Zeenews Bureau
Netherlands, Feb 06: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an internationally acclaimed spiritual guru who introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop.
He was revered across the world for his efforts to spread the message of peace, hope and well-being.
A Profile
• Maharishi was born Mahesh Prasad Varma at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, reportedly on Jan 12, 1917 — though he refused to confirm the date or discuss his early life. The Maharishi rarely spoke about his early life, saying the past held little interest for him.
• He studied physics at Allahabad University before becoming secretary to Swami Brahmananda Saraswati in 1941, who gave him the name Bal Brahmacharya Mahesh. After the death of his teacher, Maharishi went into a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.
• He began teaching TM (Transcendental Meditation) in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. From 1961 he began to train teachers for TM.
• With his background in physics, he brought his message to the West in a language that mixed the occult and science that became the buzz of college campuses. He described TM as "the unified field of all the laws of nature."
• But the movement really took off after the Beatles visited his ashram in India in 1968, although he had a famous falling out with the rock stars when he discovered them using drugs at his Himalayan retreat.
• After teaching the Beatles and other 1960s and 70s icons to meditate, the Indian mystic gained a worldwide following with six million people taking his courses.
• With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi — a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayed his interpretations of ancient scripture into a multi-million-dollar global empire.
• Maharishi's roster of famous meditators ran from The Rolling Stones to Clint Eastwood and new age preacher Deepak Chopra.
• After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned to larger themes, with grand designs to harness the power of group meditation to create world peace and to mobilize his devotees to banish poverty from the earth.
• Donations and the USD2,500 fee to learn TM financed the construction of Peace Palaces, or meditation centers, in dozens of cities around the world. It paid for hundreds of new schools in India.
• In 1971, Maharishi founded a university in Fairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongside the arts and sciences to 700 students and served organic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.
• Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientific studies showing that meditation reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, improves concentration and raises results for students and businessmen.
• Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise USD10 trillion to end poverty by sponsoring organic farming in the world's poorest countries. They scoffed at his notion that meditation groups, acting like psychic shock troops, can end conflict.
• In 1986, two groups founded by his organization were sued in the US by former disciples who accused it of fraud, negligence and intentionally inflicting emotional damage. A jury, however, refused to award punitive damages.
• Over the years, Maharishi also was accused of fraud by former pupils who claim he failed to teach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased as the ultimate level of transcendence, was never witnessed as anything more than TM followers sitting in the cross-legged lotus position and bouncing across spongy mats.
• But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned that TM had become identified with the counterculture, and he spent more time at his ashram in Rishikesh in the Himalayan foothills to run his global affairs.
• The reclusive guru with a flowing white beard moved his headquarters to the small southern Dutch village of Vlodrop in 1990.
• Concerned about his fragile health, he secluded himself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion he built on the compound, speaking only by video to aides around the world and even to his closest advisers in the same building.
• John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran for the US presidency three times on the Maharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that from the Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access to followers in India, Europe and the Americas.
• He periodically emerged to appeal for funds to promote world peace, building a business empire ranging from real estate dealing to a company selling ayurvedic medicine and cosmetics.
• The Maharishi set up universities and schools all over the world and his Natural Law Party -- which promotes yogic flying, a practice that involves sitting in the lotus position and bouncing into the air -- has campaigned in dozens of countries.
• Transcendental meditation, known as TM by its followers, involves reciting a mantra that practitioners say helps the mind stay calm even under pressure. It has gradually gained medical respect.
• Last month the Maharishi stepped down as head of his organisation to concentrate on what an aide called "the field of silence".
• According to the TM organisation, the Maharishi's message remained constant: "Life is bliss. Man is born to enjoy. Within everyone is an unlimited reservoir of energy, intelligence, and happiness."
First Published: Wednesday, February 06, 2008, 00:00