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Consciousness-Based(SM) Education:
A Future of Higher Education in the New Millennium

James D. Grant, Ed.D., Ph.D.
July, 2006

(The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University, published by Greenwood Publishing Group)

Educational institutions are products of their culture. As the knowledge, ways of knowing, and values change in a society, educational institutions evolve accordingly. As we look to the possible futures of higher education, we must identify those forces transforming culture. The editors of Consciousness-Based(SM) Education: A Future of Higher Education in the New Millennium have identified several of these "drivers"—globalization, multiculturalism, technology, and politicisation. The premise of the vision of educational futures presented in this chapter is that there is a new driver on the horizon—an expanded understanding of human potential and how it can be promoted—that will transform the conception and content of higher education in the coming millennium.

The concept of human development is fundamental to education. Educational philosophers as diverse as Plato and John Dewey have stated that education is most fundamentally about promoting full human development. As Dewey noted one hundred years ago: "Here individualism and socialism are at one. Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself."[1]

Whether one takes the perspective of a hard-nosed state economic planner or an aesthetically-oriented humanistic psychologist, full human development is an important educational aim. It is essential both for societies that want to realize their economic potential and for societies that want to reach their spiritual potential. Human development encompasses growth in ability to think and deepening and broadening of one's values. But it also goes beyond these. Human development is important because through human development, we enhance our ability to have in Dewey's terms "the richest and fullest possible experience"—in other words to live a full and meaningful life, of maximum value to ourselves and others.

Given the importance of human development as an educational goal, a change in understanding of human potential and how to promote it has great potential significance for education. The understanding that will, I believe, transform education in the next century is that all human beings have the potential to become enlightened, to live life in higher states of consciousness, and that the means to achieve this aim is transcendence, experience of the absolute field of pure consciousness underlying objective and subjective existence.


A New Basis for Education: The Existence of Pure Consciousness

At the basis of this new perspective on education is one central idea—that there is a field of pure consciousness, an unmanifest absolute field of life at the source of all creation, which can be easily experienced. The understanding that there is an unmanifest field of life at the source of both subjective and objective creation is a very old one. Aldous Huxley has referred to this understanding as "the perennial philosophy" precisely because it is so old and shared by so many cultures. Plato, for example, referred to this field as the Good, Lao Tze as the Tao, Buddhist sages as Nirvana, Vedic rishis as Atma, Aristotle as Being, and Emerson as the Oversoul. This understanding has not gained general acceptance, though, because the experience which lies at the basis of the perennial philosophy has not been generally available. In addition, the positivist paradigm underlying contemporary science has not been supportive of the existence of an underlying spiritual reality.

This is changing now, though, both due to the advance of science and the availability of simple, effortless techniques for gaining the experience of pure consciousness. The advance of science has supported the understanding of consciousness as an underlying field in two ways. First, developments in theoretical physics now support the existence of an unmanifest, unified field of natural law supporting all natural phenomena. The spiritual perspective that material creation is based on that which is immaterial is now being supported by modern science. There is still a conceptual lacuna between the existence of a unified field of natural law and the assertion that this field is consciousness, the source of subjectivity, but a number of excellent analyses are now making this claim more plausible.[2]

The advance of science is supporting existence of an underlying field of pure consciousness and the possibility of higher states of consciousness in another way—through provision of objective means of validating this subjective experience. Advances in technology—ranging from EEG machines to sophisticated blood assay devices—now make it possible to monitor fine changes in physiological functioning. Advances in psychological measurement—which make it possible to measure everything from levels of self development and creativity to anxiety and neurosis—further enhance our ability to objectively measure human growth and higher states of human functioning.

This advance in scientific capacity for assessing human functioning is particularly significant in conjunction with the availability of effortless techniques that give experience of pure consciousness. Many different meditative traditions have had as their aim experience of pure consciousness and growth to enlightenment. Most of these traditions, though, have involved arduous techniques and required acceptance of a certain set of spiritual beliefs. This has made them inaccessible to most individuals.

A breakthrough in this area has occurred in the last half of the 20th century due to the efforts of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Maharishi, in the last 40 years, has brought out a full revival of the Vedic tradition of knowledge from India, showing its relevance for all areas of life, from education and business to medicine, criminal rehabilitation, and government. He has provided detailed intellectual understanding of pure consciousness and of growth to higher states of consciousness. Most significantly, he has taught effortless, non-sectarian technologies for developing consciousness, especially the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi[3]® programs, that have given millions of people from many cultures and religious faiths benefit of the experience of pure consciousness. Because these techniques are easily learned and require no belief system, they have opened up the possibility of extensive and rigorous scientific testing of the premise that humans can access a field of pure consciousness and that this experience has value for human life.

