Below is an accurated transcript of Larry King's interview with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 12 May 2002 (errors contained in the original transcript provided by CNN have been corrected). This corrected version was provided by Michael Dean Goodman, Director, The Relationship Institute, Burtonsville MD

***** FINAL VERSION: ACCURATE TRANSCRIPT OF MAHARISHI'S INTERVIEW *****

CNN - LARRY KING WEEKEND
Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Aired 12 May 2002 - 9-10 p.m. EST

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, exclusive. He was the Beatles' spiritual
guru and
he turned the world on to Transcendental Meditation. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi
gives his first TV interview in 25 years. Next, on LARRY KING
WEEKEND.

It's a great pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE, from Vlodrop,
Holland,
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

He is the author of the famous book, "Science of Being and Art of
Living:
Transcendental Meditation." He has not done an interview in 25 years.
The
book has been newly revised and updated, and it's an honor to welcome
him to
this program.

Is "Maharishi" a title or a name?

MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI, SPIRITUAL GURU AND AUTHOR: Title. I think
people be-
gin to call - significant of the characteristic of the word
"Maharishi".
"Maha" means great and "rishi" is a seer. The seer of reality. The
seer,
that's what people called, and it became a sort of name.

KING: What is Transcendental Meditation?

MAHARISHI: Transcendental Meditation is something that can be defined
as a
means to do what one wants to do in a better way, in a right way, for
maximum
results. It's a program that the mind begins to experience its own
finer
impressions, finer thoughts, and then finally transcends the finest
thought
and gets to the level of what they call self-referral pure
consciousness,
which is the ultimate reality of life, pure intelligence, from where
the
creation emerges, from where the administration of life is
maintained, from
where physical expression of the universe has its basis.

So Transcendental Meditation brings about transcendental
consciousness,
which
is self-referral consciousness, the source of all intelligence.

KING: Why ...

MAHARISHI: It's on that level that intelligence becomes creative
intelli-
gence.

KING: Why does it sound so hard to learn?

MAHARISHI: I've been teaching Transcendental Meditation for 40, 50
years in
the world, and everyone who has learned it knows how simple it is,
how easy
it is, because one's own consciousness cannot be difficult to anyone.
It's
one's own life. It's one's own intelligence. It's nothing difficult
at all.

KING: Is there a major first step to take? Supposing I want to learn
this
completely. What's the first thing, other than getting the re-release
of
your book, the first thing I should do?

MAHARISHI: Intend to have a better life. Just intention to have a
more suc-
cessful life. Think better. Create better influence for others and
for one-
self. Just the desire to be a better man, that's all.

KING: So we begin with the desire, which sounds very nice, but does
this re-
quire a change of personality?

MAHARISHI: Change of personality will be for good as a result of it.
But the
intention is, wherever one is, one makes a plunge into the
transcendent,
that's all. There is nothing difficult. There is nothing complicated.
Only, one has to have a desire to have a better quality of life. And
for
that, one has so much of scientific research now. Hundreds of
scientific
researches, volumes full of volumes there are.

And that you have mentioned, that book, "Science of Being and Art of
Living,"
that was the first book that I wrote about 40 years ago. And now,
dozens of
books are there, hundreds of books, thousands of these videotapes are
there
for the world.

KING: Why have you been quiet for some time now? Why have you not -
have we
not seen you much?

MAHARISHI: No, I was not quiet! Only, I got into creating the effect.
I was
teaching Transcendental Meditation for 30, 40 years, but I found that
the
world is not yet to the extent of possibility in the field of good.
So I've
realized that talking about like this, and on and on, I realized that
talking
is not too much important. Creating the effect in the world...and now
I am
engaged in creating the effect in the world.

KING: What you have to say is very important. One would hope that
from now
on, we'll be hearing more of you.

MAHARISHI: People know enough good, but they're not able to do it
because
the
effect from outside - the influence from outside - his own society,
other
countries, other cultures, even sun, moon, stars, galaxies -
influences, so
many, many influences from all over the world, make the mind of a
man, make
his intellect to decide this, and this, and this. So, if people do
what they
know to be good, the knowledge of good is enough in the world for
them to be
really happy and really peaceful and really remarkably friendly and
suppor-
tive to everyone.

