An Introduction
Kenneth Chandler
Maharishi International University
Fairfield, Iowa
The Science of Creative Intelligence:
Foundations of a New Science of Consciousness
The unified science that links the objective method of modern science and the subjective method of Vedic Science, while preserving the integrity of each, is called the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI). Maharishi himself has laid the foundations of this new science by showing, first, how a precise subjective science of consciousness is established on the basis of the direct experience of consciousness in its pure form; and second, how the experimental method can be used to test empirically the assertions of the subjective science. Through Maharishi's work, for the first time in history, the full potential of human consciousness can be investigated both through direct experience and through the objective methods of modern science. The foundations of this new science linking the subjective and objective method will now be considered.
Experiential Foundations
Prior to Maharishi's work, the term 'consciousness' was considered too vague and indefinite to be allowed into scientific discussion. It was excluded from science as a metaphysical term because consciousness was not objectively observable, and therefore apparently not amenable to scientific investigation. Through Maharishi's work, the concept of consciousness has been given a precise, welldefined meaning on the basis of direct experience, and its relation to the objective framework of science has been precisely specified.
The experience of pure consciousness, available to anyone through the regular practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, is a basis for precise experiential knowledge of consciousness in its simplest, most fundamental, and most unified state. Even though consciousness can never be an object of experience, when the conscious mind becomes completely settled in a wakeful state, it experiences its own nature as pure wakefulness, pure consciousness, without any activity or objective content. Through the repeatable, systematic experience of this silent but wakeful state of mind, the concept of pure consciousness, which has been subject to conjecture and debate throughout the centuries, is now available to direct experience.
Having laid the basis for introducing consciousness into science as a precise concept, it remained for Maharishi to develop a program of applied research to test theoretical predictions of Vedic Science. Identifying consciousness with the unified field provides a precise understanding of where consciousness is located in the framework of the sciences. To create an empirical science of consciousness, however, it was also necessary to account for how consciousness could be investigated through experimental research.
Empirical Foundations
Maharishi's work has laid the foundation for an experimental investigation of consciousness. He has led the way in drawing out predictions of Vedic Science that are open to testing, translating discussions of consciousness, derived from experience of higher states of consciousness, into predictions of experimentally observable phenomena. Three examples will illustrate this principle.
Pure consciousness, as was noted above, is experienced during the practice of the TM technique as a state of pure restful alertness. This purely subjective experience does not, however, establish objectively whether it is in fact a state of deep rest and alertness, or only seems to be. If a person is in a deep state of rest and alertness, Maharishi has asserted, then physiological evidence of deep rest and alertness should be observable. Reduced levels of oxygen consumption, reduced breath rate, and other measures of more refined physiological activity would be predicted. Patterns of EEG coherence in the alpha range, indicative of restful alertness, should also be observed. Early pioneering research by Dr. R. K. Wallace found that these changes do indeed occur. In this way, statements about the subjective experience of consciousness were translated into empirically verifiable assertions. The basis of this correlation between consciousness and physiology is a principle, fundamental to Maharishi's thinking, that for every state of consciousness there is a corresponding state of physiological functioning. The range of physiological correlates of the experience of pure consciousness is a subject of continuing research.
Consider a second example. Pure consciousness is understood in Vedic Science as a clear and settled state of awareness. Anyone who gains this state is said to have a mind like a placid lake, unrippled by waves and thus able to reflect the world in a precise, non agitated manner. Maharishi drew from this several predictions. One is that a person growing in the ability to experience pure consciousness would experience more stable and orderly physiological functioning. This can be translated into the testable prediction that subjects regularly practicing the TM program display increased stability of the autonomic nervous system. Another prediction is that the practice of the TM program will produce greater perceptual clarity and greater orderliness of thinking. Translated into specific terms, this leads to the prediction that practicing the TM program will produce measurable increases on such scales as auditory discrimination, brain wave coherence, and problem solving ability. Research has been designed, carried out, and reported in the literature which measures the growth of these parameters in groups practicing the TM program by comparison to control groups, thus providing objective verification of the predicted correlates of the subjective experience of pure consciousness.
