Since Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi was Master to many, numbering in the millions, I wish to pay
special tribute to his Life of Love, Service and unceasing caring and
dedication to uplift Humanity to Higher Consciousness and World Peace.
On Feb. 5th, 2008 at about 7 pm in Holland Europe, His Holiness Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi took Maha-Samadhi and transitioned from his physical body.
People all over the world knew Maharishi as a great exponent of meditation
and Vedic wisdom. His interest was to raise world consciousness to bring
about "Heaven on Earth" and an era of peace for this planet. His focus was
on getting large numbers of people to practice together the Transcendental
Meditation and TM Sidhi Program. This was to create an effect of coherence
in order to radiate Divine Consciousness throughout society thereby bringing
about positive trends.
Maharishi tirelessly taught and organized programs to elevate human
consciousness for the past 50 years. His accomplishments in this area are
legendary. He has touched every country and every leader on this planet
with his knowledge and has almost single handedly revived the deepest
knowledge of the ancient Vedic seers as applied to modern society, science
and arts. His knowledge I'm sure will be more and more appreciated as time
goes on, and his major discoveries in knowledge of vedic engineering, vedic
mantras, Ayur Veda, Physiology of Enlightenment etc. will become more and
more understood and be seen to be the science and knowledge of the future.
Out of compassion of his heart, Maharishi had integrated modern science and
other branches of knowledge with the ancient knowledge of Vedas and made it
available to be tested so it could be a direct experience of every human
being.
For those who had opportunity to be with him, Maharishi embodied and
radiated such a bright light of Divine Consciousness that we were
"flabbergasted" (indeed this was the word Maharishi himself used to describe
the experience of being in the presence of his own great teacher, His
Divinity Swami Brahmananda Saraswati) ----seeing for the first time the
possibility for each of us to live that high consciousness of Unity with the
Creator.
Many people have seen his videos and TV broadcasts over the years----but
being in Maharishi's presence the most wonderful of miracles was the
enormous love he radiated. Being in his presence was like being in a field
of pure absolute crystalline clarity---with waves of bliss radiating
outward. Those of us who used to pick up the flowers on his table after a
lecture would notice those flowers would not wilt even two weeks later, even
without water, because of the enormous spiritual energy that was transmitted
to them by being in the presence of Maharishi.
Although Maharishi was master of the siddhis (special spiritual abilities),
he did not flaunt them---because his feeling was that it was more important
to develop oneself and become Self-realized, Self-referral, rather than to
see miracles demonstrated by others. He felt each human being had the
potential to do anything as long as they dedicated themselves to developing
full spiritual awareness through meditation. When he did miracles they were
done in a quiet way which strengthened the faith of the person who
experienced them. He could turn a rose into a bud and vice versa to
demonstrate spiritual principles. For some of the ladies who worked on
international staff in Europe for Maharishi, they would find that their
heavy suitcases would suddenly become weightless when they entered the hall
where Maharishi was sitting noticing them. These were miracles of kindness
done quietly. The biggest miracle was the purity of universal love good
humor and pure crystalline beingness that Maharishi radiated.
Maharishi loved to laugh and I personally remember a time while meditating
in his garden when I heard him laugh for over an hour non-stop with childish
joy. His good humor was very contagious! He told us at one point not to
become overly serious even about the world plan to transform society to
harmony and peace. He didn't want us to lose our joy of life even while
working dedicatedly to create world peace---Maharishi used to say: "Guru Dev
wants you to be Happy!"
Although some
remember him as a serious figurehead spiritual leader in front of national
leaders, I remember many tender moments when his compassion and parental
love for all the people he worked with took over. In Lake Tahoe in 1972 at
a peak moment when everyone was totally serious, immersed in trying to
figure out semantics of Science of Creative Intelligence course lessons with
Maharishi, he interrupted the conversation and looked out the window. He
directed us to not miss the intense beauty of Nature watching the golden and
red leaves of the trees falling in blissful waves outside next to the lake.
