Divine Light Mission

The Divine Light Mission (DLM) was one of the better known of the new religious movements that received attention during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the United States. The movement originated in India in 1960, led by Guru Shri Hans Ji Maharaji, but was promoted in the United States and other Western nations by his youngest son, Guru Maharaj Ji, whose Indian name was Prem Rawat. Maharaj Ji assumed leadership of the movement when he was 8 years old, after the death of his father, but actual leadership rested with his mother, with whom he had many conflicts before breaking with her and traveling to the United States and United Kingdom at the age of 13 to establish the DLM in those and ...