Introduction to Maharishi Vedic Psychology - Orme-johnson1

About the Author  

David Orme-Johnson is Professor of Psychology, Chairman of the Psychology Department, and    Director of the Doctoral Program in Psychology at    Maharishi International University. He received  his B.A. from Columbia University in 1963 and his Ph.D. in 1969 from the University of Maryland in experimental psychology, with a second specialty in quantitative methods. Dr. Orme-Johnson has   pioneered research on the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi TM-Sidhi pr og ra m s in several areas, areas, including including autonomic stability, EEG coherence, intelligence,   field independence, medical care utilization, prison rehabilitation, quality of life, and conflict resolution, and he has led the MIU psychology department in the theoretical development of Maharishi Vedic Psychology. His papers have appeared in such   journals as American Psychologist, Journal of the

Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Psychosomatic Medicine, Experimental Neurology, International Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Moral Education, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and  Social Science Perspectives Journal.

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The Cosmic Psyche An Introduction Introd uction to Maharishi Vedic Psychology: The Fulfillment of Modern Psychology

David Orme-Johnson, Ph.D. Maharishi International University Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.A. U.S.A .  Abstract    It is widely recognized that twentieth-century psychology has not made sub stantial cumulative cumulativ e progress. Consequently, it has not been able to solve the extensive psychological problems of our time, ranging from individ ual stress to internatio nal conflicts. By taking the study of the mind to its universal basis, the field of pure consciousness, Maharishi Vedic Psychology provides a powerful new theoretical understanding and ap   plied technology capable of solving these problems. The direct experi ence of pure consciousness provided by Maharishi Vedic Psychology is the basis for a new set of principles, which contrast with the assump assu mp tions of the scientific culture in which twentieth-century psychology arose. These principles give a new understanding about the nature of the mind, its range of potentialities, and its relationship to natural law. Examples of these principles are: The unified unifi ed field of natural law is pure con co n sciousness, the cosmic psyche; the th e universe emerges through the sponta neous sequential dynamical dyna mical symmetry breaking of pure consciousness; the cosmic psyche is the basis of the individual mind and is easily ac cessible through Maharishi Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi   pr o g r a m s as the simplest simplest form of human awareness; awareness; nature has an ulti mate purpose, which is the unfoldment of higher states of o f conscious ness, identified by Maharishi as a sequential development of seven states of consciousness; the laws of nature can be directly cognized from within the field of pure consciousne ss, and action from this level is spontaneously life supporting; the experience exper ience of pure consciousness deepens and enriches apprec iation of all cultural traditions; every level of social organization has a corresponding level of collective conscious ness; pure consciousness is the universal field underlying all levels of  collective conscious ness, and experience expe rience of it by even a few individuals creates coherence c oherence in collec tive consciousness. These new principles are verified by extensive scientific research.

Address correspondence to: Department of Psychology Maharishi International University, Fairfield, IA 52557   Modern Science and Vedic Science, Volume 2, Number 2, 1988 © 1988 Maharishi International University

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Table of Contents

Introduction 114 What is Consciousnes s? 115 The Missing Knowledge Knowledge 115 The Beginning of Experimental Psychology Psychology 116 Behaviorism 117 Cogni tive Psychology: Who is the Knower? Knower? 117 The Adverse Consequences of Not Understanding Consciousness 118 Pure Consciousnes s, The Missing Basis of Psychology Psychology 120 Comparison of the Principles Underlying twentieth-century twentieth-century Psychology Psychology and Maharis hi Vedic Psychology Psychology 122 Principle 1 123 Principle 2 125 Principle 3 127 Principle 4 133 Principle 5 135 Principle 6 137 Principle 7 138 Principle 8 139 Principle 9 142 Principle 10 144 Maha rishi and the Fulfill ment of Psychology 146 Psycholo gy Unified Field Chart 148 Appendix: Academic Sources of Maharishi Vedic Psychology 156 Introduction

D

uring the past 33 years of his worldwide activities, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has made available a new knowledge of con sciousness that is so fundamental and so powerful in its practi cal applications that it has changed the destiny of civilization from a path of seemingly inevitable self-destruction to one of creating Heaven on Earth. This bold assertion is supported by a large body of scientific research which verifies that the set of profound theoretical principles and applied programs introduced by Maharishi are capable of serving as the foundation of a new psychology of enlightenment based on a complete understanding of consciousness. This article is the introduction to a series of 10 articles that present this knowledge as a system of psychology—Maharishi psychology—Maharishi Vedic Psychology—to Psychology—to be published serially in this journal. These articles are being written by the faculty of the psychology department of Maharishi International Universi ty and will be compiled into a book upon completion of the series.

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Th e 10 artic les on Maharishi Vedic Psychology Psychology proceed from its most abstract theoretical tenets in the early articles to its practical applications in individual life and different areas of society in the later articles. Experi mental evidence from studies on the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi programs are cited throughout the series in support of various features of the theory. Those interested in the original research papers are referred to the five volumes of  Scientific Research on the Transcenden tal Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program, Collected Papers (Vol. 1, OrmeJohnson & Farrow (Eds.), 1976; Vols. 2-4, Chalmers, Clements, Schenkluhn, & Weinless (Eds.), in press; Vol. 5, Maharishi International Univer sity, in press). Also please refer to recent reviews of the research by Wal lace, 1986; Alexander, Boyer, and Alexander, 1987; and Dillbeck and Orme-Johnson, 1987. To introduce the series, we first briefly review how the issue of con scio usne ss has been addressed addressed in twen tieth-century psychology and how it is conceptu alized in Maharish i Vedic Psychology. Th is secti on is followed by a comparison and contrast between 10 basic principles of Maharishi Vedic Psycho logy and corresponding principles underlyin g twentieth-century psychology. The 10 principles correspond to the issues addressed in each of the 10 articles. Th is discussion shows how Maharishi Vedic Psycholo gy fulfills fulfills the needs of twentieth-century psychology, psychology, leading to a more logical and complete theoretical structure, predicting important new phenomena, and generating more practical results than do the common assumptions of  twentieth-century psychology. What is Consciousness? The Missing Knowledge

In Maharishi's analysis, there are three aspects to knowledge: the knower, the known, and knowing connecting the two. an d the process of knowing Modern science has limited itself to an objective approach that studies the known only and thus has failed to provide knowledge of the knower or the process of gaining knowledge: Through its objective approach, modern science reveals that which is per ceived, the object. The subject, the perceiver, remains separate from it. Mod ern science investigates into the field of the known, but it does not touch at all the field of the knower and the spontaneous process of knowing. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, pp. 27-28)

The knower is the perceiver and cognizer of experience, and issues of  the knower and knowing are closely tied to those of mind and subjectivity and especially to issues of  consciousness, the quality or state of being aware. Questions about the nature of consciousness have been addressed throughout the history of knowledge, but in the last century they have be come largely the domain of a separate academic discipline that special izes in addressing them, the field of psychology (e.g., Klein, 1984). All 11 5

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psychological theories have had to deal with consciousness, if only to deny its existence. Consciousness, it has been argued, is the constitu tive issue for psychology in the way that energy and matter are for phys ics (Miller, 1981). Yet not one of the 40 divisions of the American Psy chological Association is concerned with the phenomenon of  consciousness per se; they are only concerned with isolated aspects of  conscious experience and behavior (Knibbeler, 1985). Without a concerted research program on consciousness, psychology has missed the basis of a unified theoretical structure. Although it has been argued that the central themes addressed by psychologists have remained the same over its history (Matarazzo, 1987), progress in provid ing a comprehensive theoretical understanding and integration of these themes has been lacking. Psychology, it has been said, cannot be de fined because it has no central theory. Consequently, there appears to be little relationship among the different areas of psychology (Brown & Herrnstein, 1975, p. 3). Not only are there no successful grand theories in psychology, but the field also does not appear to have made cumulative progress (Merton, 1968). Within specialty areas, ideas repeat over time. For example, a re viewer of personality theory summarizes the field this way: The themes of personality research change not so much because issues are resolved and phenomena understood, but rather because investigators run out of steam and interest turns to "newer, more exciting phenome na"....Where optimism has appeared, it has generally been based on hope for the future rather than on demonstrated gains of the past. (Pervin, 1985, pp. 83-84)

The lack of cumulative development in sociology is similar; a recent encyclopedia of the social sciences defines sociology as "an unsyste matic body of knowledge" (Kuper & Kuper, 1985). Psychology and soci ology are known in the academic world as disciplines without a coherent theory, or "pre-paradigmatic" (e.g., Kuhn, 1962), and still without their "Newton." Thus, the primary need of psychology today remains to de velop a single comprehensive theory of consciousness to account for the structure and full range of mental phenomena (Vroon, 1975), a theory that has not emerged historically. The Beginning of Experimental Psychology Experime ntal psychology psychology began began in the nineteenth century with attempts to use the objective methodology of science to study the mind (e.g., Boring, 1957; Fanche r, 1979 ). Early exper iment al psychologists assumed that systematic control of laboratory conditions would lead to insight into the mind's basic constituents, much as chemistry had discovered the basic elements of matter. It was found, however, that subjective reports of men tal activity were highly variable, even under controlled laboratory condi tions. The activity of the mind, it seemed, was only partially under the 1 16

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control of environmental conditions and therefore could not be dealt with as an object of scientific investigation in the same way that physical ob   jects could. In addition, whereas science demands that the events under study be public so that they are accessible to direct observation, the ear ly psychologists soon realized that since mental activity was a private event that could be known only through subjective report, there was no way objectively to assess the reliability of the report. Behaviorism In response to the difficulty difficulty in objectively observing the mind, t he scho ol of behaviorism arose. Behaviorism was the logical outcome of the attempt to use the objective methodology of science to study psychology. Since the mind could not be objectively measured, behaviorism focused exclusively on measurable behavior in order to exclude subjectivity from its analysis. The behaviorists treated self-reports of mental events as observable behav ior, which, like any other behavior, could be studied without reference to the mind or any aspect of subjectivity at all (e.g., Watson, 1919; Skinner, 1938). It came to be believed that behavior was controlled by environmen tal contingencies of reinforcement and could be completely understood in terms of such contingencies. The mind, if it existed at all, was considered to be a mere "epiphenomenon," neither fundamental in nature nor having a causal influence on the interaction between behavior and environment. Many psychologists argued, however, that behaviorism had theoretical difficulties, including its explanation of language acquisition and produc tion (Chomsky, 1959), species-specific learning (Nottebohm, 1970), and one-trial learning (Jeffress, 1951). Language, for example, appears to have a universal, innate grammatical structure that is "causal," in that it deter mines the form in which languages are expressed. Similarly, speciesspecific learning indicates that behavior often has a strong inherited com ponent, demonstrating that behavior is not all environmentally determined. One-trial learning, "learning sets," and "insight" learning demonstrate that much of learning, especially on the human level, has important cog nitive components (e.g., comprehension, understanding, and insight). Even though behaviorists have attempted to deal with these issues (e.g., Skinner, 1971), it was evident to most psychologists that the mind is rele vant to what humans do and that a strictly behavioral account of psychol ogy was very limited in its approach. Moreover, the data indicated that whereas behavioral technologies have measurable effects in a number of  applied settings, they have not been as useful as originally hoped (e.g., Krasner, 1976). Indeed, the broader goals of the behaviorist movement to improve the human condition (e.g., Skinner, 1938, 1971) have not born fruit, which suggests that a solely objective approach to psychology has failed to provide profound knowledge about the knower.

