The inner life
Transcendental Meditation
Direct answer
Transcendental Meditation: Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is a silent mantra technique taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the 1950s, practised for twenty minutes twice a day.
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At a glance
- Also called
- TM meditation, Maharishi meditation, TM mantra meditation
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Mantra, Japa, Mindfulness, Relaxation Response
Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is a silent mantra technique taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the 1950s, practised for twenty minutes twice a day.
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What is Transcendental Meditation?
Transcendental Meditation is a trademarked technique in which a person sits with eyes closed and silently repeats a mantra, a sound without assigned meaning, letting it grow fainter. It is practised for about twenty minutes twice a day. The mantra is given privately by a certified teacher in a short ceremony, and the course is paid for.
Transcendental Meditation’s founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, presented it as effortless and as needing no belief. The method comes from the Hindu tradition of his teacher, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. It has been studied more than most techniques, with mixed results: some reviews find modest effects on blood pressure and anxiety, others find the trials too weak to judge.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Meditation.
What sets Transcendental Meditation apart
Three things mark TM out among mantra practices. The mantra is treated as a sound and not as a name or prayer, so its meaning is set aside. Effort is discouraged: the meditator neither concentrates on the mantra nor pushes thoughts away. And it is taught only in person, in a fixed sequence of sessions, by teachers trained in the founder's organisation, which holds the name as a trademark. That standard form is one reason researchers found it easy to study.
- Founder: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (died 2008)
- First taught: India, 1955; abroad from 1958
- Routine: about twenty minutes, twice a day, seated with eyes closed
- Lineage: the Advaita tradition of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati of Jyotir Math
- Court ruling: Malnak v. Yogi, 1977: a school course in TM held to be religious
Often mistaken for something else: Japa is the devotional repetition of a divine name, often aloud or on beads; TM repeats a sound silently, without counting and without attending to meaning.
The story behind Transcendental Meditation
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi began teaching in India in 1955 and toured abroad from 1958. The Beatles' stay at his ashram in Rishikesh in 1968 made the technique famous. In the 1970s physiologists including Robert Keith Wallace and Herbert Benson published studies of practitioners. In 1977 a United States federal court ruled that a TM course taught in New Jersey schools was religious in nature. Maharishi died in 2008.
Why Transcendental Meditation matters
Transcendental Meditation was among the first meditation techniques to reach a mass Western public and to be studied at length in Western laboratories, so much later research answers to it.
How to read Transcendental Meditation
People name it when they mean this specific taught course and its mantra method, as distinct from mantra repetition in general.
Transcendental Meditation in practice: an example
A commuter sits on the edge of the bed before work, eyes shut, and lets the same quiet syllable come and go for twenty minutes.
Where readings of Transcendental Meditation go wrong
The health claims made for it run ahead of the evidence, and it is a paid, trademarked course with roots in Hindu devotional practice.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- TM meditation, transcendental meditation technique, what is transcendental meditation, Maharishi meditation, TM mantra meditation
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is Transcendental Meditation?
A technique of silent mantra repetition taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his organisation. It is practised seated with eyes closed for about twenty minutes, twice a day, and is learned from a certified teacher.
How is TM different from mindfulness?
Mindfulness trains attention on present experience, such as the breath or body. TM uses a mantra and asks for no concentration or monitoring; the instruction is to let the sound repeat without effort.
Does Transcendental Meditation work?
Studies report reduced anxiety and small falls in blood pressure for some people. A 2014 review in JAMA Internal Medicine found too little good evidence that mantra meditation improved the outcomes it examined, largely because few trials were well controlled.
