Question: What is the difference between Maharishi’s teaching and your teaching?
Answer: Actually quite a lot. The Maharishi Mahesh yogi came to America in the mid-1960s. He became very popularized because of the Beatles’ contact with him. And he was one of the first Indian yogis on the western arena. And he presented what he called ‘transcendental meditation’ which uses mantras.
However he did a few flaws here. Number one, he charged money for the mantras. You had to pay for these mantras. Well, that is against the rules from the beginning. You cannot charge for spiritual information, knowledge, mantras, etc. So even if the mantras were potent to begin with once that occurs, if it is turns into a business, it has no potency.
And number two, he told you, “This is a secret special mantra for you therefore don’t tell anybody else this mantra. If you do, it has no more power.” Now, little be known to each individual who got their own individual mantra, that there were only about five or six mantras that he was giving to everybody. But you didn’t tell anybody and they didn’t tell anybody, so noone knew that.
And if it is a true mantra, as we teach you, it should be chanted out loud as I have just described so that purifying sound vibration can benefit others.
So the whole thing was supposedly Indian and Vedic and all these things but it was contaminated in these ways.
And unfortunately many people raised a lot of money, and it’s still going on. That organization has become very wealthy. But if that is what you want, that is what you get.
People will tell you, “Oh, it helped me so much.” It had mental effect and therefore resulting physical effect, material effect. You can take anything and do it. Any name, whatever, and do it, and that will calm you down. But spiritual effect – you won’t have that.