Cognitive Psychology: Who Is the Knower? Beginning in the 1 95 0s , many psychologists turned from from behaviorism to renew the study of such subjective factors as attention, thinking, and 11 7

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planning. The new generation of cognitive psychologists argued that im portant information about conscious processes could be inferred from ob   jectively measurable physiological and behavioral events. Cognitive psychology has been primarily concerned with selective attention—that aspect of cognitive processing that selects information for further process ing—and many models of selective attention have been proposed (e.g., Broadbent, 1958; Treisman, I960; Norman, 1969; Neisser, 1976; Marcel, 1983). However, as some theorists have noted, there remains a major problem in this enterprise, namely that it is not known who processes and interprets information (Costall & Still, 1987): Who is the knower? knower? For the British Empiricists, the internal representations were called ideas, sensations, impressions: more recently, psychologists have talked of hypoth eses, maps, schemes, images, propositions, engrams, neural signals, even ho lograms and whole innate theories....[However] nothing is intrinsically a representation of anything; something is a representation only for or to someone; any representation or system of representations thus requires at least one user or interpreter of the representation who is external to it. Any suc h interpreter mus t have a variety of psychological or intentional traits; it must be capable of a variety of  comprehensions and must have beliefs and goals (so it can use the representation to inform itself and thus assist itself  in achieving its goals). Such an interpreter is then a sort of homunculus. Therefore, psychology without homunculi is impossible but psychology with homunculi is doomed to circularity or infinite regress, so psychology is im possible. (Dennett, 1978, p. 122)

This is to say that psychology seems to be in a position of having to posit a homunculus ("little person" within) as the knower, and then a second little person within the first little person as the knower within the first, and a third one within the second as the knower within the second, ad infinitum. With out knowledge of who the ultimate knower is, cognitive psychology will al ways be fundamentally incomplete. We shall return to the problem of an infinite regress of interpretive homunculi and Maharishi's solution to it af ter first considering the adverse practical consequences that the lack of  knowledge of consciousness has had on the world. The Adverse Consequences of Not Understanding Consciousness In Maharishi's (1986) analysis, the limitation of modern science to only one of the three aspects of knowledge has created an imbalance of knowl edge that is the source of all problems faced by modern civilization. It is easy to see that virtually all of the outstanding problems faced by contemporary civilization are psychological in origin; i.e., they stem from a lack of understanding of the knower and the process of gaining knowl edge. A survey indicates that two-thirds of Americans say their jobs are stressful (Miller et al., 1988). Stress is estimated to account for one mil lion workers' absences per day and to cost an estimated $150 billion per year in the United States alone. Yet stress management programs have proven largely ineffective (Druckman & Swets, 1988; Smith, Brott, Cuneo, & Davics, 1988; Jones, 1985). 118

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Psychological stress is also a risk factor for the three major fatal dis eases in the United States: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Other risk  factors such as diet, lack of exercise, drugs, and cigarette and alcohol consumption are also "psychological" in that they are under voluntary control and are influenced by emotional and cognitive factors. The most recent Surgeon General's report says that two-thirds of all illnesses be fore the age of 65 are preventable (Castro, 1988). Yet programs to re duce risk factors have had only limited success (Matarazzo, 1985). Epidemiological studies indicate that a substantial proportion of the American population suffers from serious psychological problems. For example, it is estimated that approximately 20% of the population will at some time have an affective disorder (e.g., major depression). Sixteen percent have had an alcohol problem in the last three years, 1% suffer from schizophrenia, and anxiety is so common that its prevalence can not be estimated (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). Yet the doz ens of psychotherapies that have been tried generally appear to be no more effective than placebos (Eysenck, 1952, 1984; Rachman & Wilson, 1980). Moreover, trained clinicians have low diagnostic reliability and validity, faring no better and often worse than untrained laymen or actu arial statistics (e.g., Faust, 1986; Walters, White, & Green, 1988). In ad dition, no form of behavioral therapy or psychotherapy has been found to be effective in prison rehabilitation (Martinson, 1974). There has been some progress in managing mental health problems through drugs, but this physiological approach does not indicate any advancement in un derstanding consciousness itself. The very existence of so many com peting approaches in clinical psychology indicates the lack of any single fundamental theory in the field. To use an analogy, if there were 30 dif ferent theories of the molecular structure of water, one would have to conclude that its structure was not understood. The psychological nature of problems is also evident on the scale of in ternational events. The United Nations Charter, for example, states that "Wars are born in the minds of men." The same may be said of ecologi cal imbalances, economic crises, and most problems in education, busi ness, industry, rehabilitation, government, and other areas. No one, how ever, expects solutions to these problems to be forthcoming from psychology, even though they are recognized to be problems of the mind. This fact alone illustrates the immature state of knowledge in the field. Psychologists collectively generate over 100 research articles per day and have published about 800,000 articles since the first volume of Psy (Thorn gate & Plouffe, 198 7). Stud chological Abstracts appeared in 1927 (Thorngate ies have shown, however, that very little practical knowledge has come from investments in psychological research (Lindblom & Cohen, 1979). Thorngate and Plouffe (1987, p. 79) comment: "The failure of the social sciences to produce many pragmatically important products would per haps be tragic were it not for the fact that the world has survived, and will likely continue to survive, without them." It is clear that the objective as well as subjective approaches that psychology has tried thus far have had 11 9

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limited success. As will be detailed below, Maharishi relates psychology's lack of practical success to the fact that it has been missing fundamental knowledge of the knower. Pure Consciousness, the Missing Basis of Psychology

From the perspective of Maharishi Vedic Psychology, Psychology, the principle reason t hat t wentieth-century psychology has not made more progress progress is that it has studied only surface mental and behavioral events and has not fathomed the underlying reality of  pure consciousness. Parallel to modern physics, in which "particles" are seen as excitations of underlying quan tum fields, Maharishi describes mental and behavioral events as modes of excitation of an underlying field of consciousness. The term "pure consciousness" denotes the silent, unseen, non-changing unified field of  consciousness at the basis of all of the diverse, active phases of con sciousness that we ordinarily experience. For psychology to focus ex clusively on the study of behavior and mental events would be analogous to physics remaining on the classical level of observables without going to the more fundamental level of quantum mechanics. Whereas all mental phenomena—such as thoughts, percepts, and feelings, as well as behav ior—constitute events, pure consciousness is not itself an event. It is the basis of events . Maharishi Vedic Psychology thus categorizes categorizes all mental and behavioral events as manifest, localized, specific forms of the non local, general underlying unmanifest reality of pure consciousness (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 7). Maharishi has analyzed how pure consciousness is the undivided wholeness of knower, knowing, and known. In pure consciousness the three are united in one. This unity is possible because in pure consciousness the knower is aware of itself as the known, and it is also the process of knowing. Maharishi thus refers to pure consciousness as the self-referral state of  consciousness because in it the knower is the sole object of its own know ing. Pure consciousness can only be known to itself by itself in its selfreferral awareness because as soon as consciousness gains "other" or ob   ject awareness, it is no longer pure consciousness. Experience and understanding of pure consciousness answer the ques tion raised by cognitive psychologists, "Who is the knower?" Maharishi Vedic Psychology identifies the knower as pure consciousness, the silent level of consciousness at the subtlest level of the mind that "witnesses" all the activity of mind and behavior. "The Self, in its real nature, is only the si lent wi tness of everything" (Maharishi (Maharishi Mahesh Mahesh Yogi, 19 69, p. 9 8). Th e know know er as the self-referral state of pure consciousness solves the problem of infi nite regression of interpretive homunculi because, being self-referral, it does not have to "regress" outside of itself to know itself. It is the knower of it self as well as the knower of all events, both subjective and objective, which in ordinary waking-state consciousness are perceived as external to itself. To use one of Maharishi's analogies, when consciousness is not selfreferral referral,, the known is like th e waves on an ocean ocean and the knower is like t he un derlying unbounded silent bed of the ocean (1972, Lesson 7, Illustration 2). 120

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The self-referral state of consciousness is described by the adjective "pure" because it is the unqualified, completely general state of con sciousness. Any mental event is a qualification of the generality of pure consciousness into some specific state. When we see a rose, pure con sciousness as if takes on the quality of the rose and loses its unqualified status. Maharishi terms this loss of pure awareness identification with the objects of awareness (e.g., 1969, p. 151). He explains that the selfreferral state of pure consciousness has no specific characteristics, but that its experience is accurately described as completely general, eter nal, and infinite. The specificity of time and space emerges from within the generality of eternity and infinity. In ordinary waking-state conscious ness, the reality of the unity of pure consciousness underlying the diver sity of experience is lost. This loss gives rise to the experience of oneself  (the knower) as moving through the creation (the known), connected to it through processes of knowing, an experience that results from not having pure consciousness lively in one's awareness. One might argue that methods of introspection and self-report commonly employed by psychologists are types of self-referral events in that they require consciousness to observe its own processes. Attending to one's own percepts, desires, thoughts, mental images, or other forms of mental activity, however, is not the self-referral state of pure consciousness identif ied by Mahari shi Vedic Psychology. Introspecti on occur s in an active state of consciousness where knower, knowing, and known are separated, rather than being united in the completely self-referral field of  pure consc ious ness. Maharish i explains that the experienc e of pure consciousness is not the same thing as the thought of pure conscious ness. "If one thinks about Being [pure consciousness], it is only a thought of Being and not the state of Being" (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1966, p. 238). By attending to consciousness in its localized states of mental events, consciousness can never gain an appreciation of its more funda mental nature as unbounded awareness—pure consciousness. Maharishi has emphasized that the reality of consciousness (and, as we shall see, of  existence as well) is not just the three (knower, knowing, and known), nor just the one (pure consciousness). It is both together. Consciousness has a three-in-one structure (1986, p. 29). Maharishi has made the point that consciousness is both unity and multiplicity in many different ways over the years, explaining, for example, that the range of  consciousness is from infinity to point (1985, pp. 65-66), from unmanifest to manifest (1972, Lesson 7), from universal Self to individualized self  (e.g., 1969, pp. 395-399), from cosmic life to individual life (1966, pp. 7377), from from Absolute to relative (1966, pp. pp. 33- 34 ), from from 1 00% inner to 10 0% outer, resulting in "200% of life" (1972, Lesson 8, p. 10). In Maharishi Vedic Science—t he source of Maharishi Vedic Psy chology—(see Appendix)—the knower, knowing, and known are referred to as Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas, and pure consciousness, the collectedness of the three, is called the Samhita. Maharishi Vedic Science provides complete experience and intellectual understanding of the 12 1

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knower, the known, and the process of knowing (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1985; 1986, pp. 24-49). Lacking a means of systematically experiencing pure consciousness, psychology has been restricted to the study of events and their interac tions. The non-fundamental nature of such interactions is illustrated by the fact that in psychological research, slight changes in experimental conditions result in completely different outcomes. Since the events stud ied are at the most complicated level of a very complex system, the laws of nature governing them are highly specific. Principles derived from the study of such complex and specific phenomena could provide neither lasting theoretical developments in psychology nor a basis for cumula tive progress. A unified theoretical understanding based on experience of the simplest state of awareness, pure consciousness, provides a new starting point for integrating psychology. Although pure consciousness, like other forms of  sub ject ivi ty, cannot be directly measured, Maharis hi Vedic Psychology adds an important component to the scientific knowledge of subjectivity because it provides a technology, the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM- Sid hi pro progr gram ams, s, by whi ch anyone can experien ce pure cons ciou s ness. This technology enables the physiological correlates of pure con sciousness and its effects on cognitive and behavioral processes to be studied objectiv ely. In addition, Maharishi Vedic Psychology makes the oretical predictions about these effects that can be tested through objec tive measurement, including predictions about the field character of con sciousness addressed in Principle 10 below. Comparison of th e Principle s Underlying twentieth twentieth-century -century Psychology and Maharis hi Vedic Psychology

Sin ce twenti eth-centur y psychology represents attempt s to apply apply the objec tive methodology of science to study the mind and behavior, it shares the basic assumpt ions and world world view view of modern modern science. In this sect ion we will compare some of the basic principles or assumptions of science that under li e psychology with those of Maharishi Vedic Psychology. Th e principles of Mahari shi Vedic Psychology Psychology are not merely merely diffe differen rentt intell ectu al con con ceptualizations but are based on the direct experience of pure conscious ness made possible through the refinement of neurophysiological function ing that the TM and TM-Sidhi programs create. The relationship between states of consciousness, neurophysiological functioning, and world view will be elaborated throughout the rest of this introduction as well as in later articles in this series. The main understanding, however, that underlies the principle s of Maharishi Vedic Psychology is that knowledge is structured  in consciousness and that knowledge is different in different states of con sciousness (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 9). Just as the reali ties of waking, dreaming, and sleeping are completely different from each other, so too are the realities of higher states of consciousness, which will 122

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be described below (e.g., see the discussion of Principle 3). Whereas the principle s of twentieth-century twentieth-century psychology are based on the experi ence of  the waking stat e only, those of Maharishi Vedic Psychology Psychology are based on experiences of pure consciousness that arise when the neurophysiol ogy has become sufficiently developed to sustain such experiences. Some psychologists have recognized the effects on perception and cog nitio n of what Maharis hi Vedic Psychology Psychology terms experiences pertain pertain ing to pure consciousness (e.g., Maslow's (1962) "Being cognition"). However, there has previously been little understanding of the nature of  pure consciousness or its central role in the development of higher stat es of of conscio usness. Maharishi Vedic Psychology provides provides this complete description. In the text below, the principles of psychology are referred to as "old principles" because they originate from a perspective that was devel oped before experiences of pure consciousness became readily availa ble through the Maha rish i TM and TM- Sid hi pro progr gram ams. s. Th e "new princi pl es" of Mahar ishi Vedic Psychology Psychology represent a world view that is being re-established now that these experiences have become available (see discussion of Principle 8, below). Its re-establishment is seen most apparently in many of the latest scientific theories—for instance, unified field theory in physics, as described in Principle 1. The most far-reaching aspect of Maharishi's fundamental definition of  consciousness as pure consciousness is that it is not only the basis of all phases of subjectivity, but the basis of objective existence as well. This issue is addressed by the first set of principles. I. OLD

P R I N C I P L E: E:

Th e most

fundamental level of nature is material—comprised of  matter and energy fields.

