Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has died. The world-known guru of transcendental meditation, or TM, died Tuesday at his home in the Netherlands at the age of 91.

The medias immediate reference for him was that he was the Beatles guru and the man who introduced TM to the West. He was a pioneer in insisting that meditation relieves stress, lowers blood pressure, improves concentration and can even bring peace to the world.

Those old enough to remember the Beatles fuss may recall the infatuation that Paul, John, George and Ringo had for the yogi at the same time their singing and recording career was soaring. With the Summer of Love of 1967, the Beatles attended Maharishis workshop that August in Wales and it profoundly resonated with them as they looked for ways of capturing the euphoria of that summer in their prolific music writing.

The foursome took up an invitation to stay at the Maharishis compound in India in February 1968 and learn more about TM. TV cameras caught the scene at the retreat a the foot of the Himalayas the Beatles in white gowns and leis. The yogi immediately won world fame. Then came reports that there was a rift between the Beatles and the Maharashi over some reputed advances the holy man had made toward actress Mia Farrow, who had come along. But years later, people who who had been there said the fallout was due to the holy mans objections to the singers using drugs.

As a native Iowan, I recall how small Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, became badly mismanaged in a rapid-growth program in the 1960s, leading to its accreditation being revoked in 1972 and it closing its doors in its 99th year in 1973. The next year, Maharishi came along and bought the campus, then turned it into Maharishi International University.

Now it is known as Maharishi University of International Management. In 1990, the old campus was bulldozed and out of it rose Maharishi Vedic City, a place in harmony with creation, where some 200 live.

TM teaching would spread across the world, and the Maharishi repeatedly organized massive group meditations so that group energy would intervene in crises. At a satellite press conference a few years ago, Maharishi Yogi answered a question I posed to him from the TM center in Phoenix.

Reportedly born Jan. 12, 1917, in India (he would never confirm it), the yogi studied physics at a university and became secretary to a Hindu holy man. With good timing, he came forth to the U.S. in 1959. He was poised to make an impact in the 1960s when college campuses were tuned in for new forms of enlightenment and the American counterculture touted truth from Eastern sources.

The eye-catching man, with a long white beard, bushy and flowing gray hair and white robes, came across as a new thinker and emissary of peace. In his lifetime he formulated the Master Plan to Create Heaven on Earth, intended for the reconstruction of the whole world, inner and outer, according to the TM Web site (www.tm.org). He established his Vedic universities around the world to offer mastery over natural law on every level of level of education perfection in every profession.

And who can forget the famous yogic flyers? They first gathered in Fairfield in 1984 and determined for themselves that people wouldlevitate above theground in validation of Maharishis prediction that when the square root of 1 percent of the worlds population practices the TM-Sidhi program, including yogic flying, together in one place, positive trends increase and negative tendencies decrease throughout the whole world.

Among his prolific statements for humankind: We are not satisfied with peace alone. There has to be prosperity, there has to be affluence, there has to be fulfillment in life; not just peace.”

“Adopt the standard of perfection, because it is a perfect universe.

“Attend to your own inner health and happiness. Happiness radiates like the fragrance of a flower and draws all good things towards you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others.

“The experience of happiness is a direct means of replenishing life energy and revitalizing the mind.

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