And working with him on International Staff in Switzerland in the early
1970's there were many times when he could not say "no" to us when we wanted
to take a nice boat ride around Lake Lucerne. He treated us like a parent
treating his kids---and would give us a most glorious ride around the lake,
giving out great wisdom of Vedic Knowledge and at the same time engaging us
to continue working on pamphlets and other work that needed to be done. He
wanted us to enjoy our work and found ways to make it more fun and
interesting for us.
One night I remember we were working on the scientific chart booklets and
were going over every single research study. To me it seemed endless and
after a while monotonous, and frankly dry and boring. At the same time I
was amazed to see Maharishi's unwavering attention and enthusiasm continue
for it. I thought to myself that Maharishi must be seeing something in all
this that I was missing. In my soul I deeply wished to see how all this
scientific literature looked from Maharishi's perspective. In that very
moment suddenly my perspective shifted and suddenly what I was hearing was
how the laws of nature interacted on the deepest levels. The whole secret
of the mechanics of creation as pertaining to the laws of nature was being
revealed to me. For the next few hours I was raptly attentive to every word
being uttered---and the whole talk became a revelation to me. I attribute
the shift in my consciousness that night to Blessings from Maharishi---whose
rather omniscient consciousness noticed my spiritual request---as I would
also later find out on many other occasions.
Having had occasion to hear and experience many saints from around the
world, I must say that the clarity, purity, and ability to get to the core
of spiritual knowledge and experience that Maharishi brought was without
equal. It was he who made meditation a household word---which now is upheld
by so many other spiritual teachers. Also a number of saints that I had
occasion to hear about or be with have said that they got their own start in
spiritual life with Maharishi.
The great Saints all knew Maharishi as a Master of Masters and treated him
with reverence. Famous Indian Saints like Ananda Mayi Ma, Shri Aurobindo
and the Holy Mother, Swami Lakshman Joo of the Kashmir Shiva tradition,
Swami Shivananda Saraswati of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, Tatwala
Baba, Swami Muktananda of Siddha Yoga, and other great realized beings all
held Maharishi in the highest regard. Great Nobel Prize laureates and
innovators like Buckminster Fuller also honored Maharishi for his wisdom and
depth of consciousness. Religious leaders, Christian, Hindu, African and
Buddhist monks, Abbots and priests of different traditions appreciated
Maharishi and some privately took up practicing his Transcendental
Meditation. Privately even Presidents of countries and great leaders around
the world would meet with Maharishi to gain his blessings. Maharishi always
was wanting to create self-sufficiency and invincibility for every country.
He wanted the people of every country to live a life of abundance and higher
consciousness. I heard him say his resolution was to turn this entire
planet into a place of Divinity---and his desire for every human being on
this planet was to experience full potential of Unity Consciousness.
Maharishi felt strongly to maintain the precious culture and traditions of
each country. He felt that Transcendental Meditation was universal and that
anyone from every culture could use meditation as a means to realize the
highest ideal of his own faith or culture. I think his efforts to create
higher consciousness and world peace have enabled our world to persist
progressing and existing. His efforts were instrumental in preserving world
peace and in reducing destructive tendencies. In a real sense we all owe
our continued existence to efforts by Maharishi as well as the efforts of
all the other great Saints on this planet to raise consciousness in order to
avert disaster.
With Maharishi now merged in the Unity of Divine Consciousness he is
accessible to us in our deepest connection to the Self. All saints past,
present and future are accessible on the level of Infinite Consciousness.
We just have to attune ourselves, much as a radio tunes in to different
frequencies to experience Maharishi Consciousness. The essence of what
Maharishi was doing was to express increasing perfection in personal life as
well as sharing that with the environment. Each of us has different roles
to play but the process is the same---which is gaining increasing attunement
to the Source of Creation, the Infinite Intelligence---and then living that
with purity and integrity in our daily lives.
I thank Maharishi for providing an example of living life in the Light of
God and a life of service to God and Humanity in selflessness. Indeed many
years ago I heard Maharishi say: "I surrendered my individuality long
ago". That individuality Maharishi had was surrendered to the Divine
Consciousness embodied in his own teacher whom he called Guru Dev. So in
tribute to Maharishi I'd also like to say JAI GURU DEV! "Hail the Divine
Teacher!"