Yogi Says He Can Save World For Just $1Billion

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from Reuters News Service, July 4, 2002, with a headline: “Beatles Guru seeks one billion dollars to save the world.”Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said on Wednesday in a July 4^th message to Americans nervous about new September 11^th style attacks that he could kill world terrorism with love, but he would need one billion dollars to do it.“July 4^th could be a great day for freedom,” Maharishi who brought transcendental meditation to the West more than forty years ago and is a spiritual inspiration to some six million people world-wide, said in a conference call from the Netherlands.Maharishi said that for one billion dollars he could train 40,000 expert meditators or Vedicpandits who would generate enough good vibes to save the world.His press office said that eighty-five million dollars toward that goal had already been raised.“I have confidence that India will be the lighthouse for total knowledge.From there this total knowledge will radiate in the whole family of nations.That would generate a powerful influence of peace that would spread throughout the whole world and neutralize the stress, the hatred, and tensions that fuel terrorism and war today.”The guru has largely shunned the public eye for the last twenty years, but is not determined to drum up support for his concept of natural law, the constitution of the universe.

Tom:

Dave, for a billion dollars we bring him out of seclusion, we could get him going here.On the other hand, what could we do for a billion?I mean do you have anything in mind here?

Dave:

This is very much like the spiritual warfare we’ve been talking about.

Tom:

Absolutely.

Dave:

He’s going to put out these good vibes.For anyone who has ever visited India, I mean this is pretty ludicrous.I don’t want to offend any Indians out there, people from India, but I think you would recognize for this being a “lighthouse of total knowledge”?No, for India, unfortunately it’s Hinduism that has made India what it is.India has great natural resources; they have a lot of brilliant people.In fact during the Y2K scare we were using a lot of Indian programmers; computer programmers to do the work that had to be done on some of the computers here in America and in the West.These people are bright.They have the resources to be—they could be a lighthouse, but Hinduism has darkened their minds.They worship rats and I’ve seen rats in India as big as a small dog and they can gnaw their way through concrete.But you wouldn’t want to kill them because it could be one of your ancestors.They have old-age retirement homes for cows believe it or not, but some cows have hunks cut out of them because—the major reason for not eating them is the law of the ahimsa, nonviolence, so you wouldn’t want to kill a cow, so you cut a hunk of meat out and leave it lie.Of course every time they boil the water for their tea, they are killing millions of microbes.

Tom:

Which could be somebody who has been transmigrated, or we understand the term reincarnated.Dave, let me interject this.I was in Chicago a couple of months ago and I stopped by a Hindu temple that was being built on the west side of Chicago.It was absolutely beautiful, hand carved and so on, and you saw cars coming up, they were late model cars, the people that got out were well dressed.Doctors, lawyers, you know they are carrying their cell phones and so on and I went into the temple with them and I was being shown around and there they were.You had idols right in front and these idols were just, the guide said yes, they were just stone, but the spirit is now in them so we dress the idols, we feed the idols and there you had people standing around who, as you said, doctors, scientists and so on—

Dave:

You’ve got Hanuman the monkey-god, you’ve got Ganesha—

Tom:

And right there he was.

Dave:

With the face of an elephant.They are doing exactly what Paul said in Romans chapter one, worshiping the creation instead of the Creator, bowing down to sticks and stones.Isaiah ridicules them.He says these idols have mouths, but they can’t talk; they can’t eat.They have eyes they can’t see; they have feet, they can’t walk, you have to carry them around and so forth and those who worship them are like them.Why are we saying this?Because what Maharishi teaches—transcendental meditation, TM, is yoga, it comes from Hinduism, it’s part of their ancient religion and it is a delusion and it doesn’t work.

Tom:

So he’s going to change things through a billion dollars by raising consciousness.How many times have we heard this?The idea behind it, I wonder if any of our listeners have seen a bumper sticker as they are driving along whether this would be in LA or anywhere else, “Visualize world peace”.Well how does that work?According to the person that has the bumper sticker?Many don’t know.But the idea is that there is a mind out there.It’s not a personal mind; it’s not a transcendent God, personal.It’s a mind that we through meditation or various techniques, visualization, we direct.We make these things come about.

Dave:

If enough people think snow, then it will snow.This is religious science all the mind science cults, Christian Science and so forth are part and parcel the same thing.It’s a delusion.It’s tragic and yet many celebrities have followed this idea and follow Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as their guru to this day. I notice that Maharishi has to have an umbrella over his head to keep the rain off.He still has to fly in a helicopter or an airplane, although he’s been claiming that he’s teaching to fly.They manage to bounce a few inches off the floor.They have a dome there in Iowa.

Tom:

What’s it cost to learn how to levitate?

Dave:

Quite a few thousand dollars.

Tom:

Nobody can get above six to eight inches.Nobody can get off that.

Dave:

Yes, even the Maharishi can’t do it.

Tom:

It’s not worth that kind of money.

Dave:

No, it’s a tragedy.The worst tragedy is Tom, it takes people away from the truth of God and the gospel.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

And they are following a delusion that only leads them astray.