Raja Robert Wynne was a legendary leader in Maharishi’s worldwide Transcendental Meditation organization, with a long list of historic, transformative achievements performed over the course of his 47 years of service to Maharishi.

At Maharishi International University, he held key leadership positions, including faculty member in business, Chair of the Business Department, Dean of Faculty and Chair of the Academic Council, Dean of the School of Management, Vice President of Expansion, and member of the Board of Trustees. With guidance from his father, John Wynne, Vice President at MIT, he launched MIU’s MBA program and subsequently worked to launch the Ph.D. in Management.

In November 1989, at the invitation of Armenia’s Ministry of Construction Raja Wynne helped lead a group of MIU faculty and administrators to Armenia where a massive earthquake the year before devastated the city of Leninakan (now “Gyumri”), destroying infrastructure, and killing over 25,000 people. Their mission was to help relieve the massive traumatic stress people were suffering.

Over the next months, more than 30,000 individuals were instructed in the Transcendental Meditation technique, more than 1% of Armenia’s population. This eased the trauma of the disaster and simultaneously brought stability to the political landscape, including peaceful elections and an unexpectedly smooth transition to independence at a time when civil war seemed unavoidable. This was the first widespread teaching of the Transcendental Meditation program behind the Iron Curtain, the first time the softening influence of coherence began to be created from within the Soviet Union itself.

During this time, Raja Wynne and other members of the MIU team traveled to Moscow and taught the first large groups at a time when only 4 people had learned in the Soviet Union. This was followed by many waves of Governors from MIU and around the world teaching in former Soviet countries.

In 1991, with Maureen, he was part of the “Great Ten” who, with Maharishi’s inspiration and guidance, created the Maharishi Center for Perfect Health and World Peace.

In 2000, they submitted an application to Iowa state officials to create a new city — Maharishi Vedic City, the first new city in Iowa since 1982 and the first city in the modern world to be designed entirely in accord with natural law. Maharishi Vedic City was incorporated the following year. Among other features, every building is designed according to Maharishi Sthapatya Veda design, to promote health, happiness, and good fortune.

Again with Maureen, Raja Wynne organized for hundreds of Maharishi Vedic Pandits to come to Maharishi Vedic City to create coherence for the United States from the country’s heartland. The Pandits began arriving in 2006. Initially housed on the MIU campus, they began relocating the next year to Maharishi Vedic City, to the campus Raja Wynne and Maureen had built for them. Altogether that program lasted for more than 12 years, from 2006 to 2018. At their peak numbers, in 2008, there were nearly 1,200 Maharishi Vedic Pandits at the Pandit campus in Maharishi Vedic City — by far the largest group of Vedic Pandits to venture outside of India in history.

With their peace-creating Maharishi Yagya performances and their collective practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, including Yogic Flying, they were a powerful force for national harmony. They helped increase the total size of our coherence-creating group to more than 2,000, even to 2,500 for a period. The result was a dramatic and widespread increase of quality of life for the whole country, with significant reductions in the US homicide rate, traffic fatalities, accidental deaths, drug-related deaths (including opioid fatalities), violent crime, and infant mortality. The Maharishi Vedic Pandits helped transform the nation and contribute to the most powerful body of research thus far on the Maharishi Effect.

Raja Wynne also started Maharishi World Peace Vedic Organics — he was instrumental in buying the land in Maharishi Vedic City, putting up the greenhouses, and guiding its operations, delighting in seeing that as many people as possible had the advantage of this remarkable food.

In 2005, Raja Wynne became a Raja of the Global Country of World Peace, with the first group crowned. As a Raja, he oversaw the development of Maharishi’s programs in New Zealand, Cook Islands, Kenya, Armenia, Pakistan, Iraq, Liberia, Vanuatu and Burundi.

Raja Wynne lived an exemplary, enlightened life, devoted to gaining enlightenment for himself and serving Maharishi in creating an Age of Enlightenment for the human race. Whatever Maharishi asked of him, he did, without hesitation or doubt. No project was ever too large.

Raja Wynne was a miracle-worker — brilliant, wise, funny, ever positive, ever blissful. He was a blessing to everyone who knew him — his friends, colleagues, students — and a blessing to our world family.

We will always be thankful for the years we enjoyed together with him. And our collective love goes out to Maureen in gratitude for all that she gave to Raja Wynne and for all that the two of them achieved together for Maharishi and for all of us.

JAI GURU DEV