There is a unified field at the basis of all matter and energy fields which is the field of  pure consciousness—the cosmic psyche.

NE W PRINCIPLE :

A basic assumption of modern science that underlies the scientific cul ture within which psychology has developed is that nature is fundamental ly material or physical. According to this materialist position, everything in the universe consists of inanimate physical elements operating in ac cord with mechanistic laws. The successes of science and its technolo gies might be cited as evidence that the materialist assumption is true. The successes of science do not dictate that nature is fundamentally material, however; they only indicate that the objective approach of science has been successful in dealing with objective reality on its more expressed, non-fundamental levels. As modern science comes closer to fathoming the basis of material existence in unified field theories, many scientists have noted that nature appears to take on qualities that we usually attribute to consciousness. 123

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For example, Hagelin (1987) and other physicists have noted that at fundamental time and distance scales, nature exhibits qualities associat ed with subjectivity, such as intelligence and self-referral or "selfawareness." Hagelin details many parallels between unified field theory and the Vedic account of fundamental levels of natural law, concluding that unified field theory of modern science has stepped onto the shore of  the unified field of pure consciou sness of Maharishi Vedic Science . Be cause the unified field of natural law at the basis of all creation is held in Maha rish i Vedic Psychology to be a field of subje ctivi ty, it is referred referred to as the cosmic psyche.

One of Maharishi's major concerns has been to bring scientists to the realization that recent developments of unified field theory have glimpsed the ultimate reality, the unified field of pure consciousness. In one of his first public lectures, held in 1955, Maharishi discussed the view of modern physics that all different forms of matter are ultimately nothing but abstract energy. He then showed that Vedic Science not only contains parallel de scriptions of the universe but additionally recognizes even subtler levels of  elementary functioning and the ultimate, transcendental reality—the cos mic psyche (Maharishi Vedic University, 1986, p. 196). In The Science of    Being and Art of Living (1966), Maharishi compared the physical descrip tion of nature as structured in layers (molecular, atomic, sub-atomic) with the layers of creation described in ancient Vedic Science. He predicted that the rapid progress of theoretical physics would soon lead to the dis covery of the unified field, the transcendental basis of nature (see the fol lowing article). Maharishi feels that this prediction has been substantially fulfilled in the work emerging from theoretical physics in this decade. At a conference in Washington, DC, in 1985, he explained: "The discovery of the unified field has extended the objective approach of modern science to be a fully subjective approach as well and still be modern science" (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 46). But he noted that where as modern science has only glimpsed the unified field of natural law, an cient Vedic Science contains complete knowledge of this level of reality (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1985, 1986). The principles of the theory of consciousness that are set forth in Maha rish i Vedic Sci enc e parallel the underlying principles of natural law governing all disciplines. These parallels have been demonstrated, for example, for mathematics (e.g., Weinless, 1987), physiology (Wallace, Fagan & Pasco, 1988), and computer science (Lester, 1988). We show throughout these 10 articles on psychology that the basic patterns of natu ral laws identified by Maharis hi Vedic Sci ence repeat repeat them selv es on the different levels of nature, and that the essence of these patterns is the fun damental dynamics of consciousness. A discussion of the means of verifying that the unified field is the cos mic psyche is contained in the first article of the series on Maharishi Vedic Psychology (see the following article in this issue). This article first details Maharishi's description of the universal qualities of the cosmic psyche—self-referral, self-sufficiency, and infinite dynamism—and then 12 4

INT ROD UCTI ON TO MAHARISHI MAHARISHI

VEDIC PSY CHOL OGY

demonstrates that these same qualities (a) can be shown to be fundamental to descriptions of natural law in different disciplines of modern science, in cluding physics, physiology, mathematics, and chemistry; (b) can be di rectly experienced through the Transcendental Meditation program; and (c) can be shown through scientific research to grow in all areas of life— physiological, psychological, sociological, and ecological—through the practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi programs (see Principle 3, below). 2.

OLD PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE:

T h e physical

universe evolved through the interaction of matter and en ergy fields. Consciousness is secondary, an emergent property in the evolution of  matter and energy.

NEW

P R I N C I P L E: E:

The

universe

emerges through the spontaneous sequential dynamical symmetry breaking of pure consciousness. Consciousness is primary, its self-interaction is the source and basis of all the diverse expres sions of natural law.

In the materialistic world view, consciousness is considered to be an epiphenomenon of brain functioning, or simply to be brain functioning it self without an independent existence. In this view, starting from the be ginning of the cosmos with the Big Bang, elements were formed that evolved into large biological molecules, eventually organizing them selves into human beings with nervous systems that gave rise to con sciousness. Consciousness is thus seen as an emergent property of  physical evolution. In contrast , Maharishi Vedic Psychology asserts that pure pure con sciousness is not limited to the boundary conditions of any physical sys tem. Maharishi describes it as a state of pure intelligence and existence, prior to even the subtlest stratum of physical particles and energy fields. It is unmanifest, beyond considerations of temperature, density, or any other physical properties. Being prior to space and time, it does not inter act with matter or energy, but rather is a field of pure information that creates the universe through its own self-interaction or self-referral activ ity (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1976, p. 150; see also Hagelin, 1987; Dillbeck, in press). It is the basic constituent of all matter and energy. In Maharishi's words: Th e interac tion of the differ different ent intellectually conceived com ponen ts of this unified, self-refer self-referral ral state of conscious ness is that all-powerful activit y at the most elementary level of nature. That activity is responsible for the innu merable varieties of life in the world, the innumerable streams of intelli gence in creation. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 19 86, pp. 25 -2 6)

By "in tellect ually co nceived" Maharishi is referrin referring g to the discriminato ry property of pure consciousness by which its undifferentiated state as "one" becomes differentiated into "three." Through the principle of intel lect, pure consciousness becomes aware of itself as a known, and this 12 5

MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE

awareness of itself simultaneously creates a knower, process of knowing, and known. Through its further self-interaction, pure consciousness sequen tially generates the material universe (see Dillbeck, in press). Maharishi Vedic Psychology thus locates pure consciousness as prior to matter. If consciousness is prior to matter, what is the relationship between cons ciou snes s and the brain in Maharishi Vedic Psychology? Univer sal consciousness is seen as the ultimate source of the brain rather than the brain being the source of consciousness. Similar positions have been ex pressed by eminent scientists: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness"—Max Planck. "To sup pose that consciousness or the mind has localization is a failure to under stand neurophysiology"—Wilder Penfield (both quoted in Klein, 1984, p. 11). In Mahar ishi Vedic Psychology the nervous system as a comp lex of  biochemical and neuronal processes is the medium through which indi vidual consciousness is experienced. In this view the activity of the brain allows the mind to experience consciousness to whatever degree it is ca pable. Maharishi explains that the value of consciousness experienced depends on whether the nervous system is functioning at its full potential. He has described how stress creates chemical and structural abnormali ties within the nervous system which disallow the brain from functioning at full potential and which therefore disallow experience of pure conscious ness. When it is functioning at its full potential, the brain allows the mind to experience pure consciousness as its basis (e.g., Wallace, 1986). The nature of the individual experience depends on the style of neuro physiological functioning. The brain can be viewed as a kind of dynamical filter that qualifies the universality of pure consciousness into specific con scious experiences. In one style of functioning, the filter is as if opaque, and sleep consciousness arises. In another style the illusory awareness of  dreaming comes through, while in yet another there is awareness of the en vironment and the activities of subjective life that characterize the waking state. Still another style of functioning allows the underlying wholeness of  pure consciousness to be experienced by the individual. The second article in this series (Dillbeck, in press) describes from the viewp oint of Maharis hi Vedic Psychology how the cosmic psyche mani fests into the diversity of the universe. It details how the self-referral activ ity of the cosmic psyche creates the Veda, the laws of nature or state of  pure information at the basis of the universe, the unmanifest hum of crea tion which Maharishi calls "the sequentially available script of nature" (1985, p. 64). The article includes a discussion of the manifestation of the universe as described in Maharishi's Apaurusheya Bhashya and Veda  Lila, the sequential commentary of increasing elaboration of pure con sciousness on itself, which can be found documented in the Vedic litera ture. As Maharishi describes it, "The whole 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 its manifest values" (1986, p. 28). Dillbeck also draws brief parallels in the second article between the Vedic description of nature's creativity 1 26

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and the mechanics of creation as seen from the perspectives of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and physiology. Having laid the basis for the structure of the mind by locating the knower as the self-referral state of pure consciousness, the second arti cle then goes on to describe the sequential emergence from pure con sciousness of the familiar relative levels of subjective existence, which from subtle to gross are ego, intellect, mind, desire, and senses. These levels of the mind are illustrated below in Figure 1, the Psychology Uni fied Field Chart (see pp. 150-151). 3. O L D

PRINCIPLE:

There

ar e

three major states of con sciousness—waking, dream ing, and sleep—each charac terized by its own unique style of physiological func tioning and behavior.

There are seven major states of consciousness— waking, dreaming, sleep, tran scendental consciousness, cosmic consciousness, God conscious ness, and unity consciousness— each characterized by its own unique style of physiological func tioning and behavior. N E W PRINCIPLE :

Twentieth-century psychology is "waking-state" psychology; it pro vides knowledge primarily of one state of consciousness only, the waking state. Secondarily, there is also research on dreaming and sleep, along with some glimpses of higher states of consciousness. The assumption that waking, dreaming, and sleep constitute the full range of states of consciousness underlies many of the attitudes that psychologists express when they hear of higher states of consciousness. There is a strong tendency to view descriptions of higher states of con sciousness as "altered states of consciousness," by which is meant some altered form of waking or perhaps dreaming or sleep. Another pop ular view is that "meditation" involves the "right" as opposed to the "left" hemisphere, which is to say that it merely involves one of the two major modes of waking-state functioning. Maharishi explains that in order to experience pure consciousness, the mind must settle into a completely simple and silent state and experience its own wakefulness. In order to experience this simple self-referral state, the mind must transcend even the faintest activity of thought or feeling. For this reason, the experience is termed transcendental consciousness. The relationship of transcendental consciousness to the waking state can be easily understood in terms of Maharishi's analogy of waves on an ocean, noted earlier (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1969, p. 470). Thoughts and percepts are like the waves on the surface of the ocean. They are the local ized and discrete forms of consciousness, the objects known. Pure con sciousnes s is like the si lent depth depth of the ocean at the basis of the waves. waves. It is reasonable that scientists should be skeptical about the reality of states of 

12 7

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consciousness that they have not experienced, but Maharishi's introduc tion of the Transcendental Meditation technique has provided a simple technology that has allowed direct experience of pure consciousness for millions of people. These people experience that the TM technique allows thoughts or, returning to the analogy, the waves of the ocean to settle down. In the process, the ocean does not become empty, it only becomes quiet. When it becomes completely quiet, experience is no longer of localized waves (thoughts) but is unbounded at the silent depth of the ocean. This silent state of unbounded awareness is transcendental consciousness. Maharishi (1972, Lesson 22) has also explained that transcendental consciousness can be experienced at the junction point  between wak ing, dreaming, and sleep. He points out that whereas waking, dreaming, and sleeping are completely different states, a junction point can be lo cated at the end of one state and the beginning of the following state. These junction points constitute the beginning, or source, of a state of  consciousness as well as its end. ...waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of consciousness are like curtains which hide the essential nature of that continuum of consciousness which knows no change and is always the same, constantly existing in its unmanifest value throughout time and space. It can be located, but it is not located in the character of the waking, dreaming, or sleeping states. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 22, pp. 5-6)

Maharishi explains that ordinarily a person does not experience the   junction point, simply because the physiology corresponding to that ex perience has not been cultured. For example, the junction point is not typi cally experienced while one falls asleep because during this process, per ception becomes duller and is lost before the junction point is reached. If one were in the waking state and could drift to the junction point with alertness becoming sharper rather than duller, then it would be possible actually to experience the junction point. Maharishi explains that the way to experience the junction point entails experiencing finer, more abstract levels of thought. If there could be a way of perceiving the finest state of thought, this would sharpen the ability of perception in the waking state. There would come a point where the ability of perception is most refined. Awareness might transcend the finest perception. Just before transcending the finest percep tion, when the awareness is most alert, that most highly alert state would directly cognize the transcendent. This would be the junction point. The fourth state, then, can be experienced by gradually allowing the awareness to come out of the waking state of consciousness, without falling asleep or becoming more dull. Waking state of consciousness is characterized by the ability of perception. If we gradually step into finer values of perception where the characteristics of  the waking state of consciousness will cease to be, we will encounter the junc tion point. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 22, p. 9)

Wallace's (1970, 1971, 1972) pioneering research has provided evidence that transcendental consciousness, experienced during the practice of  12 8

