Aired 12 May 2002 - 9-10 p.m. EST
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, exclusive. He was the Beatles' spiritual
guru and he turned the world on to Transcendental Meditation.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gives his first TV interview in 25 years. Next,
on LARRY KING WEEKEND.
It's a great pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE, from Vlodrop,
Holland, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
He is the author of the famous book, "Science of Being and Art of
Living:
Transcendental Meditation." He has not done an interview in 25
years. The book has been newly revised and updated and it's an honor
to welcome him to this program.
Is
"Maharishi" a title or a name?
MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI, SPIRITUAL GURU AND AUTHOR: I feel I think
people begin
to call significant or the characteristic of the word "Maharishi". "Maha"
means great and "rishi" is a seer. The seer of reality. The seer,
that's what people called, and it became a sort of name.
KING: What is Transcendental Meditation?
MAHARISHI: Transcendental Meditation is something that can be defined
as a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, in a right way,
for maximum results. It's a program that the mind begins to
experience its own finer impressions, finer thoughts, and then finally
transcends the finest thought and gets to the level of what they call
self-referral pure consciousness, which is the ultimate reality of
life, pure intelligence. From where the creation emerges. From where
the administration of life is maintained. From where physical
expression of the universe has its basis.
So Transcendental Meditation brings about transcendental
consciousness, which is self-referral consciousness, the source of all
intelligence.
KING: Why ...
MAHARISHI: It's on that level that intelligence becomes creative
intelligence.
KING: Why does it sound so hard to learn?
MAHARISHI: I've been teaching Transcendental Meditation for 40, 50
years in the world, and everyone who has learned it knows how simple
it is, how easy it is, because one's own consciousness cannot be
difficult to anyone. It's one's own life. It's one's own
intelligence. It's nothing difficult at all.
KING: Is there a major first step to take? Supposing I want to learn
this completely. What's the first thing, other than getting the
re-release of your book, the first thing I should do?
MAHARISHI: Intend to have a better life. Just intention to have a
more successful life. Think better. Create better influence for
others and for oneself. Just the desire to be a better man, that's
all.
KING: So we begin with the desire, which sounds very nice, but does
this require a change of personality?
MAHARISHI: Change of personality will be for good as a result of it.
But the intention is, wherever one is, one makes a plunge into the
transcendent, that's all. There is nothing difficult. There is
nothing complicated. Only, one has to have a desire to have a better
quality of life. And for that, one has so much of scientific research
now. Hundreds of scientific researches, volumes full of volumes there
are.
And that you have mentioned, that book, "Science of Being and Art of
Living," that was the first book that I wrote about 40 years ago. And
now, dozens of books are there. Hundreds of books. Thousands of
these videotapes are there for the world.
KING: Why have you been quiet for some time now? Why have you not -
have we not seen you much?
MAHARISHI: No, I was not quiet! Only, I got into creating the
effect. I was teaching Transcendental Meditation for 30, 40 years,
but I found that the world is not yet to the extent of possibility in
the field of good. So I've realized that talking about like this, and
on and on, I realized that talking is not too much important.
Creating the effect in the world - and now I am engaging creating the
effect in the world.
KING:
What you have to say is very important. One would hope that from now
on, we'll be hearing more of you.
MAHARISHI: People know enough good, but they're not able to do it
because the effect from outside - the influence from outside - his own
society, other countries, other cultures, even sun, moon, stars,
galaxies - influences, so many, many influences from all over the
world, make the mind of a man, make his intellect to decide this, and
this, and this. So, if people do what they know to be good, the
knowledge of good is enough in the world for them to be really happy
and really peaceful and really remarkably friendly and supportive to
everyone.
KING: Does it also improve you from a health standpoint? A physical
health standpoint?
MAHARISHI: Great amount of scientific research is there to show that
health is better, because Transcendental Meditation deals with
consciousness, and consciousness is the basic value of all the
physical expressions. The entire creation is the expression of
consciousness. So when we handle consciousness, through our
attention, the consciousness becomes awake, more awake, so more
healthy. So it seems this Transcendental Meditation has very good
effect on health. It's like the gardener watering the root of life
and supplying nourishment to all the leaves and all the branches and
everything.
KING: Let me get a break and come right back with Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi on this edition of Larry King Live - one of the great spiritual
leaders in the world. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His famous book of years
ago "Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation."
He's the founder of TM (Transcendental Meditation). There has been a
new release and a newly revised version of that historic book.
