updated version fit for the 90s.
Before I give you Knowledge, I will ask you for three promises. The first one is to give Knowledge a fair chance. It's important for me to know that you are going to give Knowledge a fair chance, not just say, "Now I have it." Some people receive it, and they have certain expectations. Get rid of the expectations, and you'll have something better. If you are going to give Knowledge a fair chance, you have to approach it with determination to let the seed grow.
The second promise that I ask for is to keep in touch. Keep in touch with me through my message, through the practice of Knowledge. Come to my events. Come and hear what I am saying. Let me help you remove your doubts. Let me help to inspire you, clarify and remind you again and again what is important, so you can continue to grow.
The third promise I will ask for is not to reveal these techniques to anyone. Let other people go through their own journey, and when they are ready, like you, they can get it. There are no shortcuts to it. There are shortcuts to many things in life, but there is no shortcut when the heart is going to be the judge. The heart cannot be talked into anything. The mind can be convinced, but the heart has to feel the real thing. Let people prepare. Then they, too, can have the techniques when they are ready.
From 2001 the techniques were taught via a multimedia presentation made by Rawat. It was a far cry from the early 1970's when people heard about the Knowledge, went into the Knowledge Session and out with barely any preparation. Now it might have been the times or it may have been the young people of the day but those chaotic sessions were as successful in producing long term dedicated followers of Rawat's as any other period and in far greater numbers and for far less cost. Rawat is a person who instinctively prefers technology to humanity which is particularly ironic in light of his 21st century preaching about the heart.
Prem's Catch 22 When Techniques Became Generally Available
It didn't take too long before anyone who was interested enough could find out what the techniques were but Rawat used his all-purpose Catch 22 to explain this didn't matter. Only people who learnt them through his bona fide ways would have the experience possible. In the 1970s this explanation made some sense as He was God Incarnate on Earth, the Perfect Master, the Satguru but later after he supposedly devolved into a normal (though clearly superior in ever way, the ultimate renaissance man) person it was no longer obvious why this was true. The mystery was obvious, he was still secretly God Incarnate on Earth, the Perfect Master, the Satguru though his followers were not allowed to say it.
Click Here to see a selection of the accounts I have of people talking about "Receiving Knowledge" ie being initiated and being taught/shown the meditation techniques that Prem Rawat teaches. These initiations were first done in the West by Indian "mahatmas" and then by Western devotees and finally by the use of videos of Rawat. There is not a large number of published texts from which to choose. These are all describing events from the 1970's and it's interesting that the two who write about the most exotic and intense experiences in the Knowledge Session are also the most "out there" and neither became followers of Rawat's.