I resolved to return to the ashram a week later when Mahatma Fakirand, the boy guru's number one disciple, would be back from a tour of the U.S. to "give knowledge." ... "Ah," said the Mahatma, "then who is the more important, guru or God?" Flashing on about 500 complexities and figuring I had had it, I replied, "God." At which the Mahatma told me that I should then ask God for knowledge; the guru is more important than God because the guru gives knowledge of God. The Mahatma advised me to get some more "satsang" and come back when I really believed that the guru is indeed the key to my life.
"The Guru on Fourteenth Street" STEPHEN C. ROSE. the christian CENTURY. January 19, 1972, pp. 67-69
Mahatma Fakiranand, close disciple of 14-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji, will be in Concord Friday afternoon at the Divine Light Mission on Baker Avenue.
Disciple of 14-year-old Guru to visit Concord, the Lowell Sun, 9/14/72, p. 13
Shortly after 11 o'clock the mahatma-one of a reported 2000 persons authorized by the Perfect Master to impart Knowledge-arrived.
Rawson, 1973
As Christ was worshiped by His followers, guru Maharaj Ji is also worshiped, having under him in his Divine Light Mission priests or apostles, who are called mahatmas (groat souls). They travel around the world conducting initiations, providing initiates "with a direct experience of C=God within themselves."
"'Guru Is Perfect Master'", SANDRA HENDRICKS, Kingsport Times-News, Religion page. no date, circa 1974.
God was having one of those weeks. First he had gotten bit in the face with a shaving-cream pie and shortly thereafter he had to be admitted to a Denver hospital with an ulcer in his small intestine. Arriving in Houston in the wake of these events, I found some dismay among the 300-odd devotees assembled there under Rennie's command to put together the Astrodome jamboree. To some, at least, it was no minor matter that the pie thrower lay in critical condition in a Detroit hospital after two of the gurus followers had attempted to bust his skull open with a blackjack. The blackjack wielder himself, described simply as an Indian in the first press accounts, had turned out to be Mahatma Fakiranand, one of the gurus high priests; in Rennie's words, "a man of extreme devotion and internal peace who had given knowledge to many of the American premies." Rennie was less disturbed. "The mahatma had great love for Guru Maharaj Ji and his emotions got the best of him. These things happen in any movement."
Scheer, 1974
(A week before Rennie had told me of another test for the premies when he admitted that Mahatma Fakiranand, one of the first Mahatmas to give Knowledge in the U.S., had been the one to nearly murder an underground reporter in Detroit last August after the reporter had thrown a pie in The Kid's face. The DLM had tried to cover up the fact by simply giving the Mahatma's Indian name and falsely claiming that he had been banished from the Divine Light Mission.)
Kelley, February 1974
The news of the Detroit incident was not long in reaching Boston. At the local ashram of the Divine Light Mission, a dismayed premie named Tina Sanderson showed a copy of the Boston Globe story to another premie named Juteswar Misra. Misra is no ordinary premie. He is in fact a mahatma, Fakiranand by name, one of the super-elite clan of several in the Western world empowered by Guru Maharaj Ji with dispensing his secretive meditation technique that premies call simply The Knowledge. ... Mahatma Fakiranand is a very special mahatma, being one of the first premies elevated to that sacred state after the barely pubescent godhead (he's one day older than Donny Osmond) assumed the title of Perfect Master in 1969 upon the death of his father, the founder of the Divine Light Mission. Fakiranand is fondly referred to as Guru Maharaj Ji's "drunken puppy," because of his rather peculiar sense of devotion.
Kelley, July 1974
The members are those who have received "the Knowledge" through a laying-on-of-hands technique taught to them in a secret rite by the Guru or one of his numerous mahatmas. ... In 1969 the first Western premies arrived at the Divine Light ashram at Prem Nagar, on the banks of the Ganges, and in October of that year the first of Maharaj Ji's mahatmas, Guru Charnanand, was sent westward, to London,... a satsang given in New York City by one of the Guru Maharaj Ji's mahatmas...
Moritz 1974
(at this writing, all but one of Guru Maharaj Ji's some two thousand mahatmas are from India or Tibet) ... Since all countries share Maharaj ji, those few mahatmas he has permitted to leave India, and Maharaj ji's family, there is continuous cooperation with respect to itineraries (though this is one area dominated by Maharaj Ji's personal decisions) ... The best estimates are based on attendance at unadvertised programs when Guru Maharaj Ji or one of his mahatmas is in town.
Messer, 1974
0f course, not everyone was ready to buy the Guru's message. A young underground newspaper writer by the name of Pat Halley hit Maharaj Ji in the face with a shaving cream pie while the Guru was visiting Detroit to receive a humanitarian award. Halley saw his action ,as a "dramatic demonstration against mysticism." Whatever it was, it almost cost Halley his life because he forgot he was dealing with religious fanatics. One week later two men arrived in Detroit from the Boston Ashram. They conned Halley into letting them into his apartment by telling him that what he had done was "a courageous act." They said they had information that could further discredit the Guru. Halley, sensing a journalistic coup equal to the pie throwing one, jumped at the opportunity. Once inside, the Guru's goon squad used blackjacks to impart "Knowledge" to the hapless writer, and he was carted off to the hospital more dead than alive. In fact, when the police first received the call, they assigned two homicide detectives to investigate what they believed to he just another D.O.A. For Halley, it was a very long night. He had suffered massive brain damage. It required 55 stitches to close the wounds on his head, including the one made by the doctors to insert a plastic plate. The very first blow of Knowledge had turned the top of his skull into little slivers of hone. Officially, no formal complaint was ever filed and no warrants were ever issued. But soon after the beating, Ken Kelly, writing in a national magazine, identified the assailants as two important members of the Divine Light Mission, one a Mahatma and the other thought to be the reincarnation of St. Peter. The DLM public relations office at first denied the whole thing. Then they said, "Both men arc being held in protective custody in the Chicago Ashram. We will turn them over to the police department." But in fact, one Mahatma from the Boston Ashram was suddenly transferred to Germany where he is still giving Knowledge. and St. Peter seems to have disappeared. The Detroit Police have filed the case away. The interesting thing was that none of the Premies blinked an eye when they learned their God resorted to goons when he got upset. Typically, they would smile back with that "blissed-out" grin and say, "Man. I'd do it to you if Guru Maharaj Ji told me to."
Baxter, 1974
These techniques are taught by the guru or by the Mahatmas authorized by him in a secret initiation ceremony, which includes meditation.
Magalwadi, 1977
In 1969 the new leader, Guru Maharaj Ji, sent one of his mahatmas, or a 'realised soul', to Britain as a missionary to win converts for his master.
Price, 1979
They recruit members primarily through newspapers and yellow-pages advertising and by "personal witnessing" in which premies speak glowingly of their new-found peace and happiness since "receiving Knowledge" from Maharaj Ji or one of the Mahatmas or Prime Disciples designated by the guru to dispense "Knowledge."
Rudin & Rudin, 1980
Maharaj Ji's scores of hand-picked evangelists, called mahatmas, were reduced to twenty and renamed "initiators."
Larson, 1982
At initiation, a mahatma, the personal representative of Maharaj Ji...
Melton, 1986
Maharaj Ji chose his most faithful followers to be his personal 'mahatmas', later called 'initiators'.
