[The following is an introduction from the first issue of:



 The Maharishi International University 

Journal of Modern Science and Vedic Science



An Interdisciplinary Journal Devoted to Study and Research in

Consciousness - the Unified Field of Nature's Intelligence - from

the Perspective of Modern Science and Maharishi's Vedic Science



This introduction was also reprinted in all issues in volume #1 and #2.]



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MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE - AN INTRODUCTION



Kenneth Chandler, Ph.D.



THIS ESSAY introduces a new approach to knowledge founded by Maharishi

Mahesh Yogi that is now on the forefront of mankinds expanding

exploration of the universe. The new approach combines the method of

modern science and Vedic Science, a new method of inquiry brought to

light by Maharishi. This approach of modern science and Maharishis

Vedic Science together, dedicated to the exploration of the unified

field of all laws of nature, is the foundation of the new method of

inquiry practiced at Maharishi International University. The

identification of the unified field by modern physics is only the first

glimpse of a new area of investigation that underlies all disciplines

of knowledge, and which can be explored not only through objective

science but through a new technology of consciousness developed by

Maharishi.



The unified field is now beginning to be understood through modern

physics as the unified source of the entire universe, as a unified

state of all laws of nature from which all force and matter fields

sequentially emerge according to exact dynamical principles. As each

science and each academic discipline progresses to uncover its own most

basic laws and foundational principles, each is beginning to discover

that the roots of these laws and principles can be traced to the

unified field.



A new method of gaining knowledge of the unified field is introduced

here that combines the approach of the modern sciences with that of the

most ancient of sciences, the ancient tradition of Vedic science. Many

thousands of years ago, the seers of the Himalayas discovered, through

exploration of the silent levels of awareness, a unified field where

all laws of nature are found together in a state of wholeness. This

unity of nature was directly experienced to be a self-referral state of

consciousness, which is unbounded, all-pervading, unchanging, and the

self-sufficient source of all existing things. They experienced and

gave expression to the self-interacting dynamics through which this

unified field sequentially gives rise to the diversity of all laws of

nature. That experience is expressed in the ancient Vedic literature.



In our own time, Maharishi has brought to light the knowledge of this

ancient science and integrated it with the modern sciences in such a

way that Vedic Science and modern science are now seen as complementary

methods of gaining knowledge of the same realitythe unified field of

all the laws of nature. The knowledge of this ancient science that

Maharishi has brought to light is known as Maharishis Vedic Science.



Maharishis Vedic Science is to be understood, first of all, as a

reliable method of gaining knowledge, as a science in the most complete

sense of the term. It relies upon experience as the sole basis of

knowledge, not experience gained through the senses only, but

experience gained when the mind, becoming completely quiet, is

identified with the unified field.  This method, examined in relation

to the modern sciences, proves to be an effective means of exploring

the unified field of all laws of nature. On the basis of this method,

complete knowledge of the unified field becomes possible. It is

possible to know the unified field both subjectively on the level of

direct experience through exploration of consciousness and objectively

through the investigative methods of modern science. Vedic Science

gives complete knowledge of consciousness, or the knower, complete

knowledge of the object known, and complete knowledge of the process of

knowing. In knowing the unified field, all threeknower, known, and

process of knowingare united in a single unified state of knowledge in

which the three are one and the same.



Maharishi has developed and made available a technology for the sys-

tematic exploration of the unified field. This technology is a means by

which anyone can gain access to the unified field and explore it

through experience of the simplest and most unified state of

consciousness. As this domain of experience becomes universally

accessible, the unified field be- comes available as a direct

experience that is a basis for universal knowl- edge. The technology

for gaining access to the unified field is called the Maharishi's

Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation- Sidhi Program.

The science based on this experience, which links modern science and

Vedic Science in a single unified body of knowledge, is called the

Science of Creative Intelligence.



Maharishi is deeply committed to applying the knowledge and technology

of the unified field for the practical benefit of life. He has

developed programs to apply this knowledge to every major area of human

concern, including the fields of health, education, rehabilitation, and

world peace. These applications of the Maharishis Vedic Science and

Technology have laid it open to empirical verification and demonstrated

its practical benefit to humankind. Hundreds of scientific studies have

already established its usefulness. From these results it is clear that

the Maharishi new science and technology of consciousness is far more

beneficial than technologies based on present day empirical science; it

promises to reduce and even eliminate war, terrorism, crime, ill

health, and all forms of human suffering.



Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-

Sidhi program, the applied value of Vedic Science, represents a great

advance in methods of gaining knowledge. Past science was based on a

limited range of knowledge gained through the senses. This new

technology opens to mankind a domain of experience of a deeper and more

far reaching import. It places within our grasp a new source of

discovery of laws of nature that far exceeds the methods of modern

science yet remains complementary to these methods.



Modern science and Vedic Science, explored together, constitute a

radically new frontier of knowledge in the contemporary world, opening

out vistas of what it is possible for mankind to know and to achieve,

which extend far beyond present conceptions, and which demand a

revaluation of current paradigms of reality and a reassessment of old

conceptions of the sources and limits of human knowledge.



This introductory essay will provide a preliminary understanding of

what the unified field is, what Vedic Science is, and how Vedic Science

and modern science are related. It also defines fundamental concepts

and terminology that will be frequently used in this book and surveys

the practical applications of this new technology. We begin with a

description of the unified field as understood in modern science.



THE UNIFIED FIELD OF MODERN SCIENCE



Within the last few years, modern theoretical physics has identified

and mathematically described a unified field at the basis of all

observable states of physical nature. Einsteins hope of finding a

unified field theory to unite the electromagnetic, gravitational, and

other known force fields has now been virtually realized in the form of

unified quantum field theories. Instead of having several irreducible

and distinct force fields, physics can now mathematically derive all

four known force fields from a single supersymmetric field located on

the Planck scale (10-33cm. or 10- 43sec.), the most fundamental

time-distance scale in nature. This field constitutes an unbounded

continuum of non-changing unity pervading the entire universe. All

matter and energy in the universe are now understood to be just

excitations of this one, all-pervading field.



Physics now has the capacity to accurately describe the sequence by

which the unified field of natural law systematically gives rise,

through its own self-interacting dynamics, to the diverse force and

matter fields that constitute the universe. With a precision almost

undreamed of a few years ago, the modern science of cosmology can now

account for the ex- act sequence of dynamical symmetry breaking by

which the unified field, the singularity at the moment of cosmogenesis,

sequentially gave rise to the diverse force fields and matter fields.

It is now possible to determine the time and sequence in which each

force and matter field decoupled from the unified field, often to

within a precision of minute fractions of a second. This gives us a

clear understanding of how all aspects of the physical universe emerge

from the unified field of natural law.



Mathematics, physiology, and other sciences have also located a unified

source and basis of all laws of nature in their respective disciplines.

In mathematics, the foundational area of set theory provides an account

of the sequential emergence of all of mathematics out of the single

concept of a set and the relationship of set membership. The iterative

mechanics of set formation at the foundation of set theory directly

present the me- chanics of an underlying unified field of intelligence

that is self-sufficient, self-referral, and infinitely dynamic in its

nature. Investigations into the foundations of set theory are

ultimately investigations of this unified field of intelligence from

which all diversity of the discipline emerges in a rigorous and

sequential fashion. In physiology, it is the DNA molecule that

contains, either explicitly or implicitly, the information specifying

all structures and functions of the individual physiology. In this

sense, therefore, it is DNA that unifies the discipline by serving as a

unified source to which the diversity of physiological functioning can

be traced.



Each of the modern sciences may indeed be said to have glimpsed a

unified state of complete knowledge in which all laws of nature are

con- tained in seed form. Each has gained some knowledge of how the

unified field of natural law sequentially unfolds into the diverse

expressions of natural law constituting its field of study. Modern

science is now discov- ering and exploring the fundamental unity of all

laws of nature.



