Beatles' Mystical Guru Dies

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old.

"He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.," said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to "natural causes, his age."

Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind control known as transcendental meditation gradually gained medical respectability.

He began teaching TM in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. But the movement really took off after the Beatles attended one of his lectures in 1967.

Maharishi retreated last month into silence at his home on the grounds of a former Franciscan monastery, saying he wanted to dedicate his remaining days to studying the ancient Indian texts that underpin his movement.

"He had been saying he had done what he set out to do," Roth said late Tuesday.
With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi -- a Hindi-language title for Great Seer -- parlayed his interpretations of ancient scripture into a multi-million-dollar global empire. His roster of famous meditators ran from Mike Love of the Beach Boys to Clint Eastwood and Deepak Chopra, a new age preacher.

After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned to larger themes, with grand designs to harness the power of group meditation to create world peace and to mobilize his devotees to banish poverty from the earth.

His rise to fame came with his association with the Beatles, who first attended one of his lectures in August 1967 in Wales as they looked for a way of attaining higher consciousness in the aftermath of that year's Summer of Love.

The Beatles were so charmed by the self-effacing guru that they agreed to stay with at his India compound, starting in February 1968, an astonishing choice for what was then the world's most celebrated music group.

But once there, Maharishi had a falling out with the rock stars after rumors emerged that he was making inappropriate advances on attendee Mia Farrow. John Lennon was so angry he wrote a bitter satire, "Sexy Sadie," in which he vowed that Maharishi would "get yours yet."

Maharishi insisted he had done nothing wrong and years later McCartney agreed with him. Deepak Chopra, a disciple of Maharishi's and a friend of George Harrison's, has disputed the Farrow story, saying instead that Maharishi had become unhappy with the Beatles because they were using drugs.

Director David Lynch, creator of dark and violent films, lectured at college campuses about the "ocean of tranquility" he found in more than 30 years of practicing TM.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Lynch said it has aided him "in every aspect of life."

He said he believed Maharishi has laid the groundwork for world peace, even if that was not immediately apparent from world affairs.

"The world appears in bad shape on the surface, but I compare it to a tree: there are yellow sickly leaves dropping off but Maharishi has brought nourishment to the roots. Hang on for a little while longer, it's coming."

His followers say that some 5 million people devoted 20 minutes every morning and evening reciting a simple sound, or mantra, and delving into their consciousness.

"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, and darkness will disappear," Maharishi said in a 2006 interview, repeating one of his own mantras.

Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financed the construction of Peace Palaces, or meditation centers, in dozens of cities around the world. It paid for hundreds of new schools in India.

In 1974, Maharishi founded a university in Fairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongside the arts and sciences to 700 students and served organic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.

In 2001, his followers founded Maharishi Vedic City, a town of about 200 people a few miles north of Fairfield. The city requires the construction of buildings according to design principles set by Maharishi for harmony with nature.

Ed Malloy, a TM practitioner and mayor of Fairfield, said Maharishi's followers in Iowa were spending Tuesday evening meditating and holding a "celebration of gratitude for everything he's given."

Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientific studies showing that meditation reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, improves concentration and raises results for students and businessmen.
Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise $10 trillion to end poverty by sponsoring organic farming in the world's poorest countries. They scoffed at his notion that meditation groups, acting like psychic shock troops, can end conflict.

"To resolve problems through negotiation is a very childish approach," he said.
In 1986, two groups founded by his organization were sued in the U.S. by former disciples who accused it of fraud, negligence and intentionally inflicting emotional damage. A jury, however, refused to award punitive damages.

Over the years, Maharishi also was accused of fraud by former pupils who claim he failed to teach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased as the ultimate level of transcendence, was never witnessed as anything more than TM followers sitting in the cross-legged lotus position and bouncing across spongy mats.

Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in central India, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 -- though he refused to confirm the date or discuss his early life.

He studied physics at Allahabad University before becoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man. After the death of his teacher, Maharishi brought his message to the West in a language that mixed the occult and science that became the buzz of college campuses.

Maharishi's trademark flowing beard and long, graying hair appeared on the cover of the leading news magazines of the day. But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned that TM had become identified with the counterculture.

