Thousands of these documents and emails from the covert Science of Identity political operation have been independently examined by the Washington Post. The content on this website is attributed solely to the site's author.
Chris Butler demands that Hindu organizations rally to defend him and his protege, Tulsi Gabbard. Behind their backs, he mocks even the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the teacher who brought meditation to the modern West.
When any journalist questions Tulsi Gabbard or her guru, "Jagad Guru" Chris Butler, he demands that his network call it "Hinduphobia." Tulsi Gabbard's guru Chris Butler lines up Hindu groups to publicly defend him and Tulsi, using operatives including Sunil Khemaney, Tulsi herself, and the Hindu American Foundation. 1
Meanwhile, Butler privately ridicules the very teachers who made yoga and meditation household words in America. This is the fourth in a series on the Hindu paths his network targets. This time the target is the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who taught the world Transcendental Meditation.
Butler tells his followers to line up Hindu groups to defend him
In the transcripts, Butler's operation is explicit about wanting respected Hindus and Hindu institutions out front as a shield, including, by name, "Hindus… ISKCON Hawaii, HAF," and others, and Hindu individuals "like Suhag or HAF or whatever." 1
Publicly, Butler's people insist that any scrutiny of him is an attack on all Hindus.
Butler attacked the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who taught the world to meditate
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who died in 2008) introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world beginning in the 1950s, and grew it into one of the most widely practiced meditation movements on earth. More than anyone, he made meditation mainstream in the West. 2
His reach is woven into modern culture. In 1968 the Beatles traveled to his ashram in Rishikesh, India, a visit that shaped Western attitudes toward Indian spirituality and produced one of the most fertile songwriting stretches of the band's career. 3
Decades later, the filmmaker David Lynch founded the David Lynch Foundation to bring TM to students, veterans, and trauma survivors; it has helped teach meditation to more than a million people and raised over $100 million for that work. 4
Here is the twist. Chris Butler casts himself as the one true teacher in a sea of frauds, and that means tearing down even the gentle, world-famous figure who taught millions to sit quietly and breathe. In his recorded religious lectures, he ridiculed the Maharishi and his meditation by name.
"A meaningless… mantra" you can "buy"
Butler dismissed the Maharishi's mantra meditation as empty, and sneered that anything you can purchase cannot be spiritual.
"You can criticise people all you want for sitting around silently meditating upon a meaningless so-called mantra like the Maharishis."
Chris Butler lecture, "Lord Caitanya's Appearance Day," March 14, 1987 5
"This so-called transcendental meditation that they sell for a few hundred dollars, this is not transcendental. And that's why you can buy it."
Chris Butler lecture, "Chanting the Mahamantra Fulfills All Desires," May 17, 1998 6
"The Mystic Scam": pay "hundreds of dollars" to "levitate"
In a lecture his own archive titles "The Mystic Scam," Butler mocked TM's advanced "yogic flying" as a paid con, complete with a gag about the Maharishi's followers carrying him on a leash so he wouldn't float away.
"You're supposed to pay the TM people, the Maharishi people, hundreds of dollars so that you can learn how to meditate and levitate… that's where they bounce around on their butts on the mattresses."
Chris Butler lecture, "The Mystic Scam" 7
"Wherever Maharishi goes, his people walk around with a leash… holding them down so they don't float away."
Chris Butler lecture, "The Mystic Scam" 7
Meditation no better than focusing "on a dog"
Elsewhere, Butler reduced the entire practice to the absurd, and filed the Maharishi among the "so-called bogey yogis."
"You can be meditating on anything. You can be meditating on a dog, a piece of food or whatever."
Chris Butler lecture, March 24, 2005 8
"You'll find many so-called bogey yogis so very gentle. 'Oh yes, oh yes, we are very gentle. Maharishi Yogi, oh yes.'… They are not gentlemen."
Chris Butler lecture, April 16, 1991 8
Butler's sickening hypocrisy
Butler calls the Maharishi's meditation "a scam" you "buy" for "a few hundred dollars," while running an operation that extracts free, unpaid labor from hundreds of followers told it was their "spiritual duty" to serve him, and while he lived in luxury in Kailua, Hawaii, with his wife, Huilan Zhang (aka Wai Lana). He mocks another man's followers for paying for meditation, then takes far more from his own, and gives nothing back.
One teacher showed millions of people how to calm their minds. The other scripts a congresswoman from the shadows, builds a cult around himself, and cries "Hinduphobia" the moment a reporter notices.
"Hinduphobia" is simply a calculated attack weapon that Butler and Tulsi Gabbard aim at critics. This is an extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black.