Everyone got to know the Maharishi when the Beatles went to visit
him. I, by the way, I send the best to you from Paul McCartney who I
saw last week and I told him I was going to be with you and he wanted
to wish you the best. We know that your good friends, George Harrison
and John Lennon, are gone. What do you believe happens upon death?
MAHARISHI: Death is just a - it gives a new start for a new, fresh
journey. In the process of evolution, the body lasts for some time and
then one takes other body and takes other body, one takes other body,
till the final redemption from diversity is transcended. The totality
is found. This is the potential of life, cosmic potential of life,
immortality in its field of - counting it in terms of time.
Immortality.
KING: Do we know what stage we're in?
MAHARISHI: Absolutely. From the vedic astrology point of view - vedic
astrology - the jyotishis calculate the whole of life from the past
and they calculate the whole of life in future. This is the field of
yagya. And when they find some wrong, negative influence, from sun,
moon, star or wherever, they make some yagya. Yagya is a name for a
vedic performance which can avert the danger. The vedic way of life
rests on "avert the danger that has not come". Prevention. It uses
the knowledge to prevent problems from coming on. The yagya system is
so powerful that those who get the yagyas done
by the vedic pundits, they find the obstacles don't have to be faced.
Sicknesses don't have to be faced. Wrong things don't have to faced.
One can be the master of one's own destiny if one follows the vedic
way of life, which is life according to natural law, which can prevent
disorders.
KING: What about, Maharishi, those who are the victims of evil, who
cannot determine their own life. They're in a building on September
11th and they're gone. They couldn't make any determination. TM
(Transcendental Meditation) didn't help them.
MAHARISHI:
Everyone has to go sometime or the other, and the basic principle
about going or surviving is that no one, now listen to me, no one is
responsible for giving any difficulty or any pleasure to anyone.
Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions,
karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of
peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions, are
responsible to come...to bring either happiness or success or
whatever.
KING: If someone treats me harshly, if someone shoots me or kills you
or harms a baby, how was the victim a participant in that, other than
being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
MAHARISHI: He is the carrier of my own influence. As you sow, so
shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind. As you sow, so
shall you reap. Sometime you may have killed that man, and then
sometime now he comes to kill you.
KING: Ah.
MAHARISHI: What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever
it comes - either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives
later, whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma. That is why
that philosophy, in every religion, killing is sin. Killing is sin in
every religion. Whosoever sins, whosoever kills, it doesn't matter -
it's a sin. And sin, in the will of God, is a punishable offense,
because when you sin, when you kill some man, what you are killing?
You are killing the cosmic potential within
the individual. Individual is cosmic. Individual potential of life
is cosmic potential. Individual is divine, deep inside.
Transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man. And when you
kill a man you deprive him of that birthright of his.
It is the right of everyone to rule the world, to dominate in whole
nature of the universe. Master of the universe is every man's
potential insight, cosmic potential. When you kill a man like that,
you deprive him from getting to his human right. It's a human
right...
KING: What a wonderful way to look at it.
MAHARISHI: ...to live divinity.
KING: Where, Maharishi, were you on September 11th?
MAHARISHI: I heard about it wherever I was, I don't remember now.
Because I don't look back in time. I have no time to look back. I
have always looked forward, forward, forward. And now I have come to
a level of creating a world free from problems. There have been
always wars. There have been always this, this - negativity, and all
this. Throughout world history! It's not one instance. It's not one
instance. So many Hitlers were born, so many Alexanders were born -
all those things. And so many will continue to be born on earth.
But, now I have come to create a situation in the world, through about
40,000 yogic flyers in the world, and vedic performers, performers of
yagyas, in the world. And I'm collecting them in India. And I invite
everyone to send their donations for this purpose which will deprive
the world of negative trends in life. I want to eliminate the basis
of problems, and basis of crimes, and basis of terrorism. That is my
message now.
KING: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is our guest on this edition of LARRY KING
LIVE.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of
Transcendental Meditation, the author of "Science of Being and Art of
Living" which explains Transcendental Meditation. That book, released
many years ago, has been newly revised and updated.
How do you deal personally with sadness. George Harrison just died.
I know he was a friend of yours. How do you deal when someone you
love or like is gone?
MAHARISHI: It's human nature to like those whom you like, and when
they go it's natural to be sad about them, but it is inevitable. It's
inevitable.
