The Death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
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Friday February 08, 2008 01:03
by obit
"& so the TM mantra will pass out of copyright within 50 years & the secret of well-being will be free..."
Mahesh Prasad Varma (Srivastava) died on February 5, 2008, at approximately 7:00 p.m. less than month after he retired from public life on the 11th of January 2008. He shall be remembered for being the first eastern guru to embrace pop culture in the form of "The Beatles" & extended sitar lessons to George Harrison. His influence on western culture can not be underestimated. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, spiritual leader and businessman, is thought to have been born on January 12 1917. He died on February 5, 2008, aged about 91. He invented TM or "transcendental meditation" & founded the "natural law party" famous for its regular demonstrations of yogic flying. His organisation spanned the globe & its real estate holdings include islands in Ireland. The Beatles made him famous, "The Doors" first met at one of his gigs. NASA sent the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" into space the same day he died. We hopefully will not see his like again.
From his faltering first steps in the business of religion, the Maharishi seemed to have an entrepeneurial gift perhaps comparable to a previous subject of "obituary" attention - that of Tony Wilson of inviting the right people to his gigs at the right time. In his case it was "The Beatles".
Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is the trademarked name of a meditation technique introduced in 1958 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917?-2008). The technique, practiced for twenty minutes twice a day while sitting with one's eyes closed, is said to involve neither concentration nor contemplation yet all the same sort you out & the world with it.
He managed to sell that to millions of people, set up a university, ".......The Maharishi's empire grew to include a 24-hour global satellite television channel pumping out TM courses - on a subscription basis - in 22 languages to 144 countries. A complex network of companies sold such merchandise as massage oils, books, CDs, courses and spiritual consultations. There were also new-age health centres patronised by the rich (a fortnight's all-inclusive stay at the Ayurvedic clinic in Valkenburg, Holland, with a full course of therapy, cost £6,000 in 2001), along with universities, charitable trusts and headquarters in each of five continents - not to mention the Heaven on Earth property company and a business which advised architects and home owners on how to build according to Vedic principles. It would be easy to poke fun at the Maharishi and his teachings - and many did. But almost alone among the cults of the 1960s, TM survived in the less congenial atmosphere of the succeeding decades. In Britain general elections of the 1990s were enlivened by the yogic flying of the Natural Law Party, which was closely allied to the TM movement and promised "Heaven on Earth", lower taxes and a herb village in every town. But after his brief moment of stardom in the 1960s, the guru himself rarely appeared............."
wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi
interview with Allen Ginsberg
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dg6n6657_59c8ftjw
obituaries
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS...1.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/art...2.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS...3.xml