This scientific research on the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs is highly significant because it bridges the chasm between the great subjective traditions of meditation and the objective paradigm of modern science. This research, begun in the 1970's, is of three kinds.[4] The first verifies that there are unique psycho-physiological characteristics associated with the experience of pure consciousness. Research has verified that subjective experience of transcendence does comprise a unique fourth state of consciousness, characterized by deep physiological rest and heightened mental alertness, different from waking, sleeping or dreaming consciousness.[5] More recent research in this area has confirmed the existence of unique psycho-physiological correlates of the stabilized state of enlightenment—the state in which pure consciousness is experienced as a reality 24 hours a day.[6] Physiological research of a different sort, but of fundamental significance, has established the profound correspondence between the expressions of pure consciousness, as found in the Vedic Literature, and the structure of human physiology.[7] This discovery, by Dr. Tony Nader under Maharishi's guidance, concretely demonstrates that the total potential of Natural Law—pure consciousness—is lively within the human physiology.

A second sort of research has examined the practical benefit of the experience of pure consciousness for activity. This research has shown profound and wide-ranging benefits consistent with the premise that pure consciousness is a fundamental field of intelligence and orderliness. It has shown that the single experience of pure consciousness leads to significant improvement in all areas of life—mind, body, and behavior. Specific findings on individuals practicing Transcendental Meditation include sharply reduced medical expenditures in all major health categories, improved academic performance, growth of IQ, greater psychological balance, unprecedented growth on measures of self development, and significantly reduced recidivism in prison inmates.[8] This research demonstrating the holistic growth resulting from experience of pure consciousness supports the view that pure consciousness is the most fundamental element of our being, underlying all aspects of our physical, emotional, and cognitive lives.

A third highly significant area of research has looked at the environmental influence of practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. This research consists of dozens of carefully controlled research studies showing that significant positive effects are created in society—reductions in negative tendencies such as crime, violence, sickness, and accident rates, and increases in positive indicators such as political cooperation and economic indices—when a sufficient number of individuals practice the TM and TM-Sidhi programs.[9] This remarkable finding, which is now one of the most rigorously confirmed findings in the field of sociology, is explained in terms of enlivenment of the underlying field of consciousness. When a critical number of individuals are transcending and enlivening this field, the effect is great enough to influence the individual consciousness and physiology of individuals not meditating. The result is that individuals can gain the benefit of transcending without meditating themselves. On an individual level, these benefits include more effective activity, happiness, and positivity, effects which translate on a societal level into less frustration, less violence, and greater cooperation.

This extensive body of research supporting the existence of a universal field of pure consciousness, in conjunction with research on phenomena such as naturally occurring flow or zone experiences,[10] is opening a new vision of possibilities for human development and hence for education.

Implications of Pure Consciousness for the Understanding of Human Potential

The existence of a field of pure consciousness and the ability to experience it has enormous implications for our understanding of human potential. Maharishi has stated this implication succinctly, saying the individual is "cosmic," universal in stature.[11] Many spiritual traditions have compared life before enlightenment, before the awakening to one's cosmic status, to the life of a sleepwalker. One really only becomes awake when the awareness opens permanently to, and becomes fully identified with, pure consciousness. This is Self realization, culminating when fully ripe in the recognition of the Vedic pronouncements: "I am That, thou art That, all this is That, and That is consciousness."

The state of enlightenment is as different from waking state of consciousness as waking state is from sleep state. Because the field of pure consciousness is the field of pure intelligence responsible for all order in the universe, attunement to this field gives both great power and, at the same time, spontaneous ability to act in accord with cosmic purpose. Maharishi says of the enlightened individual:

He spontaneously commands situations and circumstances; he spontaneously controls his environment; his behaviour is always spontaneously nourishing to himself and everyone around him. He has the ability to spontaneously fulfil his interests without jeopardizing the interests of others.[12]

For these individuals, there is not only support from Nature—good fortune supporting one's undertakings—but also command over natural laws not yet fully understood—the ability to heal, to levitate, to have perfected intuition. "Miracles," from the perspective of enlightenment, can be understood simply as actions in accord with laws of nature that we do not yet understand.

