David Lynch to attend Mahesh Yogi's funeral

Leading Hollywood film-maker David Lynch is among the many foreign followers of spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who have arrived in Allahabad to attend the funeral of the global icon of transcendental meditation on Monday morning.

Lynch flew down in a private aircraft from Los Angeles to pay his last respects to the Maharishi, who died at his spiritual headquarters in Netherlands last week.

Hundreds of his foreign devotees thronged the sprawling 120-acre campus of the Vidyapeeth, created by Mahesh Yogi in the late eighties as his gift to his hometown where he did his schooling and acquired his MSc in Physics before turning an ascetic.

An especially raised platform made of brick and mortar was finished on Sunday for the cremation. The site overlooks 'sangam' -- the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the now invisible Saraswati rivers -- regarded by Hindus as the holiest of the holy spots for taking a blissful dip that would wash off one's lifetime sins.

Widely revered spiritualist Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is expected to be among the celebrities who would attend the cremation ceremony.

Throughout Sunday, people kept pouring in at the institution to offer their last respects to the spiritual leader. Made to sit in an upright position with his eyes closed, the guru appeared to be in a sadhana (meditation) mode, draped in white, on a flower bedecked platform.