When I found Transcendental Meditation had done good for so many, so
many, that now I'm thinking of, for the last two, three years, I'm
thinking of nations as a whole. I want to make the destiny of every
nation to be free from problems, to be free from suffering, to be free
from sin. I'm establishing a government in the world which will
disallow the sprouting of negativity in any country, in any country.
Governments are a failure today. Absolutely every government is a
failure, because problems exist everywhere and every government is
sovereign. The word sovereign is a misnomer. Their sovereignty lies
in not able to give a problem-free administration to the people.
I'm establishing a problem-free administration on the basis of the
constitution of the universe. The constitution of the universe is
total natural law. Natural law, we say from the field of science.
Will of God, we say from the field of religion. It's the same thing.
Natural law administers the infinite diversity of the universe. And
I'm going to establish the government on the basis of this cosmic
constitution of the universe. Cosmic constitution is a stable
constitution.
Manmade constitution requires change every four years, five years.
Election of the people. The whole thing is a fraudulent thing.
Administration is a matter of expert intelligence.
KING:
But how ...
MAHARISHI: It shouldn't be exposed to voters on the street.
KING: How do you change a system of governments and nations and people
who are opposed to one another and presidents and kings and emperors
and dictators? How do you change that?
MAHARISHI: I'll be establishing groups of people practicing yogic
flying, and vedic pundits performing the yagyas, which will eliminate
the negative influence on life on earth.
This is how my plan is to improve the quality of life on the world by
minimizing the negative influences from the sun, moon, stars, and from
everywhere. So those groups we'll be establishing - we'll be
establishing groups in every country.
I have already this organization teaching TM (Transcendental
Meditation) in all the countries, and all the governments like it
because it helps a better quality of life. Only we have to
concentrate now with the help of each government because nobody, no
government wants chaos and problems and difficulties and crime in the
country. That is a very good thing.
But because every government is governed by man-made constitutions,
and man-made constitutions are full of human weaknesses and human
failings. That is why I'm adopting the constitution of the universe,
which is the will of God, high above everything. Merciful nature of
God, total value of natural law, which is profusely narrated and
detailed in the vedic literature, ancient vedic literature with all
this total knowledge of natural law and the programs to eliminate any
difficulty or problem that may be coming from anywhere. We don't
allow the problems. We create that shield - protect ourselves. That
is the vedic way of life.
KING: Do you believe in perfection?
MAHARISHI: I'm bringing perfection in life. It's not a matter of
belief. I have the positive program and the concrete program to
create perfection in life.
I want to create every government to be free from military. Military
is a defeatist feature of a government. Government is not able to
protect the nation and therefore they engage the people, give them
food that you will die for other people. The whole thing is absurd
and inhumane.
I want to create a global government, a global government. I have
created a country of global - global country of world peace. Where no
one would harm anyone, where no one would do any wrong to anyone. The
government will not need a military to protect itself because the
principle is that any military is a big sinner. And the sin must come
to the whole population.
KING: We'll take a break and come right back. The Maharishi's
movement has its own political party call the Natural Law Party. It's
in many, many countries. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
How can you be so optimistic based on all the things you see wrong in
the world?
MAHARISHI: Optimism comes from so many scientific researches to prove
that Transcendental Meditation, which I have taught for 40, 50 years
in the world, works to create a better man.
In Fairfield, we have that management university. And the professors
of the management university have found that the world is being
managed badly.
Governments are not competent to prevent problems, and therefore,
higher intelligence is needed to enrich and support the present
situation of every government.
Every government, as I said already, has a man-made constitution. And
man-made constitution has the value of human failings and human
weaknesses. That is why constitutions are there, and the government
is there, and the people are there, and the laws are there, but those
laws are futile. They are not able to prevent wrong.
The corruption has been there. All those - crime has been there
throughout the ages.
KING: What...
MAHARISHI: Punishment has been there by government throughout the
ages. But punishment, and fear of death - hanging them in the jails
and all that - that has been there, but crime continues. Therefore,
something else has to be done. And that something else I am going to
do from the level of the vedic wisdom of life, which proclaims man is
divine. Man is all-competent. Human potential is universal
potential, universal capability.
So the concept of government has to be raised to that merciful
fatherly treatment of the population by the governments.
KING:
Do you weep - do you cry when someone you love dies?
MAHARISHI: There is no reason to cry, because I know the - everyone
has to go on and on on the path of the progress, path of progress,
path of progress. There is nothing to cry about something. When the
sun sets in the end of the day, one doesn't cry for the sun. It's
happening, it's happening. The same sun that is setting is going to
rise again and again set and again rise and again set. So one knows
the progression of life.