VEDIC SCIENCE



Maharishis Vedic Science is based upon the ancient Vedic tradition of

gaining knowledge through exploration of consciousness, developed by

the great seers of the Himalayas who first expressed this knowledge and

passed it on over many thousands of years in what is now the oldest

continuous tradition of knowledge in existence. Maharishis work in

founding Vedic Science is very much steeped in that ancient tradition,

but his work is also very much imbued with the spirit of modern science

and shares its commitment to direct experience and empirical testing as

the foundation and criteria of all knowledge. For this reason, and

other reasons to be considered below, it is also appropriately called a

science.  The name Vedic Science thus indicates both the ancient

traditional origins of this body of knowledge and the modern commitment

to experience, system, testability, and the demand that knowledge be

useful in improving the quality of human life.



The founders of the ancient Vedic tradition discovered the capability

of the human mind to settle into a state of deep silence while

remaining awake, and therein to experience a completely unified,

simple, and un- bounded state of awareness, called pure consciousness,

which is quite dis- tinct from our ordinary waking, sleeping, or

dreaming states of con- sciousness. In that deep silence, they

discovered the capability of the mind to become identified with a

boundless, all-pervading, unified field that is experienced as an

eternal continuum underlying all existence. They gave expression to the

self-sufficient, infinitely dynamic, self-interacting qualities of this

unified state of awareness; and they articulated the dy- namics by

which it sequentially gives rise, through its own self- interacting

dynamics, to the field of space-time geometry, and subse- quently to

all the distinct forms and phenomena that constitute the universe. They

perceived the fine fabric of activity, as Maharishi explains it,

through which this unity of pure consciousness, in the process of

knowing itself, gives rise sequentially to the diversity of natural law

and ultimately to the whole of nature.



This experience was not, Maharishi says, on the level of thinking, or

theoretical conjecture, or imagination, but on the level of direct

experience, which is more vivid, distinct, clear, and orderly than

sensory experienceperhaps much in the same way that Newton or Einstein,

when they discovered the laws of universal gravitation or special

relativity, enjoyed a vivid experience of sudden understanding or a

kind of direct insight into these laws. The experience of the unified

field of all the laws of nature appears to be a direct experience of

this sort, except that it includes all laws of nature at one time as a

unified totality at the basis of all existencean experience obviously

far outside the range of average waking state experience.



The ancient Vedic literature, as Maharishi interprets it, expresses in

the sequence of its flow and the structure of its organization, the

sequence of the unfoldment of the diversity of all laws of nature out

of the unified field of natural law. The Veda is thus to be understood

as the sequential flow of this process of the oneness of pure

consciousness giving rise to diversity; and Vedic Science is to be

understood as a body of knowledge based on the direct experience of the

sequential unfoldment of the unified field into the diversity of

nature. It is an account, according to Maharishi, of the origin of the

universe from the unified field of natural law, an account that is open

to verification through direct experience, and is thus to be understood

as a systematic science.



These ancient seers of the Vedic tradition developed techniques to

refine the human physiology so that it can produce this level of

experience, techniques that were passed on over many generations, but

were eventually lost. Maharishis revival and reinterpretation of

ancient Vedic science is based on his revival of these techniques,

which have now been made widely accessible through the training of

thousands of teachers of Maharishis Vedic Science and Technology. He

has thus provided a reliable method of access to this field of direct

experience where the oneness of pure consciousness gives rise to the

diversity of the laws of nature; and he has also developed applications

of this technology that render it open to experimental testing. These

applications will be considered below.



Maharishi describes the experience of this unified field of

consciousness as an experience of a completely unchanging, unbounded

unity of consciousness, silently awake within itself. Gaining intimate

familiarity with the silence of pure consciousness, Maharishi says, one

gains the ability to experience within that silence an eternal fabric

or blueprint of all laws of nature that govern the universe, existing

at the unmanifest basis of all existence. This unmanifest basis of

life, where all laws of nature eternally reside in a collected unity,

is experienced as the fabric of the silent field of consciousness

itself, which is not in space and time, but lies at the unmanifest

basis of all manifest activity in space and time.  Through Maharishis

work, this experience comes to be understood (as we see below) as a

normal state of consciousness that arises in the natural course of

human development.



Glimpses of this universal domain of experience where all possibilities

reside together in an eternally unified state have been reported in

almost every culture and historical epoch, from Plato to Plotinus and

Augustine, and from Leibniz to Hegel and Whitehead. Scientists like

Kepler, Descartes, Cantor, and Einstein also appear to have written of

it and seemingly drew their insights into the laws of nature from this

experi- ence. Descartes writes, for example, of an experience that he

had as a young man of penetrating to the very heart of the kingdom of

knowl- edge and there comprehending all the sciences, not in sequence,

but all at once. Scientists and writers from many traditions have

described this experience of unity, which confirms that it is

completely universal, and not a product of a particular cultural

tradition. Just as the Vedic tradition has been misunderstood, however,

so have those descriptions of con- sciousness found in these different

cultural traditions; for without a tech- nique that makes the

experience systematically accessible to everyone, the understanding

that this is a universal experience of the most fundamental level of

natures activity has been obscured, and has not before now emerged into

the light of universal science.



According to Maharishis Vedic Science, it is not only possible to gain

direct experience of the unity of natural law at the basis of the

manifest universe, but one can also directly experience the unity of

nature sequen- tially giving rise to the diversity of natural law

through its own self-in- teracting dynamics. Maharishis most recent

research has centered on delving deeply into the analysis of these

self-interacting dynamics of consciousness.



THE SELF-INTERACTING DYNAMICS OF CONSCIOUSNESS



When one gains the capability, through the practice of Maharishis Vedic

Science, of remaining awake while becoming perfectly settled and still,

one gains the ability to experience a completely simple, unified,

undifferentiated, self-referral state of pure consciousness; this

state, in which knower, known, and process of knowing are one and the

same, is called samhita in the Vedic literature. Consciousness is

simply awake to itself, knowing its own nature as simple, unified pure

consciousness. Yet in knowing itself, the state of pure consciousness

creates an intellectually conceived distinction between itself as

knower, itself as known, and itself as process of knowing. In Vedic

literature, this is reflected in the distinction between rishi

(knower), devata (process of knowing), and chhandas (object of

knowledge). According to Maharishi, from the various interactions and

transformations of these three intellectually conceived values in the

unified state of pure consciousness, all diverse forms of knowledge,

all diverse laws of nature, and ultimately all diversity in material

nature itself sequentially emerge.



The conscious mind, awake at this totally settled and still level of

awareness, can witness the mechanics by which this diversification of

the many out of the unity of pure consciousness takes place. The

mechanics of rishi, devata, and chhandas transforming themselves into

samhita, samhita transforming itself into rishi, devata, and chhandas,

and rishi, devata and chhandas transforming themselves into each other

are the mechanics by which the unity of pure consciousness gives rise

to the diversity of natural law. These mechanics are expressed in the

sequential unfoldment of Vedic literature. These are the

self-interacting dynamics of consciousness knowing itself, which,

Maharishi says, sequentially give rise to all diver- sity in nature.