INTRODUCT INTR ODUCTION ION TO MAHARIS MAHARISHI HI

VEDIC PSYCHOLOGY

the TM technique, is not an altered state but a fourth major state of con sciousness different from waking, dreaming, or sleep. Wallace's finding has been supported by extensive subsequent research (see reviews by Wallace, 1986; Alexander, Cranson, Boyer, & Orme-Johnson, 1987; Dillbeck & Orme-Johnson, 1987; and see the third article in this series, forthcoming). Wallace characterized the physiology of the fourth state of  consciousness as "restful alertness." Increased rest is indicated by the pattern of changes in a number of somatic systems—decreased oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide elimination, decreased respiration rate, minute ventilation, and heart rate, and deeper relaxation, as indicated by significant increases in basal skin resistance and decreased arterial blood lactate. However, the state of rest achieved during the TM technique is not like the rest associated with drowsiness, sleep, dreaming, or merely sit ting quietly with eyes closed. In TM the individual becomes much more wide awake and inwardly alert, as indicated by EEG changes showing increased and spreading alpha wave activity, particularly in the frontal brain areas (Wallace, 1986, p. 58). Significantly, these frontal areas are crucial to orchestrating the functions of the different parts of the nervous system (e.g., Pribram, 1973). A meta-analysis of 31 physiological studies on the TM technique, conducted since Wallace's initial research, has found that the technique produces over twice the depth of relaxation (effect size) as ordinary rest on three indices: basal GSR, respiration rate, and plasma lactate. This result showed that the average state produced during the technique is twice as restful as can be achieved by ordinary waking relaxation. The EEG changes also distinguish the TM technique from waking. This dis tinction is particularly evident during subperiods when subjects report clear experiences of transcendental consciousness by means of a button press following the experience. During these experiences of pure con sciousness, respiration may become suspended for up to approximately one minute, at which time global EEG coherence increases, indicating increased alertness (e.g., Badawi, Wallace, Orme-Johnson, & Rouzere, 198 4; Farrow & Hebert, 1982) . Whereas cohe renc e decreases during during sleep and dreaming relative to waking, it increases during the TM tech nique (e.g., Levine, 1976). The increased EEG coherence indicates that TM is a state of increased alertness in which finer values of perception open to the awareness, allowing experience of the junction point. Th e understanding understanding in Maharishi Vedic Psychology Psychology that experiences of transcendental consciousness create increased alertness is also sup ported by the finding that reactions are faster after meditating (e.g., Holt, Caruso, & Riley, 1978). In addition, over a period of months of practice, basic measures of perceptual and cognitive alertness and integration, which were previously believed to be unchangeable after early adulthood, also improve (e.g., Pelletier, 1974), indicating longitudinal increases in the quality of restful alertness. Psychophysiological research has also found that the fourth state of  consciousness is not merely a "right hemisphere" phenomenon. The entire 12 9

MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE

brain is involved in the experience, and both "right" and "left" hemisphere functions are enhanced as a result of the experience (see Appendix in the following article in this issue, and see the third article, forthcoming, for a presentation of the psychophysiological evidence distinguishing transcen dental consciousness from waking, dreaming, and sleep). Experiences of pure consciousness have been recorded throughout his tory in all cultures, indicating their naturalness and universality (Pearson, in press; Chandler, in press). However, it is only through the availability of  the TM technique that these experiences can be reproduced systemati cally allowing them to be studied in the laboratory. It is interesting to note that the physiological characteristics of the fourth state of consciousness described by Wallace closely correspond to these historical examples. For example, Wordsworth describes an experience of transcending in terms that reflect the physiological changes similar to those seen in the la boratory research on TM practitioners: Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul; While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. ("Tintern Abbey")

Here, respiratory suspension and reduced heart rate are indicated by "breath...and...blood almost suspended." Restful alertness is expressed poetically as "laid asleep in body, and become a living soul." "Harmony and the deep power of joy" allude to experiences similar to those corre lated with high frontal and central EEG coherence. Wordsworth's phrase "We see into the life of things" expresses the poetic quality of transcen dental consciousness, which will be discussed below (Principle 5). The following three descriptions of experiences of pure consciousness by TM and TM-Sidhi participants, correlated with high EEG coherence, use language similar to Wordsworth's: 1. "Most of my meditations have been deep, silent wholeness, with long periods of no breath..." 2. "The experience was very blissful, super-clear—it was infinite corre lation..." 3. "I feel this freshness of deep well-being in my whole body...In that state of deep freshness, in the transcendent, attention acquires a more and more important potential of wakefulness." (Orme-Johnson & Haynes, 1981, p. 213). These descriptions are typical of experiences of TM meditators through out the world, indicating that the TM technique has made widely availa ble, on a systematic basis, experiences that were fleetingly available to only a few individuals previously. Maharishi explains how the unfolding of higher states of consciousness 130

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is based on repeated experience of transcendental consciousness (e.g., 1969, pp. 314-315; 429-441). The repeated experiences give the nervous system deep rest, which allows the internal homeostatic mechanisms of the body efficiently to repair chemical and structural abnormalities caused by stress. Eventually, when the nervous system is completely stress free, it maintains pure consciousness as a stable internal frame of reference that is not lost at any time throughout the cycle of waking, dreaming, and sleep. This new state has a different character from the three relative states of  consciousness or their basis, transcendental consciousness, because it includes both transcendental consciousness and waking together and therefore defines the fifth state of consciousness, cosmic consciousness (in Sanskrit, Turiyatita; Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 115). Maharishi describes in detail the changes that take place in the ner vous system when transcendental consciousness is transformed into cos mic consciousness (1969, pp. 314-315). This description, along with the physiological research on rising cosmic consciousness, is elucidated in the third article in this series, which discusses how cosmic consciousness is the first stabilized state of  enlightenment  (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 196 9, pp. 14 4- 14 5; 1972, Lesson 23) . It is refe referre rred d to as enlighten ment because in it the individual becomes enlightened about his essential identity as pure consciousness. Enlightenment is vastly different from the waking state, which is referred to as the state of  ignorance because in it the mind remains ignorant of its essential nature. Not knowing his univer sal, unbounded nature as pure consciousness, the individual identifies with the experience of his relative attributes, giving rise to a sense of  "my" and "mine" and fear of losing what is "mine." Ignorance of one's universality is ultimately the source of narrow-mindedness and suffering (e.g., (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Yogi, 1969 , p. 31 8; Dillbe ck, 1983). The article continues by explaining how, in cosmic consciousness, the physiological mechanisms that give rise to waking and transcendental consciousness co-exist yet function independently. Maharishi (1969, p. 315) explains that in order to develop the sixth state of consciousness, the nervous system needs to be cultured further so that these two levels come to function in an integrated manner. This integration is accom plished by the individual in cosmic consciousness performing activities that engage the most refined feelings of service, reverence, and love. Per ception becomes so refined as to appreciate the finest relative values of  every object of perception along with unbounded unbounded awareness, whic h was established in cosmic consciousness (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 23, pp. 7-8). As a result, the separation between the Self and ob   jective existence is all but dissolved. Maharishi has explained that the changes in perception that occur in the sixth state of consciousness are due to new products being produced by the digestive system once a stress-free nervous system has been achieved in cosmic consciousness (see Wallace, 1986 for a review of biochemical research on the TM and TM-Sidhi programs). The sixth state of consciousness is called God con sciousness (Bhagavat Chetna —Maharishi —Maharishi Mahe sh Yogi, 19 86, p. 115) 13 1

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because when one's perception of creation becomes highly refined, one's appreciation of the creator becomes based on direct perception. With time, the physiological functioning becomes so refined that the fin est relative value of perception rises to the level of the infinite value of per ception (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, Lesson 23), which is the level of  the seventh state of consciousness, unity consciousness (Brahmi Chetna— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 115). In unity consciousness there is no separation between the Self and outer reality. This state of conscious ness is described by a famous verse from the Upanishads: "I am That, Thou art That, all this is That." Maharishi explains that in unity con sciousness, both inner and outer realities are seen in terms of the univer sal Self—the cosmic psyche. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of  the seven states of consciousness.

TA BL E

1

SEVEN STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS States of  Consciousness

Ordinary Perception

Pure Consciousness

Refined Perception

1. Sleeping 2. Dreaming 3. Waking 4. Samadhi or Transcen dental Con sciousness 5. Turiyatita or Cosmic Conscious ness 6. Bhagavad  or God Con sciousness 7. Brahmi Chet  na or Unity Conscious ness

Non e Unreliable Ye s None

None None None Yes

None None None None

Yes

Always

None

Yes

Always

Ye s

Yes

Always

Perception of  reality as the Self—unbound ed pure con sciousness

Scientific research indicates that the growth of higher states of con sciousness through the TM and TM-Sidhi programs is "higher" in every sense of biological adaptability (see Appendix in the following article in this issue). Alexander et al. (in press) have argued that the higher states of consciousness described by Maharishi meet criteria (e.g., Flavell, 1985) for developmental stages beyond the highest level of waking-state development. For example, they involve fundamental transformations in

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experience of self, other, time, space, and causality. They are "direc tional" in that they emerge as an invariant sequence that reflects in creasing unification of self and world. They are "uniform" in that related descriptions of higher states of consci ousne ss have been reported reported thoughout human history and across Eastern and Western cultures (e.g. Pearson, in press; Chandler, in press). They are "irreversible" because they are based on corresponding major changes in brain functioning (see the following article—Appendix, the third article in this series, forthcom ing, and Wallace, 1986). In addition to describing the seven states of  consciousness and the mechanics of their evolution in detail, the third article summarizes 18 years of research on higher states of conscious ness since Wallace's breakthrough study in 1970. 4. OLD

PRINCIPLE :

Nature ha s

no purpose and is valueneutral.

Nature has a pur pose, which is the evolution of life to higher states of consciousness.

NE W PRINCIPLE:

In the materialist world view, nature is value-neutral and indifferent to the human condition; nature obeys laws but has no purpose. Human val ues are considered to be relative to the adaptive pressures of biological and cultural evolution, life evolves through the dynamics of natural se lection in response to selective environmental pressures, and biological evolution is viewed as the evolution of matter once it becomes organized highly enough to acquire attributes called life. Like consciousness, life is seen as an emergent quality of matter. In contrast to biology, where evolution refers to physical changes of spe cie s through natural sele ctio n, in Maharis hi Vedic Psychology, the word "evolution" denotes the process of the development of higher states of  cons ciou snes s as described above. Maharishi Vedic Psychology under under stands biological evolution as part of this larger purpose, the progression of  species to express increasingly the totality of the cosmic psyche. A more highly complex neurophysiology is capable of expressing the cosmic psyche—the total potential of natural law—more fully. The goal and endpoint of physical evolution is the human nervous system, which is capable of sustaining unity consciousness, in which the cosmic psyche is fully ex pressed in individual life. Once having produced a human nervous sys tem, evolution continues through refinement of the functioning of the ner vous system, which supports the sequence of higher states of  consciousness. In this perspective, human ontogeny continues the thrust of philogeny. They are both part of the same intrinsic purpose of the cos mic psyche to express the totality of its nature, its three-in-one structure, both point and infinity, manifest and unmanifest, relative and Absolute. Biologists often speculate on what the human race will be like in the next step of physical evolution. In Maharishi Vedic Psychology, the human species docs not need to change structurally in order to progress along the 133 13 3

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continuum of increasing adaptive flexibility. The human nervous system possesses the capacity for perfect adaptation; only this capacity needs to be developed. Maharishi (1986) describes the person in unity con sciousness as spontaneously exhibiting the unlimited organizing power of the unified field of natural law, capable of mastering any conditions whatsoever, and always having a purely life-supporting influence on the environment. Some psychologists and ethologists have argued that the problems of civ ilization are the inevitable by-products of aggressive tendencies that our species has inherited from its ancestors (e.g., Lorenz, 1966; Wilson, 1978). Maha rish i Vedic Psychology understands human problems as arising not because of residual tendencies towards aggression, nor because we have inherited a fight-or-flight system that is obsolete in modern life (e.g., Toffler, 1970), but because we have not used the full potential inherent in the ner vous system due to lack of an effective developmental technology. The TM-Sidhi program is one of the key technologies that Maharishi has made available for developing unity consciousness. The fourth article in this series describes the mechanics of how the Maharishi TM-Si dhi pro pro gram produces perfect adaptive freedom in life by developing different ar eas of mind-body coordination. That article describes how all possibilities in human life are realized when the mind projects thought and action from the level of the unified field. The ultimate expression of all possibilities in mind-body coordination occurs when the body can do anything that the mind desires—for example, Yogic Flying, whose fully developed state is the ability to fly. This level of mind-body coordination is cultured through the Maharis hi TM-S idhi program. program. We experience in the TM-Sidhi program that our self-referral awareness im mediately becomes awake in the different characteristics of the unified field. We see that the unified field is capable of spontaneously producing through its self-referral activity different characteristics or different shades in its own nature, like pure, crystal water becoming pink and then yellow and then green. These different qualities of the self-referral state of consciousness can be produced at will. Through this practice, a very clear habit develops of pro ducing the quality we want in our awareness. This habit gives us greater and greater alliance with the total potential of natural law, which is the unified field. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 96)

Maharishi explains that the Sanskrit word sidhi means perfection. The TM-Sidhi program comes from the ancient Yoga Sutras of Maharishi Patanjali (see Prasada, 1982/1912). The Yoga Sutras are an aspect of Vedic literature that expresses rules of transformation of the fundamental laws of  nature, which spontaneously emerge from the self-interacting dynamics of  consciousness. Maharishi explains that Yog a means unity and sutra means "stitch." Hence the Yoga Sutras are the stitches that weave unity consci ousn ess. Maharishi TM-Sidh i techniques, which utili ze the Yoga Sutras, are the means of stitching together wholeness of consciousness by integrating different aspects of sensory, motor, cognitive, and affective functions with the underlying field of pure consciousness. 134

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The Maharishi TM-S idhi program program thus provide providess a means for unfolding all possible human potentials to their highest degree of perfection. The final goal of the sidhis, however, is not the specific sidhi performances them selves, but total integration of life in unity consciousness. Maharishi explains that the TM-Sidhi program is not only a powerful means of development; it also tests the degree of integration of specific psychophysiological functions with the cosmic psyche. Successful per formance of the predicted result proves that the nervous system is func tioning normally enough to maintain the experience of pure conscious ness while engaged in activity. The fourth article in this series discusses each of these views on the TM-Sidhi program. 5.

