http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23018484/

Guru who taught Beatles meditation died 'peacefully,' spokesman says
The Associated Press
updated 8:53 p.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 5, 2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles
who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, has died at his
home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said Tuesday. He was
thought to be 91 years old.

"He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.," 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."

Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind
control that Maharishi taught, called transcendental meditation,
gradually gained medical respectability.

He began teaching transcendental meditation in 1955 and brought the
technique 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.

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