Maharishi describes this self-referral state of consciousness as the

basis of all creative processes in nature:



This self-referral state of consciousness is that one element in nature

on the ground of which the infi- nite variety of creation is

continuously emerging, growing, and dissolving. The whole field of

change emerges from this field of non-change, from this self-referral,

immortal state of consciousness. The interaction of the different

intellectually conceived components of this unified self-referral state

of consciousness is that all-powerful activity at the most elementary

level of nature. That activity is re- sponsible for the innumerable

varieties of life in the world, the innumerable streams of intelligence

in creation. (1)



THE STRUCTURE OF MAHARISHIS VEDIC SCIENCE



One of Maharishis most important contributions to Vedic scholarship has

been his discovery of the Apaurusheya Bhashya, the uncreated commentary

of the Rik Veda, which brings to light the dynamics by which the Veda

emerges sequentially from the self-interacting dynamics of

consciousness. According to Maharishis analysis, the Veda unfolds

through its own commentary on itself, through the sequential

unfoldment, in different sized packets of knowledge, of its own

knowledge of itself.  All knowledge of the Veda is contained implicitly

even in the first syllable Ak of the Rik Veda, and each subsequent

expression of knowledge elaborates the meaning inherent in that packet

of knowledge through an expanded commentary. (2)  The phonology of that

syllable expresses the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness

knowing itself.  As pure consciousness interacts with itself, at every

stage of creation a new level of wholeness emerges to express the same

self-interacting dynamics of rishi, devata, and chhandas.



Thus the body of Vedic literature reflects, in its very organization

and structure, the sequential emergence of all structures of natural

law from the unity of pure consciousness. Each unit of Vedic

literatureRik Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda, Upanishads,

Aranyakas, Brahmanas, Vedangas, Upangas, Itihasa, Puranas, Smritis, and

Upa- Vedaexpresses one aspect or level of the process. As Maharishi

describes it:



The whole of Vedic literature is beautifully organized in its

sequential development to present complete knowledge of the reality at

the unmanifest basis of creation and complete knowledge of all of its

manifest values. (3)



Veda, Maharishi has said, is the self-interaction of consciousness that

ultimately gives rise to the diversity of nature. The diversity of

creation sequentially unfolding from the unity of consciousness is the

result of distinctions being created within the wholeness of

consciousness, as con- sciousness knows itself. Thus from the

perspective of Vedic Science, the entire universe is just an expression

of consciousness moving within itself:  all activity in nature is just

activity within the unchanging continuum of the wholeness of

consciousness.



Through the texts of ancient Vedic Science, as interpreted by

Maharishi, we possess a rich account of the emergence of diversity out

of the unity of natural law. On the basis of this account, it becomes

feasible to compare the Vedic description of the origin of the universe

with that of the modern sciences.



MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE



When Maharishi heard from major scientists of the recent advances of

unified field theory in physics, he asserted that modern science had

glimpsed the unified field described in ancient Vedic Science. The

knowledge of the unified field, he said, has been discovered by modern

science during just the last few years, but the complete knowledge of

the unified field has always been available in the Vedic literature.

(4) Modern science, he proposed, had now arrived at the edge of

comprehending, through unified quantum field theories, what Vedic

Science had described on the basis of exploration of the least excited

state of consciousness since ancient times: that all diversity in

nature sequentially emerges from a unified source through a precise

self-interacting dynamics. Modern ex- perimental science and Maharishis

Vedic Science could now be seen as two diverse yet mutually

complementary approaches to knowing the same underlying realityone

through the empirical method, the other through the exploration of the

least excited state of consciousness. Through Maharishis inspiration,

this has become a major research program that has engaged the attention

of many scientists and that has yielded very rich results.



Over the past decade, Maharishi has participated in numerous symposia

with major scientists on the theme of exploring modern science and

Vedic Science to discover detailed structural similarities in their

descriptions of the unified field. These symposia have attracted

eminent unified field theorists, mathematicians, and physiologists,

including a number of Nobel laureates, as well as many of the most

highly recognized pandits of the Vedic tradition. Out of these

interactions has come a meeting of two traditions, East and West, on

the ground of their common theme: the investigation of the unified

field.



Those who have followed these symposia have recognized a deep and

impressive structure of knowledge common to both traditions. Both

identify a boundless, all-pervading field underlying all states of

matter and energy in the universe; both locate it on the most

fundamental time- distance scale of nature; both assign to it the same

properties of self- sufficiency, self-interaction, infinite dynamism,

unboundedness, and unity, among many other common attributes; both

identify a threefold structure at the basis of all nature; and both

describe a dynamics by which the diversity of nature sequentially

emerges from this unified field according to precise laws. The result

of these symposia has been that many scientists, following Maharishis

lead, now feel confident to assert that that unified field described by

physics and the unified field of consciousness described by Vedic

Science are one and the same.



One of the many physicists who has been attracted to Maharishis Vedic

Science is John Hagelin. Hagelin was introduced to unified field theory

during his Ph.D. work at Harvard, and later made major contributions to

unified field theory. After working at the European Center for Particle

Physics (CERN) and later at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC)

Hagelin developed a doctoral program in physics at Maharishi

International University where he has been exploring many of the deep

connections between contemporary unified field theory in physics and

Maharishis Vedic Science. His work brought these two methods of inquiry

into close correlation, drawing upon both the latest developments of

unified field theories, ancient Vedic Science, and the direct

experience of the unified field. In the last few years he has highly

lauded for his derivation of the electro-weak interaction from

superstring theorya major contribution to the development of unified

field theory.



Hagelin has presented evidence in support of the identity of the

unified field of physics and the unified field discovered as the least

excited state of consciousness. His main empirical evidence for this

new paradigm was drawn from experimental research in the social

sciences on the Maharishi Effectthe measurable effects on society

resulting from the practice of Maharishis Vedic Science. As further

evidence for the identity of consciousness and the unified field, he

cites deep parallels between the descriptions of the unified field

found in physics and Vedic Science. These themes will be discussed in

following sections.



THE NEW PARADIGM OF THE UNITY OF NATURE



It is a common belief that the unified field of physics is an objective

reality of nature and that consciousness is a subjective experience,

and that the two belong therefore to different categories of

existence.  According to this understanding, one is purely material,

the other is purely mental, and the two cannot, therefore, be equated.



Through the experience of pure consciousness described in Vedic

Science, this unified level of intelligence is experienced, not as a

mere subjective and localized phenomenon of thought or sensation, but

as a non-changing, unbounded, field of being, pervading all forms and

phenomena in the universe on a non-active, or silent, and unmanifest

level. Objective and subjective aspects of nature are seen as but two

manifest modes of this unified field at the unmanifest basis of

existence. A thorough examination of the nature of the unified field in

physics and the descriptions of unbounded consciousness brought to

light by Maharishi supports the thesis that they are but two

complementary modes of apprehending a single underlying reality.



The view of nature as consisting of billiard-ball-like objects, each

separate, discrete, and isolated from each other, belongs to the old

classical Newtonian view of the world. Quantum field theory in modern

physics no longer views nature in this way, but provides a new

understanding in which the primary reality is that of quantum fields.

All forms of matter and energy are understood to be excitations of

these underlying fields. In the last year and a half, the apparently

different fields of gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong

interactions have been theoretically unified as different levels of

expression of one single underlying field. All forms and phenomena in

the universe are just modes of vibratory excitation of this one,

all-pervading unified field.



Today, the success of modern physics in unifying our understanding of

physical nature is mirrored in the success of Maharishis Vedic Science

in unifying our understanding of consciousness. When the unbounded

level of pure consciousness is gained as a direct experience, all

activity in nature is experienced as an excited state of that one,

all-pervading field.  Since quantum field theory also describes all

activity in the universe as excitations of one underlying field, the

simplest interpretation is that there is a single unified field which

can be known both through direct experience and through the objective

sciences. In this new understanding of the unity of nature, mind and

matter cease to be viewed as ultimately different and come to be seen

as expressions of a deeper unity of unbounded consciousness.



The unity of nature described in Vedic Science is not a mere

hypothetical unity, nor a unity of intellectual interpretation. It is a

unity of direct experience that has been described in almost every

tradition and every historical epoch. Maharishis Vedic Science only

brings to light what has been the experience of many of the greatest

minds throughout history. What is radically new is that Maharishi has

provided a systematic and reliable method by which anyone can gain

access to this level of experience. This method of access is

Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program.



