Maharishi, Maharishi not

Stories about how terribly “Guruji” was treated in the TM movement were told all the time. We heard how horrible Nankishore was, or rather, we knew how much “Guruji” did not like Nankishore. We were told “Guruji” was every TMer’s envy: he was Maharishi’s right hand, favourite secretary.

There were stories such as,
• Maharishi was told the man who would bring about the spiritual revolution of the new millennium would come to him. He recognized Ravi as this man.
• Once Maharishi asked Pundit Ravi to go somewhere and the other devotees, in a rage of envy, slashed the tires of his car so that he would not reach the event and be in trouble with the Master. His was so one-pointed he found ways to make it anyway.
• Maharishi was very mad at him when he left. He wanted him to become one of the Shankaracharyas instead of creating his own movement and become a competition.
• All of TM will become AoL’s (also all of Sai Baba, Chriatianity, in fact, all devotees of other Gurus and all religions will be his, except the Muslims, of course, and China Mainland would have to wait for his next birth, at least as one of his Indian teachers heard him once say).
• Ravishankar is the reincarnation of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. Thus, Maharishi was his favorite disciple and his beloved master, and viceversa. Once in a while he would ask one of his German teachers to share his personal collection of photographs of Ravi in the early years and TM times, compare them with Gurudev’s and tell stories that would indicate the similarities (people came out of those talks mesmerized, or rather, idiotized! Of course, we were the best, following the best).
• Maharishi spoke badly about Ravi to the group when in fact he himself instructed him to leave and create his own movement.

I don’t know what is true and what is not. I just know they were all rumors that favored Ravishankar and that I myself never questioned. Long after I left, I met various long-time TMers who said Ravi (as they called him) never taught meditation, never underwent a TTC, was just a pundit boy, was a secretary but not Maharishi’s favorite (in fact, there were hundreds of secretaries), coordinated (not taught) the Patanjali courses. Apparently Maharishi said terrible things about him. The hush-hush one being, “he is dangerous. Sugar coated poison.”

I also don’t know which is true. Though, as far as I am concerned, Ravi does not behave that differently from Maharishi. He himself has cursed his own disciples who left and spread lies about many of them. After reading things about Maharishi and the way he conducted his movement, I doubt Maharishi actually blessed and instructed Pundit Ravi to leave and create his own organization. They both are just as ambitious and narcissistic, and they both have been deceitful about their techniques and teachings. Funny, I remember someone asking SSRS how he came up with the name “Art of Living”, to which he replied, “It just happened.” It just happened? What about Maharishi published a book called Science of Being and Art of Living?

Former TMers who left TM to follow Ravi hoped to join an organization with less politics, hierarchy and rules. Somehow, though, it seems AoL may have become an organization with a lot more politics, hierarchy and insanity than TM (although in AoL, you would often hear, ”Oh, it is a lot worse in TM”). We can agree on one thing: Ravi did a wonderful job in perfecting and expanding the work of his master!

The typical discourse to devotees, especially teachers, in the midst of politics was, “Oh, Guruji also had to go through these politics. If he could, you also can. Look how beautiful and strong it made him. You are so lucky you are given his same opportunity. They also envied him. They also lied about him. His own master lied about him.”

For many AoL devotees, psychological survival includes believing these remarks and drop the mind. Whatever our Master did, however he behaved, was for our own growth and that of the “greater cause.”

Somehow we never questioned this as devotees: if all the bad things said about Maharishi are correct, does it mean Sri Sri was initiated by a fraud? Does that mean “Guruji” is a fraud? Instead, we simply turned the stories around to support our dissonance and save our minds.

When Maharishi left the body, Sri Sri and company were proud to inform HE was invited to the funeral. Other than an obvious press release, the exciting highlight was “he was invited to sit in the front row. Justice was done.” For Sri Sri and company it meant TM finally acknowledged him and gave him the seat he deserves (even if, literally, over his dead body).

For Sri Sri, his master’s death was his own victory.
Victory to the big mind? Jai Gurudev, indeed.