Maharishi Mahesh Yogi cremated

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may have been born in India but his real fame
and following as a meditation guru was in the West. The Maharishi's
ashes will be immersed in the Sangam after 20 days, but not before
small urns of his ashes are sent to each of his thousands of ashrams
around the world. His funeral, on the banks on Ganga in Allahabad, saw
his foreign following outnumbering Indians.

They were all there in their white robes, most of them middle-aged
followers of the Maharishi, who made headlines when the Beatles first
came to his ashram in Rishikesh in the year 1968.

When the last flavours of the hippie movement was pushing many in the
West to look towards alternative philosophies, with the Beatles as
brand ambassadors, the Maharishi's transcendental meditation became a
global mantra.

Through the 70s the Maharishi cult grew into what is today a
multi-billion dollar global empire, a cult that drew not only the
faithful but even foreign press.

Given Maharishi Yogi's global footprint, his successor is not an
Indian but a Lebanese follower Tony Nader, who now has been
rechristened as Maharaj Raja Ram.