Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 1918 – 5 February 2008) was an Indian yoga guru, known for developing and popularizing Transcendental Meditation (TM), and for being 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
He became known as Maharishi (meaning “great seer”) and Yogi as an adult
After earning a degree in physics at Allahabad University in 1942, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became an assistant and disciple of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (also known as Guru Dev), the Shankaracharya (spiritual leader) of the Jyotir Math in the Indian Himalayas
The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings
In 1955, the Maharishi began to introduce his Transcendental Deep Meditation (later renamed Transcendental 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”
The Maharishi is reported to have trained more than 40,000 TM teachers, taught the Transcendental Meditation technique to “more than five million people” and founded thousands of teaching centres and hundreds of colleges, universities and schools, while TM websites report tens of thousands learned the TM-Sidhi programme
His initiatives include schools and universities with campuses in several countries including India, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland
The Maharishi, his family and close associates created charitable organisations and for-profit businesses including health clinics, mail-order health supplements and organic farms
The reported value of the Maharishi’s organization has ranged from the millions to billions of U
S
dollars and in 2008, the organization placed the value of their United States assets at about $300 million
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to the Beatles, the Beach Boys and other celebrities
In the late 1970s, he started the TM-Sidhi programme, which proposed to improve the mind-body relationship of practitioners through techniques such as Yogic flying
The Maharishi’s Natural Law Party was founded in 1992, and ran campaigns in dozens of countries
He moved to near Vlodrop, the Netherlands, in the same year
In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a non-profit organization, 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