- 1914: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is born
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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Sanskrit महर्षि महेश योगी maharṣi maheśa yogī), born Mahesh Prasad Varma (January 12, 1914 - February 5, 2008) developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader or "guru" of the TM movement, a "Neo-Hindu" new religious movement.[1] Varma's given name was Mahesh, while Maharishi and yogi are honorifics.
He became a disciple and assistant of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, who was the Shankaracharya (spiritual leader) of Jyotirmath in the Indian Himalayas. The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings. Beginning in 1955, the Maharishi began to introduce the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique and other related programs and initiatives to the world. His first global tour began in 1958.
Varma began to be known as "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi" around the year 1960. His devotees referred to him as "His Holiness", and he became known as the "giggling guru".
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he achieved fame as the guru to The Beatles and other celebrities. In the mid-1970s, he started the TM-Sidhi program, which claimed to offer practitioners the ability to levitate and to create world peace. His followers started the Natural Law Party in 1992, which ran campaigns in dozens of countries. He moved to MERU, Holland, near Vlodrop, the Netherlands, in the same year. In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a country without borders, and appointed its leaders. In 2008, he announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into mauna (spiritual silence) until his death three weeks later.
According to news reports, "more than 5 million people studied his methods". TM websites report tens of thousands having learned his advanced meditation techniques. His initiatives include schools and universities with campuses in several countries including India, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The Maharishi, his family and close associates created charitable organisations and for-profit businesses that include nearly 1,000 TM centres, schools, universities, clinics, health supplements and organic farms. Estimates of the value of the Maharishi's empire range from the multi-millions to the billions of dollars.
Interaction with The Beatles
In 1967, the Maharishi's fame increased and his movement "really took off" when he became the "spiritual advisor to The Beatles". The Beatles met him for the first time in London in August 1967, and studied with him in Bangor, Wales, before travelling to Rishikesh, India in February 1968 to "devote themselves fully to his instruction". Starr left after ten days because he disliked the vegetarian diet, and McCartney left three weeks later. Both Beatles said later that they enjoyed the ashram experience and planned to continue with their meditation. Lennon and Harrison departed two weeks later after hearing a rumour that the Maharishi had made sexual advances towards Mia Farrow and a few other women.
Lennon wrote the song "Maharishi" (with the lines: "what have you done? You made a fool of everyone") as he was leaving. George Harrison argued that the title was disrespectful and possibly libelous. The title and lyrics were changed from "Maharishi" to "Sexy Sadie." On the Tonight Show a few months later, Lennon said that "We believe in meditation, but not the Maharishi and his scene". Lennon said the Beatles' association with the Maharishi was an "an error of judgment" and "a public mistake".
The New York Times and The Independent reported that the influence of the Maharishi and the journey to Rishikesh to meditate, weaned The Beatles from LSD and inspired them to write many new songs. It was "an extraordinary period of creativity for them," during which they wrote almost all of the songs that would appear on both the White Album and Abbey Road, said biographer Barry Miles.
Alexis Mardas, head of the Beatles' Apple Electronics, noted the luxurious infrastructure at the Rishikesh ashram. Neil Aspinall, The Beatles' road manager, recalled his opinion in reference to obtaining rights for a feature film that, "This guy knows more about making deals than I do. He's really into scoring, the Maharishi".
The New York Times reported in 2008 that Harrison and McCartney reconsidered the accusations. McCartney said that the rumours of sexual impropriety were raised by Alexis Mardas who "had agendas of his own, and may have fabricated (or at least exaggerated) the story". In a press conference on April 3, 2009, prior to his performance at the David Lynch Foundation benefit concert "Change Begins Within", Paul McCartney commented that Transcendental Meditation was a gift The Beatles had received from Maharishi at a time when they were looking for something to stabilise them.[89] Harrison commented, "Now, historically, there's the story that something went on that shouldn't have done — but nothing did". Farrow's autobiography is ambiguous about the incident: she describes "panicking" and fleeing after the Maharishi put his arms around her in a dark cave, immediately after a private meditation session. Deepak Chopra, who met and became a "disciple of the Maharishi's" in the 1990s before later splitting, said in 2008 that the Maharishi had a "falling out with the rock stars when he discovered them using drugs". In their obituaries of the Maharishi, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg news service stated that the rumour of impropriety was "unfounded" and never proven. Yoko Ono said in 2008 that if Lennon were alive he probably would have reconciled with the Maharishi.
