[Farrokh Anklesaria] was a direct student of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and he'd been sent around the world by him to bring meditation to convicts.

He'd been to Switzerland, Senegal, Kenya, Brazil and Sri Lanka. And by a mixture of circumstances -- and perhaps karma -- he had landed in Missouri.

Anklesaria, a native of Mumbai who chose meditation over his family's legacy in law, hadn't had much luck in other parts of the country. He had heard that [David] Mason was a proponent of alternative sentencing, and he wanted his help to start a meditation program for criminal offenders in Missouri.

"I thought he was crazy at first," recalled Mason, a circuit judge in St. Louis.

That was 14 years ago. With the backing of Mason and other judges ranging from the circuit court to the federal bench and the Missouri Supreme Court, Anklesaria has become the region's guru for training parolees in meditation.

His nonprofit Enlightened Sentencing Project provides 20 weeks of instruction in Transcendental Stress Management for parolees who have committed a gamut of crimes, including drunken driving, assault and theft. [...more...]

See Also

• Behind the TM Facade
• How Transcendental Mediation really works; a critical opinion
• Who Took the "T" Out Of "TM"?
• "Transcendental Meditation was ruled a religion by the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, Docket No. 76-341 (H.C.M.) Civil Action, in the case of Alan B. Malnak. et al., Plaintiffs, v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, et al., Defendants, in a summary judgment issued October 19, 1977, followed by an order and judgment, filed December 12, 1977."
- Is TM a religion?

Full story: From incarceration to meditation in Missouri

In order to foster peace in the world by establishing a large, coherence-creating group of Yogic flyers on the Maharishi University of Management campus and in Maharishi Vedic City, 85 more Vedic pandits arrived in March, bringing the total to 600, and 450 more are ready to come and will begin arriving later this month.

Those who arrived in March are being temporarily housed on campus, and construction of modular buildings is beginning on the Vedic pandit campus in Vedic City in order to house all of the pandits there.

According to M.U.M. officials, the immediate goal is to have a total of 1,050 Vedic pandits in order to have a total of 2,500 Yogic flyers in the community.

Studies have shown that group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, including Yogic Flying, can foster harmony in society and reduce crime, war and other negative tendencies. In order to have the influence, research has shown the size of the group needs to exceed the square root of 1 percent of the population of a given area. That figure for the United States is 1,743.

Currently funds are being raised to cover the costs of transportation and personal supplies, as well as the additional housing.

• Original title: More pandits arrive, with goal of hosting 1,050

Full story: More yogic flyers arrive in Fairfield, Ohio

The Maharishi commune in the Limburg village of Vlodrop faces fines of up to ‚¬10,000 a time for breaking building regulations on its estate, NOS tv reports on Tuesday.

The former convent occupied by the transcendental meditation group was raided by building inspectors last autumn, who found 13 infringements.

Now the council says 164 flagpoles surrounding the convent have to be removed, numerous floodlights taken out of the woods, and illegal sleeping quarters demolished.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi lived in the Netherlands from 1990 until his death in February this year.

• This item was published with the kind permission of DutchNews.nl -- The latest news from the Netherlands

Full story: Maharishi group faces building fines

NEW YORK — David Lynch doesn't want to be the spokesman for anything.

The Oscar-nominated director still prefers to let his movies — such as "Eraserhead," "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet," "Mulholland Drive" and the recent "Inland Empire" — speak for themselves.

But, in recent years, as he learned more about increasingly stressed-out children and violent schools, Lynch felt he might be able to help by bringing Transcendental Meditation, which he has practiced for 34 years, to schools.

"Schools have tried many, many, many things and nothing on the surface is working," Lynch said from his office in Los Angeles.

"But when a student or a teacher truly transcends and experiences this deepest level of life, modern science's unified field, watch what happens. It transforms the schools. It transforms the kids ... It works. Now, more and more people are hearing about this thing that they thought was so weird. Meditation for students? It's too weird. People think it's a religion, it's mumbo-jumbo, it's a cult. It's none of those things. It's a mental technique that works."

Such a "weird" technique would obviously have its opponents, who either complain that it's a covert way of putting prayer in schools or that it wastes time in an already-crammed school day.

So Lynch decided to throw his support behind the idea, establishing the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace and going on the lecture circuit to discuss the idea.

"I don't like doing this," Lynch says. "I really like the people I meet, but I don't like public speaking."

