Global Good News: Excellence in Action

Maharishi Consciousness-Based Education: Successful, satisfying education
Part 1 — Consciousness: The missing element in education today
by Global Good News staff writer
1 May 2007

Maharishi’s Consciousness-Based Education is gaining popularity around the world due to its profound basis, extensive knowledge and application, and practical success.

What exactly is this education? Consciousness-Based Education, offered to the world by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, foremost scientist of consciousness, offers a new approach to education that satisfies the student’s highest aspirations.

The largest university of Consciousness-Based Education is in the United States—Maharishi University of Management (M.U.M.) in Fairfield, Iowa. The M.U.M. website gives the following explanation of what Consciousness-Based Education is, and how it brings satisfaction to the student:

Consciousness-Based educationion

Through Consciousness-Based education, students discover the field of pure consciousness within themselves as the source of all knowledge.

Why are many students today dissatisfied with their education?
If you’re like many students, you’ve probably felt that something has been missing in your education so far. You may wonder:

Shouldn’t there be more to my education than just taking in information?
Why isn’t my education developing me as a human being?
Isn’t there some underlying connection among all the different subjects I’m studying?
What does the knowledge I’m studying have to do with my life?

What is the basic problem with education today?
Modern education is information-based, focusing only on what is "known"—facts, procedures, concepts—but ignoring the knower, the student’s consciousness. This fragmented approach fails to awaken the student’s total brain.

The emphasis on information can never, by itself, satisfy the student’s natural desire for self-knowledge and inner growth.

What has been missing from education?
What has been missing is a way to develop yourself from within:

to develop the total potential of the human brain and consciousness
to recognize that all fields of knowledge arise from the same source—the field of pure consciousness, pure intelligence, deep within you.

What is consciousness?
Consciousness is alertness, awareness, intelligence. In its most silent state, quantum physics describes it as the same as the unified field of all the laws of nature. In religious terminology, it is called the light of God within. Pure consciousness is the source of all life—the source of everything.

What is Consciousness-Based education?
In Consciousness-Based education, you’ll study traditional subjects. But at the same time, you’ll systematically cultivate your total potential from within. Day by day, you’ll develop your creativity, your learning ability, your ability to see the big picture, your ability to relate to others. You’ll cultivate the total potential of your brain.

How can I develop my total potential?
Simply by developing your consciousness, the most fundamental level of your life. This is accomplished through the effortless daily practice of Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation technique. All students and faculty at our University practice this simple, natural technique.

What is the value of developing my consciousness?
Everything positive in life grows, while everything negative recedes, like darkness receding before the rising sun. Nothing you can do is more basic, more important, more powerful than developing your consciousness.

The Transcendental Meditation technique allows your mind to effortlessly settle down and experience its own true nature—the field of pure consciousness.

When you experience this field, you awaken it—you enliven its properties of creativity and intelligence, peace and harmony, in your own life. You also begin to radiate these positive and nourishing qualities into the world around you.

What will I gain from Consciousness-Based education?
For knowledge to be complete, you need two things: experience and understanding—direct personal experience, and intellectual understanding of what you are experiencing.

This is what Consciousness-Based education gives you:

Direct experience of pure consciousness, your innermost Self—the source of all knowledge and the basis for maximum accomplishment in life.
Intellectual understanding of the profound growth you are experiencing as well as how it applies to what you are studying, and to society as a whole.
The knowledge of how human development progresses toward the state of enlightenment, in which the total potential of your brain is fully enlivened.
The principles of Natural Law common to all fields of study—principles that govern the growth of plants, of ecosystems, of galaxies—and of your own consciousness, enabling you to feel at home with all knowledge.
The knowledge of how each field of study can be practically applied toward solving the world’s pressing problems—which are, after all, human problems. The most fundamental approach to social problems is in creating harmony and coherence— and reducing stress and negativity—in ourselves and in society.

"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