Further growth of his TM movement (1968-1990)
In 1968, the Maharishi announced that he would stop his "public activities" and instead begin the training of TM teachers at his new global headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland.
In 1970, the Maharishi held a TM teacher training course at a Victorian hotel located in Poland Springs, Maine with 1,200 participants. Later that year, he held a similar four-week course at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California. About 1,500 people attended and it was described as a "sort of a crash program to train transcendental teachers". Following tax troubles in India, he moved his headquarters to Italy and then to Austria. That same year, the City of Hope Foundation in Los Angeles gave the Maharishi their "Man of Hope" award.
A 1972, a TM training course was given by the Maharishi at Queens University and attended by 1,000 young people from all over the USA and Canada. At the start of the course the Maharishi encouraged the attendees to improve their appearance by getting haircuts and wearing ties.
In March 1973, Maharishi addressed the legislature of the state of Illinois. That same year, the legislature passed a resolution in support of the use of Maharishi’s Science of Creative Intelligence in Illinois public schools.
In 1974, Maharishi International University was founded. In October 1975, the Maharishi was pictured on the front cover of Time magazine. He made his last visit to the Spiritual Regeneration Movement center in Los Angeles in 1975, according to film director David Lynch, who met him for the first time there.
In 1975, the Maharishi embarked on a five continent trip to inaugurate what he called "the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment". The Maharishi said the purpose of the inaugural tour was to "go around the country and give a gentle whisper to the population". He visited Ottawa during this tour and had a private meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, during which he spoke about the principles of TM and "the possibility of structuring an ideal society." That same year, the Pittsburg Press reported that “The Maharishi has been criticised by other Eastern yogis for simplifying their ancient art.”
In the mid 1970s, the Maharishi's U.S. movement was operating 370 TM centres manned by 6,000 TM teachers. At that time, the Maharishi also began approaching the business community via an organisation called the American Foundation for SCI (AFSCI), whose objective was to eliminate stress for business professionals. The Maharishi's message was a promise of "increased creativity and flexibility, increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, improved relations with supervisors and co-workers". His TM movement came to be increasingly structured along the lines of a multinational corporation.
The teaching of TM and the Science of Creative Intelligence, in a New Jersey public school was stopped when a US court, in 1977, declared the movement to be religious, and ruled adoption of TM by public organisations in breach of the separation of church and state (First Amendment).
During the 1980s, the organisation continued to expand despite making claims that grew more and more outlandish and accusations of fraud from disaffected former disciples. However, his meditation technique continued to attract celebrities.
The Maharishi made a number of property investments with the funds he amassed. In England, he bought Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, Roydon Hall in Maidstone, Swythamley Park in the Peak District and a Georgian rectory in Suffolk. In the United States, resorts and hotels, many in city centres, were purchased to be used as TM training centres. Doug Henning and the Maharishi planned a magical Vedic amusement park, Vedaland, and bought large tracts of land near Orlando, Florida and Niagara Falls, Ontario to host the park. The Maharish commissioned plans from a prominent architect for the world's tallest building, a Vedic-style pyramid to be built in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and to be filled with Yogic Flyers and other TM endeavors. In later years, the Maharishi directed the purchase of properties in locations such as islands and land at the geographic center of the continental United States and other countries.
In January 1988, the Maharishi's offices in India were raided by Indian police, who reportedly confiscated cash, securities and jewels. News reports varied widely as to the dollar value of the goods seized. One source said $500,000, while two others put the figure at $60,000 and $30,000, respectively. A fourth newspaper article, quoting Maharishi's Age of Enlightenment News Service reported that nothing at all of value was confiscated. The raid occurred amidst a conflict with authorities over taxes and the movement was accused of lying about expenses. The Maharishi moved out of India following the tax audit. That same year the Maharishi created a "Master Plan to Create Heaven on Earth", a plan for reduced crime, longer life spans and increased prosperity and happiness.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
- 1942: Bernardine Dohrn is born
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Bernardine Rae Dohrn (née Ohrnstein, born January 12, 1942) is an American former leader of the anti-Vietnam War radical organization Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center. She is married to Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground.
