Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Guru, Organization founder

1918 – 2008

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Who was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was born Mahesh Prasad Varma and obtained the honorifics Maharishi and Yogi as an adult. He developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of a worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways including as a new religious movement and as non-religious.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became a disciple and assistant of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath in the Indian Himalayas. The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings. In 1955, the Maharishi began to introduce his Transcendental Deep Meditation to India and the world. His first global tour began in 1958. His devotees referred to him as His Holiness, and because he often laughed in TV interviews he was sometimes referred to as the "giggling guru".

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to The Beatles and other celebrities. He started the TM-Sidhi programme, in the late 1970s that claimed to offer practitioners the ability to levitate and to create world peace. The Maharishi's Natural Law Party was founded in 1992, and ran campaigns in dozens of countries. He moved to MERU, Holland, near Vlodrop, the Netherlands, in the same year. In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a country without borders, and appointed its leaders. In 2008, the Maharishi announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into silence until his death three weeks later.

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Born
Jan 12, 1918
Jabalpur
Also known as
  • Mahesh Prasad Varma
  • Maharishi Yogi
Parents
Religion
  • Hinduism
  • Rāja yoga
Nationality
  • India
Profession
Education
  • Master of Physics, Allahabad University
    Physics
    ( - 1942)
Lived in
  • Dehradun
Died
Feb 5, 2008
Vlodrop

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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