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Maharishi, along with his family in India, created an astonishing array of profit-making businesses ranging from gemstones to solar energy to television stations. These businesses, along with TM’s massive real estate holdings throughout the world, made him a multi-billionaire.  An article in India Today, published in June 2012, valued Maharishi's estate at his death at approximately $9 billion. Most of the value was in land across India. Maharishi lived in a 200-room palace in Holland and airplanes, helicopters, and fleets of cars were at his disposal.

There is an alternative to TM. The Relaxation Response was developed almost 50 years ago by Harvard University research physician, Dr Herbert Benson. In 1971, Dr. Benson, co-authored a paper that documented a set of unique physiological changes that TM produced in experienced meditators. Various measurements demonstrated that during meditation, study subjects (experienced TMers) were resting more deeply than if in a deep sleep while remaining mentally alert.

Beacon Light of the Himalayas is a booklet described as a “souvenir” of a meeting that took place in Kerala, India, in 1955. The book presents a straightforward transcription of talks given by Maharishi and others over several days to an Indian audience. In Maharishi’s words, the Hindu religious assembly was primarily organized to pay homage to Maharishi’s teacher, Guru Dev, or Divine Teacher. The event took place two years before Maharishi first traveled to the West, before he realized he would have to recalibrate his message to sell TM to a Western audience. 

Spirituality and higher consciousness were Maharishi's main messages until he realized he could make more money selling health than spirituality to Westerners. When he introduced TM in the United States, his entire focus was higher consciousness or enlightenment. In India, the formula was TM 10 minutes twice a day for 3 to 5 years. In the United States, it was 20 minutes twice a day for 5 to 7 years.

The TM organization deliberately obfuscates two main components of the practice, the mantra and puja. And yet… in Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, perhaps the best-known TM teacher in the world, describes the TM mantra as a word or sound that has no meaning associated with it. “I have been asked, “Aren’t mantras the names of Buddhist Deities or Hindu gods or whatever?” And the answer is a flat-out no. There is no meaning associated with the sound. . . They are not the names of some deity. They are not the names of anything. They are just a sound.”

A student of TM known as ‘DG’ committed suicide, not long after the Maharishi promoted the idea that people should not rely on traditional western medicine. This advice was incredibly dangerous and helped contribute to tragic results.

The David Lynch Foundation, the driving force behind the TM movement, misrepresents scientific evidence to promote TM. In his recent book, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, writes that he wants “to talk in some detail about some of the truly breakthrough research documenting the unique and profound benefits TM has on health and stress.” [Emphasis A. Siegel.(1).]

Home Base, a program that provides comprehensive care to veterans and their families, is a joint venture between the Boston Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital. Home Base’s Resilient Warrior and Resilient Family programs incorporate mind-body activities developed by the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI). Clinical treatment priorities of the program include PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

Maharishi sliced and diced the Hindu religion in part by selling anything he thought could make a profit. For example, TM's version of Ayurveda medicine (expensive, untested and unproven medicinal and herbal products) along with gemstones to speed up enlightenment and prevent illness. TM also sells Hindu prayer services known as 'yagyas' (that cost thousands of dollars), Hindu astrology, and a Hindu version of Feng Shui known as Sthapatya Veda. 

Was Maharishi better at meditating or making money? We suspect the latter. He claimed that if 8,000 advanced meditators, roughly the square root of 1% of the world’s population meditated together, there would be world peace. The TM organization raised hundreds, of millions of dollars to fund the project.

Dear Mr. Lynch, Are you aware that Maharishi was a fraud from the very beginning? Even his name was a fraud. Following Guru Dev’s death under mysterious circumstances, Maharishi began calling himself, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj. Yogi isn’t a title at all, but rather a description of someone who claims to be enlightened. If not bestowed by a worthy Hindu teacher or religious body, calling oneself a ‘yogi’ is considered boastful. Brahmachari refers to a celibate. Although Maharishi claimed he was; we both know he wasn’t. Maharaj or Great King (of the yogis) is a title added to great saints’ names. Thus, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj translates as The Great Seer, The Enlightened One and Great King. Maharishi served as a clerk-secretary in his guru’s ashram. His caste prevented his acceptance as a monk in his guru’s monastic order, or to dispense mantras. His self-appointed titles would be regarded as blasphemous and ludicrous by anyone familiar with Hinduism.

Transcendental Meditation is presented as a secular practice that has no religious affiliation. As a former teacher of TM, I can attest that the truth is the complete opposite, writes Aryeh Siegel.

TM promotes itself as being secular and scientific. Does any of this sound secular and scientific? In addition to memorizing the words, the teachers were also required to memorize the melody to which the puja is chanted, as well as the gestures and hand movements used during the chant. In earlier courses, would-be teachers had to perform the chant in front of, and to the satisfaction of, Maharishi. In my course in 1975, while Maharishi personally gave us our mantras, one of the course leaders tested us on the puja.

When you learn TM, are you participating in a religious ritual? Is it religious even if you don’t intend for it to be? Does it matter? Does the answer differ if you are told that your experience is not religious? The first deception people encounter when they come into contact with TM is being told it is not a religion.

Aryeh Siegel was a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in the mid-1970s and worked directly with the Maharishi. Siegel eventually left the movement and ran a community mental health center for several years, before working as a planner in a large Jewish Federation. After nine years he left the Federation to become a commercial real estate broker (which he continue to do to this day).