KING: Does it also improve you from a health standpoint, a physical
health
standpoint?

MAHARISHI: Great amount of scientific research is there to show that
health
is better, because Transcendental Meditation deals with
consciousness, and
consciousness is the basic value of all the physical expressions. The
entire
creation is the expression of consciousness. So when we handle
conscious-
ness, through our attention, the consciousness becomes awake, more
awake, so
more healthy.

So it seems this Transcendental Meditation has very good effect on
health.
It's like the gardener watering the root of life and supplying
nourishment
to
all the leaves and all the branches and everything.

KING: Let me get a break and come right back with Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi on
this edition of LARRY KING LIVE - one of the great spiritual leaders
in the
world. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His famous book of years
ago,
"Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation." He's
the
founder of TM [Transcendental Meditation]. There has been a new
release and
a newly revised version of that historic book.

Everyone got to know the Maharishi when the Beatles went to visit
him. I, by
the way, Maharishi, I send the best to you from Paul McCartney who I
saw
last
week, who - and I told him I was going to be with you and he wanted
to wish
you the best. We know that your good friends, George Harrison and
John Len-
non, are gone. What do you believe happens upon death?

MAHARISHI: Death is just a - it gives a new start for a new, fresh
journey.
In the process of evolution, the body lasts for some time and then
one takes
other body and takes other body, one takes other body, till the final
re-
demption from diversity is transcended. The totality is found. This
is the
potential of life, cosmic potential of life, immortality in its field
of -
counting it in terms of time. Immortality.

KING: Do we know what stage we're in?

MAHARISHI: Absolutely. From the Vedic astrology point of view - Vedic
as-
trology - the jyotishis calculate the whole of life from the past and
they
calculate the whole of life in future. This is the field of yagya.
And when
they find some wrong, negative influence from sun, moon, star or
wherever,
they make some yagyas. Yagya is a name for a Vedic performance which
can
avert the danger. The Vedic way of life rests on "avert the danger
that has
not come". Prevention. It uses the knowledge to prevent problems from
com-
ing on.

The yagya system is so powerful that those who get the yagyas done by
the
Vedic pundits, they find the obstacles don't have to be faced.
Sicknesses
don't have to be faced. Wrong things don't have to faced. One can be
the
master of one's own destiny if one follows the Vedic way of life,
which is
life according to natural law, which can prevent disorders.

KING: What about, Maharishi, those who are the victims of evil, who
cannot
determine their own life. They're in a building on September 11th and
they're gone. They couldn't make any determination. TM
[Transcendental
Meditation] didn't help them.

MAHARISHI: Everyone has to go sometime or the other, and the basic
principle
about going or surviving is that no one - now, listen to me! - no one
is re-
sponsible for giving any difficulty or any pleasure to anyone.
Problems or
successes, they all are the results of our own actions, karma. The
philoso-
phy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness.
One's
own karma, one's own actions, are responsible to come - to bring
either hap-
piness or success or whatever.

KING: If someone treats me harshly, if someone shoots me or kills you
or
harms a baby, how was the victim a participant in that, other than
being in
the wrong place at the wrong time?

MAHARISHI: He is the carrier of my own influence. "As you sow, so
shall you
reap" is a very old proverb of mankind. "As you sow, so shall you
reap."
Sometime you may have killed that man, and then sometime now he comes
to
kill
you.

KING: Ah.

MAHARISHI: What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever
it
comes - either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives
later,
whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma. That is why that
philoso-
phy, in every religion, killing is sin. Killing is sin in every
religion.
Whosoever sins, whosoever kills, it doesn't matter - it's a sin.

KING: Right.

MAHARISHI: And sin, in the will of God, is a punishable offense,
because
when
you sin, when you kill some man, what you are killing? You are
killing the
cosmic potential within the individual. Individual is cosmic.
Individual
potential of life is cosmic potential. Individual is divine, deep
inside.
Transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man. And when you
kill a
man you deprive him of that birthright of his.

