Korean Job Discussion Forums

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Sexy Sadie, you'll get yours yet...

patongpanda · Joined: 06 Feb 2007

Why did the Maharishi refuse anaesthesia when having his wisdom teeth removed?

Justin Hale · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Location: the Straight Talk Express

Lennon was right. The Giggling Guru was a shameless old fraud

Czarjorge · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:34 am Post subject:

Did his body float right before he died?

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Justin Hale · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Location: the Straight Talk Express

You've misinterpreted the quote. Lennon called Maharashi an effing idiot because of his reaction to the death of Brain Epstein.

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Justin Hale · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Location: the Straight Talk Express

He felt his idiocy didn't as yet go beyond the Epstein incident?

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

From the perspective of the Krishna Consciousness movement (which George Harrison became more associated with after meeting its founder, Bhakivedanta Swami) the Maharishi was mainly a clever businessman who took advantage of America's naive interest in Eastern mysticism.

This article suggests that he perhaps got more serious about understanding Vedic scriptures in his last years...

Feb 6, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS (NYT) � Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old.

"He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.," said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that the Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to "natural causes, his age."

Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind control known as meditation gradually gained medical respectability.

Maharishi Yogi began teaching TM in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. But the movement really took off after the Beatles attended one of his lectures in 1967 and visited his ashram in India in 1968.

Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financed the construction of Peace Palaces, or meditation centers, in dozens of cities around the world. It paid for hundreds of new schools in India. In 1971, Maharishi founded a university in Fairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongside the arts and sciences to 700 students and served organic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.

Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in central India, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 -- though he refused to confirm the date or discuss his early life. He studied physics at Allahabad University before becoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man. After the death of his teacher, Maharishi went into a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.

With his background in physics, he brought his message to the West in a language mixing occult and science that became the buzz of college campuses. He described TM as "the unified field of all the laws of nature." But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned that TM had become identified with the counterculture.

In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of a monastery in Vlodrop, about 125 miles southeast of Amsterdam. In fragile health, he secluded himself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion he built on the compound, studying sanskrit and scripture until his passing.
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/news/02-08/news1810.htm

(Incidently, on that website - an independent Hare Krishna forum - there's a current an article written by me (under my "spiritual" name, Raghunatha Puri dasa) about a technical "guru" issue..
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/index.htm
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/02-08/editorials2499.htm

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

I was never a fan, but he did play an important role in the New Age movement in bringing meditation to the West. In its secular form, meditation has played a constructive role in stress management.

In the Hindu/Buddhist view of life being an illusion and detachment from this world, his advice about moving on past the death of someone makes sense. Besides, death is a lot less serious if you believe in reincarnation.

Justin Hale · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Location: the Straight Talk Express

OTOH,

You�re following an ad hominem argument. I like Plato. I�m a platonist � a contentious position. So, I�m hanging out in ancient Greece with Plato, and he remarks on the death of a dear friend as nothing to get worked up about, in the grand scheme of things�.and thus, it simply follows, I should dispense with platonic metaphysics as a result?

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Czarjorge · Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject:

I wonder if David Lynch cried.

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

As our local representative in the area, I think Czarjorge should run down to Fairfield and see how the death of the guru is affecting his university. (And maybe pay some money to learn to levitate.)