A third example of how assertions of Vedic Science can be translated into testable form is found in the sociological experiments on the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field. The hypothesis is that a group of persons practicing this technology in one place, by bringing their awareness to the level of perfect orderliness in the unified field, will enliven qualities of harmony and orderliness in collective consciousness, thus producing measurable positive changes in the quality of societal life. Many experiments have been designed and carried out by Maharishi demonstrating the power of this technology to produce significant changes in the level of coherence, positivity, balance, and stability in society, even on a global scale. The results of these experiments strongly support Maharishi's assertion that consciousness is identical with the unified field.
Experimental Research
Over three hundred experimental studies in the areas of physiology, psychology, and sociology provide substantial confirmation of many basic assertions of Vedic Science in the arena of empirical science. Many of these studies, now published in major scientific journals throughout the world, have been collected in the volumes called Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Programme: Collected Papers (1976). This research provides experimental validation of the efficacy of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field. Because this research is too extensive to summarize here, the reader is referred to theCollected Papers for articles cited in this and other professional journals. For a recent comprehensive bibliography of these studies, see Wallace (1986). Overall, this research probably represents the most concerted, well-designed research program on a potential means to benefit mankind ever conceived. Its present standing is that, taken together as a body of research, it is one of the most impressive confirmations of a theory of human potential ever executed.
Although it is beyond the scope of this introduction to go into the details of this research, it is worthwhile to mention some of the broad categories of scientific investigation that have evolved to guide the research program of the Science of Creative Intelligence. The main areas of research include studies on the individual and society. Research on benefits to the individual may be further subdivided into studies of physiological changes (both during and after the practice); cognitive, psychological, and behavioral changes; benefits to health and social behavior; and benefits to athletic performance, performance in business, and academic performance. Research on social benefits through collective practice may be further grouped into research on families, city populations, national populations, and global population. These research studies fall into the categories of crime prevention, accident prevention, benefits to economy, health, violence reduction, and world peace.
On the basis of this research, basic assertions of Vedic Science become verifiable through empirical science. There is, moreover, a unity of theory underlying these diverse predictions and tests. These studies, taken as a whole, constitute a coherent research program that tests the prediction that repeated experience of the unified field results in greater orderliness, coherence, and positivity, in both individual and social life. Research on these changes not only tests fundamental theory, but demonstrates the practical benefits of this new technology. The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field becomes open to experimental testing precisely because it has significant practical applications in improving every area of human life.
of the Unified Field
Maharishi has frequently asserted that the purpose of Vedic Science is to benefit life, not merely to give knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge, he holds, is for action, action for achievement, and achievement for fulfillment. The ultimate purpose of Vedic Science and its applied technology is, therefore, to bring human life to fulfillment.
The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field brings fulfillment to individual life by unfolding the full potential of consciousness. When higher states of consciousness are realized, Maharishi has recently emphasized, life is lived in "twenty-four-hour bliss." Gaining contact with the unified field, one enjoys spontaneous right action, lives life in total accord with all laws of nature, and can accomplish any life-supporting desire. Violations of natural law cease, and all suffering, which is caused by violation of natural law, comes to an end. Life is lived free from mistakes in inner and outer fulfillment. Such is the fundamental purpose of the technology Maharishi has created.
Perfect Health
The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field has important practical applications in the area of health. According to Maharishi, sickness arises from imbalance. Perfect health means wholeness, balance on all levels of life. When individual life is established in the unified field of all the laws of nature, all actions are spontaneously in accord with natural law. In terms of physiological functioning, this means perfect integration and balance, from the biochemical and molecular levels to the macroscopic, organismic levels.
Maharishi Ayurveda is an integral part of Maharishi's Vedic Science. Maharishi Ayurveda is a revitalized form of the ancient ayurvedic science of life and health, which has been restored to its original purity and effectiveness by Maharishi. According to Maharishi, the cornerstone of Ayurveda is the development of consciousness. Perfect health in mind, body, and behavior is the result of perfect balance in consciousness and physiology. This develops through the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, when the mind identifies itself with the unified field, the field of perfect balance and wholeness.