It is the right of everyone to rule the world, to dominate in whole
nature
of
the universe. Master of the universe is every man's potential
insight, cos-
mic potential. When you kill a man like that, you deprive him from
getting
to his human right. It's a human right...

KING: What a wonderful way to look at it.

MAHARISHI: ...to live divinity.

KING: Where, Maharishi, were you on September 11th?

MAHARISHI: I heard about it wherever I was, I don't remember now.
Because I
don't look back in time. I have no time to look back. I have always
looked
forward, forward, forward.

And now I have come to a level of creating a world free from
problems. There
have been always wars. There have been always this, this -
negativity, and
all this. Throughout world history! It's not one instance. It's not
one
instance. So many Hitlers were born, so many Alexanders were born -
all
those things. And so many will continue to be born on earth. But, now
I
have come to create a situation in the world, through about 40,000
Yogic
Flyers in the world, and Vedic performers, performers of yagyas, in
the
world. And I'm collecting them in India.

And I invite everyone to send their donations for this purpose which
will
deprive the world of negative trends in life. I want to eliminate the
basis
of problems, and basis of crimes, and basis of terrorism. That is my
message
now, now.

KING: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is our guest on this edition of LARRY
KING LIVE.
We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of
Transcendental
Meditation, the author of "Science of Being and Art of Living," which
ex-
plains Transcendental Meditation. That book, released many years ago,
has
been newly revised and updated.

How do you deal personally with sadness. George Harrison just died. I
know
he was a friend of yours. How do you deal when someone you love or
like is
gone?

MAHARISHI: It's human nature to like those whom you like. And when
they go
it's natural to be sad about them, but it is inevitable. It's
inevitable.

When I found Transcendental Meditation had done good for so many, so
many,
that now I'm thinking of, for the last two, three years, I'm thinking
of na-
tions as a whole. I want to make the destiny of every nation to be
free from
problems, to be free from suffering, to be free from sin.

I'm establishing a government in the world which will disallow the
sprouting
of negativity in any country, in any country.

Governments are a failure today. Absolutely every government is a
failure,
because problems exist everywhere and every government is sovereign.
The
word "sovereign" is a misnomer. Their sovereignty lies in - not able
to give
a problem-free administration to the people.

I'm establishing a problem-free administration on the basis of the
Constitu-
tion of the Universe. The Constitution of the Universe is total
natural law.
Natural law, we say from the field of science. Will of God, we say
from the
field of religion. It's the same thing. Natural law administers the
infi-
nite diversity of the universe. And I'm going to establish the
government on
the basis of this Cosmic Constitution of the Universe. Cosmic
Constitution
is a stable constitution.

Man-made constitution requires change every four years, five years.
Election
of the people. The whole thing is a fraudulent thing.

Administration is a matter of expert intelligence.

KING: But how...

MAHARISHI: It shouldn't be exposed to voters on the street.

KING: How do you change a system of governments and nations and
people who
are opposed to one another and presidents and kings and emperors and
dicta-
tors? How do you change that?

MAHARISHI: I'll be establishing groups of people practicing Yogic
Flying,
and
Vedic pundits performing the yagyas, which will eliminate the
negative in-
fluence on life on earth.

This is how my plan is to improve the quality of life on the world by
mini-
mizing the negative influences from the sun, moon, stars, and from
every-
where. So those groups we'll be establishing - we'll be establishing
groups
in every country.

I have already this other organization teaching TM [Transcendental
Medita-
tion] in all the countries, and all the governments like it because
it helps
a better quality of life. Only we have to concentrate now, with the
help of
each government, because nobody, no government wants chaos and
problems and
difficulties and crime in the country. That is a very good thing.

But because every government is governed by man-made constitutions,
and man-
made constitutions are full of human weaknesses and human failings,
that is
why I'm adopting the Constitution of the Universe, which is the will
of God,
high above everything. Merciful nature of God, total value of natural
law,
which is profusely narrated and detailed in the Vedic literature,
ancient
Vedic literature, with all this total knowledge of natural law and
the pro-
grams to eliminate any difficulty or problem that may be coming from
any-
where. We don't allow the problems. We create that shield, protect
our-
selves. That is the Vedic way of life.