Another huge transformation that occurs with the rise to enlightenment is the experience of permanent fulfillment. Diverse spiritual traditions refer to the purity, joy, and bliss associated with the experience of pure consciousness. In the traditional Vedic texts, pure consciousness is referred to as sat-chit-ananda—absolute bliss consciousness. Because in the state of enlightenment one's mind is experiencing this field as a 24-hour reality, the bliss is experienced as a continuous reality at the core of life, although other emotions can still be experienced at more superficial levels of being. In the state of fully mature enlightenment—unity consciousness—one sees and experiences everything in terms of the bliss of pure consciousness:

The world is the active divine; everything rises as a wave on the eternal ocean of bliss consciousness. Every perception, the hearing of every word, the touch of every little particle, and the smell of whatever it may be, brings a tidal wave of the ocean of eternal bliss—in every arising of a thought, word, or action is the arising of a tide of bliss.[13]

This is the state of complete fulfillment in life.


Educational Implications of the Existence of Pure Consciousness

The understanding, based on knowledge of pure consciousness, that there is a state of enlightenment which can be realized transforms the way education is conceived. The primary transformation that comes from this understanding is the perspective that education should focus most centrally on the development of consciousness, not on the amassing of information. In short, education should be consciousness based, enlightenment based, not information based. Only through the transformation of consciousness can the full power and dignity of life be realized and the wisdom achieved to use information properly. This understanding transforms the way we understand the goals and practices of education. It is now being concretely implemented in institutions such as Maharishi University of Management in the U.S. and exists as a real alternative for educational institutions in the new millennium.[14]

Goals of Education

Within the consciousness-based paradigm, the goal of education, on an individual level, becomes creation of enlightened individuals. Once the possibility of achieving enlightenment is recognized, all other goals become gross sub-optimizations of the educational process. In the words of Plato's famous allegory, one cannot justify the continued bondage of human beings in a cave, where they take shadows as reality, when the possibility of ascent to the sunlit world is possible.

On the collective level, this paradigm opens the possibility for creation of an ideal society. It is not by chance that Plato's Republic, which is the first systematic western treatise explaining the nature and importance of pure consciousness, is also the first systematic western treatise on the creation of a utopia. Poverty, war, and violence can all be seen as the products of immature human beings. As large numbers of individuals grow to the state of fulfillment and self-actualization in enlightenment, the collective dynamics of society will change. As Maharishi says: "A few fully educated or enlightened individuals are sufficient to give a new direction to the life of their community and by their very presence bring about an enlightened society, create and maintain world peace, and establish Heaven on Earth."[15] In his Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi presents this new potential for society in moving terms:

A new humanity will be born, fuller in conception and richer in experience and accomplishments in all fields. Joy of life will belong to every man, love will dominate human society, truth and virtue will reign in the world, peace on earth will be permanent, and all will live in fulfillment in fullness of life in [enlightenment].[16]

This is the goal, on the societal level, toward which education can strive based on the knowledge of pure consciousness.

Educational practices

The existence of pure consciousness and the ability to achieve enlightenment has significant implications for educational practice, including the introduction of new courses and disciplines and a transformation in the approach of existing disciplines to their subject matter. Central to the consciousness-based paradigm is a profound new view of human development, which transforms the way we understand the educational process. Currently, development is viewed to be the product of two factors and their interaction: nature and nurture, or maturation and interaction with an external environment. Because maturation is largely out of educators' control, contemporary educators focus primarily on how to structure students' interactions with the environment—teachers, books, labs—so as optimally to promote development. The consciousness-based perspective recognizes that there is a third means of development different from nature and nurture as currently understood—transcendence, experience of pure consciousness. Experience of transcendence both accelerates growth in the normal range of cognitive and affective development and allows full development of the individual to enlightenment.

Appreciation of the importance of transcendence for development leads to a reconceptualization of the process of education. Students and faculty need to transcend daily as an integral part of education. Because the most important knowledge is knowledge of pure consciousness and development to enlightenment requires experience of pure consciousness, the necessary implication for education is that having this experience should be a central feature of the school curriculum.

