Whatever else the world may throw at him, there is no doubt that along with Osho (1931-90), Mahesh Yogi brought the second wave of Indian spirituality to the US, which in turn offered both gurus the opportunity to re-export it to the rest of the world. Sitting on the crest of the first wave — created by Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) in 1893 with his speech at Parliament of Religions in Chicago and Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) with his life changing 1946 work, Autobiography of a Yogi — Mahesh Yogi and Osho discarded the simplicity of the first wave and embedded their spiritual messages with matter. If Osho’s outer signatures were his 93 Rolls Royce cars and sex (remember From Sex to Superconsciousness?), Yogi had the Beatles as his students, trademarked transcendental meditation (TM) and levitating techniques.There is no doubt that Yogi’s grip on his audience, like most gurus, was almost hypnotic. A colleague recalls how when he had come to IIT-Delhi two decades ago, well into his seventies, a teacher questioned him deeply around the subject of quantum physics and wondered how and where spirituality fitted in a world where scientific laws ruled. “When Yogi spoke there was pin-drop silence in the huge hall as students from outside strained to hear him,” he said. “We were transfixed.”Apart from impressing and influencing US politicians, business executives, actors and musicians, Yogi realised that education was the key to taking today’s message tomorrow and set up the Maharishi University of Management in 1995, initially at California and finally on 272 acre campus at Iowa to offer consciousness-based education (CBE) in arts, sciences, humanities and business. CBE encourages students to look inward and manage their own Self: “By developing themselves from within, they begin to unfold the vast creative potentials that often go unused in life.”Yogi was able to create what could probably be the first informal brand in matters beyond mind — TM, which he broadly defined as “a natural, effortless procedure practiced 20 minutes twice each day while sitting comfortably with the eyes closed.” Yogi was also probably the first to have converted the immense knowledge of Indian spirituality into digestible bites, something that many younger gurus (the third wave?) of today are following. In a way, he redefined the business of spirituality.