In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of a monastery in Vlodrop, about 125 miles southeast of Amsterdam.

Concerned about his fragile health, he secluded himself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion he built on the compound, speaking only by video to aides around the world and even to his closest advisers in the same building.

John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran for the U.S. presidency three times on the Maharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that from the Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access to followers in India, Europe and the Americas.

"He runs several shifts of us into the ground," said Hagelin, Maharishi's closest aid, speaking in Vlodrop about his then-89-year-old mentor. "He is a fountainhead of innovation and new ideas -- far too many than you can ever follow up."

I AM INVINCIBILE!

Unlike some people who feel that America is dead, there is at least one group of people who feels that America is invincible. I would of course be talking about none other than the Maharishi who recently dedicated the Tower of Invincibility!.

What is the Tower of Invincibility? The tower of invincibility is a 45 foot tower covered with marble tiles and topped with a stepped dome and gold-colored kalash. It was dedicated here at the center of the universe in Fairfield, Iowa on July 29th.

Isn't 45 feet kind of small to portray Invincibility? Yes but they ran out of marble and were forced to stop.

What is a kalash? Kalash is an Indian word meaning sacred pot. I have no idea why they added a gold colored sacred pot to the tower but that is what the paper said and so I ran with it.

Who would design such a thing? Obviously it would be Minister of Architecture of the Global Country of World Peace Dr. Eike Hartmann who had to have French doors installed on his office to fit hit title onto the frosted glass. Of course he designed a building where the "city could gather in sufficient number to practise (sic) Yogic flying" but because it is only big enough for maybe a dozen flying people, there must have been some disconnect.

I understand it is for flying people but why? To commemorate the Invincible America Assembly which feels that if they get sufficient people meditating for world peace that they could "create an influence of such intense coherence in the collective consciousness of the nation that the nation will rise immediately to invincibility."

What would this intense coherence in my collective consciousness feel like? "It will be just like when you are very thirsty, and someone gives you a glass of delicious water. When you drink it, you feel relief immediately." I'm guessing a severe ice cream headache is closer to the truth.

I still don't understand. Can you put it in easier terminology? "The youngsters will be serving as a powerful adjunct to the government by virtue of their deep experiences of the Unified Field during their daily routine in their high school, together lifting up, bubbling in bliss in Yogic Flying. Functioning from that level of the fundamental unifying force of creation, the gravitational force, they will stimulate the Unified Field and enrich the whole national consciousness to the point where it is impregnable, invincible, and impenetrable. In the Vedic Tradition, this is called Rashtriya kavach, a national armour of invincibility. This will created by the children of the nation in the Maharishi Tower of Invincibility."

Um…. okay. Now that this is built, what is going to happen? The Prime Minister of the Premier of this country, no idea who this is, will make his office at the top where they can work in an environment of intense coherence.

How many people are needed to create this environment of intense coherence for the Prime Minister of the Premier of the United States? Maharishi has said that to create a nation of invincibility, you need the square root of one per cent of the nation's population or in the case of the United States with 300 million people, only 1730.

How many people do they have already? The Maharishi have had well over 2000 practitioners here in town for the last forty years.

Why aren't we already invincible? Good question.

Maharishi Vedic City Blues

Just a quick update on Maharishi Vedic City (a.k.a. Maharishiville) and their attempted use of eminent domain that I blogged about earlier HERE and HERE. The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors passed a bill stating they were against Maharishiville taking the Palm farm using eminent domain for the purpose of building a city park outside of town. The board later declined to issue another bill stating they were against the Palm's building a hog operation on the farm saying it set a bad precedent for what private citizens could do with their own land. The Maharishi still haven't given up and tried to get the Jefferson County School Board to rule and they rightfully declined to consider the matter since it has nothing to do with running schools other than to eliminate some money from their funds due to the tax exempt status of city parks.
In yesterday's paper, the Palms graciously submitted the legal document for public review that the Maharishi want him to sign basically stating that the Palms give up the right to practice agriculture on their 150 acres of agricultural land for the next 20 years. From the accompanying letter, I don't think they are going to sign it which means that the Maharishi are going to have to take this to court to use eminent domain.

But by far the most humorous thing to happen out of all this is that a song has been written about the whole situation and can be listened to via the Internet. The lyrics have been posted below for your enjoyment.

