The Divine Light Mission (DLM) (Divya Sandesh Parishad) was an organization founded in 1960 by guru Shri Hans Ji Maharaj for his following in northern India. During the 1970s, the DLM gained prominence in the West under the leadership of his fourth and youngest son, Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat). Some scholars noted the influence of the Bhagavad Gita and the Sant Mat tradition, but the western movement was widely seen as a new religious movement, a cult, a charismatic religious sect or an alternative religion. DLM officials said the movement represented a church rather than a religion.
When Shri Hans Ji Maharaj died in 1966, he was succeeded as guru by Prem Rawat, then just eight years old, despite rival claims from other family members. Although Prem Rawat was accepted as his father's successor, because of his age his family retained effective control of the DLM. In 1971, Rawat defied his mother by travelling to the UK and the US, where local branches of DLM were established and rapidly expanded. By 1973, DLM had over a million followers in India and tens of thousands of followers in the West, along with dozens of ashrams and hundreds of centers.
As Rawat grew older, he began to take a more active role in the movement and, when he turned sixteen, following the financially disastrous Millennium '73 festival, he took administrative control of the US branch. His increasing independence and his marriage to a non-Indian in 1974 caused a permanent rift with his mother and two of his brothers. They returned to India, where his eldest brother Satpal Maharaj gained control of the Indian DLM.
In the early 1980s, Rawat began disbanding the western DLM. He closed the ashrams and eliminated the remaining Indian influences from his presentation to make it independent of any specific culture or religion. In the US, UK, France and Australia, Elan Vital was formed to replace the DLM in supporting Rawat in his role as teacher.
Read more about Divine Light Mission: Beliefs and Practices, Members, Reception, Notable Members
Famous quotes containing the words divine, light and/or mission:
“It can even come about that a created will cancels out, not perhaps the exertion, but the result of divine action; for in this sense, God himself has told us that God wishes things which do not happen because man does not wish them! Thus the rights of men are immense, and his greatest misfortune is to be unaware of them.”
—Joseph De Maistre (17531821)
“Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896)
“The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)