Now I am working on the possibility of collective destiny of the
nation towards all good.
KING: What do you make of other modern conveniences? What do you make
of television? Cell phones?
MAHARISHI: I'm using the television to have my message reach the
people, and that is all.
KING: So you accept that progress goes on, and that we make progress
in things like prescription drugs. Life gets better. We extend
life. All that is good, is it not?
MAHARISHI: Right, right. Anything that is helpful to life, anything
that will save life from pains and suffering and all those
difficulties, that is - that is our intention, to have a better world
created.
And for that, I am now working from the administrative level. I'm
creating an ideal of administration where people will not make
mistakes. And when they don't make mistakes, they don't create the
reason for suffering for themselves.
So people should be safe from sinning, from killing each other, from
this. This is our teaching. "Help thy neighbor" is a very old axiom
of mankind. "Help thy neighbor."
KING: The Golden Rule - "do unto others as you would have them do unto
you" - is probably the only law you need. Every other law fits it.
Why has mankind never done - I mean, what you say makes sense, but
mankind has never done it, never.
MAHARISHI: If man is told he is divine, he is almighty, powerful, when
he is trained to have his thought come to materialization without much
effort, everyone would go for it. It's the education. It's the
education.
If a man is a criminal, that is the defective administration that he
has been raised in. That is the defective administration that he has
been raised in - it's a defective administration, cruel
administration, away from the real potential of life, which is, in the
will of God, evolution, evolution, evolution.
KING: What part in all of this, Maharishi, does money play? There
have been stories that you're the - you're - that you have started
what is a multibillion dollar business.
MAHARISHI: I lack only $1 billion to make a world, better world.
So, many months ago, I had publicized in the American papers that $1
billion endowment fund will raise enough - this vedic pundits to fly
about. We want to engage 40,000 people on a permanent basis, and they
will have enough intense influence of coherence in the world
consciousness. And anybody who wants to have peace, and everyone
wants to peace, they were invited to donate.
But I realized later that I was talking to the - this capitalist
country. And capitalist country, in their own fog, unless they get
something privately themselves, they'll not indulge into it. So money
has become prominent in a world of capitalism. That I realized when
nobody sponsored for world peace, and everybody wants world peace.
But they will not...
KING: Take part.
MAHARISHI: ...part with some of their huge billions and millions in
the bank. And so I said, all right.
KING: What is yogic flying?
MAHARISHI: Yogic flying is that level of creative intelligence in the
self-referral consciousness that will materialize the intention.
Whatever the intention, materialize the intention.
And what is this
thing? This is the same creative intelligence from natural law that
makes huge galactic universe float in the empty space. Every galaxy -
huge weight galaxy - they are all flying in empty space. What is
that? It is the creative intelligence at the level of pure
intelligence, when pure intelligence in its self-referral unified
state assumes the role of fluctuations of waves, like that, like that,
like that.
So the same law of nature is captured in the transcendental field of
one's consciousness. And then, with the thought that I should be in
the air, the body lifts up, body lifts up.
KING: Are you saying, then, that man is capable of every - that man
could fly if he had obtained this consciousness?
MAHARISHI: That has been proved - how many times - as many times as
people are flying. Four, five million people are flying in their
private values.
Now we want to have bigger groups. And bigger groups have been found
to create that worldwide influence. They influence the whole world
consciousness, towards positivity, towards harmony, towards higher
values of intelligence.
That is why we have the proof - we have enough proof in the vedic
literature and we have enough proof from the modern science that our
teaching has that influence which will create a better world, means a
positive world, a harmonious world. That is why we want to have a
global administration of natural law.
KING: Now, ...
MAHARISHI: We will not disturb the existing administration by man-made
laws in any country. We are creating of our government, which is
utilizing natural law, which we have from modern science and which we
have for effective vedic science. So we have enough ammunition to win
the race.
KING: How do they learn more about this? They could buy the book, and
the revised update of it. Is there someplace they can contact direct
to get more information?
MAHARISHI: I have hundreds of centers for teaching Transcendental
Meditation
everywhere.
KING: Do you believe in a god?
MAHARISHI: I believe in God. And I believe in the custody of God
vested in kings. And I'm very happy to have your name as King. Is it
King?
KING: I'm a King.
