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!"