Maharishi Ayurveda combines the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field with specific procedures to treat and prevent illness and promote longevity. Maharishi Ayurveda Medical Centers have been established in many countries to eliminate the basis of sickness, create perfect health, and reverse the aging process. Over the last fifteen years, research into the effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field on health have been carried out at research institutions all over the world, and Maharishi's recent emphasis on Ayurveda provides many new research opportunities for investigating the applications of Vedic Science in the area of health.
The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field also includes technologies to accomplish specific goals of individual and social life. The TM-Sidhi program has been founded by Maharishi to utilize the knowledge and the organizing power of the unified field for improving achievements in every area of human endeavor.
Unfolding Full Human Potential Through the TM and
TM-Sidhi Program
TM-Sidhi Program
When one gains the level of experience of the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness, Maharishi holds, one gains command over all the laws of nature. Stationed at the source of all laws of nature, at the "central switchboard" of nature's activity, human consciousness can command all the laws of nature to create any desirable effect in the material world. Maharishi has brought forth a program for gaining mastery over all laws of nature, based on the formulations found in the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the principal books of Vedic literature. Through this program, the TM-Sidhi program, the mind gains the ability to function from the level of the self-interacting dynamics of the unified field. Once established in pure self-referral awareness through the practice of the TM program, an individual gains the ability to draw upon the organizing power of the unified field to accomplish anything. Since the unified field is the source of all existence, its organizing power is infinite, and one who functions from this level has unlimited organizing ability. Established in that unified field of all possibilities on the unmanifest level of existence before consciousness assumes the form of matter, all possibilities open to one's awareness and one can govern the expressions of the unified field as it transforms itself into matter. As Maharishi (1986) expresses it:
In this program, human awareness identifies itself with that most powerful level of natures functioning and starts to function from there. The purpose of the TM-Sidhi program is to consciously create activity from that level from where nature performs. (p. 74)Through the practice of the TM-Sidhi program, Maharishi predicts, it will become possible to achieve levels of body-mind coordination hitherto deemed impossible. It will be possible, he asserts, to realize the ancient dream of flying through the air, and to develop highly enhanced powers of hearing, seeing, and intuition that extend the senses far beyond the limits currently conceived to be possible. By activating laws of nature that are now hidden to ordinary methods of scientific investigation, the TM-Sidhi program provides a research methodology to explore what is possible for mankind to achieve on the basis of functioning from that level where the conscious mind has become identified with the unified field. This is the basis of a technological revolution more powerful and beneficial to life than any conceived through empirical science.
The Maharishi Effect
The TM-Sidhi program, when practiced in groups, is even more powerful than the TM-Sidhi program practiced alone. The collective practice of the TM-Sidhi program can produce an influence that affects the entire world in measurable ways. This global influence of coherence generated through the group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field has been called the "Maharishi Effect."
As early as 1960, Maharishi predicted that when individuals practice the TM and TM-Sidhi program in sufficiently large groups, a measurable increase in orderliness, coherence, and positive trends would be observed in society. By enlivening the life-supporting and evolutionary qualities of the unified field, such as perfect orderliness, infinite dynamism, and self-sufficiency, Maharishi held, these qualities would be enlivened in collective consciousness and this would have positive measurable effects on a wide social scale.
Over the years, social scientists developed formulas for predicting the size of the group necessary to create a "phase transition" in society to a measurably higher quality of life. These formulas, calculated on the basis of analogous phase transitions from disorder to orderliness studied in physics, came out to be approximately one percent of a population practicing the TM program, and a much smaller percentage, on the order of the square root of one percent practicing the TM-Sidhi program .