MAHARISHI'S TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION AND TRANSCENDENTAL

MEDITATION-SIDHI PROGRAM



Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-

Sidhi program has been introduced by Maharishi as an effective means

for opening the unified field to all as a direct experience. In this

way, the unified field becomes universally accessible to systematic

exploration.



The Transcendental Meditation program provides a systematic procedure

by which the mind is allowed to naturally settle into a state of

restful alertness, the self-referral state of pure consciousness in

which the mind is completely silent and yet awake. In this way, the

state of pure consciousness, which has been the subject of

philosophical speculation throughout the centuries, can now be

investigated on the basis of direct experience. Maharishis immensely

important contribution to the clarification and elucidation of this

experience of pure consciousness will be a theme for analysis in future

chapters.



This quiet, still level of consciousness has rarely been experienced in

the past because no systematic and effective technique has been

available for providing that experience. The Transcendental Meditation

technique is a simple, natural, and effortless procedure for allowing

the awareness to settle into a state of deep silence while remaining

awake. It has proved to be uniquely effective in making this level of

experience widely accessible. Through the deep rest gained during the

practice of the technique, balance is systematically created on all

levels of physiological functioning and the nervous system is

habituated to a more settled, coherent, and alert style of functioning.

In time, a state of integrated functioning is gained, in which pure

consciousness is spontaneously and permanently maintained. Once this

state is established, the silent, self- referral field of awareness is

always present as a stable non-changing ground underlying all changing

states of awareness. This integrated state of consciousness, Maharishi

says, is the basis of all excellence in life, and provides the

foundation for the further development of higher states of

consciousness through the practice of the Transcendental Meditation and

Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program.



MAHARISHIS PROGRAMS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER STATES OF

CONSCIOUSNESS



The ultimate purpose of the Transcendental Meditation and

Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi programand all aspects of Maharishis

Vedic Scienceis the development of consciousness, the unfoldment of the

full human potential to live life in enlighten-ment. Enlightenment is

that fully developed state of life in which one enjoys complete

knowledge and lives in total fulfillment. In this state, one lives in

harmony with all laws of nature, enjoying the full support of nat-ural

law to achieve any desire without making mistakes.



Maharishi has identified a specific sequence of higher states of con-

sciousness, each distinct from waking, dreaming, and sleeping, which,

he says, arise in the normal full course of human development. Each

state of consciousness unfolds on the basis of a concrete shift in the

mode of the individuals neurophysiological functioning. These states

can be distin- guished from waking, dreaming, and sleeping on the basis

of their distinct physiological correlates. The higher states of

consciousness that arise in this developmental sequence are, Maharishi

says, a source of greater joy, knowledge, and fulfillment than ordinary

waking state life.



The attainment of these higher states of consciousness is the basis for

fully grasping and applying the theoretical understanding of Maharishis

Vedic Science. Vedic Science is just the exposition of the full range

of di- rect experience that unfolds during the natural course of

development of human consciousness. These states of consciousness are

universal stages of human development accessible to everyone through

the practice of the Maharishi Vedic Science and Technology. What was

shrouded in the veil of mysticism is now scientifically understood as a

normal, natural stage of human life available to anyone.



Dr. Charles Alexander, whose work at Harvard on Transcendental

Meditation and ageing earned international recognition, is now at

Maharishi International University exploring the empirical evidence,

drawn from behavioral and neurophysiological research, for the

existence of higher stages of human development. His research unfolds

the scientific basis for understanding and verifying higher states of

consciousness from the standpoint of a de-velopmental psychologist and

is laying the basis for a new paradigm of human development.



RESEARCH ON THE RELATION BETWEEN MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE



Each individual nervous system, when refined through Maharishis Vedic

Science and Technology, is an instrument through which the silent field

of pure unbounded consciousness becomes accessible as a field of

inquiry. Since the unified field is all-pervading and everywhere the

same, a nervous system finely enough attuned in its functioning can

gain the ability, according to Maharishi, to experience and identify

itself with that unbounded, undifferentiated and unified field

underlying all activity in nature. By taking ones awareness from the

gross level of sensory objects to perception of finer levels of

activity, one gains the ability to experience that level of natures

functioning at which the unity of pure consciousness gives rise to

diversity. Gaining this unified state of consciousness is the means by

which anyone can experience and confirm the structure of knowledge and

reality described in Vedic Science. This is partly what makes Vedic

Science a precise, verifiable science: all theoretical structures of

the science can be verified through a reliable, systematic, effective

technology. Other foundational aspects of this science will be

considered below.



Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-

Sidhi program becomes, in the modern world, a method for the

investigation of the unified field and the most refined level of

natures activity through direct experience. Modern physics, through its

objective method of inquiry, has glimpsed a unified field underlying

all of nature; but physics has reached a fundamental impasse in its

ability to experimentally investigate the unified field, because the

energies required to probe these finer scales exceed those attainable

by any conceivable particle accelerator technology. Where physics can

go no further, Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental

Meditation- Sidhi program facilitates inquiry beyond the limitations of

the objective approach by providing an effective means of exploring the

unified field on the level of direct experience.



This exploration of the unified field through the subjective experience

of consciousness is a well-structured program of research. It is guided

by the knowledge of Vedic Science set forth by Maharishi in conjunction

with the modern sciences. When descriptions of the unified field from

the standpoint of modern science, Vedic Science, and direct experience

coalesce, the three together provide a basis of complete knowledge.

This program of research is based on Maharishis exposition of the Vedic

literature as a complete and detailed expression of the unified field.



According to Maharishis exposition of the Veda, the sequential

emergence of the diverse laws of nature from the unified field can be

directly experienced in the field of consciousness as a sequence of

sounds; these are presented in the sequential emergence of phonological

structures of the Vedic texts. Veda is just the structure of the

self-interacting dynamics through which the unified field gives rise to

the diverse expressions of natural law. Therefore, fundamental

theoretical concepts in physics and other disciplines, insofar as they

are valid descriptions of nature, should correspond to different

aspects of Vedic literature that describe these realities from the

standpoint of direct experience.



The basic program of research of modern science and Vedic Science, as

conceived by Maharishi, thus has three major goals: (1) to develop an

integrated structure of knowledge by fathoming the depth of

correspondence between the principles of modern science and Vedic

Science; (2) to provide, from Vedic Science, a foundation in direct

experience for the most profound theoretical concepts of modern

science; and (3) to resolve the impasse faced by the objective approach

of modern science through the addition of the subjective approach of

Vedic Science, which provides complete knowledge of nature on the basis

of the complete development of the knower.



As a graduate student at MIT and later on the Harvard mathematics

faculty, Professor Michael Weinless made significant contributions to

the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. His more recent work

on set theory and other foundational areas of modern mathematics has

brought to light concepts that precisely mirror the eternal principles

and conceptual structures of the Veda.



Drs. Robert Keith Wallace, David Pasco, and John Fagan are among many

biologists exploring the relationship between Vedic Science and the

foundational areas of modern physiology. Their research focuses the

extent to which fundamental principles of Vedic Science can be used to

further investigation of DNA structure and function and has brought to

light deep structures of knowledge common to DNA and the structure of

Veda.



Dr. Tony Nader, having recently completed a post-doctoral program on

neuro-endocrinology at Harvard Medical School, has also explored deep

parallels between the structure of human physiology and the structure

of the Veda. His work has brought to light that human brain physiology

directly mirrors the timeless structure of the Veda.



The discovery of deep structures of knowledge common to Vedic Science

and modern science represents a profound contribution to our

understanding of nature. The aim of this journal is to survey some of

the scholarly investigation of the interrelations between these

complementary methods of gaining knowledge. Knowledge gained by direct

experience of the fine fabrics of natures activity, and knowledge

gained by the experimental methods of modern science coalesce in a new

integrated method of inquiry that offers both the fundamental

principles of modern science and the expressions of direct experience

in Vedic Science as two facets of one reality of natures functioning.



