Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

There is much criticism of Maharishi. If we disregard the one-sided understanding of Vedanta, there are certainly also some adaptations to modern western mentality that can certainly be questioned.

His charging money for his TM-courses, his selling meditation as a mere technique, of course disqualifies him in orthodox "Hindu" circles and among many others. Maybe he shared Rajneesh/Osho's discovery that for most westerners, that which costs nothing seems to be worth nothing, and that a price is therefore necessary to to make meditation sufficiently attractive; that people want to pay, and pay much, in order to enjoy a feeling of being special by thus gaining access to something rare and exclusive. His marketing by means of mystical powers, siddhis, making possible so-called "yogic flying", is clearly over-the-top and in stark opposition to the line taken with regard to siddhis of almost all other teachers in the tradition (and indeed also western esotericists), even those who made other adaptations in spreading their teaching in the west. Many formulations in his books are too vague. It is understandable that his view of a current "age of enlightenment" and his idea of a TM-based "government" of nations and the world is viewed as problematic. And his parallels between the Vedas and contemporary science can certainly appear to be unduly speculative. 

Most centrally, I don’t think – and it is not my experience – that transcendental consciousness (turiya, samadhi) is easily, naturally and quickly reached by his meditation technique, as he says it is. He in fact simplifies the spiritual practice and its description so much that in reality he makes the process of realization harder. His understanding of yoga (in the sense of ashtanga yoga) is that it starts with samadhi, and perfection in all the other limbs is achieved through its prior attainment. For this reason, the mantra, leading to transcendental consciousness, is the only focus of the act of meditation itself, to be supplemented by a natural life and activity in ordinary, waking consciousness which infuses transcendental consciousness into it, so that these states finally coexist permanently in what Maharishi, using Richard Maurice Bucke’s term, translates as “cosmic consciousness”, which, in turn, culminates in full God consciousness.

What Maharishi’s technique of quiet, inner focus on short bija mantras does is certainly to take us closer to transcendental consciousness. It is primarily a form of dharana, which can be developed into dhyana. What is definitely reached, and indeed easily, naturally and quickly, is subtler levels of the mind. This not only leads us in the direction of samadhi, but also, as Maharishi emphasizes, in itself sharpens the mind, makes it clearer, increases its conscious capacity and range of perception.

But in my view, much more needs to be said about meditation, in line with how ashtanga yoga has traditionally been taught, i.e., the other seven limbs too need to be separately focused on - not least since, again, Maharishi's transcendental meditation is, primarily and initially, a form of two of them, not of attained samadhi. It is possible that the partial goals of the other angas are indeed reached through samadhi as realized through Maharishi's form of meditation. But if it is not thus realized, or before it is thus realized, it is difficult to see why the other angas and their special practices should be ignored. Of course, yama and niyama are for the purification of the mind and the development of character that are needed even in order to acquire the motivation to practice yoga in the full sense. Asana and pranayama, it seems to me, may or may not be necessary or helpful, depending on the individual character and nature of the practitioner. But as for the higher limbs, it is not easy to see how dharana, and therefore also dhyana, can normally be practiced with success without prior accomplishment in pratyahara - although it should certainly be accepted that it is in principle possible with Maharishi's technique.

But what must also be taught is that even the complete practice of ashtanga yoga is not the only method of spiritual development and self-realization: there is also the purely intellective path of jnana, with its concentration of the consciousness or awareness which is always already there, that in which our whole being and experience already rests, and which only needs to be purified and liberated from the various layers of mental and sensual content. Transcendental consciousness is not radically different from and other than waking consciousness. Indeed, the consciousness in which we experience our "ordinary" self and its "ordinary" world is in itself strictly the same as that of the most elevated, transcendent "mystical" experience, of the highest God consciousness. This only needs to be realized, and this realization is attainable also without the process of mantra meditation. It is what is always already real that, as it were, needs to be realized. But practicing more than one real spiritual technique or discipline is of course only beneficial and helpful. 

Maharishi is typical of the gurus and swamis who took the spiritual practices of the Vedic tradition to the west in that he deemphasized the mythological legacy of the Vedas, the upanishads, the itihasas and puranas so much that it is almost wholly absent in his books and other presentations. This is a correct approach, one of the fruits of, on the one hand, the thousands of years of patient, systematic interpretation, exegesis and refinement of the teachings of the Vedic tradition, and on the other of its insights into the necessity of a certain adjustment of their presentation to the cultural and intellectual specificities of time and space.

His advaitic tradition does, in itself, retain the legacy in its own way, either as representing realities on a lower level, in the phenomenal manifestation, the world of illusion, and/or – it seems to me – as something that is not necessarily accepted and never even intended to be necessarily accepted as literally true. Yet it is not wholly absent. Although only very few, residues of the unquestioned literalist outlook of tradition are found in his understanding of the history of the universe, the succession and cycles of the yugas, and the dates of authorities like Vyasa, Adi Shankara, and indeed, although less unambiguously, Krishna himself.

Sri Aurobindo is known to have grappled with the issues raised by the evolutionism of modern science, and I suppose many other intra-traditional scholars must have done so too. But it is remarkable that the disciplined minds of vedantic exegesis have not reached any kind of consensus or made up their minds with regard to how these questions are to be addressed, so that to this day it is possible for vedanta and  yoga teachers to simply restate the traditional accounts as they are, without any kind of explanation or commentary, to simply present them as literally true. Attempts to defend the literalist understandings in explicit polemics against modern science, even seeking to refute it using its own assumptions, accepting its empiricist methodology, are rare, although they can be found in the branch of “Hinduism” that are based precisely on the literalist acceptance of the mythological legacy, such as Vaishnavism, as that tradition has been taken to the west.

