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| Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (ca. 1911– ) |
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (ca. 1911– )
A modern Hindu guru who began a worldwide Spiritual Regeneration Movement in the late 1950s. The movement, now led by the World Plan Executive Council, is best known for promoting the technique of Transcendental Meditation (TM).
Maharishi was born Mahesh Brasad Warma, around the year 1911. Originally a physics graduate of Allahabad University, India, he worked for a time in a factory, then studied spiritual science for some years under Swami Brahmananda Saraswati Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, a teacher of traditional Hindu transcendentalism. After the death of his teacher in 1953, the Maharishi spent some time trying to develop his own simplified version of traditional Hindu meditation.
In 1958 he designed the Science of Creative Intelligence for ‘‘the regeneration of the whole world through meditation,’’ known widely as Transcendental Meditation. In a simple initiation ceremony, the guru bestowed a mantra (or word of power), which the pupil repeated during a meditation period each day.
In this easy technique, the pupil could, it has been claimed, bypass normal intellectual activity and tap a limitless reservoir of energy and creative intelligence.
The system spread around the world through the 1960s but was given a boost in 1967, when the rock music group the Beatles showed interest in the movement. Publicity concerning their relation to the Maharishi made TM seem a viable alternative to psychedelic drugs. The Beatles defected some months later, but by then other celebrities were traveling to the Maharishi’s ashram at Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Students’ International Meditation Society, which was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1966, received many of the young adults attracted to TM by its celebrity followers.
Since the 1970s, the movement has been boosted by the wellpublicized scientific findings that TM produces beneficial results.
Various studies, most flawed by the lack of investigation of similar mediative techniques, suggest that TM aids individuals in various manners. The sociological studies, suggesting that a representative number of TM meditators in an area can change its social climate (lower the crime rate, promote peace, etc.), are less conclusive.
The movement adopted a ‘‘world plan’’ to develop the full potential of the individual, to improve governmental achievements, to realize the highest ideal of education, to solve the problems of crime and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the human family, to maximize the intelligent use of the environment, to bring fulfillment to the economic aspirations of individuals and society, and to achieve the spiritual goals of the human race in this generation. The World Plan Executive Council has founded in many countries its own political party, the Natural Law Party, and it runs candidates for public office in order to achieve the goals of the world plan.
In the 1970s, as the number of new people coming into TM dropped, the movement unveiled a ‘‘Siddhi’’ program (siddhis are special paranormal powers) based on the claims of the ancient yoga treatise The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The program claimed that students of this special course have successfully achieved the paranormal feat of levitation. Photographs of students show them hovering a few feet in the air, but critics (and former students) have stated that the ‘‘levitators’’ merely bounce in the air cross-legged and do not float. To date, no irrefutable evidence of levitation by the Maharishi’s students has yet been produced, and several ex-students of the Siddhi program have successfully sued the organization.
In 1968, the council moved its headquarters to Seelisberg, Switzerland, and in 1979 established Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where they mix courses in TM and academic curriculum. They plan to open an eastern campus in Antrim, New Hampshire. The Maharish was worth $3.5 billion in 1998 and oversaw nearly 1,000 TM centers around the world.
A modern Hindu guru who began a worldwide Spiritual Regeneration Movement in the late 1950s. The movement, now led by the World Plan Executive Council, is best known for promoting the technique of Transcendental Meditation (TM).
Maharishi was born Mahesh Brasad Warma, around the year 1911. Originally a physics graduate of Allahabad University, India, he worked for a time in a factory, then studied spiritual science for some years under Swami Brahmananda Saraswati Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, a teacher of traditional Hindu transcendentalism. After the death of his teacher in 1953, the Maharishi spent some time trying to develop his own simplified version of traditional Hindu meditation.
In 1958 he designed the Science of Creative Intelligence for ‘‘the regeneration of the whole world through meditation,’’ known widely as Transcendental Meditation. In a simple initiation ceremony, the guru bestowed a mantra (or word of power), which the pupil repeated during a meditation period each day.
In this easy technique, the pupil could, it has been claimed, bypass normal intellectual activity and tap a limitless reservoir of energy and creative intelligence.
The system spread around the world through the 1960s but was given a boost in 1967, when the rock music group the Beatles showed interest in the movement. Publicity concerning their relation to the Maharishi made TM seem a viable alternative to psychedelic drugs. The Beatles defected some months later, but by then other celebrities were traveling to the Maharishi’s ashram at Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Students’ International Meditation Society, which was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1966, received many of the young adults attracted to TM by its celebrity followers.
Since the 1970s, the movement has been boosted by the wellpublicized scientific findings that TM produces beneficial results.
Various studies, most flawed by the lack of investigation of similar mediative techniques, suggest that TM aids individuals in various manners. The sociological studies, suggesting that a representative number of TM meditators in an area can change its social climate (lower the crime rate, promote peace, etc.), are less conclusive.
The movement adopted a ‘‘world plan’’ to develop the full potential of the individual, to improve governmental achievements, to realize the highest ideal of education, to solve the problems of crime and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the human family, to maximize the intelligent use of the environment, to bring fulfillment to the economic aspirations of individuals and society, and to achieve the spiritual goals of the human race in this generation. The World Plan Executive Council has founded in many countries its own political party, the Natural Law Party, and it runs candidates for public office in order to achieve the goals of the world plan.
In the 1970s, as the number of new people coming into TM dropped, the movement unveiled a ‘‘Siddhi’’ program (siddhis are special paranormal powers) based on the claims of the ancient yoga treatise The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The program claimed that students of this special course have successfully achieved the paranormal feat of levitation. Photographs of students show them hovering a few feet in the air, but critics (and former students) have stated that the ‘‘levitators’’ merely bounce in the air cross-legged and do not float. To date, no irrefutable evidence of levitation by the Maharishi’s students has yet been produced, and several ex-students of the Siddhi program have successfully sued the organization.
In 1968, the council moved its headquarters to Seelisberg, Switzerland, and in 1979 established Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where they mix courses in TM and academic curriculum. They plan to open an eastern campus in Antrim, New Hampshire. The Maharish was worth $3.5 billion in 1998 and oversaw nearly 1,000 TM centers around the world.
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