Feb 16, 2006

From remote home in a Dutch forest, ex-Beatles guru aims at bigger goals

AP
Jamaican Observer
February 16, 2006

VLODROP, The Netherlands (AP) - The wizened sage sits alone upstairs in his secluded wooden house, massaging his temples in fatigue as he speaks to the camera.

It's late afternoon, and he has been at it since 3:00 am, conducting his business by video link-up around the world: new schools in India, new meditation centres in Europe, a new medical curriculum for his university in Iowa.

At his age - believed to be 89 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has no interest in dwelling on the halcyon days of the 1960s and '70s when he was guru to the Beatles and the Beach Boys and his Transcendental Meditation movement was the new buzz on college campuses.

Sleeping only two or three hours a day, he is grappling with weightier problems, his aides say - translating the theory of meditative power into a blueprint for feeding the hungry and bringing peace to the world.