Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation movement has for decades attempted to recruit medical doctors and scientists, primarily in the 1970's. Some of those people, after having been trained as TM teachers, have had positions in universities and medical institutions where they worked, with occasional success, to legitimize TM as some sort of beneficial therapy or medically valid intervention for a variety of ailments. Most recently, the David Lynch Foundation, the TM promoting organization founded by the late film director, has claimed that TM is a remedy for post traumatic stress disorder, selling the program to veterans and healthcare professionals and gaining some access to both the US military and to a few hospitals and universities. Scientific evidence for any of these claims is scarce to none, and what exists was largely authored by many of those same individuals.
What is not generally known is that the founder of Transcendental Meditation was militantly opposed to contemporary medicine and healthcare as it is generally practiced. His organizations offered "
Maharishi Ayurveda" products and services, repackaging the traditional methods and remedies of India under his own brand name and
trying, and largely failing, to obtain scientific evidence to support their claimed effectiveness.
In the late 1990s, as Maharishi's health failed, a number of publications apparently written by or dictated by him were issued by the movement's "
Maharishi International University," which for a while was known as "
Maharishi University of Management." An over 500 page volume, "
Ideal India," which carries a 2001 copyright date, is a lengthy, detailed exposition of what Maharishi thought would be necessary to create a fully "Vedic" India, another example of his strategy to integrate fundamentalist Hindu/Vedic practices and doctrine, under the rubric of Transcendental Meditation practice, into government at every level in every country.
Buried in those pages is a "Resolution" which proposes to "to Ban Allopathic Medicine and Replace It with Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System." It begins with 74 "Whereas" assertions which serve to demonize modern medicine, mislabeled as "allopathic" and as a cause of disease and death. ("Allopathic" is
a term originated by homeopaths in the early 1800s, and is now generally used by various quacks in much the same adversarial fashion as Maharishi used it here to describe contemporary conventional medicine.) His rants primarily centered on the alleged harmful side effects of pharmaceuticals and medical procedures, which, ironically, had at one point saved Maharishi's own life,
according to his former protege, Deepak Chopra. The obvious fact that's never mentioned by the proponents of Transcendental Meditation, and of all the rest of their supposedly beneficial products, is that the founder of that practice and their movement had actively called for the elimination of all other forms of healthcare other than his own brand of traditional Indian medicine. Likely this may already be known to some of them, as I think it would have been impossible to be deeply involved with TM and not notice the obvious, adversarial relationship between Maharishi's extremist, "try to take over the world" objectives and its otherwise supposedly benign, liberal, low-key approach to TM sales and recruitment. But these aspects of Maharishi's plans were quite obvious, if one had access to these books and read through the hundreds of pages of often incomprehensible gibberish, a small portion of which I have reproduced here for discussion and criticism.
I'll summarize the insanity of the "resolution" points in plain English:
75: Ban contemporary science and medicine in healthcare and replace it with Maharishi-branded potions and quackery.
76: India's parliament must comply with this demand.
77: India's healthcare institutions must immediately comply.
78: India must comply without stopping to consider this lunacy through a "commission" or other similar process.
79: All national budgeting for healthcare must be redirected to Maharishi's products.
80: Maharishi's institutions will be tasked with retraining all healthcare providers.
81: All medical colleges and hospitals must be completely demolished and rebuilt to Maharishi's ridiculous supposedly Vedic, precisely East-facing entrance standards. (This repeats the political platform of his short-lived Indian political party, that called for all government buildings in the country to be immediately demolished and rebuilt - in six months!)
82: Maharishi's health care system must be dominant and must vanquish any other form of health care.
83: Legal registration requirements for this endeavor must be completed.
84: India's example, killing off effective healthcare and promoting traditionally ineffective quackery instead, will serve as an example for the rest of the world.
Also evident from the preceding points (which I have omitted and have only reproduced the section headings here) is that Maharishi's rhetoric often reflects decades old anti-British grievances of his generation, and a need to wipe out remaining British influences in India. This is obvious when he writes that "First Free Government of India [was] Handed a Pot of Poison by the British."
Some may counter that Maharishi's anti-medical views were only directed at India, but as was always true about anything he ever did, point #84 makes it clear that he considered whatever he wanted India to do for him would be an example for the rest of the world.