OLD

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

The dynam

ics of natural law and the dy namics of consciousness are different. Subjective knowl edge is unreliable; objective knowledge alone is valid and reliable.

NEW PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

The dynamics of 

natural law and the dynamics of  pure consciousness are identical. It is possible to know all laws of na ture by knowing the dynamics of  consciousness.

Modern science developed historically as a means to overcome the lim itations of subjectivity. Experimental conditions are controlled and syste matically varied in order to discover orderly relationships among variables. The conditions of observation are carefully noted and reported so that any one can replicate the phenomenon and observe the same results. The evo lution of scientific theory is a cultural process of gaining increasingly closer correspondence between hypotheses about nature's functioning and publi cly observable data. The objective methodology of science can thus be viewed primarily as a means of checking the validity of theories that are subjective in the sense that they are constructions of the human mind. A theory is suc cessful if the representation of nature conceived in the mind of the scien tist corresponds to objectively observed laws of nature. Observation oc curs either through direct sensory experience of nature or through reading instruments that measure the occurrence of phenomena beyond the range of the senses. Of course, observation, being a sensory experi ence, is itself subjective, and in the final analysis, science is a process of  verifying one level of subjectivity—intellectual conception—by virtue of  another level—perception. Ultimately, the success of the objective methodology of science de pends upon the quality of consciousness of the scientist, particularly the deeper cognitive functions. Only a highly intelligent mind can discover patterns of order in objective data that become deep principles and lasting theories. The role of intelligence in the success of science suggests that there must be some fundamental correspondence between the nature of  human intelligence and the order perceived in nature. There are, for ex ample, instances in which abstract mathematical theories, derived through 135

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logical processes completely without reference to external reality, later were found to describe precisely the laws of nature in some area of phys ics (see Weinless, 1987). It has been argued in various ways throughout history that knowledge of the universe is a mere reflection of universal Forms (Hamilton & Cairns, 1961) or archetypes (Jung, 1959) that are hid den deep within consciousness. Yet, twentieth-century psychology does not have any clear conception of what these archetypal laws of nature might be or an empirical technology for accessing them. Accordi ng to Mahari shi Vedic Psychology, as the human psyche ex pands to experience pure consciousness, the unified source of both sub   jective and objective existence, the more clearly it becomes able to cog nize directly the laws of nature as its own self-referral dynamics. This ability is true of the arts as well as the sciences. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of American Transcendentalism (who had read widely in the Vedic tradition), expressed this point of view when he wrote that if the student studies nature, he will find: Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind....So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim. (1837/  1987, p. 10)

Emerson saw that in order to know nature more fully, one had to become "so finely organized" as to attain that holistic level of consciousness in which the dynamics of nature could be directly cognized. For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely or ganized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these ca dences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations. (Emerson, 1844/1987, p. 1070)

Maharis hi Vedic Psychology is the fulfillment fulfillment of American Trans cendentalism because it provides a systematic technology, the TM and TM-Sidhi programs, for refining the nervous system to a level that enables the individual to cognize directly the laws of nature as the self-referral state of pure consciousness, Samhita. Laws of nature on the level of Samhita are the unmanifest "hum" of creation, the Veda ("Veda" is the Sanskrit word for knowledge). Direct cognition of the laws of nature in the self-referral state of consciousness is called Vedic cognition, which is the topic of the fifth article in this series. Maharishi describes how re search in consciousness through the TM and TM-Sidhi programs is on the forefront of modern science: Today, those who exclude consciousness are not with the times, they are far behind. Every generation has a few scientists who are really dedicated to

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research, and the fruit of their research is enjoyed by all. It is very fortunate for the world of knowledge today that much has been uncovered about the reality of that self-referral state of intelligence at the basis of all designs of  life in creation. All who are practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs are the real scientists of this generation, on the forefront of scientific scientific investigation. (1986, p. 28) ....the reality of the unified field, the Veda, the total potential of natural law is not a foreign reality to anyone. It is only hidden deep inside. It has only gone out of awareness, and to bring it to our awareness is the purpose of  study. (1985, p. 63)

6.

OLD PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

It is not pos

sible to know all the laws of  nature.

NEW

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

It is possible to

be all the laws of nature.

The experimental method of waking-state science has resulted in an information explosion in which it is difficult to keep up with one's field. Computerized information storage and retrieval systems have developed to make any factual knowledge easily accessible. Yet the totality of  scientific knowledge, even in its current incomplete and fragmented state, cannot be known by one mind because there is so much of it. In discussing this issue, Maharishi (1985) points out that every youth desires to know everything, do everything, accomplish everything. Yet with modern science-based education, every year as students learn some laws of nature they become aware of greater fields of knowledge lying beyond what was learned. In this sense, ignorance of knowledge increases at a faster rate than the amount of knowledge gained. The best that education can hope for is "all knowledge in one campus," and great libraries and communities of scholars have been assembled to meet this aspiration. Maharishi provides a radical alternative to this frustrating situation in the conc ept of "all knowledge knowledge in one brain " (e.g. (e.g.,, S. Dil lbe ck & M. Dill bec k, 1987). By all knowledge, Maharishi means the fruit of all knowledge. He notes that the practical application of any knowledge is in fulfilling de sires. Thus the fruit of all knowledge is ultimately fulfillment. By having pure consciousness established in one's awareness, one can know any thing and do anything. Just as a seed contains all the laws of nature that structure the growth of a tree, the field of pure information, inherent in the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness, contains the total poten tial of natural law which structures the universe. Maharishi explains that it is possible to be the total potential of natural law in the state of full en lightenment, fully matured unity consciousness, which he describes as  

Brahman

consciousness.

It is only through Vedic Science that one individual person can become a lively embodiment of natural law. That is what is known as the totality, Brahman. Unity consciousness in the midst of all the diversified structures of knowledge and all activities, performances, behavior, interchanges, and

26

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exchanges—all lively in one unity consciousness and unity consciousness lively in one human personality—that is the representative of natural law, Brahman consciousness, the totality. The Veda declares, "Aham Brahmas mi." "I am That." (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 34)

The sixth article in the series describes how unity consciousness fully unfolds into the peak of human evolution—Brahman consciousness. 7. O L D

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

Utilize th e

objective approach to solve human problems.

Utilize objective and subjective approaches to solve human problems.

NEW PRINCIPLE:

Scientists typically believe that the scientific method is the best hope for solving human problems, including behavioral ones. Yet scientific method and knowledge do not cause one to become more moral or create right action. Maharishi comments: Being objective in its approach, modern science brings only intellectual un derstanding about the functioning of the laws of nature. It does not pene trate into the life of the scientist. It does not integrate his personality. He can do some little jugglery here and there in the field of creation, converting this into that and that into this, but he himself is open to all kinds of de structive values because the modern approach to the investigation of natu ral law does not and cannot enable the scientist to imbibe knowledge and live it in daily life. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 34)

The reason that scientific knowledge does not integrate the personality is that it does not function from the level of pure consciousness, the holistic level of natural law at the basis of the personality (see Figure 1 below, pp. 150-151). As discussed earlier, science has been partial in its approach because it has been limited to investigation of the known and has not illu minated knowledge of either the knower or the process of knowing. Fur thermore, the approach of science has been partial and fragmented be cause it investigates isolated laws of nature out of context of their holistic basis in the unified field of pure consciousness. Consequently, no one ever gains total knowledge of natural law through the experimental ap proach of modern science. As a result, all the effects of the applications of scientific discoveries cannot be known until side-effects appear. The harmful side-effects of modern medicine and pollution of air, water, and food produced by industrial and chemical technology, as well as the de structive power of electronic and nuclear technology, have affirmed the proverb that "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The partial laws of nature discovered by science not only do not integrate the personality, but often create imbalances, resulting in a society characterized by problems, stress, sickness, unhappiness, and disharmony. Maharishi explains that the way to create right action and holistic knowledge tha t does not lead to imbalance s is expressed expressed in the Bhagavad-G ita as Yogastah kuru karman

138 13 8

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"Established in Being [pure consciousness], perform action." This means, establish consciousness in its unified, self-referral state, the total potential of natural law, and perform spontaneous right action that is purely evolu tionary. The Trans cende ntal Meditatio n and TM-Sidhi programs train huma n brain physiology and human awareness to function in accord with the total po tential of natural law and spontaneously exhibit natural law in daily life. Thereby all aspects of life come to be always in the direction of evolution. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 32)

8.

OLD PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE:

Pre-scientific

knowledge is primitive, unre liable, and not useful.

NEW

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE :

Knowledge and

experience of higher states of  consciousness provide a new per spective for re-evaluating our cul tural heritages.

This principle of creating right action is elaborated in the seventh arti cle in this series. As a corollary to the principle that subjective knowledge is unreliable (Principle 5), the scientific community also tends to view knowledge from pre-scientific cultures as primitive—unverified or unverifiable knowledge that generally is not useful. Knowledge of the seven state s of consci ousne ss available in Maharishi Vedic Psychology pro pro vides a new perspective for evaluating cultural traditions. It may be that some of what the waking-state perspective views as "mystical experienc es" and "myth" may actually be descriptions of experiences of higher states of consciousness (Chandler, in press; Pearson, in press; R. OrmeJohnson, 1987). Intellectual understanding and direct experience of  higher states of consciousness, for example, greatly enrich appreciation of one's religious tradition (Smith, 1983). As discussed previously, in Maharishi's analysis, for knowledge of life to be complete, it must provide a comprehensive understanding of all three of  its aspects—knower, known, and process of gaining knowledge. Scientific knowledge, which is knowledge of the known only, is at best only one-third of complete knowledge. Maharishi explains that complete knowledge of  the three-in-one structure of life was once available in the ancient Vedic civilization, and that this tradition, which was all but extinct, is now being revived in its purity in this generation (e. (e.g., g., Maharishi, 1969, pp. pp. 9- 21 ). T he remarkable parallel of Vedic knowledge to the most advanced scientific understanding (e.g., Hagelin, 1987; Weinless, 1987), together with the ef fectiveness of its techniques, which have been empirically verified through modern scientific research (e.g., Dillbeck, 1983), provides evidence for the veracity of the Vedic understanding of fundamental reality. Maharishi explains that although Vedic knowledge has been continu ously maintained by the tradition of Vedic masters to t his day, the full value 13 9

MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE

of this knowledge became virtually lost in society in recent history as a re sult of errors that crept in over the generations. In the process of dissemi nating this knowledge throughout society, knowledge became lost when ever intellectual understanding was not verified by experience of pure consciousness and ultimately of unity consciousness (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1969, pp. 9-17). In this view, the historical rise of the scientific method in recent centuries can be seen as a response to the need for a reli able means of gaining knowledge once effective subjective technologies for experiencing pure consciousness were not widely available. From the perspective of Maharish i Vedic Psychology, all philoso phies—all perspectives on knowledge—have some truth to them because they are all aspects of the cosmic psyche. Different perspectives, howev er, will differ in how completely they portray the totality of knowledge. If  one perspective presents a 100% vision of the totality, then any mixing with another point of view, even if it represents 99% of the total, will create a loss of knowledge that will be a loss to humanity for a very long time. For this reason, those who believe that Maharishi's knowledge rep resents a revival of pure knowledge are concerned to preserve that puri ty. This undertaking does not mean giving up one's critical faculties to blind faith. On the contrary, repeated inquiry through every conceivable avenue—e.g., direct perception, intellectual analysis, comparison, or verbal testimony from an authentic source—is considered a vital aspect of Mah aris hi Vedic Psychology (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 19 69, pp. pp. 303, 473-474).

