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RELIGIOUS GURUSMaharishi Mahesh YogiSECTION - 1Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder ofTranscendental Meditation (TM),is perhaps the most suc-cessful ofall the gurus who have taken Hinduphilosophy to the West. By 1994 there wereover 1,200 TM centres in 108 countriesaround the world, employing more than30,000 trained teach-ers. He has establishedtwo universities: the Maha-rishi EuropeanResearch University in Switzerland and theMaharishi Inter-national University in Iowa,USA.The Maharishi was born Mahesh Varma in1917. He studied with the guru SwamiBrahmananda who, he claims, taught him theyogic technique that he later developed intoTM. He founded the Spiritual Regenerationmovement in 1957, and in 1959 set off forthe United States where his success owedmuch to the secular, psychologi-cal natureof his doctrine, in contrast to the spiritualemphasis of other gurus.Nearly fifty years of constant teachingactivity around the world have made HisHoliness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi widelyknown and revered. He is the latestsignificant teacher in the long history of theVedic tradition. Having received hisuniversity degree in physics before studyingwith the most illustrious recent master of theVedic tradition (His Divinity BrahmandaSaraswati), Maharishi combines expertisefrom both modern science and ancientwisdom. He has thus been uniquely qualifiedto bring about a synthesis of objective,materialist science with the subjective Vedicscience of consciousness. For hiscontributions to this profound body ofknowledge (in more than 20 books and14,000 hours of videotaped lectures),Maharishi is widely recognized as theworld’s foremost Vedic scholar, as well asits leading scientist of consciousness.It was due to Maharishi’s constantinspiration to researchers, and his clearpredictions about measurable results, thatresearch on his Transcendental Meditationtechnique first made meditation, andTranscendental Consciousness, scientificrealities. After the appearance of more than600 studies, Maharishi’s success inestablishing the benefits of meditation for theindividual can be judged, in part, by nearly$20 million in federal research grantsawarded to scientists at Maharishi Universityof Management (Fairfield, Iowa) for in-depthstudies on the TM technique. Maharishi nowoversees a teaching organization establishedin nearly 100 countries around the world.After long centuries of confusion, Maharishihas brought to light the Vedic truth thatmeditation is not based on effort andconcentration, but rather takes placespontaneously and naturally once the mindis given the correct start. It is thistransformation in understanding, embodiedin his Transcendental Meditation technique,which has opened the benefits of meditationto people of all cultures and walks of life.For his ability to teach the transcendingSAMARTHA BHARATA 51