that Gurdjieff's teachings were incomplete and both Roles and MacLaren were eager to discover the missing elements. In 1959, MacLaren discovered the teachings of Advaita Vedanta after meeting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and began to practice Transcendental Meditation (TM). Both Roles and MacLaren became pupils of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. On 13 March 1961, MacLaren organised a meeting, called the "1961 World Congress", for the Maharishi at the Royal Albert Hall. Two days prior to the event smaller meetings were held at Caxton Hall. The Royal Albert Hall meeting was attended by 5,000 people, nearly all SES members. One attendee described the effect of the talk as "tremendous", causing him to feel like a prisoner that had just been released. He speculated that meditation was the missing link of the incomplete Gurdjieff-Ouspensky system. The particular type of meditation used by SES was developed by Brahmananda Saraswati (Gurudeva). MacLaren was taken through its initiation ritual, and speculated that he had found the source of Gurdjieff's ideas. Shantananda Saraswati taught that the practice of meditation in a regular and disciplined manner is of the very highest importance. Meditation became central to SES' philosophy program and is taken up by all senior members of the group. School of Meditation SES was instrumental in promoting Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the UK from the 1960s. In collaboration with the Study Society and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, SES established the School of Meditation (SoM) in London in 1961, under the direction of Bill Whiting. SoM's purpose was, and remains, to study and teach the principles and practical application of meditation. Many of the subsequent leaders of SoM were students of the Maharishi. The School of Meditation is now an independent, self-governing organisation. By 2011, SoM had initiated 15,332 people into the practice of meditation, it has branches in several parts of the UK as well as in Greece and Holland. Both SES and SoM teach Transcendental Meditation as introduced by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an ancient technique the revival of which is credited to Brahmananda Saraswati. Advaita On a trip to India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Roles met the Shankarcharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Shantanand Saraswati, who Roles believed was the spiritual advisor both the Study society and SES were seeking and introduced MacLaren to Shantandand of whom they both became students. Swami Shantananda Saraswati had been a disciple, with the Maharishi, of the