Tim Freke seems to be a decent well-meaning person who believes he had a "spontaneous awakening" when he was 12 years old and has been "exploring spirituality" since then and has made a career out of it. If you're living in the New Age, then Tim is "a pioneering philosopher whose best-tselling books, inspirational talks, and life-changing events have touched the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide," otherwise not so much. Born in 1959 he was a little young to join the Guru Maharaj Ji World-Peace-For-All bandwagon in the early 1970s. He became "involved with him (ie Guru Maharaj Ji) as a young person" in the "late 70s - then a pause - and mid 80's."

In 2021 he had the opportunity to have a filmed discussion with Prem Rawat who did not know Freke had been involved with Divine Light Mission and Rawat's Guru Maharaj Ji, Lord of the Universe onstage role and his promises for the Millenium, World Peace for all.

Tim Freke

Tim Freke seems to be a decent, well-meaning person who believes he had a "spontaneous awakening" when he was 12 years old and has been "exploring spirituality" since then and has made a career out of it. If you're living in the New Age, then Tim is "a pioneering philosopher whose best-selling books, inspirational talks and life-changing events have touched the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide" otherwise not so much. In 2021 he was invited to film a talk with Prem Rawat, an unusual choice compared to the New Age intellectuals with whom Freke usually dialogued.

Born in 1959 he was a little young to join Guru Maharaj Ji's World-Peace-For-All bandwagon in the early 1970s. He became "involved with him (ie Guru Maharaj Ji aka Prem Rawat) as a young person" in the "late 70s - then a pause - and mid 80's."

Thus far Freke was like tens of thousands of young Westerners who became involved in Divine Light Mission activities and presumably were initiated into Guru Maharaji's secret meditation techniques and at least considered him well worth listening to if not worshipping Him as the Incarnation of God and Lord of the Universe. There was a hiatus in Freke's involvement when "he went off to make music". He became involved again in the mid-1980s which means he knew of Prem Rawat's new cognomen, the simple and tasteful 'Maharaji' and some discreditable features of Rawat's career such as demanding all media and material relating to his 1970s career be destroyed and that all ashrams were to be summarily closed and the dedicated and devoted ashramees be thrown out into the street, metaphorically, sharing the cost of any debts the ashram, as an official part of Divine Light Mission, had incurred.

Freke seems to be a pretty enthusiastic guy and so back in the 1970s Divine Light Mission he "introduced a lot of people including my parents … but that all turned out fine" except that his first wife "left me to follow prem after i had broken off from him." The story of the parents is typical, very few older people were gullible enough to join the Guru Maharaj Ji Crusade. Tim has now been very happily married for 27 years (2024) so even his wife leaving him to keep following Prem Rawat turned out well. Tim's final disillusionment came due to poetry: "the moment i knew i would leave him many years ago was in a gig in london where he recited his poetry … and it was so bad … which clearly meant he could be 'the lord' or whatever the current claim was … but also meant there was no-one around him to say 'Maharaji drop the poetry - stick with the talking'" In the 1980s Rawat's speeches had not yet reached their 2024 stage of mist and fog devoid of meaning, they were even worse. He had decided he was a well-read, extremely interesting raconteur who could pass on gems of wisdom and inspire with his brilliant poetry:

Through what he thought of a series of coincidences Freke received the possibility of speaking to Rawat. He accepted and sensibly decided not to inform Rawat's minions of his past involvement in Divine Light Mission. There's little doubt that Rawat would never actually film and speak with someone who knew of his past and had reason to ask difficult questions. Freke informed the minions after the dialogue was finished and filmed. Freke had read the story of Rawat's childhood "awakening" under the magnolia trees published in Hear Yourself and surprisingly did not realise it was bogus but then it had been at least 30 years since he'd given Rawat a thought.

What Did Tim Freke Think About Prem Rawat After their "Discussion"?

• I didn't set out to attack or endorse him only to see who he is and how he thinks … for me it was a sort of 'mythic' moment … a circle on my journey because of my distant past
• I don't feel that he had some greater experience at all
• I wanted to hear what had actually happened for him because the book didn't give that … as I remember it the book gave a new spin on the old story … to make it fit the new PR
• I wanted to hear him be authentic about his actual experience so we could engage in a real way not just with well rehearsed scripts … and that happened a little I think but nowhere near what I would have liked
• I feel he failed to acknowledge and be honest about his past
• I found his ideas surprisingly strange
• the most interesting thing was after our conversation his entourage (who were all lovely) were so enthusiastic because they said : "no one ever questions him and it brought out stuff they'd not heard in all the decades with him." I took from this the reason he was intellectually incoherent was that he didnt have people around him to question him and sharpen him up
• I am no longer angry, but I completely understand ex-premies who are

Tim Freke Meets Prem Rawat

Tim Freke seems to be a decent well-meaning person who believes he had a "spontaneous awakening" when he was 12 years old and has been "exploring spirituality" since then and has made a career out of it. If you're living in the New Age, then Tim is "a pioneering philosopher whose bestselling books, inspirational talks, and life-changing events have touched the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide" otherwise not. He has recorded conversations with such New Age intellectuals as Ken Wilber and Rupert Sheldrake. In these he "explores the great mysteries of existence with original thinkers in authentic and animated conversations." I haven't studied his work closely because I'm a skeptical materialist but I can clearly see that Prem Rawat and Tim Freke having an authentic conversation is extremely unlikely. Rawat is a cult leader who has no authentic conversations, only pseudo-omniscient speeches and phony scripted interviews and talks to sycophants.

