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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Srivastava in 1917) is the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) Movement.

Biographical overview

Early Life

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Srivastava in 1917) is the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) Movement. He brought Transcendental Meditation to the western world. Maharishi is believed to have been born near Jabalpur, India and graduated from Allahabad University with a degree in physics. He was a disciple and secretary to Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, for thirteen years. In 1955, after spending two years in silence in UttarKashi, in the Himalayan foothills, he began teaching a basic meditation technique later renamed Transcendental Meditation. In 1957 he founded The Spiritual Regeneration Movement, the first of several organizations collectively known as the TM Movement, and began the first of many tours to teach the Transcendental Meditation technique around the world. He set up an Ashram (Hermitage)- called Shankaracharaya Nagar in Rishikesh, Northern India on the bank of the river Ganges.

The Transcendental Meditation Movement

The official US website for Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation program claims that Transcendental Meditation has been taught worldwide to over 5 million people. Maharishi has written a number of books on Vedic wisdom and the Vedas as the science of consciousness. He has consistently used state-of-the-art technology to spread his teachings; in the 1960s, 70 and on video, and today satellite and webcasts. He has created the Maharishi Open University as an online teaching outlet. Since 2001 he holds a weekly press conference broadcast on satellite and the web. He has started numerous centers of what he calls Consciousness Based Education [1] including the Maharishi University of Management and the Maharishi School for the Age of Enlightenment.

Celebrity students include the Beach Boys (singer Mike Love [2] in particular), who recorded an album at his Maharishi International University in the 1970s, and singer-songwriter Donovan who befriended the Maharishi and appeared with him on the back cover of A Gift from a Flower to a Garden. Comedian Andy Kaufman and magician Doug Henning were also Maharishi students, while Clint Eastwood and David Lynch are two notable directors who practice TM.

Contemporary Issues

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi currently resides in Vlodrop, the Netherlands.

In 2001, just after the Twin Tower attack on 9/11, he took up attributing to the United States of America, at times forcefully, for what was reported to be an oncoming wave of devastation to the world [3]. Uninformed and controversial, as this was perceived in many quarters at the time, it would today (in retrospect) i.a. confirm Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's deep insight into world affairs and prescience[4].

The solution to the present situation in the world proposed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi include creating large, permanent groups of TM-Sidhi practitioners performing their programs to create the so-called Maharishi Effect (see below).

Meditation Programs

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his TM Movement i.a. offers fee-based courses to the general public in meditation and other Vedic disciplines.

Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation is an effortless mantra-based type of meditation performed while comfortably seated. Meditation sessions are performed twice a day and typically lasts for twenty minutes.

The effortlessness of TM differs from other types of meditation which attempts to exert forced control over the mind, typically by exercizes of concentration.

During meditation with TM, practitioners regularly experience significantly reduced autonomous body functions (pulse, breath rate, heart rate).

With practice, the meditator may be able to reach short periods of a totally restful state of mind void of thoughts (void of also the mantra) called Transcendental Consciousness. The phenomenon is called transcending. Taken the together, the processes of transcending and the activity between meditation sessions are called the TM-program. The infusion of Transcendental Consciousness with three lower states of consciousness recgnized by Maharishi Mahes Yogi; waking, dreaming and sleeping, resulting from long-time practice of the TM-program is called Cosmic Consciousness, the first of four kinds of Enlightenment.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a body of scientific research has indicated that the regular experience of Transcendental Consciousness is correlated with greater creativity, improved learning, higher IQ, better grades, higher moral reasoning, increased brainwave coherence, and improved neurological functioning of the body. [5]

Theory of Consciousness

The purpose of the Transcendental Meditation Program is to establish Transcendental Consciousness permanently together with the three other states of normal human consciousness acknowledged by TM: waking, dream and dream-less sleep. This fifth state of consciousness is called Cosmic Consciousness.

Part of the theory of consciousness underpinning Transcendental Meditation are three further refined, discrete, states of Enlightenment: God Consciousness (GC); Unity Consciousness (UC); and Brahman Consciousness (BC).

The Self, or Transcendental Consciousness, is fully realized already in Cosmic Consciousness and the following three states concern development of ability to perceive Transcendental Consciousness through the senses.

The TM-Sidhi program

The TM-Sidhi program is an extension of the TM program i.e. involving mental techniques to "activate" or "enliven" the Transcendental Consciousness established during the TM-phase of this program. The claimed medium- to long-term effect of the TM-Sidhi program is an accelerated spiritual progress for the practitioner (i.e. faster unfoldment of Cosmic Consciousness with a view toward Unity Consciousness). A claimed short-term effect is a beneficial influence on the surroundings (cf. Yogic Flying and The Maharishi Effect).

Maharishi Purusha Program

An extendable one year full-time experience for single men marketed as a "24-hours Bliss Program to Men Offering Enlightenment and Fulfillment for the Individual, for the Nation and for the World" [6] (cf. The Mother Divine Program)

The Mother Divine Program

Maharishi's Mother Divine program, inaugurated in 1981, was created for the stated dual purpose of allowing women to deepen their experiences of their TM and TM-Sidhi programs while simultaneously "radiate a powerful influence of harmony and bliss throughout the whole world."[7] (cf. Maharishi Purusha Program)

The 'Maharishi Effect'

The 'Maharishi Effect' establishes the principle that individual consciousness affects collective consciousness, in particular that when one percent of a population is doing the Transcendental Meditation program this has a trend breaking effect (in a positive direction) for the whole population. In 1976, with the introduction of the TM-Sidhi Program (including Yogic Flying), a radically improved effect was found, which indicated that now only the square root of one percent of a population is required to create the same effect[8].

The phenomenon has been verified by a body scientific research, much of it apparently sponsored and/or inspired by the TM Movement itself [9].

Vedic Science

In the summer of 1980, at the so-called Vedic Science course held in Delhi, India, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced his movement to an array of ancient Vedic systems of knowledge. The systems i.a. include Maharishi Ayurveda (preventive healthcare) and Maharishi Jyotish (predictive astrology, used on the principle of "preventing the danger that has not yet arisen").

In recent years there has been a strong focus on Maharishi Vastu, or Sthapathya Veda, which deal with architecture, and then most importantly the correct alignment of buildings with the points of the compass)[10].

Research

A body of scientific research exists on Transcendental Meditation and other programs created by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi[11], suggesting a number of beneficial effects from the practice of TM and the TM-Sidhi programs not only for the individual, but for society as a whole. [12]

The size of this body of research suggest that the decision to have the effects of TM verified in a scientific manner was a decision of strategic decision taken by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi early on in the growth of his movement.

Books by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is given as author to a dozen or so books[13], of which the two most important one to practitioners of his TM and TM-Sidhi program appear to be his Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: Science of Being and Art of Living : Transcendental Meditation[14] and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita : A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6[15]

Regarding the translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, a work originally consisting of eighteen chapters, the remaining 12 chapters are rumored to have been translated and commented several years ago, but for unclear reasons remain unpublished.

References

Official TM Sites

General

History

Miscellaneous external links

Category:Indian religious figures Category:1917 births Category:Living people Category:New Age Category:New religious movements Category:Gurus