Personal life
Bernardine Dohrn was born Bernadine Ohrnstein in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1942 and grew up in Whitefish Bay, an upper-middle-class suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father, Bernard, changed the family surname to Dohrn when Bernardine was in high school. Her father was Jewish and her mother, Dorothy, was a Christian Scientist with a Swedish background. Dohrn graduated from Whitefish Bay High School where she was a cheerleader, treasurer of the Modern Dance Club, a member of the National Honor Society, and editor of the school newspaper.[1] She attended Miami University for one year, then transferred to the University of Chicago, where she graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science in 1963. Dohrn received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967. She moved to New York to work for the National Lawyers Guild in 1967.
Early radical history
Dohrn became one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a radical wing of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), in the late 1960s. Dohrn with ten other S.D.S.ers associated with the RYM issued, on June 18, 1969, a sixteen-thousand-word manifesto entitled, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows" in New Left Notes. The title came from Bob Dylan's song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues." The manifesto stated that "the goal [of revolution] is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.". The manifesto concludes with, "The RYM must also lead to the effective organization needed to survive and to create another battlefield of the revoluton. A revolution is a war; when the Movement in this country can defend itself militarily against total repression it will be part of the revolutionary war. This will require a cadre organization, effective secrecy, self-reliance among the cadres..." The manifesto also asserted that African-Americans were a "black colony" within a U.S. government that was doomed to overextend itself. And the RYM was needed to quicken this process. Dohrn said, "The best thing that we can be doing for ourselves, as well as for the [Black] Panthers and the revolutionary black liberation struggle, is to build a fucking white revolutionary movement."
The ninth annual national SDS conference was held at the Coliseum in Chicago on June 18–22, 1969, and the SDS collapsed in a Revolutionary Youth Movement-led upheaval. Soon after the Revolutionary Youth Movement became known as the Weatherman.
Dohrn led the Weatherman faction in the SDS fight and continued to be a leader afterward.
Dohrn traveled to Cuba via Mexico City on July 4, 1969, with a delegation from the SDS and later arrived in Canada on a Cuban Vessel on August 16, 1969.
Controversial statements about Tate-LaBianca murders
Dohrn was criticized for comments she made about the murders of actress Sharon Tate and retail store owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by the Charles Manson clan. In a speech during the December 1969 "War Council" meeting organized by the Weathermen, attended by about 400 people in Flint, Michigan, Dohrn said, "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!" In greeting each other, delegates to the war council often spread their fingers to signify the fork.
In 2008, Dohrn's husband Bill Ayers wrote that Dohrn was being ironic when she made the statement about the Manson murders. Ayers wrote that he always thought Dohrn's statement was intended to make a political point, "agitated and inflamed and full of rhetorical overkill, and partly as a joke, stupid perhaps, tasteless, but a joke nonetheless", and similar (he said) to jokes about Charles Manson that were being made by Hunter S Thompson and Richard Pryor. Ayers said he had been present at interviews with reporters in which Dohrn had tried to put her statement in context but the reporters had dismissed her explanation. However, in a 2001 Salon article, David Horowitz wrote: "In 1980, I taped interviews with 30 members of the Weather Underground who were present at the Flint War Council, including most of its leadership. Not one of them thought Dohrn was anything but deadly serious. Outrageous nihilism was the Weatherman political style."
Life and the Weather Underground
1959-1967
Dohrn graduated from Whitefish Bay High School in June 1959. She later attended University of Miami from September 1959 to January 1961. She then transferred to the University of Chicago and earned three degrees. She got a Bachelors of Arts in June 1963 then a Masters in June 1964 and later a Doctor of law Degree in June 1967. While attending law school, Dohrn began working with Martin Luther King, Jr. She was the first law student organizer for the National Lawyers Guild. She was organizing against the war in Vietnam and in conjunction with the Black Freedom Movement. In 1967 Bernardine Dohrn was listed as the new student director of the National Lawyers Guild.
