Is the TM Kingdom a cult – Part 4: The greatest master of all time

Is the TM Kingdom a cult – Part 4: The greatest master of all time

Today we are going to analyse Maharishi’s responsibility in creating a cult of personality around his persona. The “greatest master of all time”, is a myth intentionally and systematically fabricated by himself over the years, reaching an intolerable point of outward megalomania by the 1990’s.

Rick Ross a cult specialist in an article he wrote in the Guardian, on 27 May 2009, gave the ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe spiritual group or leader. According to Rick Ross, they are:

  1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
  2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
  3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.
  4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies, and persecutions.
  5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
  6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
  7. There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.
  8. Followers feel they can never be “good enough”.
  9. The group/leader is always right.
  10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Any rational observer, when objectively analyzing the life and mission of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the organization he created, will have no problem checking off each of the “warning signs”, which became an evident reality as we all know.

By the 1990’s a cult of personality wrapped around Maharishi megalomania reached a point of no return. The TM organization’s supreme master of ceremonies Bevan Morris, declared publicly several times (also seen by myself), that Maharishi was the “greatest master of all times”, something so patently absurd there is no point in me commenting on it.

Bevan Morris was one of the spokesmen for Maharishi, who at that time was the President of Maharishi International University in Fairfield Iowa, and one of the highest managers in the TM Movement, and later was given the position of “Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace”. He was also the chairman of the Maharishi Council of Supreme Intelligence of the Age of Enlightenment. So we are talking about a person completely overtaken by the cult. How could he say anything but that Maharishi was the greatest master of all time?

Then we had Maharishi’s “Apaurusheya Bhashya”, the master’s idea of an “uncreated” commentary on the Rik Veda, uncreated because, as it was stated then:

“…it brings out the structure of absolute eternal order. This commentary is not a man-made commentary but is a realization that the Veda itself is its commentary”.

This was based on the fact that the Rik Veda (the holiest book of the Hindus) only has 191 verses and it would be complete mathematically speaking if it had 192 verses (3 x 64), therefore there was one NULL verse with no existence.

The Veda is it’s own commentary? How does that work? Not man-made? Then if not man, who made it? Devas? Angels? God Itself? How? Can you prove it?

This insight was not subject to academic research, which easily could have been done at Maharishi International University and its various departments (Mathematics, Computer Science, and Vedic Science) and could have been an academic sensation if proven true, and they had decades. However, instead of analyising the possible insight of the master in a logical academic way, blind faith was promoted by Maharishi and the TM leadership in this grand theory about a non-existent verse in the holiest book of the Hindus.

Moving on, in his booklet the “Absolute Theory of Government”, pages 255-256, Maharishi says:

My Vedic Science is the Science of Consciousness

What an extraordinary statement! Thousands of years of the most profound philosophical discussion and the culture of psycho-investigation into the nature of consciousness and existence, for example, India’s Sanatana Dharma, Buddhism or the traditions of Greek philosophers, and the many other great traditions around the world, with hundreds of the most extraordinary human beings and their teachings, enlightened spiritual lineages, but at the end of what value is any of that? None, because… Maharishi Vedic Science IS the science of consciousness!!!. No more no less. This booklet and many other books and lectures contained very strong statements of self-promotion by Maharishi.

The master, the friendly teacher who founded the Transcendental Meditation Organization, became by the 1990s the world’s greatest guru, a fully authoritarian absolute ruler with a seemingly evident narcissistic personality disorder. The dogmatic and uncritical worship of the guru was set by Maharishi himself, and in his own words:

“You see, to meditate and transcend . . . is one way of achieving Cosmic Consciousness. The path of surrender is another way. The path of surrender starts by tuning the mind with the mind of the Master. Tuning the mind with the mind of the Master means: Whatever he likes, I begin to like. I begin to forgo my liking. If he wants me to go that way, I go that way, and having gone halfway, if he wants me to turn, I turn, and again he wants me to go that way, I go that way. If he wants to return I return. Nothing of my will, everything [is] His will.

This is how by foregoing our own likings and disliking, adjusting our mind to the mind of the Master, that is picked up by the disciple and that is the most important thing. If he asks to do this, you do this. If [having] gone halfway, he wants us to stop, we stop. You don’t feel in the least that “Oh, so much effort has been put and now he wants me to stop!”, nothing like that. The way he turns, we turn, the way he likes, we like, the thing that he dislikes, we begin to dislike. This is how one begins to forego his liking and disliking and begins to tune his mind to the mind of his Master. In this line it is not the work that is important, it is the flow of his mind that is to be kept, and that is important.

As the Master wants, so he moves, his likes and dislikes begin to become the likes and dislikes of the disciple. Like that he attunes his mind. When the mind of the disciple is completely tuned to the mind of the Master, then the thoughts of the Master become the thoughts of the disciple. The feelings of the Master become the feelings of the disciple and when that attunement is gained because the mind of the Master is Cosmic Consciousness, the status of the mind of the disciple gets to that standard automatically. The relationship of the disciple and the Master is two bodies and one existence, two minds and one mind. This is how, because the natural state of the Master’s mind is Cosmic Consciousness, the mind of the disciple is cultured to that state in a spontaneous, automatic manner. “

This is from the book: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Thoughts of a Yogi: Transcribed Lectures and Incredible Ideas—Maharishi’s Legacy to the People of the World (Lane Atmore, 2014)

Maharishi is saying here there are two ways to reach Cosmic Consciousness, either by meditation and transcending or by the path of total surrender to the guru. For so many meditators after a lifetime of meditating, plus all the rest offered by the organization (TM-Sidhis, Upavedas like Ayurveda, World Peace Assemblies, etc..) which were given at great financial cost, the followers were still not reaching Cosmic Consciousness. So what else is there if not to follow the other path? Just follow Dr. Bevan Morris’s lead, how can you not bow to the “greatest master of all time”?

The Guardian article about Rick Ross’s 10 warning signs of unsafe cults.

What makes a cult? | Rick Ross

Rick Ross: A typical cult has a charismatic, unaccountable leader, persuades by coercion and exploits its members, economically, sexually or in some other way

Thoughts of a Yogi: Transcribed Lectures and Incredible Ideas—Maharishi’s Legacy to the People of the World

Thoughts of a Yogi: Transcribed Lectures and Increadibl…

Read reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. Lectures delivered by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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