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ALLAHABAD: The emba-lmed body of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian mystic and Beatles' guru who helped bring transcendental meditation to the West, was cremated yesterday on a huge pyre of sandalwood by India's holiest river.
The pyre was lit by his family members and tens of thousands of devotees gathered around as a helicopter rained rose petals. The guru died last week at his Dutch retreat.
Volunteers of his order frenziedly chanted Vedic hymns to the clashing of cymbals and beating of drums. Police gave a gun salute.
Newly anointed leaders of the order, in flowing cream robes and wearing gold crowns and medallion, watched solemnly. Many of them wiped tears with handkerchiefs.
"Now we have a greater responsibility, but we will always receive direction and purpose from Maharishi," John Konhaus, one of the order's 35 new heads or "rajas", said.
The cremation was held on the campus of Maharishi's "ashram" or hermitage overlooking the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers, and a mythical third river, the Saraswati.
Millions of Hindu faithful bathe every year at this site in the belief it will wash away their sins and liberate them from the cycle of birth and death.
"This is where it all began," said Robert Roth, spokesman of Maharishi's global order, referring to the town where he spent many years studying. "After the cremation, a marbled tomb is going to be built on his ashes."
Women, in keeping with Hindu rituals, were barred from watching the elaborate funeral ritual that consisted of daubing the body in "ghee" and saffron vermilion.
Earlier, volunteers plastered cow dung paste, considered sacred by Hindus and also used as a disinfectant, on a funeral platform decorated with marigold flowers and hundreds of yellow and saffron flags.
Many devotees were seen meditating as the pyre blazed and the chanting reached a crescendo.
Maharishi's meditation techniques became famous after the Beatles visited his ashram in India and celebrities such as filmmaker David Lynch and Mike Love of the Beach Boys endorsed him.
But critics dismissed him as a hippie mystic, recognisable in the familiar image of him laughing, sitting cross-legged, wearing a white silk wrap-around with a garland of flowers around his neck beneath a scraggly salt and pepper beard that whitened with age.
He also championed "yogic flying", said to be the ultimate level of transcendence in which practitioners try to summon a surge of energy to physically lift themselves off the ground.
Lynch was among the thousands of Maharishi's devotees attending his cremation.
Visibly moved and his voice quivering, Lynch said many from the West were meeting the East over the cremation of his guru.
"In life, he revolutionised the lives of millions of people," Lynch said. "In his passing away he is bringing the West and East together as well.
"In 20, 50, 500 years there will be millions of people who will know and understand what the Maharishi has done."
"Had we not come here we would not understand what spirituality means to Indians," said Amanda Herron who was introduced to Maharishi's brand of meditation by friends in London.
"It is a moment of bereavement for us, but we are also making new spiritual discoveries."
Behroz Barami, a 29-year-old Iranian, who learnt meditation in Tehran at one of Maharishi's centres, dashed to India to be at his guru's funeral.
"Spiritualism is a way of life here," said Behroz, "something I wouldn't have realised had I not come here."
"The emphasis is now on continuing Maharishi's tradition," said John Konhaus, one of the leaders anointed by the mystic to run his order after his death.
"We have to build invincible towers of knowledge and wisdom as taught by the Maharishi."
He was born in Jabalpur, central India, as Mahesh Prasad Varma, according to some sources, and Mahesh Srivastava, according to others.
Nearly 5mn people worldwide practice transcendental meditation techniques, which are based on the ancient Hindu practice of mind control. But the Maharishi is not as well-known among Indians since he was based in Europe.
In the 1990s, the spiritual leader announced plans to use the power of group meditation to create world peace and end poverty. He later named his "transcendent kingdom" the "Global Country of World Peace" and reorganised the TM movement." Agencies |
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