“He died peacefully at about 7 pm,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that the Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.” He was thought to be 91 years old.

In January, the Maharishi retreated into silence at his home in the grounds of a former Franciscan monastery close to the German border, saying he wanted to dedicate his remaining days to studying the ancient Indian texts that underpin his movement. 

“He had been saying he had done what he set out to do,” Roth said.

Fifty years on, his followers claim the world is a better place because of the spread of Transcendental Meditation. Mahesh Yogi himself preferred to describe it as "the power of Om".

Among the first Indians to make it to the cover of Time magazine, he also embedded the Sanskrit word 'Om' into Western consciousness - to the extent that it is today synonymous with meditation.

Maharishi’s teachings promoted the chanting of mantras and introspection to help practitioners control their minds.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is widely regarded as the foremost scientist in the field of consciousness, and considered to be the greatest teacher in the world today. Maharishi has completely restored the thousands of years-old scattered Vedic Literature for the total significance of its theory and practice, and has organized it in the form of a complete science of consciousness.

Maharishi’s Vedic Science and Technology unfolds the full potential of Natural Law in human consciousness as the basis of improving all areas of life.

The Transcendental Meditation® program, the subjective technology of Maharishi’s Vedic Science and Technology, is the most widely practiced and extensively researched program of self-development in the world.

Maharishi is now establishing Maharishi Vedic Universities and Maharishi Vedic Schools throughout the world to offer mastery over Natural Law to every individual and to perpetuate life in accordance with Natural Law—perfection in every profession—and create Natural Law based problem-free government in every country—governments with the ability to prevent problems.

Mahesh Yogi was born in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, as Mahesh Prasad Varma and read mathematics and physics at Allahabad University, where he began to practise yoga with Swami Brahmananda Saraswati Maharaj - also known as Guru Deva. In April 1941, while Mahesh was still at university, Guru Deva - who belonged to the Advaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta tradition of philosophy - became the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath.

Mahesh, who was tutored in meditative techniques that are thought to lead to a non-dualistic state of mind, realised that some of these techniques could be used to beneficial effect outside the Advaita Vedanta tradition.

Two years after the death of his teacher in 1955, he travelled to Kerala, where he began to broadcast his message. A year later he launched a global Spiritual Regeneration Movement from Madras, now Chennai. It would be based upon the technique of Transcendental Meditation. He then embarked on a world tour with the mission to spread the message of peace.

Maharishi brought them to the United States in 1959. But the movement really took off after the Beatles visited his ashram in India in 1968, although he had a famous falling out with the rock stars when he discovered them using drugs at his Himalayan retreat.

Although some initially dismissed his movement as a counterculture fad, Transcendental Meditation gradually grew to be accepted, and even respected, in the mainstream.

With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi - a Hindi-language title for Great Seer - parlayed his interpretations of ancient scripture into a multimillion-dollar global empire. 

As a monument to Maharishi’s achievements and contributions to world peace and harmony, the leaders of his global movement resolved to build “Maharishi Towers of Invincibility” in 48 countries. Each Tower will include a high school or university where students will practise yogic flying together in groups to create coherence and invincibility for the nation.

For his home country, too, Maharishi bequeathed a vision. In his farewell message on January 11, he announced the establishment of the Brahmananda Saraswati Trust, named in honour of his master, the Shankaracharya from 1941-53 of Jyotirmath in the Himalayas. The trust is to support large groups totalling more than 30,000 peace-creating Vedic pandits in perpetuity across India.

“The trust will ensure the glorification of life on earth on a permanent basis, for the individual and the nation. For all millennia to come, the world is going to be a peaceful, happy world. The future is bright - and that is my delight,” Maharishi said.

After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned to larger themes, with grand designs to harness the power of group meditation to create world peace and to mobilize his devotees to banish poverty from the earth.

Since Transcendental Meditation and Krishna Consciousness both gained popularity among western seekers of the 1960s counterculture, the two movements were often confused or conflated. While they share certain general practices, such as the chanting of mantras, the two movements are at philosophical loggerheads: TM promotes an impersonal conception of divinity while the Hare Krishna movement represents the devotional monotheism of the Vaishnava tradition.

[This is a re-write with information available on internet.]