Since 1978, many experimental studies have been performed to measure the effect of large groups practicing the TM-Sidhi program. Experimental confirmation of the principle has been the consistent result. The Maharishi Effect is now as well documented as any principle of modern social science. In creating this technology, Maharishi has provided an effective method of social change that operates from the silent, harmonizing level of the unified field to produce a transformation in the quality of collective consciousness, thereby effortlessly creating coherence on a global scale. Maharishi (1986) describes how this effect is produced:
The transcendental level of nature's functioning is the level of infinite correlation. When the group awareness is brought in attunement with that level, then a very intensified influence of coherence radiates, and a great richness is created. Infinite correla tion is a quality of the transcendental level of nature's functioning from where orderliness governs the universe. (p. 75)
Also in the second issue, an article by D.W. Orme-Johnson and M.C. Dillbeck summarized the empirical research on the Maharishi Effect. This article surveyed experimental studies documenting the sociological improvements resulting from the group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field. Based on these results Maharishi asserts that the collective practice of the TM-Sidhi program in groups of 7000 (the square root of one percent of the world's population) produces coherence in the collective consciousness of the entire world. Statistically significant reductions in crime, accidents, fatalities, and disease, and other positive benefits on a global scale observed during experimental periods have established this as an effective means of changing collective consciousness and thereby changing the quality of life in the world„simply by enlivening the source of order and coherence at the basis of nature, from the level of the unified field.
Maharishi's Program to Create World Peace
The most dramatic application of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field is Maharishi's program to create world peace through the creation of a permanent group of 7000 collectively practicing the TM-Sidhi program. Maharishi's technology is a basis for eliminating negativity and destructive tendencies throughout the world. Large groups of experts in the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field creating coherence during experimental periods have provided ample opportunity for scientific research. During these experimental periods, conflict and violence have been reduced in war torn areas and negative trends have been reversed. Over thirty studies have established the efficacy of this technology to eliminate conflict and promote life supporting, positive trends throughout the world.
Maharishi clearly lays out the basis of his program to create world peace. Stress, he holds, is the basic cause of all negativity, violence, terrorism, and national and international conflicts. Stress generated by the violation of natural law causes strained trends and tendencies in the environment. Through the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, human intelligence can be identified with the unified field, and violations of natural law will cease. "Reinforcement of evolutionary power in world consciousness is the only effective way," Maharishi holds, "to neutralize all kinds of negative trends in the world and maintain world consciousness on a high level of purity." (Maharishi's Program to Create World Peace, 1986, p. 7)
The global applications of this new science and technology are almost beyond present levels of imagination. Yet scientific research has found measurable reductions in levels of violence, crime, and other indications of negativity during the practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field in sufficiently large groups during experimental trial periods. Here for the first time in history is a scientific basis for creating world peace, ending terrorism, and reducing the negative trends of society.
On the basis of these studies, Maharishi holds that world peace can be guaranteed now, within a few years, through the establishment of groups of 7000; he holds that perfect health and unlimited longevity can be achieved for individual life, and that balance, coherence and health in society can be established in our generation. War, crime, poverty, and all problems that bring unhappiness to the family of man can be entirely eliminated. Life, he holds, can be lived in absolute abundance and fulfillment. Maharishi has called upon every significant individual in the world to act now to adopt this program for world peace by creating groups of 7000 collectively practicing the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field to establish world peace and guarantee its perpetuation.
The practical benefits which Maharishi foresees through this new technology are far greater than those achieved by the technology based on present science. As science has investigated deeper levels of nature, from microbes to molecules to atoms, new technologies have emerged which apply the knowledge in areas such as medicine and nuclear power. In drawing upon the deepest and most powerful level of natural law, the level of the unified field, Vedic Science lays the basis for much more powerful technologies still. Where modern medicine has been able to eliminate some diseases by drawing upon microscopic levels, Vedic Science lays the basis for the elimination of all disease, and more importantly, for creation of perfect health and reversal of aging. While modern science has produced nuclear technology but no technology for peaceful resolution of conflict, Vedic Science draws upon the infinite organizing power of the unified field at the basis of nature to create social harmony and world peace while preserving cultural integrity and stimulating prosperity and progress.
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