The Lord of the Dance

One of the strangest quirks in the career of Prem Rawat has been his public dancing, often dressed in the costume of Krishna. It began in the West in 1978 and has continued throughout his career. To an outsider it looks quite ridiculous. Prem Rawat is an extremely short and obese person and when dressed as Krishna his rolls of fat are only partially covered. His movement is poor and lacking in rhythm which initiators excused in the 1970's by saying universes were created and destroyed in unison with his arm movements. The response from his followers is enthusiastic if not orgiastic. Here are some videos of these astonishing moments which have continued to the present day.

1980 was probably the peak year in which Prem Rawat cut loose with public dancing. At a Divine Light Mission religious festival that year he danced to two different tunes after an initial coy period. Excitement built and the crowd danced while awaiting the return of their Guru Maharaj Ji. They expected some divine darshan dancing because the band is playing 'I Just Want To Dance With You'. Prem Rawat returns to the stage dressed in one of his Krishna costumes with a frontal section designed to hide his flabby man boobs, bows his head in meditation for 2 or 3 seconds, fiddles with some controls built into his throne, then chews on some courage enhancers while looking uncomfortable for over 3 minutes before standing up and commencing waving his arms and moving slightly from side to side while the band continue to sing 'I Just Want To Dance With You' even though everybody is dancing with him. He seems to be waving his arms to the beat of a different drummer, maybe to the sound of universes being created and destroyed. Then the band breaks into something South Americanish and everybody knows that even short, fat, exhausted little Indian guys can't resist that rhythm when they're the Lord of the Universe. He's up and dancing again after only a brief rest, standing up and commencing waving his arms and moving slightly from side to side but faster and totally embodying the South American feel and rhythm as you can see from the pictures below or click on any of them to see the video.

Prem Rawat dancing as Lord Krishna to the enthusiastic acclamations of his students .wmv file 11.7M

Prem Rawat dancing in saffron dhoti .wmv file 19.0M

Prem Rawat dancing in saffron dhoti .wmv file (poorer quality) 4.9M

Prem Rawat does not only dance in Indian clothing or dressed as Krishna. He ends his 25th Anniversy of Coming to the West celebrations dancing in suit. The 'premies' are now 'mature age students' but they can still get down and boogie. wmv file 4.3M

Prem Rawat dancing in Indian clothing .wmv file 1.3M or a smaller version

Video of the Completely Stunned Audience moving in time. .wmv file 4.5M Prem Rawat's two closest Indian devotees, Mahatmas Jagdeo Ji and Gurucharanand Ji at front of audience. They received the four techniques of Knowledge of Inner Peace from Prem Rawat's father. They lived as celibate monks for many years but while living in the Malibu residence of Prem Rawat for over a decade, Jagdeo used his position in supervising the education of premie children to sexually abuse some of them. He was sent back to India after the scandal became public.

The almost obligatory dancing scene from the Contact video, India 1988 It seems very unlikely that practising the techniques of meditation revealed in Maharaji's Knowledge could directly alter the artistic or aesthetic sense of Prem Rawat's devotees. It appears that their extremely enthusastic, orgiastic reaction to his dancing and public singing is conditioned by their religious faith and concepts about the supernatural qualities of his person.