KING: Do you believe in perfection?

MAHARISHI: I'm bringing perfection in life. It's not a matter of
belief. I
have the positive program and the concrete program to create
perfection in
life.

I want to create every government to be free from military. Military
is a
defeatist feature of a government. Government is not able to protect
the
nation, and therefore they engage the people, give them food that you
will
die for other people. The whole thing is absurd and inhuman.

I want to create a global government, a global government. I have
created a
country of global - Global Country of World Peace, where no one would
harm
anyone, where no one would do any wrong to anyone. The government
will not
need a military to protect itself because the principle is that any
military
is a big sinner. And the sin must come to every - to the whole
population.

KING: We'll take a break and come right back. The Maharishi's
movement has
its own political party called the Natural Law Party. It's in many,
many
countries. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

How can you be so optimistic, based on all the things you see wrong
in the
world?

MAHARISHI: Optimism comes from so many scientific researches to prove
that
Transcendental Meditation, which I have taught for 40, 50 years in
the
world,
works to create a better man.

In Fairfield [Iowa], we have that management university [Maharishi
University
of Management]. And the professors of the management university have
found
that the world is being managed badly. Governments are not competent
to pre-
vent problems, and therefore, higher intelligence is needed to enrich
and
support the present situation of every government.

Every government, as I said already, has a man-made constitution. And
man-
made constitution has the value of human failings and human
weaknesses. That
is why constitutions are there, and the government is there, and the
people
are there, and the laws are there. But those laws are futile. They
are not
able to prevent wrong.

The corruption has been there. All those - crime has been there
throughout
the ages.

KING: What...

MAHARISHI: Punishment has been there by government throughout the
ages. But
punishment, and fear of death - hanging them in the jails and all
that -
that
has been there, but crime continues.

Therefore, something else has to be done. And that something else I
am going
to do from the level of the Vedic wisdom of life, which proclaims man
is di-
vine. Man is all-competent. Human potential is universal potential,
univer-
sal capability.

So the concept of government has to be raised to that merciful
fatherly
treatment of the population by the governments.

KING: Do you weep - do you cry when someone you love dies?

MAHARISHI: There is no reason to cry, because I know the - everyone
has to
go
on and on on the path of the progress, path of progress, path of
progress.
There is nothing to cry about something. When the sun sets in the end
of the
day, one doesn't cry for the sun. It's happening, it's happening. The
same
sun that is setting is going to rise again, and again set, and again
rise,
and again set. So one knows the progression of life.

Now I am working on the possibility of collective destiny of the
nation to-
wards all good.

KING: What do you make of other modern conveniences? What do you make
of
television? Cell phones?
MAHARISHI: I'm using the television to have my message reach the
people, and
that is all.

KING: So you accept that progress goes on, and that we make progress
in
things like prescription drugs. Life gets better. We extend life. All
that
is good, is it not?

MAHARISHI: Right, right. Anything that is helpful to life, anything
that
will save life from pains and suffering and all those difficulties,
that
is -
that is our intention, to have a better world created.

And for that, I am now working from the administrative level. I'm
creating
an ideal of administration where people will not make mistakes. And
when
they don't make mistakes, they don't create the reason for suffering
for
themselves.

So people should be safe from sinning, from killing each other, from
this.
This is our teaching. "Help thy neighbor" is a very old axiom of
mankind.
"Help thy neighbor."

KING: The Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have them do
unto
you" -
is probably the only law you need. Every other law fits it. Why has
mankind
never done - I mean, what you say makes sense, but mankind has never
done
it,
never!

MAHARISHI: If man is told he is divine, he is almighty, powerful -
when he
is
trained to have his thought come to materialization without much
effort -
everyone would go for it. It's the education. It's the education.

If a man is a criminal, that is the defective administration that he
has
been
raised in. It's a defective administration, cruel administration,
away from
the real potential of life, which is, in the will of God, evolution,
evolu-
tion, evolution.

