Guru Disciples Plan ‘City of Immortals’

Disciples of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, once the guru of the Beatles, are negotiating a contract with a San Jose developer to build a 1,000-acre City of Immortals in South San Jose.

Officials of the Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development Co., a Malibu-based firm that claims to have an exclusive pipeline to the Maharishi, said the homes would be based on a 4,000-year-old science of building that ensures “joy and bliss in every phase of daily living.”

The City of Immortals would have a community center, kindergarten through junior high “schools of the age of enlightenment” and health centers that practice ayurvedic medicine, a traditional Hindu system of treatment using herbs and oils. Organic gardens and dairy farms would supply fresh foods, and cars would be kept outside gates.

The Maharishi’s “super-radiance effect,” which occurs when many people meditate together, is powerful enough to reduce crime, said Henry Clark, Heaven on Earth’s vice president, who presented the company’s plans at the Transcendental Meditation center in Palo Alto.