Maharishi has explained that the knowledge that needs to be most carefully guarded from transmission errors is the technology of con sciousness, the delicate knowledge of how to culture the nervous system to experience higher states of consciousness directly. If the direct ex perience is lost, then the entire edifice of knowledge collapses into use less philosophical speculation. Without stabilization of higher states of  consciousness, different interpretations of the knowledge about them arise, corresponding to the level of consciousness of the interpreter. Ex pressions that were designed to provide intellectual understanding of di rect experiences become taken as points of speculative philosophy. With out direct experience, debate over the meaning of expressions of the enlightened becomes unresolvable. The knowledge of integration of life is then taken as a matter of faith rather than as an empirically verifiable fact. Enlightened sages are viewed as living in the faraway past rather than as individuals in this generation living a normal state of human life. Maharish i Vedic Psychology Psychology is an an experiential psychology psychology whose ex periences can be empirically verified through both direct experience and scientific research. The knowledge for gaining direct experience of pure consciousness is closely protected because experience is crucial to this understanding of life. The tradition has always been to protect the purity of  these practices and not to experiment with them. Some modern scientists 1 40

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who are sympathetic to the idea that Vedic and other ancient traditions do have important subjective technologies to offer may nevertheless feel that science itself could improve upon this knowledge. However, Maharishi notes that from the partial fragmented approach of modern science the wholeness of knowledge can never be constructed or even appreciated. To use an analogy, fifth-grade math students could not design a math curriculum to advance themselves to the level of calculus. Modern science is a waking-state approach to knowledge, and thus is based on a style of neurophysiological functioning that can neither provide nor sustain the experience of the knower as pure consciousness. Maha rishi explains that it is only from the total perspective of enlightenment that knowledge of the means to develop consciousness to enlightenment could come. Experimentation with the technology of consciousness by the unenlightened could thus only be a source of errors and lead to loss of knowledge. On the other hand, use of the scientific method to verify the effectiveness of technologies for developing consciousness is a le gitimate and necessary pursuit that enables individuals who have exper ienced neither pure consciousness nor Maharishi's techniques for de veloping consciousness to appreciate the effectiveness of Maharishi Vedic Science and Technology. The eighth article in the series presents—as an example from the an cie nt Vedic lite rature on enlightenment—an analysis of the Bhagavad-Gita Bhagavad-Gita as a case history in Maha to the Gita as "the essence of the Veda" and as "the textbook of psychol ogy" (personal communication, January 12, 1983), and he has provided a detailed analysis and commentary (1969) on how it portrays the transition of an individual's consciousness from a state of suffering and ignorance to enlightenment. The story of the Bhagavad-Gita is an example of the large Self, one's higher Self—portrayed as Lord Krishna—having a dialogue with the lower self—represented by Arjuna, a king and the mightiest archer of  his t ime . And what does the higher Self say to the lower self? self?

Let a man raise his self by his Self, let him not debase his Self; he alone, indeed, is his own friend, he alone his own enemy. (VI.5)

Maharishi (1969) comments: No help from the outside is required. A man has in himself everything he needs to rise to any height of perfection. Nothing of the world is needed to elevate the self; no method is to be adopted, no means to be sought. The self  is elevate d by the Self Self alone....(p. alone....(p. 39 5) Throu gh medita tion a situation is created wher e the Self Self is found found uncovered, unfolded in Its pure and essential natu re with no shadow cast upo n It by any any thing.... Meditation does not unfold the Self—the Self, it must be repeated, unfolds Itself by Itself to Itself. The wind does nothing to the sun it only clears away ;

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the clouds and the sun is found shining by its own light. The sun of the Self is self-effulgent. Meditation only takes the mind out of the clouds of relativity. Th e absolu te sta te of the Self ever shines in Its own glory. (p. 39 6)

Thus, the eighth article illustrates how knowledge of the ancient Vedic tradition is highly relevant to modern life, a point that is further verified by the scientific research discussed in the next two sections. 9. O L D

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE:

There is no

single solution to the prob lems of society.

Developing pure consciousness is the solution to all problems.

NE W PRINCIPLE:

An underlying assumption of science that arises from its fragmented experimental approach is that each problem has its own solution. This assumption arises because science addresses natural law on the level of  objectivity, which is the field of multiplicity. So deeply ingrained is this point of view that the suggestion of a single solution to all problems is of ten met with frank disbelief, and "panacea" thus has a negative connota tion. Yet, if pure consciousness is the total potential of natural law in na ture, then enlivening pure consciousness through the TM and TM-Sidhi programs would prom ote life in accord wi th th e evolu tionary purpose of  natural law in every aspect of life and would indeed be a panacea. Earlier in this introduction we noted that many of the outstanding problems faced by contemporary civilization are psychological in ori gin. Here we will briefly discuss some of the research on the TM and TM-Sidhi programs indicating that this program offers a solution to each of these problems. The first major problem we noted was the ubiquitous presence of stress in modern life. Research shows that through the reg ular practice of the TM technique, every aspect of the physiology func tions with increased order and in harmony with every other aspect of  the physiology, thus decreasing stress, which is disorder (e.g., see the Appendix in the following article; and see Wallace, 1986). Hans Selye, an internationally known medical authority on stress, has written: Research already conducted shows that the physiological effects of Tran scendental Meditation are exactly the opposite to those identified by medi cine as being char acte rist ic of the body's body's effo effort rt to meet the d emands of stress.... I would refer refer to it [the [the TM technique] as a meth od whic h so relaxes th e human central nervous system that...it doesn't suffer from stress....And I think if you can influence the nervous syst em through Transcen denta l Meditation so that it can really relax, really be at its best in responding non-specifically to any demand , that is an ideal solution (quoted (quoted in Oates, 19 76, pp. 214 , 217) .

A wide range of research supports Selye's statement. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 31 physiological studies showed that the TM technique is over twice as effective as ordinary rest at producing physiological relaxa tion (decreased respiration rate and plasma lactate, and increased basal skin resistance; Dillbeck & Orme-Johnson, 1987). The same study also 14 2

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VEDIC PSYCH OLOGY

showed that meditators have lower baseline levels on stress indices (respi ration rate, heart rate, spontaneous skin resistance responses, and plasma lactate) than do controls. In addition, the TM technique reduces plasma Cortisol, a major stress hormone (Jevning, Wilson, & Davidson, 1978), as well as serum cholesterol levels in normal and hypercholesterolaemic pa tients (Cooper & Aygen, 1978, 1979). The psychological component of  stress is also reduced as indicated by a meta-analysis of over 100 studies on anxiety. These studies show that the TM technique is over twice as ef fective in reducing chronic (trait) anxiety as any other meditation or relax ation technique. The other techniques were found to be no different from each other or from placebo controls (Eppley, Abrams, & Shear, 1984). It was also noted earlier in this introduction that many medical risk  factors are psychological. The TM program not only impacts stress (one of  the major risk factors), but also reduces other risk factors, including cho lesterol levels, as mentioned, and drug, cigarette, and alcohol consump tion (see review by Siegel & Abrams, 1981) . It would be expecte d that a technique that reduced so many risk factors would be beneficial to health in general. This result has been found in a study of health insurance statis tics on 2000 TM practitioners over a five-year period. Both hospitalization and doctor visits were reduced by more than 50% in TM practitioners com pared to controls of similar age and occupation. In addition, the TM group showed decreases in all categories of disease, including marked reduction in the three major causes of death in the U.S.—heart disease (-83%), can cer (-30% in benign and malignant tumors), and stroke (-50% in diseases of  the blood and blood vessels) (Orme-Johnson, 1987) . Furthermor e, the TM technique has been shown literally to extend human life in the advanced elderly (Alexander, Langer, Davies, Chandler, & Newman, 1986). In the area of mental health, the TM technique has been shown to be more effective than a variety of psychotherapies for treating post traumatic stress syndrome in Vietnam veterans (Brooks & Scarano, 1984). In addition, a meta-analysis (Ferguson, 1980) found that the TM technique is more beneficial than other meditation and relaxation techniques for pro ducing overall psychological improvements. In the field of prison rehabili tation, where nothing else has been found to be effective (Martinson, 1974), the TM technique has been shown to increase autonomic stability, im prove sleep patterns, enhance development and psychological health, im prove behavior, and most important, to reduce recidivism (Alexander, 1982; Bleick & Abrams, 1987; see Dillbeck, 1987, and Orme-Johnson, 1981, for reviews). The ninth article in this series summarizes the applied principles of  Maha rishi Vedic Psychology to guide guide life in all fields, fields, including educa tion, health, business and industry, rehabilitation and crime prevention, defense, and government (also see the following article—Appendix). That article also provides an overview of the more than 420 scientific studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the TM and TM-Sidhi pro grams in each of these areas. 14 3

MODERN SCIENCE AND VEDIC SCIENCE

10. O L D

PRINCIPLE: PRINCIPLE:

Society is

organized by cognitive and behavioral interactions.

Society is orga nized by its collective con sciousness; the most fundamen tal level of collective con sciousness is pure conscious ness, the field of infinite correla tion.

NEW PRINCIPLE:

For the twentieth-century s ociologis t and and social psychologist, socie ty is un un derstood in terms of social interactions on the behavioral and cognitive lev els. A common theme throughout the social sciences is that the interests of  the individual and society are inevitably in conflict. For instance, Freud's (1930/1961) theory that individual desires run counter to the rules of so ciety necessary to maintain its structure has widely influenced Western intellectual thought. One of the most far-reachi far-reaching ng aspects of Maharishi Vedic Psychology is its theory of  collective consciousness, which describes how pure con sciousness is the field of  infinite correlation that interconnects all mem bers of society. From this perspective, conflict is not fundamental; it is only an artifact of thought and behavior of the members of society that arises when they are not integrated at their source—pure consciousness. Although the concept of a pervasive field of consciousness underlying both t he individual and societ y can be found found in twentieth-century psychology (e.g., Fechner, cited in James, 1898/1977; Jung, 1959; Durkheim, 1951), until now neither psychology nor sociology has had any concept of how to increase harmony in society from the level of its collective conscious ness. In addition, as McDougal (1920/1973) has concluded, theories of  collective consciousness will not have a major influence on mainstream social sciences until such theories are empirically testable. One empirically testable consequence of Maharishi's theory of collec tive consciousness is that when individuals and groups practice the Tran scendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, the benefits are not con fined to that individual or group, but spread to the larger society. Maharishi explains: This transcendental level of nature's functioning is the level of infinite corre lation. 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 na ture's functioning from where orderliness governs the universe. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986, p. 75)

The influence of TM and TM-Sidhi participants on the larger society is called coherence in collective consciousness, which has been operationalized as improved quality of life on standard social indicators (see OrmeJohnson & Dillbeck, 1987, for a review of over 30 studies). Maharishi's 14 4

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VEDIC PSYC HOLO GY

theory of collective consciousness and the empirical research thereon is discussed in the 10th article in this series. It presents Maharishi's per spective that the individual is the unit of collective consciousness and that every level of social organization—family, community, city, state, nation, and world—has a corresponding level of collective consciousness, with pure consciousness as the common basis of each (e.g., Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1976, p. 123). As individua individuall members of society increase the coher ence of their own consciousness, the collective consciousness of their family, community, city, state, nation, and world also increases in coher ence. Thought and behavior in the larger society function from a less limit ed, more expanded frame that automatically takes into account the best interests of the individual and society. Applied to education, increasing coherence in collective consciousness increases the general level of  creative intelligence throughout society (e.g., S. Dillbeck & M. Dillbeck, 1987). Applied to business, it increases morale, harmony, and productivity. Applied to city and national life, it decreases crime rate and increases pos itive trends in society (Dillbeck, Banus, Polanzi, & Landrith, in press; Dill beck, Landrith, & Orme-Johnson, 1981: Dillbeck, Cavanaugh, Glenn, Orme-Johnson, & Mittlefehldt, 1987; Orme-Johnson, Gelderloos, & Dill beck, in press). Applied to national defense, it increases the internal cohe sion of the nation and increases friendliness between nations, making the nation invin cible (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Yogi, 1978, 1986; Orme-Johnson, Al exander, Davies, Chandler, & Larimore, in press; Davies, 1988). This phenomenon of increased coherence in all levels of collective con sciousness has been named the Maharishi Effect (e.g., Borland & Landrith, 1976). Empirical and theoretical work has indicated that the square root of  1% of a population is the critical minimum size of a group practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi programs needed to produce the Maharishi Effect (e.g., Dillbeck et al., 1981; Dillbeck et al., 1987; Orme-Johnson, Gelderloos, & Dillbeck, in press; Orme-Johnson, Alexander, Davies, Chandler, & Lari more, in press; and see Orme-Johnson & Dillbeck, 1987, for a review). All of these studies have used public data sources collected independently of  the experimental hypotheses, and the hypotheses and measures have been lodged in advance of the experiment with outside review boards of  impartial scientists. The studies have employed the most advanced causal analysis methodologies available to the social sciences and have been conducted on every level of society, ranging from the interaction of the brain physiologies of two separated individuals (e.g., Travis, 1988) to the effects of groups of 7000 (the square root of 1% of the world's population) on reducing armed conflicts on the other side of the world (e.g., Davies, 1988). Davies, for example, used an 821-day data base recording levels of  cooperation and conflict in Lebanon, coded blind of the experimental hy pothesis by a non-meditating professional. Davies studied the Maharishi Effect in Lebanon during seven experimental periods in which groups practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi programs were large enough to be predict ed to reduce the conf lict (including a small assembly of approximately 100 14 5

