Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi  (born Mahesh Prasad Varma; 12 January 1918 – 5 February 2008) developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of a worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways including as a new religious movement and as non-religious.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to the Beatles, the Beach Boys and other celebrities.  The Maharishi’s Natural Law Party was founded in 1992, and ran campaigns in dozens of countries.  In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a non-profit organization, and appointed its leaders.  The Maharishi is reported to have trained more than 40,000 TM teachers, taught the Transcendental Meditation technique to “more than five million people”, and founded thousands of teaching centres and hundreds of colleges, universities and schools; while TM websites report tens of thousands learned the TM-Sidhi programme.  (More from Wikipedia)