'Heaven is rejoicing'

Today marks the first anniversary of the mahasamadhi (death of an enlightened person) of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, at the age of 91.

Maharishi’s passing was announced to the leaders of the Transcendental Meditation program who were with him in Vlodrop, Holland, by his chosen successor, neurologist Dr. Tony Nader, to whom he had given the titles Maharaj Adhiraj Raja Raam. Over a public address system, Raja Raam told the group “Heaven is rejoicing” that Maharishi had come into its realm.

In the earthly realm, I felt there was a global collective gulp at the weight of the responsibility that had been passed on, almost instantly followed by an immediate determination to rise to that challenge.

Maharishi’s contributions are not well-understood to most of the world’s population, so I was not surprised that his passing was barely mentioned by the cable news channels, or that the newspapers that did note his passing published obituaries that were generally snide and shallow.

So I marvelled when a friend e-mailed me a link to a recording of disc jockey Howard Stern and his sidekick, Robin Quivers, mourning Maharishi’s passing on his show and refusing to let anyone make light of Maharishi. I knew Stern practiced the TM technique, but I didn’t know he had interviewed Maharishi.

Stern talked about how learning the Transcendental Meditation technique had saved his mother’s life and he saw so much improvement in her that he got instructed, too.

Here are the videos of Stern and Robin talking about their experiences with Maharishi and the Transcendental Meditation technique:

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