Transcedental Meditation

The founder of Transcendental Meditation was Mahesh Brasad Warma from central India. He graduated from Allahabad University in Physics in 1940. Then he became the disciple of Guru Dev, who taught him the techniques of meditation from Hindu scriptures. 

He stayed with Guru Dev until he died in 1953, and after his death went to Himalayas for two years. In 1956 he named himself as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and began to propagate Transcendental Meditation (TM). TM was developed by him while he was in the Himalayas. Since his ideas were not accepted in India, he went to America in 1959 and founded Spiritual Regeneration Movement.

In the west, many young people followed him because of their search for truth and peace. He invested his time in training people to become TM teachers and initiators. This enabled him to get thousands of followers who spread TM and gave him time to write books.

He gave a scientific image to TM and millions of people from different walks of life including prominent people practiced TM. Then Maharishi changed the name of his organisation as World Plan Executive Council and established Maharishi International University in 1971 at Fairfield, Iowa. He published a magazine by name ‘Creative Intelligence’. The income for TM came from course fees in public schools and from millions of others.

In India, under the auspices of Maharishi Shiksha Sansthan, there are about 200 Maharishi Vidya Mandir Schools with about 40,000 students. Recently eight Maharishi Institute of Managements were established in eight major cities in India, to offer MBA degree from Maharishi International University. TM courses are offered to millions of people in nearly all the major cities in our country. 

In TM, one has to silently chant a Mantra until he attains ‘God consciousness’ and he attains a state of oneness with God. So it is believed that TM is a path to reach God, and it gives rest and peace. But actually it gives only relaxation and reduce hyper-tension. Research study carried out in Michigan state university has revealed that peace and rest claimed by TM can be achieved by taking rest quietly by closing the eyes.

The research work carried out by Leon Otis in Standford Research Institute revealed that it produced harmful effect. Some meditators suffered from increased anxiety, confusion and depression. It is claimed that TM increases intelligence and helps one to get more marks. But the study carried out at the University of Illinois by comparing the marks obtained by meditators with others disproved this claim.

Now many people practice TM considering it as a non-religious method of relaxation and rest. They are deceived by the names like ‘Science of Creative Intelligence’ given to this technique. But it is a Hindu religious practice. This is because it is based on the teachings in the Hindu scriptures like the ‘Vedas, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutras. Maharishi himself had claimed that TM was given by Krishna about 5000 years ago. The initiation ceremony, in which one has to worship Guru Dev and praise Brahma and Krishna. Hence it must be avoided by all Christians.