Beatles guru Maharishi Yogi passes away

The Maharishi died peacefully in his sleep last evening due to "natural causes, his age" in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, his spokesman, Bob Roth said.

The physicist-turned spiritual guru transformed his interpretations of ancient vedic scriptures into a multi-million dollar global empire and went on to built up a following of about six million people worldwide, including celebrities like Beach Boys, singer Donovan, Clint Eastwood and avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch.

The Maharishi introduced the Transcendental Meditation movement to the West in 1959, but rose to popularity when the Beatles travelled to India to learn the mind control technique at his Ashram in the Himalayas in 1968.

The band, however, fell out with the Maharishi soon thereafter.

The guru announced his retirement and retreat into silence at his Vlodrop home last month, saying his work was done and that he wanted to dedicate his remaining days to studying ancient Hindu Vedas texts, media reports said.

"He had been saying he had done what he set out to do," Roth said.

Born in Madhya Pradesh, the Maharishi, whose real name was Mahesh Prasad Verma, graduated in physics from Allahabad University before devoting himself to spiritual enlightenment.

In 1955, the Maharishi began publicly teaching a traditional meditation technique through chanting of Sanskrit mantras, which he later renamed as Transcendental Meditation.

"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, and darkness will disappear," the Maharishi said in an interview in 2006, repeating one of his own mantras.