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About Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -  Page 2   (back to page 1)

The number of people practicing TM grew nearly exponentially from 1967 through 1974. By 1975 there were more than half a million people in America who had learned the technique, over a million worldwide, and the Maharishi had been featured on the cover of Time magazine. Were that exponential growth to have continued, the entire United States would have been doing TM by 1979. As it stands, with the law of diminishing returns and otherwise, there are currently four million practitioners of Transcendental Meditation worldwide.

In 1973, Maharishi International University (MIU) was established in Santa Barbara, California, moving a year later to its permanent location in Fairfield, Iowa. Interestingly, when the Maharishi first touched down in the latter location in his pink airplane, perhaps influenced by his contact with the Beatles (“How do you find American taste?/We don’t know, we haven’t bitten any yet,” etc.), he quaintly announced: “We are in Fairfield, and what we find is a fair field.”

Approximately one thousand students currently practice TM and study Vedic theory in that “fair field,” particularly as the latter theory relates to accepted academic disciplines, including the hard sciences. MIU has since been re-christened as the Maharishi University of Management (MUM). Presently, one-quarter of the town’s 10,000 residents are meditators.

In 1976, the Maharishi discovered the principles which were to lead to the TM Sidhi  Program-based on the siddhis or powers outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Those include the technique of Yogic Flying, or levitation ... or “hopping down the yogi trail”:

During the first stage of Yogic Flying, the body-motivated only by the effortless mental impulse of the Sidhi technique-rises up in the air in a series of blissful hops. “It’s a form of levitation, you’re actually lifted one or two feet by the exhilaration” that some describe as “bubbling bliss,” explained Transcendental Meditation spokesman Joseph Boxerman.

The Maharishi also said that advanced practitioners could develop powers of invisibility, mind-reading, perfect health and immortality. His Holiness further asserted a “Maharishi Effect,” whereby relatively small numbers of meditators are claimed to be able to positively and measurably influence world events. That phenomenon has even been alleged to measurably lower crime rates in regions such as Washington, DC, and Kosovo (in August of 1999), via the “accumulated good energy” of the practitioners.

On 12 January 2008 - his ninetieth birthday - the Maharishi declared: "It has been my pleasure at the feet of Guru Dev (Brahmananda Saraswati), to take the light of Guru Dev and pass it on in my environment. Now today, I am closing my designed duty to Guru Dev. And I can only say, 'Live long the world in peace, happiness, prosperity, and freedom from suffering.'"

A week before his death, the Maharishi said that he was "stepping down as leader of the TM movement" and "retreating into silence" and that he planned to spend his remaining time studying "the ancient Indian texts".

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes on 5 February 2008 at his residence in Vlodrop, Netherlands. The cremation and funeral rites were conducted at the Maharishi's Allahabad ashram in India, overlooking the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

The funeral, with state honours, was carried by Sadhana TV station and was presided over by one of the claimants to the seat of Shankaracharya of the North, Swami Vasudevananda Saraswati Maharaj. Also in attendance were thirty-five Rajas of the Global Country of World Peace, one-time disciple Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and David Lynch. A troop of uniformed policemen lowered their arms in salute. The funeral received its status as a state funeral because the Maharishi was a recognized master in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta founded by Shankara.

Paul McCartney commented saying that "Whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones. He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity."

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