Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born in India around 1910. After graduating from Allahabad University with a degree in physics, he began pursuing a higher purpose in life, becoming a disciple of Guru Dev for thirteen years. Maharishi first taught TM in India and then, at Guru Dev’s urging, he brought this system of thought to the West in 1959. Promoted as the Science of Creative Intelligence, TM offers its practitioners a means of achieving peace, harmony, inner joy, creativity and enlightenment primarily through meditation and the chanting of various Sanskrit mantras. These are designed to lift a person to higher levels of consciousness. TM has been one of the more popular movements out of India and has numerous centers around the world.

Doctrinal Stance on the Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The Nature of God

Transcendental Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi): “God has two aspects, the personal and the impersonal…The impersonal aspect of God is formless, supreme; It is eternal and absolute Being. It is without attributes, qualities, or features, because all attributes, qualities, and features belong to the relative field of life, whereas the impersonal God is of an absolute nature.”¹ “God is one; It appears as many, however. The appearance of the one as many is only phenomenal. The reality of the one impersonal God is still eternal and absolute.”² A pantheistic view of God is promoted: “Everything in creation is a manifestation of the unmanifested absolute impersonal being, the omnipresent God.”³

1 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living (New York: Meridian, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books, 1995) p. 268.

2 Ibid., p. 267.

3 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, p. 266; quoted in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Handbook of Today’s Religions (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983) p. 83.

The origin and Nature of Man

Transcendental Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi): “The impersonal God is that Being which dwells in the heart of everyone. Each individual in his true nature is the impersonal God.”¹

1 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living (New York: Meridian, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books, 1995) p. 271.

The Nature of Salvation, Liberation or Enlightenment

Transcendental Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi): This worldview teaches there are seven states of consciousness: (1) Waking-Jagrat Chetana; (2) Dreaming-Swapn Chetana; (3) Sleeping-Sushupti Chetana; (4) Transcendental Consciousness-Turiya Chetana; (5) Cosmic Consciousness-Turiyatit Chetana; (6) God Consciousness-Bhagavat Chetana; (7) Unity Consciousness-Brahmi Chetana.¹ Complete liberation comes when the highest states of consciousness are achieved.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi counters the traditional belief that extreme renunciation and detachment are necessary for the attaining of enlightenment. In his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, he claims this view is a “complete distortion of Indian philosophy.”² Some TM advocates may practice a life of strict renunciation, while others may function in a secular world. Both paths are acceptable, being a matter of personal choice.

Another unique point of view concerns the attaining of the state of Samadhi. While many Far Eastern worldviews maintain that Samadhi is the end result of adhering to all the various stages of yogic self-discipline, Maharishi insists, “The practice of yoga should start with Samadhi.”³ In other words, seekers of God should begin with a consciousness of their separateness from a world of action and their oneness with God, then all other disciplines and all other strivings toward virtuous character become an automatic and simultaneous outgrowth of this high awareness level.

1 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living (New York: Meridian, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books, 1995) p. 322.

2 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita, New York, New York: ARKANA: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1990) p 15.

3 Ibid.

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