David & Earl Kaplan

Flying yogis and flying millions

Acolyte David Lynch isn’t happy with this exposé of Transcendental Meditation

He was the original guru pop star. Made famous by the Beatles in the 1960s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the godfather of the Transcendental Meditation movement, known as TM. He inspired such acolytes as author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker David Lynch, and remained TM’s figurehead until his death in 2008 at the age of 94. The Maharishi was once dubbed “the giggling guru.” But now it appears he may have been giggling all the way to the bank. David Wants to Fly (Facebook Page), a new documentary shown last week at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, offers compelling evidence that the Maharishi’s empire of enlightenment is more devoted to shaking down its followers and amassing wealth than transcending the material world.

The “David” of David Wants to Fly refers to the film’s director, a cheeky 32-year-old German named David Sieveking, and to the dubious feat of “yogic flying” or levitation. It could also refer to David Lynch, who has emerged as TM’s most prominent spokesman and is the prime target of Sieveking’s obsessive investigation. Sieveking embarked on his documentary as an avid Lynch fan dying to meet the genius behind Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. But by the time he’d completed his film, five years later, it had turned into an exposé. Sieveking told Maclean’s that Lynch threatened to sue him and tried to block the film’s Berlin premiere. No wonder. It depicts TM as a secretive hierarchy with overtones of Scientology, and portrays Lynch as its Tom Cruise.

Sieveking, who makes himself a character in the documentary—a neurotic man on a mission—is like a cross between a young Werner Herzog and a skinny Michael Moore. He first travels to America to interview Lynch as a star-struck fan, then becomes an eager student of TM. As his odyssey takes him from Manhattan to the headwaters of the Ganges, he never loses faith in the power of meditation, but he becomes deeply skeptical about TM’s well-heeled leadership.

He learns that its “rajas” pay $1 million for their exalted rank. At a groundbreaking ceremony for a TM university in Switzerland, we see Lynch introduce Raja Emanuel, TM’s “King of Germany,” who wears a gold crown and offers a provocative pledge: “I’m a good German who wants to make Germany invincible.” Jeers erupt from the crowd and a voice yells, “That’s what Adolf Hitler wanted!” Emanuel replies: “Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the right technique.” Trying to quell the catcalls, Lynch leaps to the raja’s defence, and hails him as “a great human being.”

Sieveking interviews several TM defectors, including Colorado publisher Earl Kaplan, who donated over US$150 million toward the construction of a vast meditation centre in India, where 24-7 shifts of 10,000 yogic flyers would create world peace. Visiting the project site, Sieveking finds an abandoned, half-built ghost town. And he shows footage of “yogic flying,” which looks more like cross-legged yogic hopping. We also meet the Maharishi’s former personal assistant, who says, “He’d use people and discard them when they ran out of money.” And although the guru preached celibacy, the ex-aide says one of his jobs was to bring women to the Maharishi’s room for sex. Another ex-disciple, Judith Bourque, reminisces about her torrid love affair with the Maharishi, which ended when he found another young woman.

Rumours of the guru’s sybaritic lifestyle have been rampant ever since the Beatles heard that he had hit on Mia Farrow in the late ’60s. His behaviour provoked John Lennon to write a derisive song called Maharishi, which George Harrison persuaded him to retitle Sexy Sadie (“What have you done? You made a fool of everyone”). The film shows Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr rallying to support TM at Lynch’s star-studded 2009 TM benefit. “John Lennon,” says Sieveking, “would be rolling in his grave.”

As for the analogy between TM and Scientology, the director acknowledges certain parallels, but considers TM less rigid—“you can’t be a moderate Scientologist.” Sieveking says he became paranoid after the German raja threatened to destroy his film career. Yet Lynch “is still a guru for me as a filmmaker,” he maintains, just not as a spiritual figure. “I wanted to be his friend. It’s tough for me, because now he sees me as an enemy.” But Sieveking may have found a new guru. Apparently Michael Moore, that documentary raja, is anxious to see his film.

[via MacLeans.ca]
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Heavenly Mountain’s developer cuts ties with group (Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina)

Monte Mitchell, Winston-Salem Journal: A developer of the more than 7,000 acre Heavenly Mountain resort in southeastern Watauga County says he is severing ties with the Transcendental Meditation movement and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The Maharishi Spiritual Center of America has separate campuses for men and women at Heavenly Mountain.

Hundreds of Transcendental Meditation practitioners meditate there in opulent surroundings.

David Kaplan used to be one of them, but he said in a letter dated last Friday and released this week that he was kicked out of the movement in 1999 after getting married.

That prompted him and his twin brother Earl Kaplan, the president of the Spiritual Center of America, to investigate the maharishi and the TM organization.

“Due to our findings, I can no longer support or be associated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, his ideas, his knowledge, or any of this organizations, in any way whatsoever,” he wrote.

Kaplan sent out two almost-identical letters, one to business associates of Heavenly Mountain and one to TM practitioners.

To both groups, he said he is not writing to share what he has learned about the maharishi.

“But I will say what I have found out is shocking, and because of what I have learned I feel very sorry for you,” he wrote to the TM practitioners.

Kaplan said he has donated tens of millions of dollars and practiced a form of TM for hours a day for 25 years.

In 1999, he got so sick he nearly died, he said. When he recovered, he voluntarily left the Purusha TM program for single men and got married.

“For that I was kicked out of the movement,” he wrote.

A phone message left yesterday at the Spiritual Center of America was not returned.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a former Hindu monk, drew from ancient Eastern techniques of meditation as he began the TM movement in 1958. He gained worldwide fame in the 1960s when the Beatles visited with him and practiced TM.

David Kaplan owns the biggest chunk of private property in Watauga County. He started Heavenly Mountain in 1993, putting in $8 million of his own money, the head accountant at the Spiritual Center said in a 1998 Winston-Salem Journal story.