Maharishi sums up the relation between Vedic Science, modern science,

and Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program as follows:



Vedic Science is applied through Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation

and Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program. We speak of the unified

field in connection with Vedic Science be-cause of the similarity of

what has been discovered by physics and what exists in the

self-referral state of human consciousness. The Technology of the

Unified Field is a purely scientific procedure for the total

development of the human psyche, the total development of the race.

This is a time when ob- jective, science-based progress in the world is

being enriched by the possibility of total development of human life on

earth, and this is the reason why we anticipate the creation of a

unified field based civilization. (5)



On the basis of the universal availability of this domain of

experience, an empirical science of consciousness becomes available for

the first time.



THE SCIENCE OF CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE: FOUNDATIONS OF A NEW SCIENCE OF

CONSCIOUSNESS



The unified science that links the objective method of modern science

and the subjective method of Vedic Science, while preserving the

integrity of each, is called the Science of Creative Intelligence

(SCI).  Maharishi himself has laid the foundations of this new science

by showing, firstly, how a precise subjective science of consciousness

is established on the basis of the direct experience of consciousness

in its pure form; and secondly, how the experimental method can be used

to empirically test the assertions of the subjective science. Through

Maharishis work, for the first time in history, the full potential of

human consciousness can be investigated both through direct experience

and through the objective methods of modern science. The foundations of

this new science linking the subjective and objective method will now

be considered.



EXPERIENTIAL FOUNDATIONS



Prior to Maharishis work, the term consciousness was considered too

vague and indefinite to be allowed into scientific discussion. It was

excluded from science as a metaphysical term because consciousness was

not objectively observable, and therefore apparently not amenable to

scientific investigation. Through Maharishis work, the concept of

consciousness has been given a precise, well-defined meaning on the

basis of direct experience, and its relation to the objective framework

of science has been precisely specified.



The experience of pure consciousness, available to anyone through the

regular practice of Maharishi Science and Technology of Consciousness,

is a basis for precise experiential knowledge of consciousness in its

simplest, most fundamental, and most unified state. Even though

consciousness can never be an object of experience, when the conscious

mind becomes completely settled in a wakeful state, it experiences its

own nature as pure wakefulness, pure consciousness, without any

activity or objective content. Through the repeatable, systematic

experience of this silent but wakeful state of mind, the concept of

pure consciousness, which has been subject to conjecture and debate

throughout the centuries, is now available to direct experience.



Having laid the basis for introducing consciousness into science as a

precise concept, it remained for Maharishi to develop a program of

applied research to test theoretical predictions of Vedic Science.

Identifying consciousness with the unified field provides a precise

understanding of where consciousness is located in the framework of the

sciences. To create an empirical science of consciousness, however, it

was necessary to also account for how consciousness could be

investigated through experimental research.



EMPIRICAL FOUNDATIONS



Maharishis work has also laid the basis for an experimental

investigation of consciousness. He has led the way in drawing out

predictions from Vedic Science which are open to testing, translating

discussions of consciousness, derived from experience of higher states

of consciousness, into predictions of experimentally observable

phenomena.  Three examples will illustrate this principle.



Pure consciousness, as was noted above, is experienced during the

practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique as a state of pure

restful alertness. This purely subjective experience does not, however,

establish objectively whether it is in fact a state of deep rest and

alertness, or only seems to be. If a person is in a deep state of rest

and alertness, Maharishi has asserted, then physiological evidence of

deep rest and alertness should be observable. Reduced levels of oxygen

consumption, reduced breath rate, and other measures of more refined

physiological activity would be predicted. Patterns of EEG coherence in

the alpha range, indicative of restful alertness, should also be

observed. Early pioneering research by Dr. Robert Keith Wallace found

that these changes do indeed occur. In this way, statements about the

subjective experience of consciousness were translated into empirically

verifiable assertions. The basis of this correlation between

consciousness and physiology is a principle, fundamental to Maharishis

thinking, that for every state of consciousness there is a

corresponding state of physiological functioning. The range of

physiological correlates of the experience of pure consciousness is a

subject of a wide and continuing research program.



Consider a second example. Pure consciousness is understood in Vedic

Science as a clear and settled state of awareness. Anyone who gains

this state is said to have a mind like a placid lake, unrippled by

waves and thus able to reflect the outside world in a precise,

non-agitated manner.  Maharishi drew from this several predictions. One

is that a person growing in the ability to experience pure

consciousness would experience a more stable and orderly state of

physiological functioning. This can be translated into the testable

prediction that subjects regularly practicing the Transcendental

Meditation program display fewer spontaneous galvanic skin responses

and increased autonomic stability, both indicators of reduced

electrical noise in the nervous system. Another prediction is that the

practice of the Transcendental Meditation program will produce greater

perceptual clarity and greater orderliness of thinking. Translated into

specific terms, this leads to the prediction that practicing the

Transcendental Meditation program will produce measurable increases on

such scales as auditory discrimination, brain wave coherence, and

problem solving ability. Research has been designed, carried out, and

reported in the literature which measures the growth of these

parameters in groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation program

by comparison to control groups, thus providing objective verification

of the predicted correlates of the subjective experience of pure

consciousness.



A third example of how statements of Vedic Science can be translated

into testable form is found in sociological experiments. The hypothesis

is that a group of persons practicing Maharishis Science and Technology

of Consciousness in one place, by bringing their awareness to the level

of perfect orderliness in the unified field, will enliven qualities of

harmony and orderliness in collective consciousness, thus producing

measurable positive changes in the quality of societal life. Many

experiments have been designed and carried out by Maharishi

demonstrating the power of this technology to produce significant

changes in the level of coherence, positivity, balance, and stability

in society, even on a global scale. The results of these experiments

strongly support Maharishis assertion that consciousness is identical

with the unified field.



In this manner, Maharishi proposes, all assertions of Vedic Science can

be tested and verified through research in the modern sciences. Vedic

Science thus comes to be seen as a fruitful source of scientific

discoveries that can be verified through modern experimental science.



EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH



Over five hundred experimental studies in the areas of physiology,

psychology, and sociology provide substantial confirmation of many

basic assertions of Vedic Science in the arena of empirical science.

Many of these studies, published in major scientific journals

throughout the world, have been collected in the volumes called

Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Programme and

Transcendental Meditation- Sidhi Programme: Collected Papers. (6) This

research provides experimental validation of the efficacy of Maharishi

Vedic Science and Technology. Because this research is too extensive to

summarize here, the reader is referred to the the five volumes of the

Collected Papers for a convenient overview of the scope of the

published research. For a comprehensive bibliography of these studies,

see Wallace. (7) Overall, this research probably represents the most

concerted, well-designed research program on a potential means to

benefit to mankind ever conceived. Its present standing is that, taken

together as a body of research, it is one of the most impressive

confirmations of a theory of human potential ever executed.



Although it is beyond the scope of this introduction to go into the de-

tails of the research, it is worthwhile to mention some of the broad

cate- gories of scientific investigation which have evolved to guide

the research program of the Science of Creative Intelligence. The main

areas of re- search include studies on the individual and society.

Research on benefits to the individual may be further subdivided into

studies of physiological changes (both during and after the practice);

cognitive, psychological, and behavioral changes; benefits to health

and social behavior; and benefits to athletic performance, performance

in business, and academic perfor- mance. Research on social benefits

through collective practice may be further grouped into research on

families, city populations, national populations, and global

population. These researches fall into the cate- gories of studies of

crime prevention, accident prevention, benefits to economy, health,

violence reduction, and world peace.