In addition to this required experiential course in research in consciousness, the new paradigm requires intellectual courses relating to the knowledge of consciousness. Complete knowledge requires both experience and intellectual understanding, and this is as true of knowledge of consciousness as it is of other sorts of knowledge. Without proper intellectual understanding, experience of pure consciousness can be misunderstood, as it has been numerous times throughout history. At Maharishi University of Management, this requirement is satisfied by all students taking a course in the Science of Creative Intelligence®—the science of consciousness—as their first course at the University. Further courses in advanced aspects of Vedic Science, as well as a major in this area are available. Topics of these courses range from abstract understanding of the nature of pure consciousness, found for example in the Vedic Literature, to practical understanding of the mechanics of development of consciousness; they cover scientific understanding of the physiological correlates of growth of consciousness as well as investigations into expressions of this underlying reality found in the art, literature, religion, and philosophy of the great traditions of the world.

Acceptance of the consciousness-based paradigm also has implications for the teaching of established disciplines. One general change is the emphasis on wholeness and connection. On the level of consciousness, everything is connected. Wholeness is the ultimate reality and this realization colors the entire curriculum. Understanding of wholeness is fostered experientially through the growth of consciousness produced by meditation—a developed consciousness spontaneously sees life in terms of connections. Intellectually it is fostered through a variety of modalities. One is the science of consciousness course that systematically explores the holistic basis of all life, pure consciousness, and how this wholeness manifests in the different relative fields. A second is use of large charts in all courses (referred to as Unified Field Charts at Maharishi University of Management) that graphically represent how all areas of a discipline relate to each other and their source in pure consciousness. A third is emphasis on common principles that function in all of the disciplines.[17]

Full understanding of consciousness also impacts the content and goals of many disciplines. We have seen this clearly with regard to the field of education. Understanding of pure consciousness changes our understanding of the goal of education, the nature of knowledge, and courses to be taken. This is also true of other disciplines. The arts and literature are transformed by the understanding that the highest aesthetic experience is transcendence, experience of pure consciousness. In light of the understanding of enlightenment, the purpose of art and literature becomes to exalt this experience and promote spiritual refinement.

In the social sciences, understanding of pure consciousness also brings dramatic transformation. Psychology, which has floundered in the 20th century without an adequate understanding of the mind and self, is immeasurably enriched by understanding of transcendence and enlightenment. With this knowledge, growth to higher states of consciousness becomes a major field of study, and the relevance of the experience of transcendence to all the applied areas of psychology is clear. In sociology, the new understanding of collective consciousness transforms the field. The understanding that everyone in society is connected at the level of pure consciousness, and that enlivenment of this field by even a small percentage of individuals can raise the collective consciousness of the whole society, changes the way sociologists approach collective problems. This, in turn, has a significant impact on the field of political science. This new paradigm recognizes that the greatest determinant of political outcomes is collective consciousness. The collective consciousness of a society is a direct and sensitive reflection of the level of consciousness of its individual members, and in turn becomes a force of its own influencing individual consciousness. When collective consciousness is incoherent—reflecting and in turn exacerbating the stress of individual members—conflict dominates and the interest of the individual and group supersedes that of the whole. As collective consciousness rises, harmony grows and values become more enlightened, reflecting a simultaneous respect for the whole and the part. Within this paradigm, cooperation and peace become the emphasis of study, rather than conflict and war. Consciousness is seen to be a key determinant of political behavior on the individual and collective level.

In the natural sciences, the appreciation of the unity of man with nature softens the move of much of 20th century science to dominate and replace nature. This paradigm leads to a deep respect for the environment and for natural approaches to fields ranging from agriculture to medicine. From the perspective of this paradigm, approaches such as genetic engineering and cloning are recognized to be the height of folly, the misplaced attempt to replace nature's intelligence with man's intelligence. Hard disciplines such as physics are subtly transformed by the realization that the laws of nature outside are the same laws that function inside the human being and in all human endeavors from art to politics. This perspective humanizes science.

Transition to Consciousness-Based Education[18]

As we sit at the end of the 20th century, still largely embedded in an objective, western paradigm of information-based education, it is hard to conceive of a transformation to developmentally-oriented, consciousness-based education. The seeds of this transformation are with us now, though, and there are positive experiential consequences for educators that will support this evolution. First it should be noted that the diversity of educational institutions that now exists will not diminish. Gaining knowledge necessary for professional success will always be important, as will studies that promote the understanding of culture, insight into the natural world, and aesthetic development. Institutions will continue to teach this knowledge and approach it in different ways. Within these institutions, emphasis on consciousness will vary. Some, for ideological reasons, might not emphasize it at all. Others, which are highly skills oriented, such as two-year community colleges in the United States, might only offer consciousness-related courses on an optional basis, just as they now offer courses in English literature or philosophy. Many institutions, though, such as those committed to the ideal of liberal arts education today, will have development of consciousness as a central aim of their education, with the educational implications presented above.