“The Maharishi Vedic City Blues”
By Tony Arnold @

Gray Mortuary Recordings

A hundred years before
The Maharishis came to town,
One family’s farm began to feed
Its neighbors from the ground.
They’re trying to run the family off—
“…and we’ll pay you for your pain,
but if you don’t sell, we’ll steal it.
It’s called eminent domain.”

The cult that came to Iowa
Bought a school, and then the town.
They tried to take a family’s farm
So they could tear it down.
But not a single one had worn
A pair of working shoes…
It’s food for thought, those
Maharishi Vedic City Blues.

There’s too much history, too much at stake:
The farmer needs a living, the farmer needs a break.
There’s no consideration, no common sense:
Just too much fiber, too much incense.

When they started talking Sanskrit
It was more scarier than funny;
Declared themselves all organic,
And even printed their own money.
It didn’t matter the town attorney
Was in bed with the little mayor:
They were all in league to screw the man
With the farm that was already there.

The nuts that came to Iowa
Preached “expansion” and “ideals,”
But all they really seem to do
Is meditate their shady deals.
But peace-nazis don’t ever want
To walk in another’s shoes…
It’s food for thought, these
Maharishi Vedic City Blues.

There’s too much history, too much at stake:
The farmer needs a living, the farmer needs a break.
There’s no consideration, no common sense:
Just too much fiber, too much incense

We Took the Farm Using Eminent Domain From the Indians First

At the risk of boring people one more time, I thought I would provide an update on the Maharishi use of eminent domain on a local farm. A public "open mike" meeting was held in the center of Maharishiville and according to my inside sources, it was packed to the gills full of "townies" as they call us. The Maharishi board of supervisors opened up the mike and let the people speak their minds.

Evidently mostly townies spoke and most of their speeches were about rights, freedoms and emotions of taking someone's property. Even a few gurus stood up and said they were opposed to the idea of using eminent domain to take the Palm property. With the exception of the gurus against this, there was nothing out of what I would have expected until the last few speakers.

One speaker was a well-respected local politician and organic farmer that was booted from his position on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission by incoming governor Culver for no real reason. He as a neighbor to Bob Palm said that Bob had indeed gone to the county board of supervisors to ask about building a hog confinement building not because he had any intention of doing so but because he wanted to stir the pot so to speak. As we all have seen, he succeeded well beyond probably his own dreams and may not be paying the price by having to defend himself against an improper use of eminent domain. So I will have to take back what I said about the local paper not fact checking themselves because there may be reason to believe that Mr. Palm has been speaking from both sides of his mouth.

Another speaker was a local Arabian horse raiser and said, and I paraphrase him here, "Now we all need to remember that before Vedic City uses eminent domain here to turn this farm into a city park that 'we' used eminent domain to take if from the Indians." After a few minutes of befuddled thinking by the crowd, he was booed from the stage.

An hour and a half later, the Maharishiville board of supervisors voted to table the topic for a week before voting because they obviously didn't want to vote in front of a largely hostile crowd and I can't say I blame them. Jefferson County Board of Supervisor Dick Reed stood up and said that they should table it for a longer time than that if they realistically want to study the issue as they claimed. The Maharishiville board of supervisors immediately changed the table motion to 30 days at which point again Reed stood up and said that thirty days wasn't anymore realistic than 7 days had been. The gurus decided to table the motion as long as informative discussion was still being held. The local rag reported that the Maharishiville board of supervisors tabled the motion for 30 days at the request of Reed so maybe my accusation that they don't check facts still stands after all.

One Raam Mundra (Official Currency of Maharishiville)

The Truth Will Always Come Out

I don't know if it is because very few people write letters to the editor that they only need to publish them on Thursdays or because they just don't want to deal with an opinion page everyday. Whatever the reason, when the county "scandal sheet" as I refer to it was delivered, I anxiously flipped it open to the opinion page to see what people had to say about the condemnation of the Palms property that I wrote about yesterday.