On the basis of this research, basic assertions of Vedic Science become

verifiable through empirical science. There is, moreover, a unity of

theory underlying these diverse predictions and tests. These studies,

taken as a whole, constitute a coherent research program that tests the

prediction that repeated experience of the unified field results in

greater orderliness, coherence, and positivity, in both individual and

social life.  Research on these changes not only tests fundamental

theory, but demonstrates the practical benefits of this new technology.

Maharishis Science and Technology is opened to experimental testing

precisely because it has significant practical applications in

improving every area of human life. These practical applications will

be considered now.



PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF MAHARISHIS VEDIC SCIENC AND TECHNOLOGY



Maharishi has frequently said that the purpose of Vedic Science is to

benefit life, not merely to give knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge,

he has emphatically said, is for action, action for achievement, and

achievement for fulfillment. The ultimate purpose of Vedic Science and

its applied technology is, therefore, to bring human life to

fulfillment.



Maharishis Vedic Science brings fulfillment to individual life by

unfolding the full potential of consciousness. When higher states of

consciousness are realized, Maharishi has recently emphasized, life is

lived in twenty-four hour bliss. Gaining contact with the unified

field, one enjoys spontaneous right action, lives life in total accord

with all laws of nature, and can accomplish any life-supporting desire.

Violations of natural law cease, and all suffering, which is caused by

violation of natural law, comes to an end. Life is lived free from

mistakes in inner and outer fulfillment. Such is the fundamental

purpose of the technology Maharishi has created.



Some of the specific way in which this technology brings fulfillment to

life are by creating perfect health, balance, and longevity in

individual and collective life; unfolding the full potential of the

individual; and creating world peace.



PERFECT HEALTH



Maharishis Vedic Science has important practical applications in the

area of health. According to Maharishi, sickness arises from

imbalance.  Perfect health means wholeness and balance on all levels of

life. When individual life is established in the unified field of all

the laws of nature, all actions are spontaneously in accord with

natural law, and this brings perfect balance and integration to every

level of body, mind, and behavior.



An integral part of Maharishis Vedic Science is the ancient science of

life and health, called Ayur-Veda, which has been restored to its

original purity and effectiveness by Maharishi. The cornerstone of

Maharishis Ayurvedic system of health, called Maharishi Ayur-Veda, is

the development of consciousness. Perfect health in mind, body, and

behavior is the natural result, according to Maharishi Ayur-Veda, of

the full development of consciousness. When consciousness is fully

developed, it becomes identified with the unified field, the field of

perfect balance, unity, and wholeness, and from there is able to

witness the transformation of the unity of consciousness into the

diversity of physiological functioning. From that level of awareness,

balance and wholeness is maintained in the body and mind, and no

impurities or abnormalities are allowed to enter. On this basis,

Maharishi says, perfect health can be permanently maintained.



Maharishi Ayur-Veda also includes specific procedures to treat and

prevent illness and promote longevity. Maharishi Ayur-Veda Medical

Centers have been established in many countries to eliminate the basis

of sickness, create perfect health, and reverse the aging process. Over

the last fifteen years, research into the effects of Maharishis Vedic

Science and on health have been carried out at research institutions

all over the world, and Maharishis recent emphasis on Ayur-Veda

provides many new research opportunities for investigating the

applications of Vedic Science in the area of health.



Maharishis Vedic Science and Technology also includes technologies to

accomplish specific goals of individual and social life and to bring

health and balance to these areas. The Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi

program has been founded by Maharishi to utilize the knowledge and the

organizing power of the unified field for improving achievements in

this area of human endeavor.



UNFOLDING FULL HUMAN POTENTIAL THROUGH THE TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

AND AND TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION SIDHI PROGRAM



When one gains the level of experience of the self-interacting dynamics

of consciousness, Maharishi has said, one gains command over all the

laws of nature. Stationed at the source of all laws of nature, at the

central switchboard of natures activity, human consciousness can

command all the laws of nature to create any desirable effect in the

material world. Maharishi has brought forth a program for gaining

mastery over all laws of nature, based on the formulations found in the

ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the principal books of Vedic

literature. Through this program, the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi

program, the mind gains the ability to function from the level of the

self- interacting dynamics of the unified field. Once established in

pure self- referral awareness through the practice of the

Transcendental Meditation program, an individual gains the ability to

draw upon the the organizing power of the unified field to accomplish

anything. Since the unified field is the source of all existence, its

organizing power is infinite, and one who functions from this level has

unlimited organizing ability.  Established in that unified field of all

possibilities on the unmanifest level of existence before consciousness

assumes the form of matter, all possibilities open to ones awareness

and one can govern the expressions of the unified field as it

transforms itself into matter. As Maharishi expresses it:



In this program, human awareness identifies itself with that most

powerful level of natures function- ing and starts to function from

there. The purpose of the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program is to

consciously create activity from that level from where nature performs.

(8)



Through the practice of the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program,

Maharishi predicts, it will become possible to achieve levels of

body-mind coordination hitherto deemed impossible. It will be possible,

he says, to realize the ancient dream of flying through the air, and to

develop highly enhanced powers of hearing, seeing, and intuition that

extend the senses far beyond the limits currently conceived to be

possible. By activating laws of nature which are now hidden to ordinary

methods of scientific investigation, the Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program provide a research methodology to explore what

is possible for mankind to achieve on the basis of functioning from

that level where the conscious mind has become identified with the

unified field. This is the basis of a technological revolution more

powerful and beneficial to life than any conceived through empirical

science.



THE MAHARISHI EFFECT



The Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program, when practiced in groups,

is even more powerful than the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program

practiced alone. The collective practice of the Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program can produce an influence which effects the

entire world in measurable ways. This global influence of coherence

generated through the group practice of Maharishi's Transcendental

Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program has been called

the Maharishi Effect.



As early as 1960, Maharishi predicted that when individuals practice

the Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi

programs in sufficiently large groups, a measurable increase in

orderliness, coherence, and positive trends would be observed in

society.  By enlivening the life-supporting and evolutionary qualities

of the unified field, such as perfect orderliness, infinite dynamism,

and self-sufficiency, Maharishi held, these qualities would be

enlivened in collective consciousness and this would have positive

measurable effects on a wide social scale.



Over the years, social scientists developed formulas for predicting the

size of the group necessary to create a phase transition in society to

a measurably higher quality of life. These formulas, calculated on the

basis of analogous phase transitions from disorder to orderliness

studied in physics, came out to be approximately one percent of a

population practicing the Transcendental Meditation program, and a much

smaller percentage, on the order of the square root of one percent

practicing the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program.



Since 1978, many experimental studies have been performed to measure

the effect of large groups practicing the Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program. Experimental confirmation of the principle

has been the consistent result. The Maharishi Effect is now as well

documented as any principle of modern social science. In creating this

technology, Maharishi has provided an effective method of social change

that operates from the silent, harmonizing level of the unified field

to produce a transformation in the quality of collective consciousness,

thereby effortlessly creating coherence on a global scale. Maharishi

describes how this effect is produced:



The transcendental level of natures functioning is the level of

infinite correlation. When the group awareness is brought in attunement

with that level, then a very intensified influence of coherence

radiates, and a great richness is created. Infinite correlation is a

quality of the transcendental level of natures functioning from where

orderliness governs the universe. (9)



Psychologists David Orme-Johnson and Michael Dillbeck have been among

those leading the empirical research on the Maharishi Effect. They

recently surveyed forty experimental studies documenting the

sociological improvements resulting from the group practice of

Maharishis Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program.  On the basis of these results, Maharishi

says that the collective practice of the Transcendental

Meditation-Sidhi program in groups of 7,000 (the square root of one

percent of the worlds population) will produce coherence in the

collective consciousness of the entire world. Statistically significant

reductions in crime, accidents, fatalities, disease, and other positive

benefits on a global scale observed during experimental periods have

established this as an effective means of changing collective

consciousness and thereby changing the quality of life in the world

simply by enlivening the source of order and coherence at the basis of

nature from the level of the unified field.