This transition will be aided, in the early years, by the solutions that consciousness-based education provides to problems faced by contemporary institutions, such as low academic achievement, stress, and binge drinking. Beyond the ability of consciousness-based approaches to help institutions meet challenges they are now facing, there are more subtle changes in intellectual climate occurring that will support this change. One is a growing acceptance and valuing of multiculturalism. Western cultural chauvinism is a big barrier to acceptance of an educational paradigm based in what is widely—although mistakenly—considered exclusively an eastern tradition of knowledge. The growing acceptance and positive valuing of perspectives offered by other cultures will aid the acceptance of this new paradigm in the coming years.

A second change is greater appreciation of holistic development. Theories of multiple intelligence and emotional intelligence, for example, are broadening the way we conceive the outcomes of education. As the importance especially of intrapersonal intelligence and self-awareness (the core value of emotional intelligence) grows, techniques for promoting these will naturally have a place in the educational setting. More generally, we are seeing now a greater openness to holistic spiritual perspectives and to the connection of man to nature. Sociologist Paul Ray, for example, has written extensively on the emergence of a major new group in American society, the "Cultural Creatives," who operate on the leading edge of cultural change. The defining qualities of this group, which now constitutes approximately one quarter of the U.S. adult population, are spirituality and/or ecological awareness. Values held by the "Core" Cultural Creatives (about 10% of the population) include serious concern with psychology, spiritual life, and self-actualization, enjoyment in mastering new ideas, social concern, use of alternative health care and natural foods, and strong advocacy of ecological sustainability.[19] These values are consistent with those of the consciousness-based approach to education, and as this orientation grows in the U.S. and other countries the consciousness-based educational paradigm will gain ground.

The transition to consciousness-based education will also be supported by the positive experience of educators in these institutions. My personal experience, and that of other faculty who have come to teach at Maharishi University of Management from other institutions, is that consciousness-based environment is significantly better for teaching and working. The first thing one notices here is the alertness of the students—students are awake because of the enlivening experience of practice of Transcendental Meditation twice daily. The heart value is also much more lively. Stress levels in both students and faculty are much lower, leading to a more mutually supportive environment. The cut-throat nature of academics elsewhere does not exist here. The politicization level is extremely low, because the focus is not on power, which is a zero-sum game, but on growth, which is positive sum. The most rewarding aspect of the environment, ultimately, is the holistic development one experiences in oneself and sees in others. One experiences in oneself and others growing peace, happiness, creativity, intuition, empathy, strength, and wholeness. The associated fulfillment is extraordinarily rewarding—one recognizes that this is what education should be about. As more academics have this experience—as teachers or students—they will want to recreate these environments elsewhere.


Conclusion

The deepest educational thinkers over the ages have recognized that the most important goal of education is to promote individual development. Through realization of this goal, both the individual and society are served optimally. This paper has suggested that a new—although ancient—understanding of human potential is emerging. Based on the existence of pure consciousness, this understanding supports a new paradigm for education—consciousness-based education—with significantly different emphases and practices from contemporary education. Most significantly, the goal of education in this dawning paradigm is enlightenment, the state of fully developed heart and mind where one directly experiences the cosmic status of oneself and others. With this change, meditation becomes the most basic component of education, that component capable of promoting dramatic unfoldment of full potential, and all disciplines are appreciated in the holistic light of their connections based in their collective origin in the field of pure consciousness.

The promise of this new educational paradigm is great: It is both more humane and more profound than contemporary education. Most significantly, it offers the prospect of achieving in the coming millennium a new age characterized by lively individuality and universal love, an age free of social problems, in short, an Age of Enlightenment. Such an age would not mark the end of history—it would be subject to the same dynamics of loss and revival of knowledge as other ages—but it would represent the culmination of the quest, expressed in both eastern and western traditions, for a harmonious and peaceful society living in tune with nature. This is a goal worth working for.

___________________________________________

[1] John Dewey, "The School and Social Progress," in The School and Society edited by J.A. Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Illinois, USA: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 5.

[2] John Hagelin, "Is consciousness the unified field? A field theorist's perspective," Modern Science and Vedic Science, 3, (1987): 3-72. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, (Boston: New Science Library, 1975).

[3] ® Transcendental Meditation, TM-Sidhi, Science of Creative Intelligence, and Consciousness-Based are registered or common law trademarks licensed to Maharishi Vedic Education Development Corporation and used under sublicense or with permission.

