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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma on January 12, 1917) is the creator of Transcendental Meditation and leader of the Transcendental Meditation Movement. Maharishi states that his teachings are based on the principles espoused by the Adi Shankara (c. 788-820 AD), and taught by his own master, Guru Dev Brahmananda Saraswati. His meditation techniques have been taught to millions of people around the world.
Biographical overview
Early life
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born on January 12th, 1917 to a Hindu family living in the small village of Chichli near Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, in the central region of India. His name at birth was Mahesh Prasad Varma. He earned the equivalent of a master's degree in physics at Allahabad University, graduating in 1940.
After completing his studies, he became a disciple and secretary to the Hindu Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, who gave him the name Bal Brahmacharya Mahesh, from 1941 to 1953. He then practiced meditation in retreat for long periods during the year or so that he stayed near Uttarkashi in the Himalayan foothills.
In 1955, he assumed the title "Maharishi" (Great Sage or Great Seer) and began publicly teaching what he states is a traditional meditation technique which he later renamed Transcendental Meditation. In 1957 he founded The Spiritual Regeneration Movement in India, the first of his many organizations that are informally referred to as the TM Movement, and began the first of many tours to bring Transcendental Meditation and related programs and products around the world.
The Transcendental Meditation Movement
According to the official US website for Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation program Transcendental Meditation has been taught worldwide to over 5 million people. The number of TM teachers trained to teach meditation since the beginning of the movement is reported to be in the tens of thousands, of those, the number who continue to practice and teach meditation today may still be more than a thousand. Over its fifty-year history the TM Movement has gone through many phases of reorganization.
The TM movement maintains a number of websites. Providing basic information for the general public is Maharishi Open University, which hosts Maharishi's weekly webcast press-conferences that are also broadcast by satellite. Information is also available on what he has named "Consciousness Based Education" , the Maharishi University of Management and the K-12 school, Maharishi School for the Age of Enlightenment.
During the 1960s and early 1970s the TM Movement became seen as part of the then current "counter-culture" phenomenon, at which time a number of celebrities learned TM. Celebrity students at that time included The Beatles, the Beach Boys (including singer Mike Love who became a TM teacher) and singer-songwriter Donovan, who befriended Maharishi and put his picture on the back cover of his A Gift from a Flower to a Garden album. Comedian Andy Kaufman and magician Doug Henning were also students of Maharishi, while Clint Eastwood and David Lynch are two notable directors who have practiced TM. Lynch is currently involved in an effort to raise $7 billion to teach TM to all students in the USA, via his David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace.
With the exception of George Harrison, The Beatles abandoned Maharishi following an alleged incident in which the avowedly celibate Maharishi made sexual gestures towards Mia Farrow. This disillusionment became the basis of the song "Sexy Sadie" from the White Album. However, according to several authors, Alexis Mardas deliberately engineered the Beatles' disillusionment (Miles, 1998; Spitz, 2006; Lennon, 1978; Mason, 2005), and Mia Farrow refers to the incident in more innocent terms in her autobiography. (Farrow, 1997). Nevertheless, in an account told many years before to her friend and fellow TM practitioner, screen writer Ned Wynn, Farrow said that she believed that the professed celibate monk had clumsily tried to seduce her (Wynn, 1992).
Today
After the September 11, 2001 attacks Maharishi started issuing cautions, in weekly satellite press-conference and webcasts, about the prevailing directions of societal change in the world. As a solution to current world problems he proposed creating large permanent groups of TM-Sidhi practitioners performing their programs to create the so-called Maharishi Effect.
With reference to an on-going project to create a Maharishi Effect for the Netherlands, where he has lived since the early 1990s, he stated on June 21, 2006 that what "is unfolding right now is the 'supreme level of evolvement of life on earth"..
In 2005 Maharishi said he was starting a trillion dollar program to eliminate poverty and bring world peace.
Transcendental Meditation
Practicing Transcendental Meditation involves the use of a mantra, or sound, and the proper technique of how to use it. Some TM practitioners report that during the practice their mind becomes very alert but their body receives deep rest, and these effects continue afterward. Maharishi calls this state "Transcendental Consciousness" or restful alertness. He says that mantras come from the age-old Vedic tradition , but are just sounds designed as vehicles for the mind to settle down to the quieter states of awareness at its finer levels. The practice is done for 20 minutes, twice a day, while sitting in a relaxed but upright posture with eyes closed. Certain studies have shown that TM and other meditation techniques can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and other physiological measures.(Psychosomatic Medicine 46: 267–276, 1984; American Psychologist 42: 879–881, 1987; Hypertension 26: 820–827, 1995; Journal of Human Stress 5: 24-27, 1979.)
How Maharishi and the TM Organization View His Role
In the introduction to the 1955 book the Beacon Light of the Himalayas, Maharishi makes the following offer to humanity: "Oh ye of the peaceless and suffering humanity! My happiness desires to root out your suffering. Will you extend your arm and allow me to lift you up from the mire of misery and peacelessness?"
TM literature states "Maharishi in the world today is a Cosmic figure, caring for the well-being of all mankind.... a quiet guardian of all nations." (Maharishi's Absoute Theory of Government 555-556). Another TM publication says that his achievements are "unequaled today or at any time in recorded history." (Maharishi Vedic University 255).
In 1959 Maharishi stated that he would "Fill the Earth with love and create Heaven on Earth."
Books by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is credited as the author of more than 16 books. The two most well-known to TM practitioners are the Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6.
Related Articles
See also
References
- Deans, Ashley, PhD (2005) A Record of Excellence: The Remarkable Success of Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment
- Miles, Barry (1998) Paul McCartney : Many Years from Now, ISBN 0-7493-8658-4
- Spitz, Bob (2006) The Beatles -- The Biography, Aurum Press, ISBN 1-84513-160-6
- Lennon, Cynthia (1978) A Twist of Lennon, W. H. Allen, ISBN 0-352-30196-1
- Mason, Paul (1994, revised 2005), The Maharishi -- The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World
- Farrow, Mia (1997) What Falls Away
- Wynn, Ned (1993), We Will Always Live in Beverly Hills; Random House Value Publishing, ISBN 0-517-10885-2
- Tapasyananda, Swami (2002). Sankara-Dig-Vijaya. pp. xv–xxiv. gives this date. However there have been other dates proposed also. See above
External links
Official TM sites
- Global Country of World Peace
- Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy
- Maharishi Open University - weekly satellite press conferences (also webcasted)
- Maharishi University of Management
- Maharishi's Achievements, Forty Years Around the World
Miscellaneous external links
- Early photos of Maharishi
- Brief bio of Maharishi Maheshi Yogi
- 'The Maharishi: The Biography of the Man who gave Transcendental Meditation to the World'
- Maharishi: A Living Saint
- Page on Maharishi at popular TM portal
- Larry King interview with Maharishi on 5/12/02
- Falling Down the TM Rabbit Hole Criticism of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and TM by a former TM teacher