All told, the Heavenly Mountain developers spent $60 million buying the property and developing the resort and spiritual center up to that point, the accountant said.

In addition to the 500-acre nonprofit Spiritual Center of America, Heavenly Mountain includes 1,000 acres of for-profit development of private lots and houses. About 30 houses have been built there so far.

Sales of lots and houses have helped pay for the Spiritual Center of America.

Heavenly Mountain includes an additional 5,800 acres. A championship golf course designed by Scott Miller is being developed on part of that property.

A spokeswoman for David Kaplan said that he did not wish to comment further right now but that he sees the development moving away from its spiritual roots.

During the past year, property owners have filed lawsuits against the Kaplans, saying that the changes violate the reasons they came there in the first place.

The Web site of the Maharishi Spiritual Center of America says that the center is creating a reality of the age-old dream of a mythical Shangri-la and a Garden of Eden, where life is ideal and perfection reigns supreme.

Practitioners of TM seek bliss and peace through levitation, or yogic flying, and through repeating a mantra in meditation aimed at creating a state of deep relaxation. That feeling of bliss is an unconditional happiness and joy that wells up spontaneously from within and begins to pervade every moment of the day, according to the Web site.

In May 2003, the N.C. Supreme Court reversed the N.C. Court of Appeals, and upheld a ruling by Watauga County tax officials that denied the Maharishi Spiritual Center of America tax-exempt status as an educational, scientific or charitable organization.

County tax administrators said that, if the lower court’s decision had stood, Watauga County would have had to return more than $1 million in taxes and interest the center paid for the tax years 1999 through 2002.

Original article no longer available…

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Future of Heavenly Mountain disputed (Watauga Democrat, North Carolina)

Jason Reagan, Watauga Democrat: The man who, along with his twin brother, owns most of the land at Heavenly Mountain Resort, has disavowed the spiritual movement that helped establish the retreat.

David Kaplan, who owns the largest privately-owned land tract in Watauga County, publicly repudiated the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement and its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in a letter released Tuesday to Heavenly Mountain residents and the public.

In the letter, Kaplan said he and his brother, Earl, investigated Maharishi and the TM movement closely, and subsequently could “no longer support or be associated with Maharishi, his ideas, his knowledge or any of his organizations in any way whatsoever.”

“I am not involved in the TM movement or in any of Maharishi organizations in any way and have nothing to do with his teaching,” he repeated in the letter.

Heavenly Mountain, located east of Boone overlooking the Triplett community, has been synonymous with Maharishi’s technique of meditation since its establishment in 1996.

The tract, mostly owned by David Kaplan, is divided into two areas. The Heavenly Mountain Resort is a for-profit venture that develops and markets homesites. Currently, about 30 homes are located in the development as well as a community center and meditation hall. A landowner, who asked not to be identified, said most landowners are TM practitioners.

Amid the 7,000-acre tract sits the non-profit Spiritual Center of America.

According to its Web site, the center “was established to bring fulfillment to the spiritual and material aspirations of all Americans through Maharishi Vedic Science and Technology” and is said to be a study of consciousness, based on classical Indian Vedic literature.

Split into two campuses for men and women, the center has provided a place for TM adherents to live and practice the technique. Although the center is not owned by the Kaplans, Earl Kaplan is listed as its board chairman and president. Currently, the center still houses TM adherents and is presumably still teaching TM classes (the center’s Web site actively advocates TM classes and Maharishi’s teachings).

The center’s attempt to garner tax-exempt status as an educational institution failed before the N.C. Supreme Court in May 2003. The center had sought county tax exemption since 1997 on property valued at more than $6 million.

The Kaplan brothers initially bought 1,100 acres of forest and farm land, eventually buying a total of 7,000 acres. Developers later sold some of the land as homesites and several TM practitioners bought lots. Currently, 5,800 acres are undeveloped.

After reading Kaplan’s letter, a group of Heavenly Mountain homeowners issued an e-mail statement emphasizing their continued support and practice of the technique.

“It is important to remember that the benefits of the TM program have been published in hundreds of studies reported in major medical journals all over the world. What has brought people here is the opportunity to practice those programs and to participate in a development which is dedicated to peace, harmony, and personal development.”

“Each family has made a large investment in the community here and feels the promises made to them should be honored, namely, that this would be a permanent home for the TM programs and knowledge. We expect to get what we paid for,” the statement continued. Last fall, dozens of Heavenly Mountain residents sued David Kaplan, claiming the developer breached his fiduciary duty and required potential land buyers to donate to the TM movement “as a condition to building a home in Heavenly Mountain.”

The suit accuses Kaplan of “endangering the tax status of the center and thereby acting contrary to its well-being by causing it to engage in private benefit transactions,” in alleged violation of the federal tax code.

The property owners asked the court to appoint a receiver for the center and require an “accounting of all funds contributed directly or indirectly to the Spiritual Center, including loan guarantees and contributions that the individual defendants caused to be made.”

Superior Judge Ronald K. Payne heard a motion to dismiss the case in March and has taken the motion under advisement with no date set for a hearing.

Kaplan sees the development eventually moving away from its spiritual roots.

“I hope Heavenly Mountain becomes a normal development not a TM development,” Kaplan said in a phone interview Tuesday, adding he plans to develop a Scott Miller-designed championship golf course on his property.

What is TM?

Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation define TM as a technique that aids relaxation, relieves stress and provides physical and mental energy.

Indian mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made headlines in the 1960s after teaching The Beatles meditation techniques.

His association with the group helped popularize TM. By the early 1970s, meditation centers had spread across the globe.

Bob Roth, a spokesman for the movement, said there are an estimated 5 million people who have practiced TM.

Original article no longer available…

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