By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS
Allahabad : Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s sprawling abode at Arail, a picture-postcard riverbank retreat on the banks of the Ganges, stayed awake for 24 hours since Sunday in vigil but the disciples were not tired – thanks to meditation.
The Maharishi’s mortal remains – cremated here in the afternoon – were kept in state for public viewing in one of the halls of the Maharishi Vidyapeeth, a Vedic school founded by the seer.
But none of the inhabitants of the Global Country of World Peace, including the Maharishi’s newly nominated successor Maharaja Ram or Tony Abu Nader, the 35 kings, each in charge of seven nations, and the 13-member global council of ministers, rued the fact. And neither did they look fatigued at the end of a long vigil.
Why? “We were in constant communion with the Guru Deva in transcendence. It kept us in high spirits,” said Paul Morehead, a teacher at the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, the US.
The Monday morning dawned bright and gay in Arail, where the capital of the seer’s World Peace Country has shifted temporarily. There was no let-up in daily rituals despite the hectic preparations and the Rudrabhishek or the process to purify the seer’s body was in progress since the wee hours.
Most of the ‘peace angels’, as the meditators like to call themselves, sat for their daily 20-minute Transcendental Meditation (TM) session, undisturbed by the loud Vedic chants. And emerged fresh as daisies. It was followed by another 20 minutes in the evening, the standard procedure.
“Come rain or shine, we cannot miss our sessions. TM cures fatigue and stress,” said Burcu Cenberci, a 31-year-old TM teacher from Turkey.
However, the gender divide, true to Vedic traditions, plays a major role in the rituals and the mores of the movement, and none of the women disciples attended the funeral, though they had turned up in full force for the preceding rites.
They stayed away from the crowd in a hall at the rear end of the ashram, guarded by women officials.