MAHARISHIS PROGRAM TO CREATE WORLD PEACE



The most dramatic application of the Maharishi Vedic Science and

Technology is Maharishis program to create world peace through the

creation of a permanent group of 7,000 collectively practicing the

Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program. Maharishis technology is a

basis for eliminating negativity and destructive tendencies throughout

the world. Large groups of experts in Maharishi Technology creating

coherence during experimental periods have provided ample opportunity

for scientific research. During these experimental periods, conflict

and violence have been reduced in war torn areas and negative trends

have been reversed. Over thirty studies have established the efficacy

of this technology to eliminate conflict and promote life supporting,

positive trends throughout the world.



Maharishi clearly lays out the basis of his program to create World

Peace. Stress, he says, is the basic cause of all negativity, violence,

terrorism, and national and international conflicts. Stress generated

by the violation of natural law causes strained trends and tendencies

in the environment. Through Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and

Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program, human intelligence can be

identified with the unified field, and violations of natural law will

cease.  Reinforcement of evolutionary power in world consciousness is

the only effective way, Maharishi writes, to neutralize all kinds of

negative trends in the world and maintain world consciousness on a high

level of purity. (10)



These global applications of this new science and technology are almost

beyond present levels of imagination. Yet scientific research has found

measurable reductions in levels of violence, crime, and other

indications of negativity during the practice of the Maharishi

Technology in sufficiently large groups during experimental trial

periods. Here for the first time in history is a scientific basis for

creating world peace, ending terrorism, and reducing the negative

trends of society.



On the basis of these studies, Maharishi says that world peace can be

guaranteed now, through the establishment of groups of 7,000; he has

said perfect health and unlimited longevity can be achieved for

individual life, and that balance, coherence and health in society can

be established in our generation. War, crime, poverty, and all problems

that bring unhappiness to the family of man can be entirely eliminated.

Life, he believes, can be lived in absolute abundance and fulfillment.

Maharishi has called upon every significant individual in the world to

act now to adopt this program for world peace by creating groups of

7,000 collectively practicing Maharishis Technology of Consciousness to

establish world peace and guarantee its perpetuation.



PROGRESS THROUGH MAHARISHIS TECHNOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS



The practical benefits which Maharishi foresees through this new

technology are far greater than those achieved by the technology based

on present science. As science has investigated deeper levels of

nature, from microbes to molecules to atoms, new technologies have

emerged which apply the knowledge in areas such as medicine and nuclear

power. In drawing upon the deepest and most powerful level of natural

law, the level of the unified field, Vedic Science lays the basis for

much more powerful technologies still. Where modern medicine has been

able to eliminate some diseases by drawing upon microscopic levels,

Vedic Science lays the basis for the elimination of all disease, and

more importantly, for creation of perfect health and reversal of aging.

While modern science has produced nuclear technology but no technology

for peaceful resolution of conflict, Vedic Science draws upon the

infinite organizing power of the unified field at the basis of nature

to create social harmony and world peace while preserving cultural

integrity and stimulating prosperity and progress.



The new technology founded by Maharishi has been expressed in terms

that open it to experimental verification through objective science.

Many studies have shown measurable improvements throughout a population

as a result of the practice of Maharishis Transcendental Meditation and

Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program in groups of sufficient size.

Measurable reductions in crime and significant improvements in quality

of life occur when large groups are present in a population.



The most recent demonstration of this technology in Washington, D.C.

found an 18 per cent drop in crime during the two months a large group

was in place in the city. The study was highly statistically

significant, with less than one chance in ten thousand that the results

were due to other variables (P<.00008). The hypothesis that a single

field exists at the basis of all thought and action in nature and that

the human mind can contact that field and produce effects from that

level has for the first time in history come under the scope of

experimental investigation. More importantly, a technology now exist

that can solve the most intractable social problems that have proved

resistant to the methods of the modern sciences.



Moreover, there are initial confirmations that the human mind, by

gaining direct experience of the unified field through Maharishis Vedic

Science, is accessing a significant source of new knowledge. Dr. John

Hagelin has been highly honored for his derivation of electro-weak

theory from superstring theorya major contribution to fundamental

physics. Dr. Hagelin gives credit to Maharishis Vedic Science as the

method of this important discovery. Here, then, in Maharishis Vedic

Science is the long sought method of scientific discovery that can

transform science from a trial and error method to a more reliable

approach to experience of the unified source of all laws of nature.



MAHARISHIS VEDIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS A NEW METHOD OF KNOWLEDGE



The bold assertions about what is practically possible through the

appli- cation of Maharishis Vedic Science and Technology must be

understood in the context of the new method of gaining knowledge that

Maharishi has founded. The history of science testifies that as new

methods of gaining knowledge of deeper and more unified levels of

natural law become available, more powerful and useful technologies

become available.  Maharishis Vedic Science is based on the deepest and

most unified level of knowledge of nature. It should not be surprising,

therefore, that this technology provides a radically new source of

organizing power to fulfill the highest goals of mankind.



Maharishis Vedic Science and Technology offers a fundamentally new

approach to knowledge that has not been available before. In asserting

that it is possible for one individual to know all laws of nature and

the entirety of the universe within his or her own consciousness,

Maharishi is well aware that he is introducing an account of human

potential that goes well beyond the concept of the limits of knowledge

that has dominated in the scientific era. This new paradigm of

knowledge must be examined in a new light.



 It is a widespread belief in the 20th century that the only valid

 method of gaining knowledge is by moving outward through the senses,

that is, through the methods of the empirical sciences. It is, however,

only the historical failure of subjective approaches that has led to

this belief. It cannot be known that the senses are the only way of

gaining knowledge, and those who cling to the belief that it is only

allow old habits to stand in the way of exploring new possible sources

of knowledge.



Subjective approaches to knowledge in the past failed to bear fruit be-

cause they failed to provide an effective and reliable method of access

to an invariant and universal domain of direct experience. They thus

failed to establish independent standards of knowledge, they failed to

produce methods of distinguishing truth from error, they failed to

produce con- sensus even among those practicing the same method, and

they failed to produce practical technological benefits through the

practice of the method.



Maharishis approach to knowledge is different from subjective ap-

proaches in the past, and must therefore be considered on separate

grounds. It provides an effective, reliable method of opening the mind

to an invariant and universal level of nature which is everywhere, and

yet not ordinarily open to experience because the mind functions on

more active levels. By providing a technology to make this non-active

level of nature available as a direct experience, Maharishi has made

this domain available to all as a new field of inquiry; and where there

is a new source of experience of something universal, unchanging, and

objectively verifi- able, a new source of knowledge is available.



The Science of Creative Intelligence gives a new account of how com-

plete knowledge is possible. When the mind becomes completely settled

and still, according to this account, it gains the ability to perceive

on the most refined levels of natures functioning the all-pervading

unified field where all laws reside in a collective totality. It not

only experiences this unified field, it becomes identified with it; it

is the unified field and thus knows the unified field as its own

universal Self. On this level of knowl- edge, there is no separation of

knower from the known. Nothing lies out- side the range of the knower.

All laws of nature and everything in the universe can be known as

intimately as ones own self. Mind and body cease to be seen as separate

realities. In reality, Maharishi says:



Our self-referral state of consciousness is the unified fieldnot an

object of knowledge as a rose is when we say, I see that rose.The

unified field is not an object in this way; it is the subject itself.

The unified field is a self-referral state of awareness that knows

itself, and in knowing itself is the knower and the known, both

together. (11)



On this account, there is no distinction between the knower and the

reality that it knows. Since it is the self that knows itself, there is

nothing ultimately outside the consciousness of the knower, and there

are therefore no limits on what can be known. If true, this account of

knowledge provides a fundamentally new source of discovery of the laws

of nature, like the empirical sciences in that it relies on experience

as a source of knowledge, but distinct from these sciences in that it

draws upon a wider range of experience. As a new source of discovery,

it extends the power of scientific investigation; yet it remains within

the scope of empirical science by being subject to procedures of

objective verification.