Maharishi presents no direct challenge of this kind, but there is at the very least an indirect one in his mere unquestioned restating of the view of the yugas on pp. 253-55 of his commentaray of the Bhagavad-Gita. It should be noted that, also quite independently of modern science, there is, as with regard to the combinations and the coordination of the various components of the amorphous, chaotic and starkly contradictory mythological legacy in general, in reality no consensus on this teaching within the tradition itself: Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramahamsa Yogananda, for instance, held a completely different view of the order of the succession of yugas and of which yuga we now live in than that found among others authorities. But the assertion of any version of this teaching about the age and history of the universe and humanity of course starkly contradicts the scientific findings regarding the history of man, the life on earth, the geological time scale, etc. Readers with even just the most superficial familiarity with science will unfortunately be inclined to reject much or all of the other teachings when they encounter such passages.

An example of relatively serious criticism of Maharishi (and also of Aurobindo and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/Osho) can be found in a lecture by Rama Coomaraswamy. Yet it is also poorly written and somewhat simplistic, and Coomaraswamy’s endorsement of the more superficial and strained version of the Guénonian, perennialist-traditionalist interpretations of Catholicism (and indeed Christianity in general), and his consequent, largely failed personal engagement as a Catholic, in my view in important respects disqualifies him too as a critic. He neither speaks as a strict “Hindu” traditionalist, nor does he address the complex issues regarding the specific difficulties of spreading anything of Vedic spirituality in the modern west, or the partial compromises and adaptations which many found to be necessary because of them. These decisive weaknesses are the same as those that, unfortunately, vitiate the otherwise in some respects important criticism of writers like Lee Penn (False Dawn: The United Religions Initiative, Globalism, and the Quest for a One-World Religion (2005)).

Then, as in the case of almost all Eastern spiritual teachers in the west, there is also criticism of Maharishi’s personal life. Almost all are accused of sexual abuse of their followers. In some cases, including Maharishis, it is perhaps not so much a case of accusations of sexual abuse, but, as it were, merely of use. But none of this is something I can judge about. It is certainly possible that many allegations of this kind are true, in which case these teachers have definitely not reached a higher level of spiritual realization, have not been able to practice what they taught, have not been gurus. That may very definitely be so. Or it may be the case that most accusations are false, and produced for other reasons and because of psychological disturbances and characterological flaws of those followers. But these questions can and should, I suggest, be distinguished from the substance of the teachings themselves, quite apart from what is true about the individual teachers.

In reality, despite my own remarks above, Maharishi’s commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita is in some respects an “original” contribution, in the sense in which originality must always be understood within a general traditional framework, i.e. in terms of original claims regarding traditional meanings lost or obscured by other commentators and interpreters. As far as I can see, it has been generally underrated as a result of the mentioned, legitimate criticisms. Indeed, the critics never seem to have studied Maharishi’s interpretation of the first six chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita closely. Not all formulations are too vague; in fact, his account of the process of meditation in all aspects is often very precise. I find that in important respects the interpretation actually marks a step forward in the gradual, new transmission of the Vedic tradition to the west which has been going on since the late 18th century. Given the particular, unavoidable difficulties of this transmission, a similar attitude should be taken to Maharishi’s work as to the whole of the so-called Neo-Vedantist current, and indeed, mutatis mutandis, to modern western New Ageism. Discernment, not wholesale acceptance or rejection, is what is called for. The historical importance of these currents for the spread of the Vedic tradition in the west cannot be denied, even as proper attention is brought to their errors and incompleteness.

With regard to western adaptations in his interpretations of his own tradition, it is not clear that there is more of them in Maharishi than in Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna mission, in Aurobindo, or in other, earlier transmitters of the Vedic tradition to the west. And such adaptations are indeed necessary and in many cases even desirable. Moreover, his teachings are sharply at odds with the still further developed romanticism of the hippiedom which shaped the west at the time when he spread them here – a fact that was obscured by the fact that hippies, and the Beatles, were attracted by and came to be associated with him.

It also seems to be a fact that very few are in reality capable of practicing regularly his adapted form of meditation, even as they dismiss it as unduly simplified. As long as this is so, there can be no doubt that they have much to learn from him. I was initiated into Maharishi’s practice of transcendental meditation by his student, now Professor Bengt Gustavsson, at the TM centre in a beautiful building from the 1880s or 1890s in Skeppargatan in Stockholm, in 1978. I find it important that I sensed deeply the spiritual purity, peace, and power of those rooms on that occasion, and of the beautiful ceremony, with the flowers, fruit, and white handkerchief I had been told to bring, the pictures of Maharishi and Brahmananda Saraswati, the incense, etc., and the mantras Gustavsson recited. On this occasion, transcendental meditation was certainly not just a technique, although it was that too and was, above all, marketed as such; it was very definitely also a distinct initiation into Maharishi’s branch of the Vedic tradition. Moreover, there was no trace of either Indian bazaar kitsch or countercultural hippie aesthetics. Gustavsson always wore a suit and tie.

The practice immediately led to experiences described in Gustavsson’s introductory teaching and in Maharishi’s books and other literature on TM. Since then, I have also studied other branches of the Vedic tradition and practiced other forms of meditation etc., but I still find Maharishi’s transcendental meditation, understood in terms of his own scriptural commentary, to be of considerable importance. He, and Gustavsson, remain more than just vartma-pradarshaka gurus (gurus who show the path) in the sense that, to this day, Gustavsson’s initiation remains my only formal “initiation” (of course not accepted as such by “Hindu” traditionalists) in the Vedic tradition, although I have subsequently had closer association with other teachers. Although I have alternated and supplemented with other techniques, in terms of initiation and practice, this is basically where I still remain. And it is where I think I ought to remain. Non-adapted forms of Vedic spirituality seem to me in many ways problematic in the west.