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people within the conflict area and, on three occasions, assemblies of ap proximately 7000 in the United States or Europe). The effects of tempera ture, holidays, and seasonality, as well as other forms of nonstationarity in the data were taken into account using Box-Jenkins impact assessment analysis. During the 93 days of the assemblies, there was a mean 66% in crease in level of cooperation, 48% reduction in level of conflict, 71% re duction in war fatalities, and a 68% reduction in war injuries (p < .0001 for all variables). On a composite war/peace index, the probability of the ef fect occurring by chance was 10 . This study corroborated earlier re search demonstrating the calming influence of the Maharishi Effect on armed conflict (e.g., Alexander, Abou Nader, et al., 1987; Dillbeck, 1987; Orme-Johnson, Alexander, Davies, Chandler, & Larimore, in press). The theoretical prediction that the Maharishi Effect operates on the unified field of natural law is supported by the findings of several studies on the state and national levels that have demonstrated global changes in the quality of life (e.g., Dillbeck et al., 1987; Orme-Johnson, Gelderloos, & Dillbeck, in press; Orme-Johnson, Cavanaugh, et al., in press). These changes include balancing of the national economy, as indicated by re duced inflation and unemployment (e.g., Cavanaugh, 1987). One of the most striking features of Maharishi's theory of collective consciousness, discussed in the 10th article, is that the government is the "innocent mirror" of the collective consciousness of the nation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1977, p. 122). Research has demonstrated, for example, that President Reagan's statements with regard to the Soviet Union were much more positive during those periods when the numbers of TM and TM-Sidhi participants at Maharishi International University in Iowa were sufficiently large to have the predicted influence of increased coherence in U.S. na tional consciousness (Gelderloos, Frid, Goddard, Xue, & Löliger, in press). Maharishi has now established coherence-creating groups on every continent, and these groups, together with the influence of the three mil lion meditators and the other 73,000 TM-Sidhi participants worldwide, are purifying world consciousness through the Maharishi Effect. The substan tial body of theory and research, reviewed in the 10th article in this ser ies, demonstrates that Maharishi's programs are responsible for the wave of peace that the world is now experiencing. 19

Maharishi and the Fulfillment of Psychology At the beginning of twentieth-cent ury psychology, psychology, Willia m James (18 90 /  1972) concluded his landmark book Psychology (Briefer Course) by noting that psychology was yet to have its Galileo or Lavoisier. He stated that they "will be famous men indeed when they come, as come they some day surely will...." (p. 464). He noted that the range of their thought will neces sarily extend beyond physics and that "the best way in which we can facil itate their advent is to understand how great is the darkness in which we grope, and never to forget that the natural-science assumptions with which 1 46

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we started are provisional and revisable things" (p. 464). Maharishi is not only the Lavoisier and Galileo, but he is also the New ton , Eins tein , and beyond of psychology. Maharishi Vedic Psychology provides the most logical and complete theoretical structure for psycholo gy by identifying the profound link between objective and subjective exis tence. As long as science only investigated non-fundamental levels of natu ral law, and as long as the mind only experienced its non-fundamental active levels of consciousness, the connection between objective and sub  jective domains was not seen. At this time in history, experience and intel lectual understanding of pure consciousness has created a new awareness of the unified basis of nature. The increased coherence in world conscious ness produced by the TM and TM-Sidhi participants has created a level of  coherence in collective consciousness that has facilitated the rapid progress of unified field theory in physics. The result is the emergence of a new era era of a completely integrated science, Maharishi Vedic Scie nce. Mahar ishi ish i Vedic Psychology unfolds unfolds the full full range of human develop ment—seven states of consciousness—as well as providing an understand ing of collective consciousness and the technology to create an ideal soci ety from from that level—the Maharis hi Effect. Effect. Moreover, Maharishi Vedic Psychology generates practical results, solving the recalcitrant psychological problems of our time. It reduces stress and health-risk fac tors, improves mental health, provides effective rehabilitation, reduces crime rate, and creates world peace. All problems are disorders of some kind. Enlightenment is the state of perfect order. Therefore, the path to en lightenment solves all problems as a "side effect," not through focusing on the nature of problems per se, but through focusing on perfecting human life. We have chosen to associate Maharishi's name with this new psychol ogy by calling it Maharishi Vedic Psychology rather than merely Vedic Psychology in order to maintain the link with its source for future genera tions. Maharishi had a modern university education at the University of  Allahabad, and he was fortunate to receive a rare and precious Vedic education from one who is widely recognized as the greatest master of  enlightenment of modern India, His Divinity Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Jagadguru, the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math in northern India. When Maharishi came out of the Himalayas after 13 years with his teacher, he was immediately recognized by those who heard him speak  and who learned his system of meditation, to be the realization of the en lightenment of which he spoke. As one person described it in 1958, it was as if a great, ancient Maharishi of Upanishadic fame had suddenly de scended into the twentieth-century (Maharishi Vedic Vedic University, 1986 , p. 228) . Ever functioning from the level of cosmic intelligence, Maharishi displays the infallible precision of the "cosmic computer," the field of pure intelligence, the unified field, which governs the infinite diversity of the universe without a problem. Maharishi states that the human brain has the potential to be the "cosmic computer," which through proper programming can accom plish anything, and he himself is the supreme example of this spontaneous

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perfection. Those around him have witnessed time and time again that everything he does is perfect for the moment and perfect for all time, perfect for the im med iate e nvironm ent and perfect perfect for for the entire world. (Maharishi Vedic University, 198 6, p. 2)

Maharishi's supreme genius is expressed in his ability to teach and to bring others of all ages and in all walks of life toward enlightenment. Maharishi has commented that he has no followers but that people fol low their own evolution, and that if they find that what he says is useful, then they listen to what he says and use his techniques for developing consciousness in their daily lives. Maharishi's message is simple, and it has always been the same: Life at its basis is bliss, and the nature of  life is to evolve toward greater happiness to reach the highest bliss in enlightenment. The development of higher states of consciousness is not an esoteric pursuit for those who withdraw from life, but is the most ef fective means infinitely to enrich practical life. What Maharishi is offer ing to the world is the psychology of enlightenment, a completely uni versal knowledge capable of bringing fulfillment to all areas of  theoretical and applied psychology. As discussed earlier, inasmuch as most problems in the world have psychological origins, the elimination of psychological problems through Maha rish i Vedic Psychology will completely transform the world, creat ing Heaven on Earth. Maharishi (1988) explains that "Heaven on Earth" means that the inner glory of pure consciousness is lived in daily outer life. Heaven on Earth is thus life life in the wholeness of the three-in-one structure of consciousness, unmanifest and manifest, Absolute and rela tive, life in enlightenment which "bridges the gap between point and in finity, bringing together all the extremities of infinity, opening boundaries to unboundedness....Life in Heaven and life on Earth, together present the who leness of life which in its reality is waves of bliss eternal" (pp. (pp. 1-2). 1

Psychology Unified Field Chart Mahari shi Vedic Psychology is summarized summarized in chart form form in Figure 1, the Psychology Unified Field Chart (see pp. 150-151). This chart dis plays the various levels of psychology from the perspective of Mahari sh i Vedic Psychology. The cent er of the chart indi cates the seven state s of consciousnes s that lie at the core of Maharishi Vedic Psychol Psychol ogy. The chart is organized both vertically and horizontally in terms of  the threefold structure of knowledge, representing the different contribu tions made by the knower, the process of knowing, and the known (the ob   ject of knowledge). As indicated in Level 1 of the chart, these three ele ments have their common source in the field of pure consciousness, the self-referral state of consciousness (termed Samhita in the Vedic expression), in which the knower (Rishi), process of knowing (Devata), 1

Maharishi has recently brought out 20 approaches of Ayur-Veda Ayur-Veda for gaining gaining perfect health, which is a physiological way of  defining enlightenment.

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and known (Chhandas) are the same pure consciousness. This unified stat e of experie nce is identified by Maharishi Vedic Psychology as the experience of the unified field of natural law, the cosmic psyche. In the vertical dimension (see left side), the chart represents six basic levels of psychology: Level 1, the Self (capitalized to represent the deep est level of the knower, pure consciousness); Level 2, the mind (the pro cesses of knowing, which include ego, intellect, mind, desire, and sen ses); Level 3, the body and behavior (the level of objective phenomena, the known); Level 4, seven states of consciousness; Level 5, collective consciousness; and Level 6, applied psychology. Horizontally, each of the levels of psychology is also divided into three aspects, corresponding to knower, process of knowing, and known. That is, the left column refers to the fundamental structure of subjectivity at a given level of psychological functioning; the corresponding process of knowing represents the dynamical process through which that structure functions; and the known refers to the product that results from the given process. The different specialty areas of psychology correspond to levels of  the chart, as indicated on the left side. The fundamental nature of the sequence of levels of the mind and objective existence as described in Mahar ishi Vedic Psychology is illus trated by the fact that th e chapter headings of the major textbooks spanning the 100 years of psychology's existence (compiled by Matarazzo, 1987) correspond to these levels (see Table 2, pp. 152-153). That is, even though the content has changed over the years, psychology texts have always had chapters on behavior, physiological substrates, senses and perception, motivation, thought processes, discrimination, feeling, and the self or whole person. Th e reason for thi s stabi lity, according to Maharish i Vedic Psychology, is that these levels are universal levels of individual subjectivity that are sequentially unfolded from the cosmic psyche. It should be noted that there have been no textbook chapters on the most fundamental level of the mind, pure consciousness, the basis of all the other levels. Maharishi Vedic Psychology provides the missing foundational knowledge for psy chology, the chapter on the cosmic psyche. Each of the levels of the chart is elaborated below. Level 1: The Self  Maha ris hi Vedic Psychology offers offers both a theo reti cal descriptio n of  the fundamental level of consciousness, the field of pure consciousness— the Self—and technologies for its direct experience. The experience of  pure consciousness is the "self-referral state" of human awareness, termed Samhita in ancient Vedic Science, which Maharishi has revived; in this state, consciousness is directly open to its own nature, and the knower, process of knowing, and known—or Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas—are unified. This experience of a unified state of awareness is identified by Mahari shi Vedic Psychology Psychology as the experience of the unified unified level of the functioning of nature itself, the unified field of natural law.

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THE MAHARISHI TECHNOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY

150

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OF THE UNIFIED FIELD

VEDIC PSYCH OLOG Y

FIGURE ONE

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

T

his chart illustrates how the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field contributes to twentieth-century psycholo gy by providing a new in tegrated approach in which the whole range of  psychology can be appre ciated from its source in the self-interaction of the self-referral unified field of  all the laws of nature—the cosmic psyche. Practice of the Maharishi Technol ogy of the Unified Field ensures that the function ing at every level of psy chology fully reflects the self-referral value of the unified field, establishing all aspects of life in accor dance with the total poten tial of natural law—perfect mental health for the indi vidual and society.

