A MULTI-million pound “peace palace” to provide a new venue for the teachings of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - a guru to The Beatles - could be built near Woodbridge.

Richard Smith

A MULTI-million pound “peace palace” to provide a new venue for the teachings of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - a guru to The Beatles - could be built near Woodbridge.

The Maharishi Foundation wants to build the palace, which will provide a focus for transcendental meditation, on land close to the Maharishi Garden Village.

Plans have been submitted by MSV (Maharishi Sthapatya Veda) Homes for the palace to be constructed off Sycamore Drive on the former domestic side of the Bentwaters air base at Rendlesham.

The palace will be the landmark building in the Maharishi Garden Village, an estate of high-priced houses most of which have been finished.

The palace is expected to cost in the region of £2million. Recently, followers of the Maharishi raised £200,000 at a dinner at the garden village.

The developers want to build a 22-bedroom palace - essentially an educational centre - to replace a transcendental meditation centre at Badingham.

There will be the potential to build 13 more bedrooms in the roof and the building will include initial classrooms for the Maharishi Invincibility School.

It will provide a venue for a range of residential and day courses and the landscaped grounds will include fruit trees and an organic herb garden.

The building, to be known as the Maharishi Peace Palace, will have meeting and exhibition rooms, a shop, organic restaurant and a Maharishi Ayurveda health spa.

The Maharishi, who famously introduced The Beatles to transcendental meditation, died last week aged 91 at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop.

The funeral was held yesterday in India and Richard Johnson, a director of MSV Homes based at Rendlesham, said: “I went over to Vlodrop on Thursday to pay our respects on behalf of the organisation in this country.

“Twelve-storey high towers are to be built in all the capital cities as a reminder of his contribution and we have all pledged to create these towers of invincibility. They will contain exhibitions of his knowledge.

“We would like to have a tower at our educational centre but I think it would be more appropriate in an urban context.”

The Maharishi village contains “fortune-creating” homes built on the principles of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda and their ecological features include timber frames, clay roof tiles, high levels of insulation, sheathing of electric cables and the use internally of non-toxic paints.

The homes are modelled on three basic principles - the right direction, the right placement of rooms and the right proportions. The front door faces east because, say the Maharishis, the energy from the sun is at its greatest and most vital when rising.

The Maharishis had wanted to use the Bentwaters base for a university-linked business and science park but they withdrew from a deal with the Ministry of Defence in 1995.