From the Beatles to Wall Street: My 2 Cents on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

"Time to Live, Time to Lie, Time to Laugh, Time to Die. Take it easy baby."

Take it As it Comes, inspired by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and written by Robby Krieger, The Doors

As the guru vibrates through the Bardo state to his new existence, the Maharishi Global Financial Capital of New York is offering $2.6 Billion 15-year 10% bonds to develop "invincible" hospitals and colleges in the richest countries in the world. Many are still quick to disregard the Yogi as a quack even as he continued on living in bliss, developing his own city, organic agriculture, management university, disease-free health system and global currency, the Raam. Keeping a low profile, people have long thought that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was already dead, or at least immortal, while his enemies were wishing that he were dead.

During a cave meditation up in the Himalayan Mountains, the Yogi realized that all humans are blessed with an everlasting existence. In 1959, the Yogi promised that "I will fill the world with the light of knowledge and create heaven on earth" and brought to the Western world his trademarked system, Transcendental Meditation™. TM™ has been the most successful and lucrative meditation practice that is devoted to living a life of self-actualization and integrating higher consciousness into every day habits, not just in church for three hours on Sunday. Parallel to Carl Jung's psychological concepts, the TM™ strives for humans to achieve their full potential through self-actualization.

The Yogi was a brief spiritual guru to the Beatles until they had a tiff over doing drugs during a meditation trip in India. He emphasized the importance of chemical abstinence for at least three weeks before meditation to reach the full consciousness of the higher self. During the meditation retreat the Beatles fell off the wagon after catching the Yogi flirting with (or as it has been rumored, raping) young women including their friend actress Mia Farrow. Seeing that his desire for women went against being moral, the Beatles decided that the Yogi, his drug-free lifestyle and everything he stood for was all hogwash. Asked why they were leaving, John Lennon replied that he should know why, "if he's so cosmic."

It's been said that the original lyrics to the John Lennon song "Sexy Sadie" were really "Maharishi." "Maharishi, Maharishi, What Have You Done?" Paul McCartney convinced Lennon to change the lyrics else they be sued by the rich Yogi who could afford a lawyer or two. Other rock stars, like some members of the Doors and the Rolling Stones, and folk singer Donovan dabbled in the TM™ natural high as did numerous Hollywood Flower-Power Stars like Kurt Vonnegut, Shirley MacLaine and David Lynch who has a foundation based on the Yogi's consciousness principles and has written a book Catching the Big Fish (Penguin 2006) about his TM™ experience. Many followed the Yogi's meditation bandwagon until he was vilified once and for all for being a scam artist, dissident and heretic during his commercialized attempt to incorporate peace into British and American politics.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi disintegrated out of the limelight with science proving many times that a person could overcome psychological trauma or mental damage through meditation. While medical professionals preferred pharmaceuticals to meditation, the Yogi was developing a Global Country of World Peace based on the universal constitution, the Natural Law (Hindu Vedic law), which allows people to live and be as they are and exist in harmony with an architecture that brings full support and good economic fortune.

The yogi's estimated two billion dollar empire has been investigated for tax-fraud by the Indian authorities and has been touted by the media as nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme. His "victims" that were alleged to be preyed upon were the type-A personality corporate moguls who were promised aversions from heart attacks with the $2,500 Transcendental Meditation™ system. Who would have known that with all the naysayers, the Yogi made it to roughly 91 years of age living in peace and residing in the Dutch village of Vlodrop surrounded by barbed wire? Then again, who believes anything that the media says anymore?

I was personally introduced to Transcendental Meditation™ as a child through the all-time and proven reliable babysitter, the television. At that time the Yogi was on satellite TV day and night selling his books, CDs and philosophy of world peace through meditation. If only one percent of the population practiced meditation, he speculated, "It would neutralize the power of war for thousands of years." Mesmerized with his confidence and his lush beard, I relegated the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to the back of my mind's filing cabinet until I grew old enough to study meditation on my own (without my parents yelling at me that he was crazy and I should not to listen to people on TV, except CNN).

In my experience with various meditation systems, TM™ is in many ways akin to the original Buddhist meditation, with the only major difference being the time factor of the era. In Buddha's era 2500 years ago, meditation was done through disciplining the mind to reach enlightenment, which means a lot of different things now than it did back then. Everyday living at that time was not filled to the brim with fear and anxiety. People didn't face hunger and poverty while living with the fear of being laughed at or humiliated on a regular basis. Human beings weren't trying so hard to cope with unnatural disturbances like sitting in a traffic jam in order to commute to a lame job - and to still find that on payday there's not enough money to eat, pay all the bills and live indoors. A person during the early hey day of Buddhism had more time to concentrate on the goal of reaching enlightenment than one would have living today where the demons of basic survival and "keeping up with the Jones'" need to be conquered first. Started in the 1950s, TM™ has evolved with time - taking the modern annoyances into account in its meditation techniques.

There are over six hundred documented studies on the Transcendental Meditation™ program and the results and benefits can be viewed on the www.tm.org website. TM™ can help eliminate psychological problems that are caused by stress and disillusionment and include relief from depression and learning disorders. The Buddhists have the same philosophy, although the actual practice of Buddhist meditation does not take into account the breakthroughs of modern science. Neuro-linguistic programming has proven that meditation does help to overcome the challenges of the modern times by reprogramming the thought patterns to better coincide with that person's ideal of perfection (not too different than living in a perceived ideal of heaven-on-earth).

The Maharishi Vedic City Raam Reserve issues the Maharishi's global development currency that was designed to alleviate poverty and promote peace through economic development. With an exchange rate of 1 Raam to $10 USD, the transcendental capital is offered to governments, chambers of commerce, farmers and other agencies to help finance the full economic and human resources of every nation. This form of currency is backed by gold and available to start-up companies and entrepreneurs. On that note, my own business plan - and Power Point presentation - is on its way to the Yogi's investment bankers on Broad Street.