In the recently flooded northern part of Sri Lanka, Tamil refugees from the final, brutal battles in the country’s 25-year civil war are watching Maharaji’s talks. The DVD screenings are being held three times a week in two vast camps, sprawling over 800 acres, which together hold almost 48,000 people.

The videos, which are being shown on large screens as well as televisions, are the only outside materials allowed into the camps where thousands of people are surviving in plastic tents, with just the clothes on their backs. Almost all the refugees have been under fire; many have seen their families killed and witnessed appalling atrocities. To add to the misery, heavy rains have recently flooded the camps making conditions almost unbearable.

As a result of the screenings, which are extremely popular, over 200 people have begun the process of preparing for the Knowledge that Maharaji offers and are now watching The Keys. Unusually, the heads of both army-run camps are also watching the videos.

“This is a pure miracle,” said Kamala, a student of Maharaji who has worked hard to get materials into the camps. “Most people were discouraging us. They said it wasn’t the right time for this type of activity. But still, with the help of only three people, things are happening. Every night we plan for the next day. We know there’s a big hand behind us.”

As Kamala tells it, the extraordinary story of how thousands of war-scarred Sri Lankan refugees came to learn about Maharaji began unpromisingly: “We first asked a village headman, who has Knowledge and is working in one of the camps, if he could arrange something,” she explained. “But he was too frightened and said it would be impossible.”

Undeterred, they then sent letters enclosing copies of Maharaji’s talks to high-ranking army staff such as Major Generals and Brigadiers, as well as to the Government Agent, the senior-most civil authority in a region. As luck would have it, the GA, as he is known locally, had already seen Maharaji on cable television and recommended the talks, as did most of the Brigadiers. “But still,” said Kamala, “they wanted a letter from the very top authority.”

Then, almost by chance, a village headman in a smaller camp housing about 1,500 people, who had watched a DVD himself, allowed the DVDs to be shown. “People there really liked them and asked for The Keys,” said Kamala. “Halfway through, they were transferred to another camp, but meanwhile, the head of one of the rehabilitation camps (for young men who had been drafted into the Tamil Tigers) watched one DVD and asked for more.”

Although Kamala and those helping her were not allowed to enter the camp, they learned that people there were watching Maharaji morning and evening.

Some 300,000 refugees are currently housed in enormous camps controlled by the military, and army approval has been crucial to the success of the DVD effort. As Kamala explained, “The good news is that most of the army personnel and high-ranking officers now know about Maharaji and his message. In one area, army officers are helping us with an electric outlet for our generator. One officer even commented that we should have started this program a long time ago in schools.”

Recently, The Prem Rawat Foundation, with the help of people around the world, donated US$20,000 to provide enough nutritious meals for two months to refugees displaced by the war.