Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement, who taught the Beatles to meditate, made "mantra" a household word in the 1970s and built a multimillion-dollar empire on a promise of inner harmony and world peace, died Tuesday in Vlodrop, the Netherlands. He was believed to have been 91.
Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation organization, said the Maharishi died peacefully of natural causes at his private residence in Vlodrop, a village about 120 miles south of Amsterdam where he moved his headquarters in 1990.
John Hegelin, the director of the TM organization in the United States, told The Times on Tuesday that the Maharishi had a transformative effect on Western society.
Maharishi obituary: The obituary of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which ran in the California section Wednesday, misspelled the surname of John Hagelin, head of the Transcendental Meditation organization in the United States, as Hegelin. The story also said the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" was inspired by their stay at the Maharishi's ashram in 1968. It was written before their visit.
"He brought meditation to the West. He encouraged scientific research on it and made meditation mainstream," said Hegelin, who is among 300 world leaders of the movement who have been meeting in Vlodrop since last month.
In Fairfield, Iowa, a town of 9,700 where the Maharishi University of Management is located and where close to 3,000 residents practice TM daily, Mayor Ed Malloy credited the guru with changing "the perception that meditation was something that someone did to renounce the world. He said that meditation could be added to an active lifestyle and enhance all elements of life."
Meditation, Malloy said Tuesday, "is taken for granted now, but back in the late 1950s and early '60s, he was the one who turned that perception around."
Known as the "giggling guru" for his high-pitched laugh, the Maharishi headed the TM organization for 50 years until Jan. 11, when he issued a farewell message. His devotees around the world were stirred by his announcement and believed that he was preparing for his death. TM officials said he was retiring to concentrate on silence and studying the ancient Indian texts that had inspired his spiritual teachings.
The diminutive Indian philosopher, who brought his brand of Eastern mysticism to the West in the late 1950s, had attained a cult-like following by the end of the 1960s, when his message of peace resonated with a counterculture in bloom. His most famous followers were the Beatles, who spent a month at his ashram in India in 1968 and wrote some of their more popular songs there.
By the mid-1970s, TM had an estimated 600,000 practitioners, including actresses Shirley MacLaine and Mia Farrow; football star Joe Namath and pop singer Donovan. TM how-to books rose on bestseller lists, close behind the decade's iconic blockbuster, "The Joy of Sex."
