TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION INTRODUCTION
"Transcendental Meditation opens the awareness to the infinite reservoir of energy, creativity, and intelligence that lies deep within everyone."
"By enlivening this most basic level of life, Transcendental Meditation is that one simple procedure which can raise the life of every individual and every society to its full dignity, in which problems are absent and perfect health, happiness, and a rapid pace of progress are the natural features of life."
-Maharishi
Over 600 scientific studies on the Transcendental Meditation Program have been conducted during the past four decades by researchers at more than 200 independent research institutions in 30 countries. These include Harvard Medical School; Princeton University; Stanford Medical School; University of Chicago; University of Michigan Medical School; University of California at Berkeley; University of California at Los Angeles; York University, Canada; University of Edinburgh, Scotland; University of Lund, Sweden; University of Groningen, The Netherlands; University of New South Wales, Australia; Institut de la Rochefoucauld, France; National Institute of Industrial Health, Japan; and Moscow Brain Research Institute of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Russia.
Studies have been published in many major scientific journals, including Science, Lancet, Scientific American, American Journal of Physiology, International Journal of Neuroscience, Experimental Neurology, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Psychosomatic Medicine, Canadian Medical Association Journal, American Psychologist, British Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Perceptual and Motor Skills, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Journal of Crime and Justice, Proceedings of the Endocrine Society, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and Social Indicators Research.
Many studies have been presented at professional scientific conferences, and others have been part of doctoral dissertations prepared under the guidance of thesis committees at leading universities. Much of the research has been gathered together in six volumes (over 5,000 pages). Refer to the Maharishi Vedic University Press publication Scientific Research on Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme-Collected Papers.
These studies have validated the profound benefits of the Transcendental Meditation Program for the individual and for every area of society, including health, education, business, industry, rehabilitation, defence, agriculture, and government.
Scientific Research on Transcendental Meditation
After the result of TM was proved at the logical level, scientists naturally got attracted to conduct research on TM at scientific level-using the most modem methods of science and technology. The first ever scientific research on TM was conducted by Dr. Robert Keith Wallace of U.S.A. who declared that during TM-the mind remains fully alert but the body goes to deep rest-deeper than sleep. This state of body and mind was termed as "Restful Alertness". Since then more than 600 independent scientific researches have been conducted on TM at numerous institutions in 32 countries covering all the areas of human development. The results of all these scientific research have been collectively published in six volumes of books titled "Scientific Research on Transcendental Meditation Program -Collected Papers". All these research have shown innumerable benefits of TM for the mankind. Few among them are:
Mental Benefits: According to psychologists, we (human being) only use 5-15% of our mental potential. This means we are only 5-15% effective. During TM we come into direct contact with the rest 85-95% of the mental potential we have not been using. Daily practice of TM, which takes about 15-20 minutes morning and evening, cultivate the energy and culture it-until it is always available for our spontaneous use. The mind becomes expanded and our awareness increases. The net result of mental benefits are given below:-
- Increased learning ability;
- Increased speed in solving problem accurately;
- Improved academic performance;
- Increased productivity;
- Improved job performance;
- Increased job satisfaction
- Improved relations with others;
- Clear and undisturbed thoughts.
Physical Benefits: Rest is the key word in any physical performance. The body automatically heals and rejuvenates when put to rest. We experience this at night, when we sleep, much of the fatigue and tensions are dissolved by the rest.Though night sleep dissolves fatigue and stress, the degree of rest is not complete enough to remove more deep-rooted stresses. To remove these stresses we need the deeper rest of TM. TM provides coherent rest to the nervous system which result into--
- Increased physiological adaptability;
- Increased Psychological adaptability;
- Increased Sociological adaptability;
- Improved health;
- Decreased stress and anxiety.
Benefits to Mind and Body: Transcendental Meditation makes the nervous system more stable thereby resulting into optimum mind-body co-ordination. Major benefits are:
- Faster reaction time;
- Decreased anxiety;
- Relief from Insomnia;
- Overall development of personality;
- Increased creativity;
- Optimum utilization of energy-thereby resulting into balanced and stable health.
The Maharishi Effect is a phase transition to a more orderly and harmonious state of life, as measured by decreased crime, violence, accidents, and illness, and improvements in economic conditions and other sociological indicators. The scientists who discovered this effect named it in honor of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who predicted 30 years ago that only a small fraction of the population participating in the Transcendental Meditation programme would be sufficient to improve the quality of life of the whole society. During the past 16 years, this transformation of society has been documented scientifically, first at the city level, then at the state and the national levels, and most recently at: the global level- the Global Maharishi Effect.
It has been found that the proportion of members of a society necessary to generate the Maharishi Effect is one percent practicing Transcendental Meditation or only the square root of one percent participating in the group practice of the TM-Sidhi programme. This proportion is so small that the beneficial effects on society of the Maharishi Effect cannot be accounted for by behavioral interactions of the participants with the members of society.
Instead, the results indicate a field effect, by which an influence of coherence produced by the participants radiates throughout the society. Dr. John Hagelin (1987), a leading physicist in the area of unified quantum field theory, points out that the great range of distance of the Maharishi Effect could only be understood as produced at the level of the Unified Field of all the Laws of Nature recently' identified by modem physics.
The discovery of the unified field of natural law is perhaps the most profound development of modem science. During the past twenty years, physicists have been able to sequentially u unify the four fundamental forces of nature. Probing in-to the functioning of natural law, physicists have discovered that forces and particles that appear very different at the scales of time and distance with which we are usually familiar are in reality unified at deeper levels of nature. This progress has culminated. In the recent formulation of "super string theory" which offers a complete mathematical description of the unified field of natural law.