Resolution
by Maharishi Vedic Medical Council
to Ban Allopathic Medicine
and Replace It with Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System
11 February 1997 — Vasant Panchmi
The Hazards of Allopathic Medicine
(points 1-4 omitted here)
Allopathic Medicine Focuses on the Parts, Not the Whole
(points 5-9 omitted here)
The Hazards of Allopathic Medicine Proven by Scientific Research
(points 10-11 omitted here)
Allopathic Medicine Sows the Seeds of Future Illness and Surgeries
(points 12-15 omitted here)
Delusiveness of Research on Allopathic Medicine
(point 16 omitted here)
Medical Colleges Training Illness Providers
(points 17-18 omitted here)
95% of the Health Budget Goes to Allopathic Medicine
(points 19-21 omitted here)
The Law Established Allopathic Medicine before Hazards Were Known
(point 22 omitted here)
First Free Government of India Handed a Pot of Poison by the British
(points 23-26 omitted here)
Parliament Should Reject Allopathy
(point 27 omitted here)
All Other Systems Also in an Unfortunate Situation in India Today
(points 28-34 omitted here)
The Urgency of This Resolution
(points 35-36 omitted here)
We Are Objecting to the Total System of Allopathic Medicine
(points 37-39 omitted here)
We Condemn the Whole of Allopathic Medicine and Its Parts
(point 40 omitted here)
Western Governments Have No Alternative But India Has Its Own Health-Care System—Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System
(points 41-43 omitted here)
Discovery of the Total Intelligence of Natural Law at the Basis of the Physiology
(points 44-47 omitted here)
Creating Perfect Health by Handling that which Handles the Body—Its Own Inner Intelligence
(points 48-49 omitted here)
Missing Elements in the Prevailing Health-Care System
(points 50-52 omitted here)
Scientific Research Verifies the Benefits of Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System
(points 53-55 omitted here)
The Importance of Pulse Diagnosis
(points 56-60 omitted here)
Corruption and All Other Problems in National Life Are Also Indications of the 111 Health of the Nation
(points 61-65 omitted here)
Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System Offers Rashtnya Kavach ["a national armour of invincibility and self-sufficiency"]
(points 66-74 omitted here)
Resolutions
75. RESOLVED, that the allopathic system of health care, which is health damaging, be immediately banned and replaced by Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System, which is health-promoting — so that the incomplete health-care system that has been prevailing becomes complete; and be it further
76. RESOLVED, that the Parliament of India immediately repeal all laws that established allopathic medicine as the law of India; and be it further
77. RESOLVED, that those in a position of leadership in the field of health care, including the Union Health Minister, the Health Ministers of each State, the President of the Indian Medical Association, and the Medical Council of India, should be ordered by Parliament to plunge into action to replace the existing medical system with Maharishi’s Perfect Vedic Health-Care System without wasting time; and be it further
78. RESOLVED, that the health authorities be adjured not to give this responsibility to a commission or committee, which will only lead to delays and an unnecessary continuation of ill health and suffering in national life; and be it further
79. RESOLVED, that the budget now given to allopathic medicine be given to Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System, so that the national health-care budget is primarily used to promote that system which handles the well-being of the physiology from the inner intelligence of the body itself; and be it further
80. RESOLVED, that Maharishi Vedic University be requested to retrain all health professionals who are busy providing health care through any system in Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System; and that the curriculum of all medical colleges be amended to provide knowledge of all these values of Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System, and to eliminate the allopathic medical training, which inevitably leads to the creation of new sickness through medical treatment; and be it further
81. RESOLVED, that all the medical colleges and hospitals be rebuilt according to Maharishi Sthapatya Veda [Maharishi's own version of Vedic Architecture], so that they are auspicious and nourishing for the health and fortune of all who study and are treated there; and that the existing medical colleges be demolished since they are constructed according to the British-brand of building, which is sickness-promoting; and be it further
82. RESOLVED, that the Maharishi Vedic Medical Council forthwith take all other necessary steps to stop the dominance of health-damaging allopathic medicine, and to request the government in every way to bring perfect health to the people of India through implementation of Maharishi’s Vedic Health-Care System; and be it further
83. RESOLVED, that the Maharishi Vedic Medical Council be registered under the Indian Societies Registration Act and that the Secretary-General be empowered to complete the legal formalities for this registration and establish chapters at the state, district, and panchayat levels; and be it finally
84. RESOLVED, that through the above resolutions, to take decisive action to create a healthy present and ensure a healthy future for all of India; that India — the Land of the Veda — become the guiding light for the perfect health of all countries of the world.
Jai Guru Dev
Signed This Eleventh Day of February
Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Seven—Vasant Panchami
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