His talks are essentially question-and-answer sessions. He estimates that 75 percent of the questions are about meditation and about 25 percent are about his movies and his 1990s TV series "Twin Peaks." By discussing the impact Transcendental Meditation has had on his life, Lynch ends up explaining more about his work than he ever has. And, of course, he ends up confronting questions about the dark, often puzzling, imagery of his work.

"People always say, 'David, if you're so happy, why do you think of those things?'" he says, laughing.

"When you expand your consciousness, who would want to just turn into a goody-two-shoes? You just get more and more you, a stronger you, a happier you. You're still going to fall in love with certain ideas."

Those ideas include mutant children, breathing-challenged voyeurs, various severed body parts and murder mysteries — a few of the subjects of David Lynch movies — but in the grander scheme of his mind and the expanded range of possibilities that come with his expanded consciousness, they become less upsetting.

"Stories always have contrast throughout time," he says. "The whole range of human condition, that's what makes a great story. It's not just one happy line going through. The artist doesn't have to suffer to show suffering, he just has to understand the thing."

Lynch says he hopes that all his work with TM can make the contrast between his work and the outside world even greater.

"You can tell all kinds of stories and people can leave the theater a happy camper and still have had this experience, while a lot of times, even if it's a troubling film, people leave the theater into a world that's worse than that," he says. "It's kind of important to create things, but it's also important to get our world straightened out."

Full story: David Lynch tours schools; touts Transcendental Meditation

DES MOINES - A woman who claims she contracted lead poisoning after taking an herbal preparation marketed as a Maharishi Mahesh Yogi product is suing Maharishi corporations in federal court.

Frances Gaskell, who lives in Maharishi Vedic City north of Fairfield, filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of Iowa.

In the lawsuit, she alleges the respondents — Maharishi Vedic Education Development Corp., Maharishi Ayurveda Foundation and Maharishi Ayurveda Products Ltd. — are guilty of defective product design, breach of implied warranties and failure to warn.

Gaskell also charges that those three entities plus a clinic in Delhi, India, called the Maharishi Ayurveda Arogyadham, and Dr. J.R. Raju, a master Ayurvedic physician and healer, are guilty of intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation and conspiracy.

Robert Roth, spokesman for the Maharishi Vedic Education Development Corp., said this week that the company is not involved in the manufacture, prescription or sale of Ayurveda remedies or herbs. Ayurveda is a form of alternative health care from India marketed by the Maharishi and his followers.

"We have no knowledge concerning the preparations Mrs. Gaskell allegedly obtained directly from India, apparently from another source," Roth said.

He said the corporation's only role is teaching the Transcendental Meditation to people in the United States.

Gaskell alleges Raju in December 2006 prescribed the herb Garbhapal Ras for her when she was four months pregnant. After taking the herb, Gaskell claims she began to feel lethargic, that her hands and feet went numb and that she suffered severe back and abdominal pain.

Tests on April 16, 2007, showed she had a blood lead level of 102 micrograms per deciliter — more than 20 times the level considered safe by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gaskell underwent chelation therapy while pregnant, but her child was born with an elevated blood lead level of 60 micrograms per deciliter.

Tests by the Iowa Department of Public Health found the herb Garbhapal Ras was comprised of nearly 3 percent lead. Maharishi Ayurveda Products Ltd. is identified on the product bottle as the manufacturer, the lawsuit states.

Health risks associated with ingesting lead have been known at least since 1978, when lead paint was banned in the United States.

Roth said numerous companies sell Maharishi Ayurveda herbs and treatments in the United States and that he understands the preparations are subject to testing, inspection and quality control to ensure they are free of toxins.

"These products have been on the market for 30 years, and it's the first time I've heard of anything like this," added Steve Yellin, media spokesman for the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield.

Gaskell, who is being represented by the Cedar Rapids legal firm Brady & O'Shea, is asking for a jury trial.

Full story: Vedic City woman charges herbs caused lead poisoning; sues Maharishi corporations

PARMA, Ohio: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the "giggling guru" who founded the Transcendental Meditation movement, proclaimed throughout his 50-year career that he knew the secret to worldwide peace. And now, this Cleveland suburb is poised to play a role.

The Maharishi promised that if just 1 percent of the world practiced TM, as it is known, then "the Maharishi effect" would take over and there would be increased coherence in the collective unconsciousness, and peace would prevail.