KING: What part in all of this, Maharishi, does money play? There
have been
stories that you're the - you're - that you have started what is a
multi-
billion-dollar business.

MAHARISHI: I lack only $1 billion to make a world - better world.

So, many months ago, I had publicized in the American papers that $1
billion
endowment fund will raise enough - this Vedic pundits to fly about.
We want
to engage 40,000 people on a permanent basis, and they will have
enough in-
tense influence of coherence in the world consciousness. And anybody
who
wants to have peace - and everyone wants the peace - they were
invited to
donate.

But I realized later that I was talking to the - this capitalist
country.
And capitalist country, in their own fog, unless they get something
privately
themselves, they'll not indulge into it. So money has become
prominent in a
world of capitalism. That I realized when nobody sponsored for world
peace,
and everybody wants world peace. But they would not...

KING: Take part.

MAHARISHI: ...part with some of their huge billions and millions in
the
bank.
And so I said, all right.

KING: Let me get a break and we'll come right back. We have two more
seg-
ments left with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His original book, "Science of
Being
and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation" - he's the founder of
that
movement - has just been republished and newly revised and updated.
We'll be
right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He's coming to us from
Vlodrop,
Holland.

What is Yogic Flying?

MAHARISHI: Yogic Flying is that level of creative intelligence in the
self-
referral consciousness that will materialize the intention. Whatever
the
intention, materialize the intention.

And what is this thing? This is the same creative intelligence from
natural
law that makes huge galactic universe float in the empty space. Every
galaxy
- huge weight galaxy - they are all flying in empty space. What is
that? It
is the creative intelligence at the level of pure intelligence, when
pure
intelligence, in its self-referral unified state, assumes the role of
fluc-
tuations, of waves - like that, like that, like that.

So the same law of nature is captured in the transcendental field of
one's
consciousness. And then, with the thought that I should be in the
air, the
body lifts up, body lifts up.

KING: Are you saying, then, that man is capable of everything - that
man
could fly if he had obtained this consciousness?

MAHARISHI: That has been proved - how many times? - as many times as
people
are flying. Four, five million people are flying in their private
values.

Now we want to have bigger groups. And bigger groups have been found
to
create that worldwide influence. They influence the whole world
conscious-
ness, towards positivity, towards harmony, towards higher values of
intel-
ligence.

That is why we have the proof - we have enough proof in the Vedic
literature
and we have enough proof from the modern science that our teaching
has that
influence which will create a better world, means a positive world, a
harmo-
nious world.

That is why we want to have a global administration of natural law.

KING: Now...

MAHARISHI: We will not disturb the existing administration by
man-made laws
in any country. We are creating our own government, which is
utilizing natu-
ral law, which we have from modern science and which we have for
effective
Vedic Science. So we have enough ammunition to win the race.

KING: How do they learn more about this? They could buy the book, and
the
revised update of it. Is there someplace they can contact direct to
get more
information?

MAHARISHI: I have hundreds of centers for teaching Transcendental
Meditation
everywhere.

KING: Do you believe in a god?

MAHARISHI: I believe in God. And I believe in the custody of God
vested in
kings. And I'm very happy to have your name as King. Is it King?

KING: I'm the King.

MAHARISHI: I want to establish a government in every country that
will sup-
port life in the country. This drama of four years, five years,
change the
government, change the government, is only useful to the foreign
powers.
This thing, democracy - I used to say "Damn the democracy", because
it's not
a stable government. It's only useful for foreign powers. It's a bad
thing
for any nation to change the - A man comes for four years. Now he is
the
president. And then he goes to jail tomorrow - then he's jailed
there.

Such inadequacy in the field of administration must be - create a
very chao-
tic population in every country. And that is the situation in the
world.

The whole field of education is very inadequate. It doesn't make the
human
physiology totally function. The medicine - the field of medicine is
very
poisonous. It's full of inadequacies, and full of those - what we
call, all
these negative things - the side effects of modern medicine...

KING: Yeah, but...