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TABLE

2

P S Y C H O L O G Y T E X T B O O K C H A P T E R H EA EA D I NG NG S ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE LEVELS OF THE UNIFIED FIELD CHAR T FOR MAHARISHI VEDIC PSYCHO LOGY

TEXTBOOK

LEVEL

James, The   Principles of   Psychology (1890)

Angell,  Psychology (1906)

Social Processes

Zimbardo, Boring, Langfeld, Kimble,  Psychology & Weld Weld Garmezy &   Foundations of  Zigler,   and Life   Psychology Psychology (1985) (1948) (1984) Attitudes and Opinions (24), Social Relations of the Individ ual (25)

Social and ...Development (12), Social Cogni tion and Social Behavior (18), Social Influence and Group Processes (19)

The Social Bases of Beha vior (16) Ex ploring Social Issues (17)

The Response Mechanism (2), Response (3), Efficiency (20)

Conditioning and Learning (8), ...Coping (10), Therapy for Behavior Disorder, (17)

Probing the Mysteries of  Mind and Behavior (1), Conditioning and Learning (7)

Evolution Genetic Bases of Behavior (2), Nervous and Endocrine Systems (3), Stress... (10), Cognitive Development

Life-Span Psychological Development (2), The Biology of Behavior (3), Understanding & Managing Stress (13)

Behavior

Habit (4), The Production of Movement (23), Instinct (24)

Reflex Action and Instinct (15), The Im portant Human Instincts (16), The Nature of  Impulse (17)

Physiology

The Functions of the Brain (2), On Some Gen eral Conditions of Brain Activity (3)

The Psychophy Growth and sical Organism Development and the Nervous (4), Heredity and Environ System (2), A Sketch of the ment (19) General Rela tions of Concious5 ness to Neuronal Action (3)

(11) Senses

152

Sensation (17), The Perception of Things (19), The Perception of Space (20)

Sensation(5), Perception (6), The Perception of Spatial and Temporal Relation (7)

Perception (10), Sensory Sensation and Processes (4), Psychologica l Perception (5) Measurement (11), Color (12), Visual Space Perception (13), Hearing (14), Taste and Smell (15), Somesthesis (16), Topographi cal Orientation, (17)

Sensation (4), Perception (5)

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VEDIC PSYC HOLOG Y

T A B L E 2 (CONTINUED) PSYCHOL OGY TEXTBOO K CHAPTER HEADINGS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE LEVELS OF THE UNIFIED FIELD CHA RT FOR MAHARISHI VEDIC PSYC HOLOG Y TEXTBOOK

LEVEL Desire

The Emotions (25)

Mind

The Automation Attention, Dis Theory (5), crimination, & The Mind-Stuff  Association (4), Theory (6), The Perception The Relations of  of...Temporal Minds to Other Relation (7), Things (8), Imagination (8), The Stream of  Memory (9) Thought (9), Conception (12), Association (14), The Perception of Time (15), Memory (16), Imagination (18), The Perception of  Reality (21), Hypnotism (27)

Intellect

Discrimination and Comparison (13), Attention (11), Reasoning (22)

Discrimination (4) Conscious ness of Mean ing and the Formation of  Concepts (10), Judgment and the Elements of  Reasoning (11), The Forms and Functions of  Reasoning (12)

The Conscious ness of Self  (10), Will (26)

Elementary Features of  Volition (20), Relation of  Volition to Interest, Effort, Effort, and Desire (21), Charac ter and the Will (22), The Self (23)

Ego

The Nature of  Emotion (18), General Theory of Emotion (19)

Feeling and Emotion (5), Motivation (6)

Motivation (9), Motivation and Emotion (8) ...Emotion ...(10), ...and Emotional Devel opment (12)

Learning (7), Retention and Transfer of  Learning (8), Recollecting, Imagining and Thinking (9)

Memory and Forgetting (6), Language, Thought and ... (7), Cognitive Development (11)

The Nature of  Consciousness (6), Remem bering and Forgetting (9), Thinking and Communicating (10) Probing the Mysteries of  Mind and Behavior (1)

Language, Thought, & Problem Solving (7), Cognitive Development (11), The Range of Intellect (14)

Life-Span Psychological Development

Psychological Assessment (13), Theories of Personality (15), Psychopathology (16)

Understanding Human Personality (11), Assessing Individual Differences (12), Abnormal Psychology (14), Therapies for Personal Change (15)

Individual Differences (18), Person ality (21), Per sonal Adjust ment (22), Vocational Selection (23)

12)

Cosmic Psyche

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Level 2: The Mind According to Maharish i Vedic Psychology, Psychology, the fundamental ment al structures—the levels of the knower—are the ego, the intellect, the mind, and the senses. In addition, feeling and desire are also included in the chart because of their importance in governing affective processes and the direction of thought and behavior. Note that the term "mind" is used to refer both to a specific mental structure and to all levels of subjectivity other than pure consciousness; the usage of the term will always be clear from its context. The functions of the various levels of mental structure are as follows: The ego is the deepest level of individuality, the experiencer, responsible for integration and synthesis. Although affective processes extend throughout all levels of the mind, feeling is illustrated between the ego and intellect to denote the subtle and refined affective processes involved in intuition, creativity, and basic values of the individual. The intellect is responsible for the functions of discrimination, decision making, and controlling the allocation of attention. The mind, considered in its more specific sense as a level of mental structure, is concerned with association, memory, and apprehending relationships. Desire is the dynamic process by which the individual seeks increasing fulfillment. Desire may be understood as originating deep within subjectivity; ultimately, according to Maharishi Vedic Psychology, it has its source in the desire of pure consciousness to know itself (Samhita), an experience of immense fulfillment. Desire is represented on the chart between mind and senses because, in the pro cess of fulfilling specific desires, the individual's attention is drawn out through the senses to behavior in the environment. The function of the five senses is to process environmental information appropriate to each sense. The product ("known") of each of these levels of mental structure, indicated on the chart, is self-explanatory. Level 3: The Body At the third level of the chart, the "knower" is represented by the physiology and behavior of the individual. Behavior and the state of the nervous system are closely connected to the individual's state of con sciousness. The "process of knowing" is comprised of conditioning, learn ing, and adaptive and homeostatic processes. Through these processes, physiological and behavioral functions of the individual adjust to the condi tions of the internal and external environment to produce phsysiological balanc e, skills, and behavioral adaptation—the adaptation—the "know n." Level 4: Seven States of Consciousness One of the central contri butio ns of Maharishi Vedic Psychology to un derstanding and unfolding the full potential of human life is that of the seven states of consciousness. The three major states of consciousness com monly experienced are waking, dreaming, and sleep states. Through the 154

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Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, the applied technolo gies of Mahar ishi Vedic Psychology, the individual gains and stabi lizes the experience of a fourth major state of consciousness, transcendental consciousness (see center of chart). Transcendental consciousness is the experience of the self-referral state of consciousness, the experience of  the unified field or cosmic psyche. As indicated by scientific research, this state of restful alertness is characterized by reduced respiration, plasma lactate, and Cortisol, and increased EEG coherence and skin resistance. Cosmic consciousness, in contrast to the first four states of conscious ness, is a stable state of consciousnesss, characterized by the perma nent experience of transcendental or pure consciousness along with the changing states of waking, dreaming, and sleep. This state and the two later states are also known as stages of enlightenment. God conscious ness, the sixth state of consciousness, is a further stage of development in which the most refined level of each object is perceived. In unity con sciousness, the seventh state of consciousness, the gap between subject and object is fully bridged, and every object is perceived in terms of pure consciousness, the Self, the unified field of natural law. As the individual rises to higher states of consciousness, each of the levels of the mind functions in a more effective, powerful, and integrated way. On the basis of the experience of the unified field, the field of pure consciousness, every thought and action is fully attuned to the full range of natural laws that promote the positive development of oneself and oth ers; action is spontaneously right for the needs of the time. The develop ment of full enlightenment, unity consciousness, should be considered normal adult life, the birthright of each individual. Level 5: Collective Consciousness

Maha rishi Vedic Psychology identifies consci ousnes s as governing not only the individual but also society. At each level of society—family, community, city, nation, or the world as a whole—the subjective element ("knower," in the left column) is the collective consciousness of that lev el, governing the collective functioning of its social life. The center and right columns, respectively, present the most important collective pro cess ("process of knowing") and quality and structure of life ("known") at each level. The quality of consciousness of each individual in a social group con tributes directly to the quality of collective consciousness of that group. Therefore, the development of enlightenment in individual life is accompa nied by the growth of coherence and harmony in collective consciousness, so that throughout the entire society there is greater integration between the individuals' desires and the needs of society. Research has found that the regular experience of the field of pure consciousness by only 1% of  a population practicing the Transcendental Meditation program in their homes, or only the square root of 1% participating in the group practice of the TM-Sidhi program, generates measurable improvements in the quality of life in society and a reduction of violence in conflict areas. 15 5

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This phenomenon, known as the Maharishi Effect, is the practical means offere offered d by Maharishi Vedic Psychology for for creating an ideal ideal soci ety and a peaceful world. Level 6: Areas of Applied Psychology The top of the chart displays the th e culmination of  all fields of psycholo gy in the areas of applied psychology. The chart illustrates how the ap plication of psychology to these areas further contributes to the better ment of society. The well-being and mental health of society influence the ministries of government and the head of state, who are governed by collective consciousness. consciousness. Appendix

Aca dem ic Sources of Maharishi Vedic Psychology This knowledge of consciousness is being presented as a system of  psychology for the first time in this series of articles. Previously it has been formulated as the Science of Creative Intelligence (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972) and and as Vedic Science (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1986; see Chandler, 1987). The Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) is an experi ence-based set of general principles of consciousness common to every discipline, integrating all disciplines with each other and with the con sciousness of the knower. Central to SCI are experiential techniques for developing creative intelligence, the most important of which are the TM and TM-Sidhi techniques. Vedic Science encompasses the same prin ciples, but emphasizes a scholarly examination of their roots in the ancient Vedic tradition of India and expands the study into more detailed analyses of the relationship between consciousness and natural law. Th e Scien ce of Creative Intelligence and and Maharishi Vedic Science have served as an inspiration to found universities that have generated rapidly growing programs of undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate academic and applied research. These include Maharishi International University in the United States (1971); Maharishi European Research University in Switzerland (1975) and Germany (1982); Maharishi Univer sity of Natural Law, England (1982); Maharishi Veda Vigyan Vidya Peeth, India (Vedic University for Asia, 1983); and Maharishi Vedic University, Europe and the United States (1985). These programs of research are an invaluable resource for the field of psychology because essentially they are research programs on consciousness. Maharishi's knowledge of  consciousness has provided a basis for profound new interpretations of  the latest advances in quantum field theory (Hagelin, 1987), physiology (Wallace, Fagan, & Pasco, 1988), mathematics (Weinless, 1987), com puter science (Lester, 1987), and medicine (Chopra, 1988; Rigby, 1988; Glaser, 1988). In addition, this knowledge has provided a broad interdis ciplinary basis for interpreting all academic fields in terms of fundamen tal knowledge of the knower, including the fields of literature (R. OrmeJohnson, 1987), education (S. Dillbeck & M. Dillbeck, 1987; Nidich & 1 56

INT ROD UCT ION TO MAHARISHI MAHARISHI

VEDIC PSY CHOL OGY

Nidich, 1987; Gelderloos, 1987), and philosophy (Chandler, in press). Maharish i Vedic Psychology draws draws upon all of thes e importa nt sources of research on consciousness, and the presentation of Maharishi's knowledge as a system of psychology is one of the many programs of  scholarship occurring within the broader context of the Science of Crea tive Intelligence and Maharishi Vedic Scien ce. Addition al key sourc es of Mahar ishi Vedic Psychology are Mahari shi's books on consciousness, the Science of Being and Art of Living (1966), Bhagavad Gita, A New Translation and an d Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad and Commentary, Chapters 1-6  (1969). Other important sources of Maharishi Vedic Psychology are books containing transcripts of some of Maharishi's most important lectures; e.g., Creating an Ideal Society (1976), Enlightenment and Invincibility Invincibility (19 78) ,   Life Supported By Natural L A W (1986), and Thirty Years Around the World—Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment: Enlightenment: Volume One, 1957-1964 (1986). The latter book documents Maharishi's early lectures given in In dia in 1955 and describes how an invitation he received to give a lecture series turned into the beginning of the Transcendental Meditation move ment and a series of world tours. The transcripts of the lectures given on those tours can be found in Thirty Years Around the World, and the forthcoming sequels will include his principal lectures and activities in the second and third decades of his worldwide movement. Acknowledgement

Regarding the section on cognitive psychology, I would like to ac knowledge the contribution of Dr. Dodds Charleston. Additionally, I wish to acknowledge the valuable suggestions and editorial comments of Drs. Robert Boyer, Samuel Boothby, Charles Alexander, and Michael Dill beck. Deep appreciation also goes to Bonnie Mendocha, Lindy Atzenweiler, and Nancy Watkins for their assistance in preparing and editing the manuscript. References Alexander, C.N. (1982). Ego development, personality, and behavioral change in inmates practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique or participating in other programs: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study (Doctoral disserta tion, Harvard University, 1 9 8 2 ) . Dissertation Abstracts International, 43, 539B. Alexander, C.N., Abou Nader, T.M., Cavanaugh, K .L., Davies, J.L., Kfoury, R.J., Dillbeck, M.C., & Orme-Johnson, D.W. (1987, May 7). Time series analysis of    possible effects of the Maharishi Maharishi Technology of of the Unified Field on the war in  Lebanon. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Midwest Psycho logical Association, Chicago. Alexander, C.N., Boyer, R.W., & Alexander, V.K. (1987). Higher states of con sciousness in the Vedic Psychology of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: A theoretical

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introduction and research review.

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