But for decades he struggled to reach enough people. So, in 2000 he created the Global Country of World Peace, a "country without borders," to build at least one so-called peace palace in or near the 3,000 largest cities in the world as places to train people in TM.

One of the palaces could be completed later this year in Parma, a town of 83,000 people, where officials were more than a little surprised when TM leaders outlined the proposal.

"The nature of it was a little unusual," said Brian Higgins, the city's director of public service. "What do you mean a 'Maharishi Peace Palace?' We're Parma, Ohio. We eat pirogis and drink draft beer. We don't get operations like this all the time."

Getting towns like Parma to welcome the palaces - $3 million to $5 million buildings with dormitories, classrooms and shops - has become even more important to the TM organization since the Maharishi's death on Feb. 5.

The peace-palace project will continue, movement leaders say, despite the multimillion-dollar costs and the limited success so far.

"There will be no change," Robert Roth, a spokesman for the organization, which is based in the Netherlands, said from Allahabad, India, where he attended a funeral for the Maharishi on Feb. 11. "It has always been a top priority of Maharishi, and all the leaders of TM recognize that."

Some critics, however, have called the palaces nothing more than a way for the Maharishi's followers to raise money to buy more land for the group's considerable coffers.

At least three palaces - in Austin and Houston, Texas, and in Lexington, Kentucky - have already been built by private individuals.

At least five others have been built, or are being built, thanks to donations to various offshoots of the TM organization in Bethesda, Maryland, and in towns in Iowa.

Nine more are being built by Global Country itself: three in Cleveland's suburbs; two in Sullivan County, New York; and one each in Charlottesville, Virginia; Colorado Springs; Smith Center, Kansas; and St. Paul, Minnesota. Zoning and other issues have prevented the organization from building right away in at least 18 other cities where it has already bought land, organization officials said.

After originally hoping to build 2,400 palaces in the United States, the organization now says it hopes to build 100 to 200 there.

Although the movement is admired for its finances, many independent critics question its belief that large groups of people meditating or practicing yogic flying - where people meditate and hop while sitting cross-legged - can spread peace.

The organization cites studies that it says found that large groups of yogic fliers helped temporarily lower crime in Washington, D.C., end the Cold War and briefly reduce hostilities in the Middle East.

"To the best of my knowledge, it has never been studied truly independently," said Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a TM practitioner himself. "It's been hypothesized for many years, but never proven."

The peace palaces are intended to be gleaming white, two-story buildings, 10,000 to 12,000 square feet, or 930 to 1,115 square meters, and to replace the rented spaces where TM is generally now taught at more than 200 locations in the U.S.

Each is designed to be large enough to have dormitories, retail space to sell TM's health products and clothing, and, most importantly, space for TM classes that currently cost $2,500.

(Instruction in yogic flying costs an additional $2,000.)

They are being built to follow Vedic architectural guidelines, which, among other requirements, mean each building faces east to greet the energizing morning sun.

The result is something like an Indian temple crossed with a Southern plantation mansion, a look the organization hopes will become a visual brand, much like the golden arches signify McDonald's the world over.

"The upside to it is in the recognition," said Richard Quinn, director of project finance for Maharishi Vedic Education Development, a company that oversees palace development in the United States. "In every town where there's a peace palace, people will realize this is what it looks like."

The nine palaces being built by Global Country are being financed with $40 million worth of tax-free bonds backed by the Colorado Health Facilities Authority - thanks to the asserted individual health benefits of TM - and secured by some of the more than $250 million in land TM owns in the United States.

Despite its spiritual leanings, and promises of spreading peace, Global Country does not make that part of its pitch to towns when it seeks permission to build a palace, which would be tax-exempt, focusing instead on the retail and health benefits it would bring.

"My feeling is they're trying to downplay" the world peace goal, said Mayor Gregory Costabile of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, where a palace may be built later this year.

Even when towns do learn about the movement's larger aspirations, it usually comes down to whether a development fits a site and complies with zoning codes.

And despite their skepticism, city and town officials concede, it is hard not to want what TM offers.

"They're interested in peace and harmony and good vibes, and we're interested in that," said Robert Parry, director of planning for Westlake, Ohio, where a third palace is planned for the Cleveland area. "Who isn't?"

Full story: Building the Maharishi effect, one peace palace at a time

Jabalpur: The ashes of Indian spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were immersed in the Narmada river here in the presence of large number of his followers on Tuesday.