MAHARISHI: ...huge. I have in my room - I have in my room the whole
height
of a floor full of about eight- or ten-thousand bad articles on
modern medi-
cine. But, modern medicine continues, continues. Those who are
producing
medicine, they are only producing because they get money. It doesn't
matter
if people die or suffer from any more diseases.

And the governments support it. Your own government, in this, I was
hearing,
is subject to so much of corruption.

All this is because life is not taught to the boys in the younger
age. Edu-
cation is very, very inadequate.

The whole drama of science is a big fraud, everywhere. Hiroshima was
created
in the name of science. Peace cannot be created in the name of
science. No.
Hiroshima can be created. Afghanistan can be created. And now Middle
East
can be created. This is science. The whole thing is fraud. The whole
field
is sinful. And those who will get into that come to that realization.
Sin -
killing is sin. Whosoever kills, it is sin, and the sinner will go to
hell.

KING: We'll take a break and come back with our remaining moments
with
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, right after these words.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In our remaining moments with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, let's talk
about
yourself.

Do you have a family?

MAHARISHI: The world is my family, you know? I count them ...

KING: You have no children of your own?

MAHARISHI: That is what a family means - all the children of the
world.

KING: I know, but I'm just asking if you have children from your
loins.

MAHARISHI: I am a single person. I'm a Purusha. I'm a - what you call
it -
sanyasi, if you understand the word. I'm a monk, if you understand
it...

KING: You're a bachelor.

MAHARISHI: ...monks.

KING: Do you have special diets that you eat?

MAHARISHI: I think that diet that I eat, everyone eats the same thing
- some
rice, some dhal, some chapaties, something vegetable. But I like this
or-
ganic, organic. I recommend to people organic agriculture, Vedic
organic
agriculture. Huge amount of scientific research has shown that with
the Ve-
dic hymns, with the Vedic melodies, the nutrients grow in the trees,
very much in the fruits, in the crops, in the vegetables. So that is
why,
what I am promoting in the world.

KING: How old are you?

MAHARISHI: I have almost forgotten when I was born. I was told
before.

(LAUGHTER)

MAHARISHI: I never look back - in my habit I never looked back. I
never
looked back.

KING: Are you in good health?

MAHARISHI: I am in fairly good health, yes, yes, fairly good health.

KING: Do you go to doctors?

MAHARISHI: The doctors come to me even before calling them. They like
to see
me year after year, the same way, like that, like that.

But the main thing is not so important what I am. What is important
is my
program for the world, that the world will be a better world. It will
be
free from sins. Governments will be preventive administrations in the
world.
That is important. I'm not important for the world. I'm here for some
time,
gone. And everyone would finish the whole story. But I have promoted
a
program which is practical, positive, and simple for every
individual...

KING: Where...

MAHARISHI: ...and for every nation.

KING: ...where did you learn it?

MAHARISHI: I learned it from my master. I address him as His
Divinity, Swami
Brahmananda Saraswati, in the Himalayas in India. And that I hold to
be the
tradition of Vedic masters.

And that I came to teach in the world, and I felt successful results
on the
individual, and now I am going to have a successful result on the
basis of
nations - nations. National governments everywhere, whatever they are
now, I
think they are groping in darkness. And I have the lamp. I put the
lamp,
and the light from the lamp will eliminate all their darknesses.

My nature is not to fight. I give the message, I give the experience,
and
people take it, and more people take it.

And now, I'll have a government. I've created a government, and
created the
head of this government - a great scientist, Dr. Nader Raja Raam. He
is
M.D., Ph.D. He has researched in the human physiology that the whole
human
physiology is the expression of the underlying field of
consciousness, the
same way as physics has discovered self-referral quantum field as the
field
of consciousness - self-referral.

On that basis of the realization or the discovery of the ultimate
field, I'm
going to create a world of that profundity of perfection which
belongs to
the
perfection of the government of nature.

KING: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from Vlodrop, Holland. His book has been
newly
revised and updated - the version of the original book of many years
ago -
"Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation."

Optimistic? You bet.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Good night.


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