In 1973, he entered Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga Ashram and took training in bhastrika pranayama. Beverford instructed him in hatha yoga postures and third eye concentration techniques. In 1970, he met Author Beverford, who founded the Ken Zen Ichii Karate Association. His instructions are divulge through personal contact and by literary means. He began teaching kundalini yoga and meditation in 1973. His fame increased and his movement gained greater prominence when he became the 'spiritual adviser to the Beatles'. According to The Times, the Maharishi attracted skepticism because of his involvement with wealthy celebrities, his business acumen, and his love of luxury, including touring in a Rolls-Royce.Michael Beloved is an author wrote translations and commentaries to some Sanskrit literature. He appeared on American magazine covers such as Life, Newsweek, Time and many others. Maharishi toured cities in Europe, Asia, North America and India, and addressed 5,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was the first to popularize a discipline of meditation he called TM, Transcendental Meditation, insisting that it was not “Hindu,” but scientific and universal. Others came and settled into the American landscape, where their influence is still felt today.Īmong the first to arrive was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a student of the Shankaracharya of Jyoshimath in the Himalayas, who became the guru of the Beatles and started the Students International Meditation Society (SIMS) in 1965. Some came and went quickly, sometimes amidst controversy. In America, all had a chance to attract a following. In India, it is taken for granted that some gurus are more genuine representatives of their traditions of learning than others.

They challenged the conservative views on religion and society and promoted new age religions to the rebellious youth. Bell-bottoms, long hair, flowers, free love and psychedelic rock-became the symbol of cultural revolution of the 1960s.īecoming a swami or a guru is not a matter of academic degrees or book learning, but deep spiritual insight that must be confirmed by the authority of one’s own teacher. Many gurus came from India to America in these years. The term guru, or spiritual teacher, became a household word. In the late 1960s and 1970s, new streams of religious beliefs came to the United States.

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