1968
May 26, 1968, as a speaker for the national Lawyers Guild, stated a motion was to be filed in Federal court asking for an injunction to halt any disciplinary action that was being taken against student activists and any of the criminal charges. She represented students from Columbia whom were striking and protesting. On June 14, 1968 she was elected as the Interorganizational Secretary of SDS. When elected she was asked if she was a socialist and she replied, " I consider myself a revolutionary Communist." August 30 through September 1, 1968 Bernardine Dohrn was visiting Yugoslavia. On September 20, 1968 after returning from Europe with a group of American student leaders, Bernardine Dohrn announced that they had met with representatives from North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in Budapest with a focus of peace talks. On the night of October 1, 1968, Bernardine Dohrn was a speaker at a meeting in Chicago that was to condemn policy action in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. From October 11 to 13 a National meeting was held by the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Bernardine was a speaker and addressed concerns on behalf of new members, saying they wanted to know where the movement was headed and what involvement they could expect. On October 11, 1968, Bernardine Dohrn suggested that she would come through expanding the movement to non-students and do all that was necessary to complete the job of "attack, expose, destroy."
1969
On January 29 and 30, 1969, in recognition of the tenth anniversary of the revolution, the University of Washington held a Cuba teach-in and Bernardine Dohrn was a speaker on campus. Bernardine Dohrn attended a regional conference held for the leaders of the SDS on April 14, 1969. A month later at a press conference at the regional headquarters of SDS in Chicago on, Bernardine Dohrn spoke of the plans that were under way to "attack" college graduation ceremonies across the country. She said, "our presence will be known at the graduation ceremonies where the big people will come as speakers." Bernardine Dohrn was now known as a National Interim Committee member of the SDS and a member of the Weatherman group. She traveled to Cuba via Mexico City on July 4, 1969, with a delegation from the SDS and later arrived in Canada on a Cuban Vessel on August 16, 1969. On August 22, 1969, Bernardine Dohrn was arrested in Chicago and charged with possession of drugs. On September 9, 1969, Judge Kenneth R. Wendt of Narcotics court of Chicago dismissed the charges. The defense attorney said there was an illegal search of the car in which she was a passenger. On September 20, 1969, there was an anti-Vietnam rally at the Davis cup tennis tournament and the police became involved, twenty persons were arrested and among them was twenty seven year old Bernardine Dohrn. She was charged with disorderly conduct. On September 26, 1969, Bernardine Dohrn was arrested in Chicago during a demonstration, the rally was in support of the Chicago 8 who were being tried on riot conspiracy charges. Bernardine Dohrn was arrested on October 9, 1969, by the Chicago police during a rally for women’s faction of the Weathermen group. She was later released on a one thousand dollar bond. On October 31, 1969, a grand jury indicted 22 people including Bernardine Dohrn because of her involvement with the trial of the 8 men that rioted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. On April 2, 1970, in Chicago a Federal Grand Jury indicted 12 members of the Weatherman group and among them was Bernardine Dohrn on conspiracy charges to violate the anti-riot act during the "Days of Rage" which was held in Chicago on October 8 through 11, 1969.
1970's
In May 1970 Dohrn recorded and sent a transcript of a tape recording to the New York Times, the statement was a "declaration of a State of War" on behalf of the Weatherman. On October 14, 1970, Bernardine Rae Dohrn was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigations list of the 10 most wanted Fugitives. Bernardine Dohrn had several alias, which included, Bernardine Rae Ohrnstein, H.T. Smith, and Marion Del Gado. The Federal Bureau of Investigations removed Bernardine Dohrn from its "most wanted list" in December 1973 after a District Judge Damon J. Keith dismissed the case against the Weatherman. On January 3, 1974, a U.S. District Court Judge Julius J. Hoffman dismissed a 4-year-old case against 12 members of the Weatherman faction of the Students for a democratic Society, which included Bernardine Dohrn; she was charged with leading the riotous "Days of Rage"
Later radical history
A founder of the Weatherman group, Dohrn was a member of the "Weather Bureau" (name later changed to "Central Committee"). Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant who was with the Weatherman from autumn 1969 through spring 1970, considered her one of the two top leaders of the organization, along with Bill Ayers.
During this period, the group organized the October 1969 Days of Rage riot in Chicago, which Dohrn led. During the 1970s, the Weathermen bombed federal buildings and police stations. Prior to the March 6, 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, in which three members of the group were killed as a bomb was being constructed, all members of Weatherman went underground. The group then changed its name to Weather Underground.
Dohrn went underground in early 1970, engaging in bombing activities.
Role in policymaking, ideology and public statements for Weather Underground
Dohrn was a principal signatory on the group's "Declaration of a State of War" in 1970 that formally declared "war" on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. Dohrn also co-wrote and published the subversive manifesto Prairie Fire in 1974, and participated in the covertly filmed Underground in 1976.
