Maharishi Mahesh Yogi speaking about Guru Dev
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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
in front of portrait of Guru Dev

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Question about Guru Dev Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanand Saraswati directed to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in February 1969 at Shankaracharya Nagar, Rishikesh, India: -

Inaudible question from woman with heavy accent, perhaps Scandinavian or German. Clearly the question was related to Guru Dev, Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanand Saraswati, and of spreading the teaching of meditation.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - Oh he must have known! [audience laughter] He never, nnnmmmm, he never said to me. Otherwise quite a lot of time would have been wasted in planning. [audience laughter, slow at first, then uproarious] He saved us from that waste, [audience and MMY still laughing] waste of planning. It just blossomed and blossomed and blossomed and blossomed.

Male questioner - Maharshi?

MMY - Yes?

Male questioner - You have said in the latter years Guru Dev initiated quite a number of people. Was he using the, the EXACT technique that you are using?

MMY - [pause] Must be using BETTER techniques [MMY laughing slightly] than I am using.

Same male questioner - Was he still using the long mantras and all of that?

Female in audience - Huh!

MMY - [pauses] It's very difficult for me to find out what he was using. [laughter from audience] Because initiation is all in private ... [he pauses and audience laughs, MMY giggles and laughs too] ... And I was never interested who was given what mantra. I was interested in myself. [laughter and giggling] ... Full of divine radiance. People don't have to do the mantra and meditation in his presence. [male member laughs] Just ... the transformation was in his air, so full of life ... Out of that fullness I started to teach. [MMY pauses, slight audience laughter] At least by practice people could rise and raise themselves up.

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On 8th July 1971 in Amherst, U.S.A., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made the following statement which contradicts those who believe he never claimed the TM technique came from Guru Dev Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanand Saraswati: -

'But the great impact of Guru Dev, in his lifetime, in bringing out so clearly and in such simple words, this technique of TM. And his, his blessing for, for this movement which came out much after he left his body. Because there was no, no occasion during his lifetime for, for any of his intimate blessed disciples to go out of his presence and that's why this any such movement to bless the world couldn't have started during his time'.

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Right from the very early times, MMY definitely claimed that the meditation he teaches (TM) was taught to him by Guru Dev. A look at page 244 of 'Thirty Years Around the World' (a TMO publication by Maharishi Vedic University, 1986) confirms this.
Allegedly on 29th April 1959 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi told journalists:-

'My life truly began 19 years ago at the feet of my master when I learned the secret of swift and deep meditation, a secret I now impart to the world.'

 

In the TM puja there are four lines which refer directly to Guru Dev:

yadvaare nikhilaa nilimpaparishatsiddhiM vidhatte.anisham
shrimat shriilasitaM jagadgurupadaM natvaa.atmatR^iptiM gataaH
lokaaGYaanapayoda paaTanadhuraM shriisha~NkaraM sharmadam
brahmaanandasaraswatiiM guruvaraM dhyaayaami jyotirmayam

which means:-

'At whose door the whole galaxy of gods pray for perfection day and night.
Adorned by immeasurable glory, preceptor of the whole world, having bowed down to Him, we gain fulfilment.
Skilled in dispelling the cloud of ignorance of the people, the gentle emancipator,
Brahmananda Saraswati, the supreme teacher, full of brilliance, on Him we meditate.'

Maharishi explains who wrote these lines:-

'This was done by us, I didn't compose those lines, because I am not a Sanskrit scholar, but this was done by a, very, very eminent Sanskrit poet of Banares, and he was, such a mysterious man, the poet 1. He used to live us, just like us, and a good pandit, and when some, some pandits, learned people used to come to pay their respects to Guru Dev, and he would sit like that. And generally it is traditional, that in the presence of Shankaracharya, pandits gather. Pandits mean the learned people, highly great intellectuals of the country. They sit together, and they, try to bring home to Shankaracharya, each one of them, that he is the greater pandit than the others. And these dialogues are so highly intellectual and so very interesting, because they, everyone wants to, to win the grace of Shankaracharya, apart from his spiritual development for their material glorification, because a certificate from the Shankaracharya, of the great learning of the pandits will make him flourish in his area. So, they, very beautiful, and this pandit he used to defeat everyone, because he was a born poet, poet. He would versify anything that he wants to say. In poetry he would speak. And when in poetry, and so fluent and so high-class, so, high-class fluent Sanskrit poetry, and others would just sit and listen to him, what he says.
He was very dear, sweet pandit. He wrote lots of stanzas of Guru Dev, absolutely and, and this was one of them.
What happened was... this is very interesting.... this great pandit in his flight of, of the poet, he wrote Guru Dev's life, and he, he didn't know Guru Dev's life. Because all the time was spent in loneliness in the jungles, and, nobody would know.
And he said to me, "I am going to write."
And I said "Yes, you write", and this was our agreement that I'll get it printed, and he wrote, and I enjoyed it so much, but someday it was to come to Guru Dev for sanction. So, Guru Dev, he enjoyed hearing the whole thing. It was highly scholarly and very great, and everything that, that a good poet could put in that, he put it.
And then, when it was finished Guru Dev said, "It's very good, yes." And when the pandit went out of the room he asked him to take it to the Ganges, tie it down with a big stone, heavy, put it in the Ganges.
And I, it was a shock to me, I said "But, but there are beautiful passages in it".
He said, "Don't talk!'
He said, "Nobody should read it, tell him to take it", it is because he didn't know his life and he said "If you don't put it in the Ganges I'll ask someone else to do it."
I said, "I'll do it".
We would have used all those beautiful, sen... poetry. These days you would have enjoyed all. But he wouldn't allow it to remain.
He was absolutely divine, simple and great, very great, he was very great.'

Note
1. The poet was probably 'Ashu Kavi', Pandit Veni Madhava Sastri.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi speaking in February / March 1969 in Rishikesh India

 

 

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