There were three letters published and none of them were written by Bill Godfried who is a local character that gets one published almost every week and I have yet to understand what he is trying to say in any of them. The first letter was a person responding to a letter written by a lady last Thursday. The lady last week had been complaining that in the course of telling the story, it had grown too long and some of it had been continued onto another page. Her beef was that you didn't find out about the hog confinement building until you turned to the inside page. This weeks writer told her that she was write that not enough emphasis was placed on the article and in fact the words Maharishi Vedic City Seeks To Condemn Property should have been in bold and in huge capital letters.

The second letter was written by a guru since is added nothing to the facts or basis of the argument. That author merely stated that building a hog confinement wasn't very noble but building a park was very noble. If I could meet her, I would ask if forcing animals to stay outside under the heat, rain, cold, and wind while making them scrounge for food and live in mud were more noble than giving them a roof over their head, a clean controlled environment to live in and plenty of food? I'm guessing at that point she wouldn’t respond.

But the final letter took my breath away for Bob Palm, one of the owners of the property, wrote it. He stated that he didn't have nor never has had any plans to build a hog confinement building on the property. He went on to say that the Maharishi have been after him for well over a decade to sell his property which he adamantly refuses to do so they intentionally dropped the word hog confinement in as a reason and the rumor has taken off, even through our local press which apparently doesn't fact check their articles before publication.

I feel the wind going out of about 190 sails of the residents of Maharishiville.

Maharishiville Wants To Condemn Private Landowner's 100 Year Old Farm For a City Park... Outside of Town?

Eminent domain is necessary for a strong country because not everyone can differentiate between what is good for the country and what is good for themselves. However our founding fathers realized that there was a lot of potential for abuse and were very specific on how the power of eminent domain could be used. That changed in 1954 due to the Supreme Court ruling in Berman v. Parker and was made even less specific more recently in 2005 in the ruling Kelo v. City of New London. Such an out cry arose over the loose interpretation that many states have now enacted tougher requirements to use eminent domain to prevent abuses by governments. Suddenly a government right next door is trying to abuse the use of eminent domain and I have a front row seat.

Maharishi Vedic City (a.k.a. Maharishiville), which is located just north of town, is trying to condemn private property and turn it into a city park. Here are the facts:

1. The property that Maharishiville is trying to condemn consists of 148.95 acres outside the current city limits. Over 1500 acres of undeveloped land that also could be used remain inside the city limits.
2. Maharishiville made a "fair" offer for the land at $2675 per acre. According to the Jefferson County Assessor's Office, the land is worth $5000 per acre according to a recent sale by the same landowner of adjacent lands.
3. Maharishiville has only been in existence for six years and was incorporated in 2001. The farm that they are trying to condemn has been owned by the same family for over 100 years and is listed as a Century Farm on the Historic Register of Iowa.

So why all of a sudden are the gurus wanting to use brute force to take over a historic farm to turn into a city park outside of city limits when 1500 acres within city limits exists and is unused? It is because the Maharishi disagree with how the owner of the land intends to use it.

The Palms have been farming for over a hundred years in a rural area and that means livestock. They want to improve their livestock capability by buildings some state of the art buildings with moderated climate and feeding systems. However, the gurus decided six years ago that they were going to build their utopia right in the middle of all this agricultural land and now are offended when someone wants to use it as such. Initially they lied and said that they had that land marked out as a park all along but when word got out, they now admit that they just don't want it next to where they chose to locate their city. The farm existed first by 94+ years and yet they think they have the right to take it.

Even by today's loose federal standards of the use of eminent domain, they haven't a prayer of winning the case. The government has allowed eminent domain cases to proceed based on the argument that the taxable value would increase. In the case of the Palms, it would decrease by turning it into a city park that is tax-free on county tax rolls. Even more fortunate, Iowa was one of the states that passed a stricter interpretation of eminent domain after the badly ruled Kilo v. City of New London ruling a couple years ago.

The gurus are on the losing end but that isn't stopping them. They voted to proceed and are going to have an open meeting before condemning the land. That will then force the Palms to hire a lawyer and defend their land in district court costing them time and money. The Palms have said they would and I pray that they do. When they win, I hope they turn around and sue the ass off of Maharishiville right before they build their hog buildings on the upwind side. I also hope that this will serve as a lesson that when you choose to build your utopia house or city out in the country, you have to take the good AND the bad along with it.