[4] See URL www.mum.edu/tm_research/ for a comprehensive summary of research on the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. This site also contains a summary of more than 100 research studies directly relevant to education.

[5] Frederick Travis, & Robert Keith Wallace, "Autonomic patterns during respiratory suspensions: Possible markers of transcendental consciousness," Psychophysiology, 34 (1997): 39-46.

[6] Lynne Mason, Charles Alexander, et al. "Electrophysiological correlates of higher states of consciousness during sleep in long-term practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation program," Sleep 20, 2 (1997): 102-110. The following doctoral dissertation is interesting because it contains extensive interviews with individuals experiencing higher states of consciousness:

Julia Guttmann, The Search for Bliss: A Model of Emotional Development Based on Maharishi's Vedic Psychology, UMI Dissertation Services, Number 9633806, 1996.

[7] Tony Nader, Human Physiology: Expression of Veda and the Vedic Literature, (Vlodrop, Netherlands: Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1995).

[8] Following are some representative articles in these areas:

David Orme-Johnson, "Medical care utilization and the Transcendental Meditation program," Psychosomatic Medicine, 49 (1987): 493-507.

Charles Alexander, Maxwell Rainforth, & Paul Gelderloos, " Transcendental Meditation, self-actualization, and psychological health: A conceptual overview and statistical meta-analysis," Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, 5 (1991): 189-247.

Robert Cranson, David Orme-Johnson, Jayne Gackenbach, Christopher Jones, & Charles Alexander, "Transcendental Meditation and improved performance on intelligence-related measures: A longitudinal study," Personality and Individual Differences, 12 (1991): 1105-1117.

Charles Alexander, Patricia Robinson, & Maxwell Rainforth, "Treating and preventing alcohol, nicotine, and drug abuse through Transcendental Meditation: A review and statistical meta-analysis," Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 11 (1994): 219-336.

Catherine Bleick, & Allen Abrams, "The Transcendental Meditation program and criminal recidivism in California," Journal of Criminal Justice, 15, 3 (1987): 211-230.

[9] The following URL has references to and short abstracts of more than 40 studies examining the environmental influence of practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi programs: www.mum.edu/tm_research/tm_biblio/socio_c.html The following two studies have good reviews of this effect:

David Orme-Johnson, Charles Alexander, John Davies, Howard Chandler, & Wallace Larimore, "International peace project in the Middle East: The effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32, 4 (1988): 776-812.

P. D. Assimakis & Michael Dillbeck, "Time series analysis of improved quality of life in Canada: Social change, collective consciousness, and the TM-Sidhi program," Psychological Reports, 76 (1995): 1171-1193

[10] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, 1st ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1990).

[11] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Celebrating Perfection in Administration, (New Delhi: Age of Enlightenment Press, 1998) 247. A Vedic expression that captures this idea is "Yatha pinde tatha Brahmande." "As is the atom so is the universe; as is the body, so is the cosmic body." (ibid., 72)

[12] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi Vedic University: Introduction , (Vlodrop, Netherlands: Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1994), 114.

[13] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Science of Being and Art of Living, (New York: Meridian, 1963/1995), 248.

[14]Maharishi University of Management is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Information about Maharishi University of Management can be found on the Internet at www.mum.edu.

[15] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi Vedic University: Introduction , (Vlodrop, Netherlands: Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1994), 147.

[16] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Science of Being and Art of Living, (New York: Signet, 1968/1988), xvii.

[17] For more discussion of these points see: Susan Dillbeck and Michael Dillbeck, "The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field in Education: Principles, Practice, and Research," 1987. Online. Maharishi University of Management Education Department web page. Available www.mum.edu/ed_dept/papers/cbeppr_frm.html. November 13, 1998.

[18] Consciousness-Based education in caps is a trademark term that refers to the specific approach to education offered at institutions founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. However, I am using "consciousness-based" in this article to refer more generally to an understanding that recognizes consciousness as fundamental to education.

[19] Paul Ray, "The Rise of the Integral Culture," 1997. Online. Quay Alliance, Inc. Reading Room. Available www.quantumorg.com/intcult.htm. November 5, 1998.

© Copyright 2006, Maharishi University of Management

 

   
"The potential of every student is infinite. The time of student life should serve to unfold that infinite potential so that every individual becomes a vibrant centre of Total Knowledge."—Maharishi

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