In late 1975, the Weather Underground put out an issue of a magazine, Osawatamie, which carried an article by Dohrn, "Our Class Struggle", described as a speech given to the organization's cadres on September 2 of that year. In the article, Dohrn clearly stated support for communist ideology:
We are building a communist organization to be part of the forces which build a revolutionary communist party to lead the working class to seize power and build socialism. [...] We must further the study of Marxism-Leninism within the WUO [Weather Underground Organization]. The struggle for Marxism-Leninism is the most significant development in our recent history. [...] We discovered thru our own experiences what revolutionaries all over the world have found — that Marxism-Leninism is the science of revolution, the revolutionary ideology of the working class, our guide to the struggle [...]"
According to a 1974 FBI study of the group, Dohrn's article signaled a developing commitment to Marxism-Leninism that had not been clear in the groups previous statements, despite trips to Cuba by some members of the group before and after Weather Underground was formed, and contact with Vietnamese communists there.
Leaving the underground
While on the run from police, Dohrn married another Weatherman leader, Bill Ayers, with whom she has two children. During the last years of their underground life, Dohrn and Ayers resided in Chicago, where they used the aliases Christine Louise Douglas and Anthony J. Lee.
In the late 1970s, the Weatherman group split into two factions — the "May 19 Coalition" and the "Prairie Fire Collective" — with Dohrn and Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding, with members facing the criminal charges against them, while the May 19 Coalition continued in hiding. A decisive factor in Dohrn's coming out of hiding were her concerns about her children.
The couple turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. While some charges relating to their activities with the Weathermen were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (see COINTELPRO), Dohrn pled guilty to charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping, receiving probation. She later served less than a year of jail time, after refusing to testify against ex-Weatherman Susan Rosenberg in an armed robbery case. Shortly after turning themselves in, Dohrn and Ayers became legal guardians of Chesa Boudin, the son of former members of the Weather Underground, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, after they were convicted of murder for their roles in a 1981 armored car robbery.
Later life and career
From 1984 to 1988, Dohrn was employed by the prestigious Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. She was hired by Howard Trienens, the head of the firm at that time, who knew Thomas G. Ayers, the father of Dohrn's husband. "We often hire friends," Trienens told a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. However, Dohrn had not been admitted to the New York or Illinois bar. She passed the New York bar exam but had not submitted an application to the New York Supreme Court's Committee on Character and Fitness. She also passed the Illinois bar, but was turned down by the Illinois ethics committee because of her criminal record. Trienens said of the Illinois rejection, "Dohrn didn't get a [law] license because she's stubborn. She wouldn't say she's sorry."
In 1991, she was hired by Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, as an adjunct professor of law, with the title "Clinical Associate Professor of Law". Trienens said he did not get her that job, although he sat on the board of trustees of Northwestern, as did Dohrn's father-in-law, who was chairman of the board until 1986, when Trienens succeeded him in that position. Robert Bennett, dean of the law school, had hired Dohrn, according to Trienens. Because Dohrn was hired as an "adjunct", her appointment did not need to be approved by the faculty, and no vote on it was ever taken. When law school officials were asked whether or not the dean hired Dohrn or the board of trustees approved the hiring, the school issued a statement in response stating "While many would take issue with views Ms. Dohrn espoused during the 1960s, her career at the law school is an example of a person's ability to make a difference in the legal system."
In 1994, Dohrn said of her political beliefs: "I still see myself as a radical."
Dohrn now serves on the board of numerous human rights committees and teaches comparative law. Since 2002, she has served as Visiting Law Faculty at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Her legal work has focused on reforming the much criticized juvenile court system in Chicago and on advocating for human rights at the international level. Dohrn is director and founder of the Children and Family Justice Center, which supports the legal needs of adolescents and their families.
Dohrn and Ayers recently resurfaced into news headlines as presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin publicly denounced ties between Ayers and then presidential candidate Barack Obama.
On November 4, 2010, Dohrn was interviewed by NewsClick India. About the "Right" in the U.S., she said, "It’s racist; it’s armed; it’s hostile; it’s unspeakable." Referring to the Restoring Honor rally which was promoted by Glenn Beck and held on August 28, 2010, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., "You have white people armed, demanding the end to the [Obama] presidency." She also stated, "The real terrorist is the American government, state terrorism unleashed against the world."
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
Edited by Learyfan (01/09/21 09:58 AM)
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