Thousands of his devotees thronged the local Maharishi Vidya Mandir where the ashes were kept after being brought from Allahabad, where he was cremated.

The ashes were immersed in Narmada after a large number of his followers, including several dignitaries like Madhya Pradesh Speaker Ishwardas Rohani and Health Minister Ajay Vishnoi paid their last respects.

Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced transcendental meditation to the West, had passed away in Netherlands on February 6. He was in his early 90s. Among the best-known of his disciples were The Beatles.

He was often known as 'The Giggling Guru' for the high-pitched laugh he frequently used to emphasise his observations.

The physicist-turned spiritual guru had transformed his interpretations of ancient Vedic scriptures into a multi-million dollar global empire and went on to build up a following of about six million people worldwide, including celebrities like Beach Boys, singer Donovan, Clint Eastwood and avant-garde film-maker David Lynch.

Born in Madhya Pradesh, the Maharishi's real name was Mahesh Prasad Varma.

Full story: Maharshi’s ashes immersed in the Narmada river

From Trainspotting tours to the Royal Yacht Britannia, nobody could accuse Edinburgh's waterfront of lacking in variety.

Now one corner of the area is set to go a shade of "mellow yellow", as Scottish folk singer Donovan looks to build his new "Invincible University".

The star revealed he will found the £?5 million institution in the Capital after ruling out two other sites, including one in his home city of Glasgow.

Donovan - who had hits with Mellow Yellow and Sunshine Superman — had the idea for a "far out" university during the hippy era's heyday in the 1960s.

The aims of the institution will be to bring enlightenment to Scotland's young people and create world peace.

Donovan, 61, will be supported by American filmmaker David Lynch, the creator of cult classics including Twin Peaks, who will sit on the university's steering group.

Waterfront Edinburgh chief executive Colin Hunter today revealed talks had taken place with Donovan's representatives, although no final site has yet been chosen.

Donovan said: "I am coming to Scotland later this month to continue the Invincible Donovan University that I will build in Scotland. It looks like it is in Edinburgh. I wondered what Glasgow would think of that because I am a boy from Glasgow and I am building my university in Edinburgh.

"But I think it is a beautiful development area that is happening on the waterside."

He added: "It looks like the development of that area along the waterside there is very positive towards the university."

Mr Hunter said Waterfront Edinburgh was contacted by the singer's representatives about a month ago.

He said: "We had an exploratory meeting so I could understand what they were looking for. They wanted to know if we had any sites that we could identify for them.

"We would like to know more details, but it does not sound like something we would be against if we could find a site suitable."

He added: "No site has been identified yet. We do have sites available but whether they would be suitable for a university would require further discussions."

Donovan said he had the idea 40 years ago when he was learning transcendental meditation techniques in India with the Beatles.

He became a follower of the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who died this month aged 91.

The Invincible Donovan University will offer conventional subjects and qualifications but with meditation to boost learning, culture, the arts and wellbeing.

It is based on similar "consciousness-based education" methods used at the Maharishi Central University in America and at schools around the world, funded through a foundation run by Lynch, who appointed Donovan as musical director. Organisers hope the institution will attract up to 1000 students.

Councillor Allan Jackson, who represents the Forth ward, admitted he was more familiar with Donovan's hits than his educational aspirations, but was interested in the proposals.

"If Donovan has the backing to set this up it would certainly be worth a look," he said.

"I'm of an age that I can remember him for his hits such as Mellow Yellow and Catch The Wind. Let's see what he comes up with. It might be something to benefit that end of the city and Edinburgh in general."

Full story: Singer aims to catch the wind with a hippy university

Rose petals rained down from a helicopter on tens of thousands of mourners at the lavish funeral today of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the 91-year-old Indian guru who inspired the Beatles and introduced transcendental meditation to the West.

The elderly mystic's embalmed body was laid on an enormous pyre of sandalwood on a hilltop in the grounds of his ashram, overlooking the "sangam" — what is said to be the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers with the mythical river Saraswati.

Preparations for the rites began early, as volunteers plastered sticky cow dung — sacred to Hindus — on the funeral platform, and decorated it with marigold flowers and hundreds of yellow and saffron flags.

Maharishi's body, which had lain in state, was daubed with ghee, or clarified butter, and saffron vermilion.

His relatives lit the pyre, as mourners from the global religious order he founded clashed cymbals, pounded drums and chanted Vedic hymns. A police guard added to the cacophony with a gun salute.