From 1966 to 1983/84 (almost 20 years) Prem Rawat was known as the Perfect Master and the Lord of the Universe, he publicly claimed to be the Perfect Master who was also the Incarnation of God and encouraged people to give him gifts because the Perfect Master should live in luxury and never once hinted that this wasn't true. He preached a very simplistic Sant Mat form of the Indian religion that he disparages here, and despite media criticism, he never once hinted there was another story. His followers stressed his Divinity and their need to make his life as luxurious as the Lord of the Universe deserved. At least in this, there was no pretence. Unbeknownst to Rawat, Tim Freke had been involved in Divine Light Mission in the 1970s and so he knew Rawat's real backstory

When Freke suggests an exercise for consciousness expansion he thinks is meaningful "Look into each other's eyes and to sit there often in silence or music playing for like three minutes … I think there's something about seeing it, … looking at your face now but the thing I'm connecting with just personally I can't see it is your psyche is your soul … and what I see there is the feeling this this what I call big love." Rawat quickly diverts the topic. The idea of Prem Rawat looking into another person's eyes as an equal or, God forbid, a moral or spiritual superior is unimaginable. Quel horreur! Rawat moves the topic on to people who hate each other and the dire state of the world. But Freke knows better. He's read Rosling's book, Factfulness, and so he knows how billions of human lives have improved in the last 60 years (and this was the most important thing mentioned in the talk but not discussed further) so Rawat leaves that topic.

At Freke's insistence Rawat, at last, talks about the time in his career he wants put in a black hole. The 15 or so years in which he played the role of Guru Maharaj Ji on stage, the Lord of the Universe and the one and only Incarnation of God.

Freke: "when you're on the big stage … all of that period of your life where you're being seen in this way as this, you're projecting that really, of this Divine Being … what was happening for you when you were, all of these people were adoring you … what's that like? What, what was inside you?" Rawat replies with a bald-faced lie "Well, the adoration has to be not for me, the adoration has to be for the infinite in them."
Freke tries again, "But it was being directed very much at you."

Rawat goes off into high-minded sounding gobbledegook and leads Freke away from that topic.

Freke tries again: "I mean you're young, I mean what teens and 20s and that's a different time obviously what? what is? what it did. How did you see yourself? Did you see yourself in the way that you projected yourself?"
Rawat replies "I had just come from India and literally everybody around and it was also the period of time where it was like look towards the east for answers so I was the perfectly situated for that. Here I had come from the East and the young boy who has come with this message and everything else and we will sort this out by literally taking on a part of a behaviour that had nothing to do with knowing yourself nor it had anything to do with experiencing the divine. It was literally Indian religion."

Rawat is somewhat unintelligible here but I think he is claiming that he never believed in that "Indian Religion" which he taught for 15 years and used for his legitimacy. It could be that Rawat is lying at that moment to make himself seem more authentic to Freke, pretending he was too cool, too realised to believe that hokey Holy Family shtick but even as a he was smart enough to know he didn't have more powers than Ram nor that he would rule the world when he couldn't even rule his mother.

Freke tries again:: It's like what was happening for you when you were all of these people were adoring you and like what's that like? what was inside you? At that time did you believe your own hype or not? I mean did about the you know the the whole Perfect Master and all the Lord of the Universe?

PR: No! Look! I had to go to school every day. (TF: No, I mean when you were here) No. No, but in India too. I was already hailed a Perfect Master and I have to go to school and I was no Perfect Master in school so already this duality existed. Where you could be and you couldn't be. So I come out, I come home, I'm not a Perfect Master, my mother is telling me, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, do this, do this. I go in on weekends or on school holidays out there and there's thousands of people cheering and going yay yeah yeah of course you are and I was like well which one is it? Is it that one? or is it that one? See, and I realized I have to be me. I wasn't a student nor I was the Perfect Master.…

Rawat goes on to say he was a true Master of Peace in disguise while playing the role as Lord of the Universe so that eventually they, the people who worshipped him because he'd convinced them he was God on Earth" can have a incredible fulfilling experience in their life, to know the self and to experience the divine." This is not one that stands up to any scrutiny and Freke did not believe it though he is too polite to ask more specific, hard questions. Freke is seeking dialogue, not dispute so he doesn't point out Rawat's lies. Anyway Click Here for the full transcript: