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| The Tao, the experience in the light of Maharishi's Technologies of Consciousness November 2006 Long ago, a Chinese sage named Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, a text that speaks on the qualities of what he called the Tao. Dr Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management, who has a lifetime of experience in applying the principles of Maharishi's Consciousness-Based Education in schools and colleges around the world, gave a presentation in MERU, The Netherlands about the relation between the Tao and the Unified Field as understood and experienced through Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation Programme and through the Vedic Literature. Dr Morris began by unfolding the story that brought about the writing of this great work, the Tao Te Ching. He explained that it all began when Lao-Tzu wanted to take a journey to India. The leaders of Lao’s city were deeply concerned that they were loosing a great treasure and thus had the entire city walled in, and Lao was not allowed to leave until he wrote a book to be left behind of all his knowledge. His result was the Tao Te Ching. Dr Morris went on to say that some of the expressions of the Tao Te Ching are just the expressions of the Vedic Knowledge of India that Maharishi has brought out in our age in his Vedic Science. Lao-Tzu describes the Tao as solitary, unchanging, infinite, and eternally present. Lao-Tzu explains: ‘The Tao is like a well filled with infinite possibilities. It is empty like space yet inexhaustible and gives birth to infinite worlds. Every being in the universe is an expression of the Tao.’ Dr Morris said that this is an expression that shows that Lao-Tzu experienced that reality which is all comprehensive, which includes everything, though it is beyond any name. Therefore, for lack of a better name, he called it the Tao. Dr Morris elaborated that it was not just Lao-Tzu of ancient China who expressed these principles, which are unfolded in the Ved and Vedic Literature. Confucius, a disciple of Lao-Tzu, describes the same reality. Confucius said, ‘Absolute truth is indestructible, thus it is eternal. Being eternal it is self-existent, being self-existent it is infinite. Being infinite it is vast and deep, and being vast and deep it is transcendental and intelligent.’ Dr Morris explained, ‘Actually, the teachings of all the great sages of the world are literally identical. They may be in a different language, whether Chinese or Aramaic or Greek or any other language of the world, but they are one and the same in their content. They may be expressed in slightly different ways according to the nature of the time, how much the people are able to understand and appreciate in that time and place, but never the less the teaching everywhere is just one teaching.’ Dr Morris emphasized that, ‘All the great sages, whatever they taught, the essential point was: Have the experience, gain the level of your transcendental aspect of being. . . that is the basic message of every sage and prophet of the whole human race.’ Lao-Tzu said, ‘The superior person settles his mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting his mind with its subtle origin he calms it. Once calm, it naturally expands and ultimately his mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.’ Dr Morris noted the familiarity of this experience for anyone who practises Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Technique. ‘This is the experience of Atma, of Self, of the pure transcendental state of Being, which is the origin of everything in the universe.’ Dr Morris went on to say ‘Maharishi has been emphasizing education that is not based upon intellectual knowing, ie. trying to learn thousands of laws of nature one by one and memorize them and use them, but education which gives the student the experience of Being, so that they are awakened in that reality which is the basis of all the laws of nature and therefore of the entire universe. Functioning from there the student is able to live a life always in the evolutionary direction.’ Dr Morris explained that the same teaching can also be found in the tradition of ancient China. Lao-Tzu said, ‘Without going outside, you may know the whole world; without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go the less you know. Thus the sage knows without travelling, he sees without looking, he works without doing.’ Maharishi describes just this phenomenon in the words Ritam Bhara Pragya, or ‘the intellect which fathoms the truth, that intellect which is open to all possible knowledge so that anything can be accomplished.’ Lao-Tzu said when the Tao is present in the universe the horses haul manure. When the Tao is absent from the universe warhorses are bred outside the city. Dr Morris described this as a very simple principle of the protection of national life. ‘When the Tao, when the absolute one, is maintained in national life then agriculture is done, the horses haul manure. When the Tao is absent from the universe then warhorses are bred outside the city, then war dawns in national life. ‘Lao-Tzu also mentions the principle that Maharishi has given us again and again—prevention. Maharishi has said that the way to create national invincibility is to prevent warfare. Similarly Lao-Tzu said: Peace is easily maintained; trouble is easily overcome before it starts. Deal with it before it happens, set things in order before there is confusion. ‘Heyam dhukam anagatam is an expression from the Yoga Sutra, which says just the same thing: Prevent war before it arises, maintain peace by preventing the birth of any enemy to national life.’ Dr Morris concluded by reminding us that the way to prevent war is to hold on to the reality of the Tao in Vedic terms to give every student the experience of Atma, the Self, the unbounded ocean of their own consciousness, and have them enjoy life in bliss radiating bliss. ‘A nation of such individuals will be a nation in which the government will be able to achieve everything while seeming to do nothing.’
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