Where did Transcendental Meditation come from?
Transcendental Meditation was developed by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917-2008) in the 1950s, based on the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures. But the Maharishi altered the ancient teachings and emphasized the flashy components to make them more interesting to European and American customers. By the mid 1960s, all things mystic were popular in the hippie counterculture, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s adaptation of Hindu mysticism found enthusiastic followers. Even the Beatles were briefly associated with Transcendental Meditation. Even Mahesh Yogi’s supposed fellow gurus criticized such methods. Shree Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati, a disciple of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (Guru Dev), whom Mahesh Yogi also claimed as a spiritual master, was interviewed in depth by a former teacher of Transcendental Meditation in 1985. The guru was aghast when he heard about Mahesh Yogi ‘s methods, and cited a quote from Gosvâmî Tulsîdâs, a famous guru of centuries ago: “The guru who charges or takes