SCI AND THE SEARCH FOR THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE



Throughout history the most significant theoretical advances in the

sciences have been those that disclosed the more universal and unified

levels of natural law. The laws of terrestrial motion discovered by

Galileo and the laws of celestial motion discovered by Kepler were

shown to be special instances of Newtons laws of universal motion, and

Newtons laws were shown to be a special case of general relativity

discovered by Einstein. Similarly, the electromagnetic force discovered

by Maxwell has been unified with the weak and the strong nuclear force

and the gravitational force in the most recent unified field theories.

Science has progressively uncovered deeper unities of natural law at

more fundamental time and distance scales. Physicists are now convinced

that there is a completely unified state of natural law from which all

diverse laws of nature emerge.



This unified field of all laws of nature was known to ancient Vedic

Science long before it was discovered by modern physics. Modern science

has provided a way of understanding what the ancient seers of the Veda

had directly experienced: that there is a unified field of natural law

from which all diversity springs. Maharishis Vedic Science provides a

means of directly experiencing that unity of nature discovered by

modern science, thus unifying an ancient traditional approach to

knowledge with the modern scientific approach.



The Science of Creative Intelligence may be considered as the

fulfillment of that search for the unity of knowledge begun thousands

of years ago. It recognizes that the unified field described in physics

can be further identified with the unified field of consciousness known

through direct experience. It takes the next natural step of

unification: the unification of consciousness and matter, subject and

object, the humanities and the sciences. It is the completely

integrated science which unifies not only knower and known, but also

unifies the highest ideals of knowledge with the practical means of

realizing those ideals.



MAHARISHI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY



Maharishi International University (MIU) was founded by Maharishi in

1971 based on the principles of the Science of Creative Intelligence.

One of the major functions of this University is to show how each

discipline and each level of natural law arises from the unified field.

The speciality of MIU is the knowledge of the unified field from the

standpoint of each academic discipline. At MIU, each modern discipline

traces the diversity of laws back to a unified source in the unified

field and shows how the diversity of laws emerge from the unified field

through the self- interacting dynamics of consciousness. Just as

physics and mathematics have discovered increasingly unified levels of

natural law at the basis of their discipline, thus tracing the

diversity of its laws to their source in the unified field, so every

academic discipline can ultimately show how its laws derive

sequentially from the unified field. This project of unification of

knowledge, a long sought goal throughout western intellectual history,

is now being systematically pursued and completed at MIU.



This enterprise has recently taken the form of developing charts to

show how each modern discipline arises from the unified field. For each

discipline, a unified field chart has been constructed to show how the

dis- cipline sequentially emerges from the unified field through the

self-inter- acting dynamics of knower, known, and process of knowing.

This project is achieving a major unification of knowledge, showing at

a glance how all diverse forms of knowledge emerge from a unified

source.



Since the unified field is understood as a field of consciousness, and

consciousness is the most fundamental level of each students own self,

the study of the unified field at MIU constitutes a method of

systematically relating all knowledge to the students self. The success

of MIU as a method of education is due in part to this program of

relating all knowledge to the unified field and the unified field to

the self. Because all students and faculty at MIU collectively practice

the Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi

program, increasingly gaining the direct experience of the unified

field, the unified field increasingly becomes a living reality of

direct experience. The unified field ceases to be an abstract concept

and becomes as intimate as the self.  The experience of faculty and

students has been that learning and inquiry is joyful and most

fulfilling in this environment of unified field based education.



Dr. Susan Dillbeck and others are exploring the applications of

Maharishis Vedic Science and Technology in the area of education.

Through Maharishis unified field based method of education, now being

implemented around the world, a fundamental change in being created in

the intellectual climate of the world.



MAHARISHIS WORK IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: AN APPRECIATION



Maharishi has created a major watershed in world intellectual history.

He has laid the foundation for a fundamental change both in

intellectual history and in the history of technology and civilization

itself. His work has created a new paradigm of the unity of human

knowledge, and, we may expect, will unify the sciences and humanities

in a more integrated way than ever before. He is, moreover, bringing to

an end the old notion that man is born to suffer and that life is a

struggle. The practical programs he has founded provide a

scientifically validated basis for reducing and even eliminating crime,

war, terrorism, poverty, and other problems that beset mankind; more

importantly, his discoveries make it possible to live life in the

fulfillment of pure knowledge and permanent bliss consciousness and to

achieve the highest goals of human endeavor.  He has laid the basis for

a new civilization, founded on new principles of complete, reliable,

useful, fulfilling knowledgethe knowledge of the unified field as the

perfectly orderly, unified source of nature.



Maharishi is unique in the world today. He does not offer conjectures

and hypotheses about reality and human potential, nor does he set

himself up as a final authority on matters of knowledge; he speaks

rather of ex- perience as the ultimate basis of knowledge. The

experience of which he speaks is derived from a new source, from the

level of fully developed human life gained when ones awareness is open

to the unified field.  Maharishis life is an example of that which he

teaches. Unlike others whose teaching is based solely on the personal

authority of the individual, Maharishi has founded universities,

sciences, technologies, and other insti-tutions based on universal

principles through which any individual can gain the direct experience

of the fully unfolded nature of life and validate the truth of what is

described in the science. Because of this, Maharishi is held in highest

esteem by millions of people around the world.



Maharishi has provided means of unfolding the dormant creative genius

within everyone, and he has established institutions through which the

knowledge of how to unfold this potential will be perpetuated

generation after generation. He has, moreover, used this knowledge to

found programs to create perfect health, progress, prosperity, and

permanent peace for the worldprograms to end suffering and allow life

to be lived in spontaneous accord with natural law. These are not just

ideals, but functioning institutions whose practical achievements are

now well documented and available for all to examine.



Everyone now has the ability, with the availability of Maharishis Vedic

Science, to engage in this great experiment of identifying ones

awareness with the total potential of natural law and to spontaneously

live in accord with all the laws of nature while established in the

awareness of the unified field. The experience of approximately three

million people who have learned the Transcendental Meditation technique

testify to its practicality and its effortlessness and ease of

practice. Experimental studies have shown that its benefits are real

and concrete. On this basis, Maharishi foresees the creation of a new

era of civilizationan Age of Enlightenmentin which life will be lived

in fullness and abundance without suffering. Maharishis work eliminates

the very basis of stress and suffering and lays the ground for a new

civilization, a unified field based, ideal civilization that draws on

the infinite organizing power of the unified field to bring human life

to fulfillment.



On this basis, Maharishi foresees a time in the near future when a life

free of sickness, problems, and suffering can be established in daily

life.  He calls the creation of Heaven on Earth.





NOTES MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE



1. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, (Washington,

D.C: Age of Enlightenment Press. 1986), pp. 25-26.



2. The rules of Sanskrit phonology require the syllable Ak to change to

Ag when it is part of the word Agnim, the first word of the Rig Veda.



3. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 28.



4 . Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 29.



5. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 35.



6 . Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Programme and

TM-Sidhi Programme: Collected Papers, Vol.1-5. (Rheinweiler, Germany:

Maharishi European Research University Press,1976).



7. Wallace, Robert Keith, The Maharishi Technology of the Unified

Field:  The Neurophysiology of Enlightenment (Fairfield, Iowa: MIU

Neuroscience Press,1986).



8. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 74.



9. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 75.



10. Maharishis Program to Create World Peace: Removing the Basis of

Terrorism and War, (Washington, D.C: Age of Enlightenment Press,1986),

p.  7.



11. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Life Supported by Natural Law, p. 96.

.

