In the first article of our new Maharishi’s Disciples column, we relive the beginning of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar’s guru career—the period when he was still a disciple of Maharishi and then broke with his guru.
Scroll.in: How Ravi Shankar broke with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and became Sri Sri
An excerpt from a forthcoming book profiling India’s ‘godmen’.
Ravi Shankar’s first major tryst with organised spirituality was a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who took an immediate shine to him. The next thing he knew, he was whisked off to Switzerland and found himself travelling the world with his guru.
Sri Sri recalled his days with Mahesh Yogi as follows: “I was into studying the Vedas and he used to conduct these Vedic Science conferences around the country. So many scientists and scholars would come and I attended one of the meetings. He just picked me up from one of these and said, ‘You come with me.’ He asked me to come to Switzerland for a month or so and then he kept extending. That one month became almost a year. But I was still interested in doing my formal degree. So that is how it started. I was organising various things: yagya, conferences on Vedic Science, Ayurveda.”
MN Chakravarti, a former teacher of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation, who knew Ravi well those years, had a different story to tell. According to him, in 1975, when Sri Sri was around twenty years old, he had attended a TM class in Melkote (in district Mandya, Karnataka) of which he was the coordinator. He initiated the young man into Maharishi’s programme after which the two got to know each other well. “We would go to his home in Jayanagar (in Bengaluru; now the Sri Sri Media Centre) and his mother would feed us,” recalled Chakravarti.
However, MN Chakravarti found Ravi’s father, RSV Ratnam extremely ambitious, “sort of like a star mom”. He didn’t think Sri Sri was either ambitious or interested in money. “He was a nice boy, very eager, decent and smart. His sister, too, was very nice.”
Later, Ravi did a stint in Rishikesh, where Maharishi’s ashram (famously inhabited by the Beatles for a space) was located. “We went there for the advanced course. You know, each round of meditation involves 40 minutes and we as teachers are expected to do three rounds. He used to tease me and say that as a senior, I should do more.”
He was “sweet-looking”, said M N Chakravarti, the kind of boy whose cheeks people have an irresistible urge to pinch. Despite the flowing hair and beard, he has more than a touch of the effeminate, which leads one to ask whether spiritual leaders have a strong feminine side.
“You are just the way you are naturally. It is for others to perceive the masculine or feminine. Because you can’t say I want to be this way or I have to be this way and I should not be this way. No, be absolutely free and be natural.”
Unlike some great sages in Indian mythology who crossed over from pleasure to asceticism, Ravi had none of the vices associated with callow youth. He neither smoked nor drank. He loved cinema though and in Rishikesh, “He used to take the boatman along with him, to cross the Ganga to town and see a film… otherwise, there would be no boat on the way back. He would tap on the window of our hostel and I would let him in,” said Chakravarti.
So far, the lad showed no sign of extraordinary powers, until one day when he arrived in Kalady, Adi Shankara’s birthplace in Kerala. According to Chakravarti,” Here, I was given an advanced technique by Maharishi. Ravi was not, although he was there. Maharishi was to leave from a small airstrip 20 kms away. Then Ravi made a prediction. He said Maharishi’s plane would stop, the door would open and an emissary would come and ask for me.”
Ravi Shankar was right, but only partly. The Maharishi’s plane did stop and his secretary did come out. But the chosen one was Ravi, not MN Chakravarti.
The stories converge after that. Ravi was given charge of Maharishi’s Institute of Vedic & Management Sciences, in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh). He shadowed his guru day and night, flew with him to every destination and was soon regarded his successor. Then suddenly one day, Ravi left – according to him, out of his own volition. Yet another story which did the rounds was that Ravi had, albeit inadvertently, leaked sensitive information to a foreigner who turned out to be an intelligence operative and was then sent out of the institute on some trumped up charge involving voucher payments.
So, what was the real story? Sri Sri spoke in euphemisms, as is his wont.
“It (relationship with Maharishi) was very good, nice, loving and cordial. I am sure they had a lot of expectations from me, but then I went into silence and I started teaching Sudarshan Kriya (SKY). He knew I could not stay. It was like a golden cage for me. I needed to connect to grassroots level people. At that time (with Maharishi), I met Mrs (Indira) Gandhi, Jagjivan Ram, all the top people of the country but suddenly, I took leave from all that and changed to village-level persons. I travelled to small and remote villages. My heart was more with them. The sewa (service) aspect was not part of that (the TM) movement. That movement was more intellectual, based on meditation. I was more interested in sewa.”
By the time Sri Sri joined Maharishi, his most spectacular disciples, the Beatles, had already broken up. But more than a decade later, he would be introduced to them by a former TM practitioner, Michael Fischman. Now head of AoL in North America, Fischman played the Beatles for Sri Sri, after he spotted a picture of the band with Maharishi on his coffee table.