MAHARISHI: I want to establish a government in every country that will
support life in the country. This drama of four years, five years,
change the government, change the government, is only useful to the
foreign powers. They think democracy - I used to say "damn the
democracy", because it's not a stable government. It's only useful
for foreign powers. It's a bad thing for any nation to change the - a
man comes for four years. Now he is the president. And then he goes
to jail tomorrow - then he's there.
Such inadequacy in the field of administration must be create a very
chaotic population in every country. And that is the situation in the
world.
The whole field of education is very inadequate. It doesn't make the
human physiology totally function. The medicine - the field of
medicine - is very poisonous. It's full of inadequacies, and full of
those - what we call, all these negative things - the side effects of
modern medicine...
KING: Yeah, but...
MAHARISHI: ...huge. I have in my room - I have in my room the whole
height of a floor full of about 8,000 or 10,000 bad articles on modern
medicine. But, modern medicine continues, continues. Those who are
producing medicine, they are only producing because they get money.
It doesn't matter if people die or suffer from any more diseases.
And the governments support it. Your own government, in this, I was
hearing, is subject to so much of corruption.
All this is because life is not taught to the boys in the younger
age. Education is very, very inadequate.
The whole drama of science is a big fraud, everywhere. Hiroshima was
created in the name of science. Peace cannot be created in the name
of science. No. Hiroshima can be created. Afghanistan can be
created. And now Middle East can be created. This is science. The
whole thing is fraud. The whole field is sinful. And those who will
get into that come to that realization. Sin - killing is sin.
Whosoever kills, it is sin, and the sinner will go to hell.
KING: In our remaining moments with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, let's talk
about yourself. Do you have a family?
MAHARISHI: The world is my family, you know? I count them ...
KING: You have no children of your own?
MAHARISHI: That is what a family means - all the children of the
world.
KING: I know, but I'm just asking if you have children from your
loins.
MAHARISHI: I am a single person. I'm a Purusha. I'm a - what you
call it - Sanyasi, if you understand the word. I'm a monk, if you
understand it...
KING: You're a bachelor.
MAHARISHI: ...monks.
KING: Do you have special diets that you eat?
MAHARISHI: I think that diet that I eat, everyone eats the same thing
- some rice, some dhal, some japaties, something, vegetable. But I
like this organic. I recommend to people organic agriculture - vedic
organic agriculture. Huge amount of scientific research has shown
that with the vedic hymns, that with the vedic melodies, the nutrients
grow in the trees, very much in the fruits, in the crops, in the
vegetables. So that is why, what I am promoting in the world.
KING: How old are you?
MAHARISHI: I have almost forgotten when I was born. I was told
before. (LAUGHTER)
MAHARISHI: I never look back - in my habit I never looked back. I
never looked back.
KING: Are you in good health?
MAHARISHI: I am in fairly good health, yes, yes, fairly good health.
KING: Do you go to doctors?
MAHARISHI: The doctors come to me even before calling them. They like
to see me year after year, the same way, like that, like that.
But the main thing is not so important what I am. What is important
is my program for the world, that the world will be a better world.
It will be free from sins. Governments will be preventive
administrations in the world. That is important. I'm not important
for the world. I'm here for some time, gone. And everyone would
finish the whole story. But I have promoted a program which is
practical, positive, and simple for every individual...
KING: Where ...
MAHARISHI: ...and for every nation.
KING: ...where did you learn it?
MAHARISHI: I
learned it from my master. I address him as His Divinity, Swami
Brahmananda Saraswati, in the Himalayas in India. And that I hold to
be the tradition of vedic masters.
And that I came to teach in the world, and I felt successful results
on the individual, and now I am going to have a successful result on
the basis of nations - nations. National governments everywhere,
whatever they are now, I think they are groping in darkness. And I
have the lamp. I put the lamp, and the light from the lamp will
eliminate all their darknesses.
My nature is not to fight. I give the message. I give the
experience, and people take it, and more people take it.
And now, I'll have a government. I've created a government, and
created the head of this government - a great scientist, Dr. Nader
Raja Raam. He is M.D., Ph.D. He has researched in the human
physiology that the whole human physiology is the expression of the
underlying field of consciousness, the same way as physics has
discovered self-referral quantum field as the field of consciousness -
self-referral. On that basis of the realization or the discovery of
the ultimate field, I'm going to create a world of that pro-
fundity of perfection which belongs to the perfection of the
government of nature.
KING: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from Vlodrop, Holland. His book has been
newly revised and updated - the version of the original book of many
years ago - "Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental
Meditation."
Optimistic? You bet.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Good night.
