I guess I may be wrong in attributing much forethought on the part of Mr Rawat.  I guess he just 'wings' it and if something works out then great and if not, as you say, he can always blame his followers as he has done repeatedly over the decades

Well, of course I don't really know, but just watching the cult over the years, and observing what went on when I was a premie, it was clear that there was no plan, and Rawat had what seemed to be a short attention span, and would just drop things and move onto something else.  There were so many campaigns and new starts.  Recall that Rawat was a "humanitarian leader" before.  Even that has been done before, around 1976.  Rawat wasn't a fan of the program as I recall and reverted to the darkest of devotional cults for years after that, as a reaction to people no longer considering him God, I think.

And just look at the last decade.  It went from "self-knowledge," to "auto-knowledge" to "the keys" and from Rawat saying openly that humanitarianism and social causes were a waste of time, to trying to imply that he has always been into philanthropy and world peace.  What an amazing, hypocritical, set of lies that is.

I do think however that there are people behind him who are thinking some of this stuff through and suggesting to Rawat which direction he should go in.  Until of course it does not work out and he simply drops them.  Hey ho

Absolutely.  He will even undermine them at times.  What is the problem, though, is that Rawat is a very flawed product to sell.  And since he will never admit error or take responsibility (which is what every decent advisor would suggest, given the overwhelming evidence that Rawat conned thousands of people into believing he was God), there isn't all that much he can do.  And of course, Rawat is never going to be a "big donar" himself, because for Rawat, it's all about Rawat.   Hence, despite his huge wealth, I think he gave $5000 once, and maybe $75,000 once, all heavily advertised.

I agree also that it's interesting to watch Rawat's decline.  It's also pathetic to watch, because it's clear that what he is about is just perserving what he's got.  The sad part is that there are still a bunch of people who are part of his charade.