Sri Sri was delighted with the lyrics of Across the Universe, particularly the chant, “Jai Guru Deva”. He then sat through all the numbers inspired by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and later commented that the song Within You Without You was based on a traditional Indian raga.
In Guru of Joy, Francois Gautier writes that very little is known about Guruji’s time with Maharishi, largely because Sri Sri himself appears reluctant to dwell on it in any detail. What seems clear is that he was a favourite with Maharishi who saw him as a trusted aide and a possible heir. But one particularly unfortunate event appeared to have started his fall from grace.
In 1980, a massive yagya, featuring 6,000 pandits, was to be organised at Maharishi Nagar, a vast ashram in NOIDA, in UP. In Sri Sri’s words:
“Maharishi had his own style of celebrating and did everything with a lot of pomp and show. For this particular ceremony, he wanted everything to be in yellow as far as the eye could see, as this was the colour of goddess Laxmi. So all the sweets were to be yellow, decorations in yellow and gold coins from different countries were brought for this yagya.”
Comment by Sudarshan on the blog of churumuri.wordpress.com
“Sri Sri” Ravi Shankar, for the information of all posting here, was a “close” (according to him) disciple of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He never publically gives that credit to his only guru, however. Privately, to some, he does. In fact, he has been known to say “I AM Maharishi…” and swish away with the same giggle as MMY.
He was born in Tamil Nadu, he said, in a village or small town (can’t remember which) that was wiped out by floods. His family moved to Bangalore when he and his sister were small. He was raised there. He dropped out of school at 17 years old to join Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and was brought to Switzerland to chant Sanksrit there.
He helped to build MMY’s ashram in Noida, outside of Delhi, and became extremely ill there. His father says that he had to go there and bring him home, and that Ravi nearly died. After this, SSRS was told by MMY to gather 200-300 students of Veda and teach them to chant. SSRS’s father went around Karnataka and gathered students from poor villages (only Brahmins). There was a property purchased in 5th block and used for the purpose of housing all of these boys (over 150, I was told) — how? who knows. It’s a three story, smallish house. But SSRS says they chanted there, and lived there. Then MMY called them all to be moved to Noida.
The story from here is that SSRS’s father had promised the parents of these boys that they would never be far from home, and Noida was too far away. So SSRS started his own school for Vedic Pundits right then and there. MMY was extremely displeased and angry with SSRS. One of the first pundits was sent with a missive (this story from that man himself, thank you) to MMY. This pundit claims that MMY was angry and said basically that he would have nothing further to do with SSRS, and sent him back to Bangalore. It is widely known amoung close early followers, that SSRS used to try to call Maharishi in Holland and would be repeated told he would not speak to him. He was devasted, and used to keep a picture of MMY next to his bed. It is a very sad story, actually.
SSRS’s father went to the local government and acquired the land on Kanakapura Road by using the method of land being donated if someone promised (at that time) to build a rural school to benefit the local villages. A “school” was built (don’t know if it still ‘exists’) in the form of thatched roof huts, where students did cram in to “learn”. This was all a front, of course, to start the Art of Living Ashram. Since the police and local government are mostly bought off by the empire of AOL at this point, the organization, in spite of failing early audits, enjoys not-for-profit status.
SSRS’s mother, God Rest Her Soul, was heard to brag: “My son is a millionaire! He has his own account and has more than a million US dollars in it!” She was very proud of this. This was in the early 90s, when SSRS was already beginning to ramp up the collections from the US and Europe and Canada.
SSRS, btw, never got any degree, and used to publically proclaim the same — that he never finished school. Somehow, in some places (Wikipedia for awhile), it is wrongly stated that he earned a degree in Physics, other places says Engineering, etc. It’s false. He has no earned degree in anything, and stopped his schooling at 17 years old.
Obviously, the many pundits dwindled to a small number over time.
It is unknown by this author whether SSRS was ever able to meet with MMY again before he died a few days back.
I personally feel sorry for SSRS. There are many personal things about him that I will not report here, because this is about his organization, not about the man. But the ‘man’ is a sad case indeed.
The organization is totally corrupt, and he tolerates no advice on conducting matters in an above board and honest way.
His followers are indeed, as pointed out by several on this post, like robots.
Many have lost their lives to him, giving up good careers, ruining their health. I heard at least two say “there is nothing else I could do at this point — where would I go? At least he pays our tickets and feeds us….” They laughed but it was a thinly disguised sadness that the laughter covered. They were trapped.
I’m certain that many if not all of his full time teachers are in that situation. Have pity on them. They are brainwashed and sad people with no lives of their own anymore. He has stolen everything from them.
God Bless every one of them, and show them an exit strategy that will give them solace and real Peace of mind, not the fake peace that can be had for a moment scrambling for an audience with SSRS.
We continue…