The 35 newly anointed leaders, or "rajas", of the order wiped away tears as they watched, dressed in gold crowns and flowing cream robes. Many mourners meditated as the flames engulfed the body, and the chanting crescendoed to a peak.

A marbled tomb is to be built on Maharishi's ashes after the ceremony.

"Now we have a greater responsibility, but we will always receive direction and purpose from Maharishi," said John Konhaus, one of the new rajas.

"The emphasis is now on continuing Maharishi's tradition. We have to build invincible towers of knowledge and wisdom as taught by the Maharishi."

An iconic figure in the West, Maharishi was nonetheless virtually unknown to his fellow countrymen.

He introduced the ancient Hindu practice of mind control, which he called transcendental meditation or TM, to the West, where it has gained more than five million practitioners.

He also championed "yogic flying", said to be the ultimate level of transcendence, in which practitioners try to summon a surge of energy to physically lift themselves off the ground.

His meditation techniques became famous after the Beatles visited his ashram in 1968. An eclectic mix of celebrity visitors followed, including David Lynch the film director, the actress Mia Farrow and Mike Love of the Beach Boys.

He was criticised by some for lacking seriousness and for enjoying a lavish lifestyle. Sceptics mocked his notion that group meditation could harness the power of the universe to end conflict and cure world hunger. He died last week at his retreat in the Netherlands.

"In life he revolutionised the lives of millions of people," said Lynch, who attended the cremation and was visibly moved.

Voice quivering, he continued: "In his passing away he is bringing the West and the East together as well. In 20, 50, 500 years there will be millions of people who will know and understand what the Maharishi has done."

Adhiraj Rajaram, the order's new leader, issued a royal proclamation yesterday that a school teaching TM and yogic flying would be built in each of 48 countries to continue Maharishi's movement. The proclamation was read out by a spokesman as Rajaram does not speak in public, preferring to lead by silence.

By coincidence, the funeral coincided with an annual pilgrimage of worshippers to the area, where Hindu mythology asserts that gods and demons spilled nectar during a heavenly war.

Millions of Hindu faithful bathe at the site every year, in the belief it will wash away their sins and liberate them from the cycle of birth and death.

The funeral took place against a backdrop of priests making offerings, worshippers washing themselves with soap on ritual bathing platforms, laundrymen thwacking clothes against slabs of slate in the river and curious tourists taking photographs.

Full story: Tens of thousands attend funeral of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Followers gathered at the Dutch home of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on Thursday to remember the late guru to the Beatles who brought transcendental meditation to the West.

In a tent decorated with pots of roses, daffodils and orchids, the main leaders of the Maharishi's movement addressed an audience of hundreds, praising the life and works of the Indian mystic, who died overnight on Wednesday aged 91.

"His holiness brought meditation to the world,'' said Bevan Morris, prime minister of the Maharishi's Global Country of World Peace movement. His funeral will be held in the Indian city of Allahabad on Monday, a spokesman for the group said.

Paul McCartney and his fellow Beatles went to India in 1968 to see the guru and much of their music after the trip reflected their experiences -- good and bad -- there.

"I can only say that whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones,'' McCartney said in a statement on Thursday.

"He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity.''

Dressed in white robes and adorned with golden crowns and pendants, the main leaders or Rajas of the movement sat on red velvet seats on a podium, sometimes listening to the speakers, sometimes drifting off into deep contemplation.

After a five-minute group meditation, prominent members of the movement recounted the contributions the Maharishi's practices had made to society, education, science, health, agriculture and defence.

The Maharishi set up universities and schools all over the world and his Natural Law Party -- which promotes yogic flying, a practice that involves sitting in the lotus position and bouncing into the air -- has campaigned in dozens of countries.

Transcendental meditation, known as TM by its followers, involves reciting a mantra that practitioners say helps the mind stay calm even under pressure.

It gradually gained medical respect over the decades as the Maharishi challenged Western scientists to investigate its health benefits.

The Indian mystic moved his headquarters to the small southern Dutch village of Vlodrop in 1990, occupying the site around a former Franciscan monastery.

Many practitioners came to lay flowers at the gates of his residence on Thursday, a golden-yellow wooden building surrounded by gardens solid with animal figurines and facing a circle of flags from all around the world.

"It's like a meditation-based United Nations,'' said a spokesman.

Full story: Tributes paid to Maharishi