Maharshi Mahesh Yogi

Date of Birth 12 January 1918



Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (12 January 1918 – 5 February 2008) was born Mahesh Prasad Varma.  He developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of a worldwide organization.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became a disciple and assistant of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya (spiritual leader) of Jyotirmath in the Indian Himalayas. The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings. In 1955, the Maharishi began to introduce his Transcendental Deep Meditation (later renamed Transcendental Meditation) to India and the world.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to the Beatles and other celebrities. He started the TM-Sidhi programme, in the late 1970s that claimed to offer practitioners the ability to levitate and to create world peace. The Maharishi's Natural Law Party was founded in 1992, and ran campaigns in dozens of countries. He moved to MERU, Holland, near Vlodrop, the Netherlands, in the same year. In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a country without borders, and appointed its leaders. In 2008, the Maharishi announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into silence until his death three weeks later.