A Standardised Technique, Taught for a Fee

Transcendental Meditation is a mantra based meditation technique taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the mid 1950s in India and carried to a wider international, especially Western, audience from the 1960s onward, distinguished from most other mantra meditation traditions by its unusually standardised and tightly controlled method of transmission: the technique is taught only through a structured course delivered by teachers certified by the Maharishi's own organisation, for a set fee, with each student individually assigned a personal mantra according to a fixed system rather than choosing or being given a mantra through the more variable, teacher discretion based methods common in many older meditative lineages. This standardisation and commercial structure has been central to how Transcendental Meditation has been studied, discussed and, at points, legally contested, since the organisation has consistently maintained close control over how the technique is taught, branded and represented publicly, an approach that has made TM one of the most institutionally organised and commercially structured meditation movements to have spread from South Asian religious roots into the wider Western world.