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The knowledge and experience of self-referral consciousness and the fulfillment of interdisciplinary study Maharishi University of Management Press, USA The following are excerpts from the article ‘The Knowledge and Experience of Self-Referral Consciousness and the Fulfilment of Interdisciplinary Study’ by Samuel Y. Boothby, from The Journal of Modern Science and Vedic Science, Volume 7, Number 1 (1997), The Silver Jubilee Issue, Maharishi University of Management, USA. ‘Interdisciplinary studies programs have been introduced to create students who are multi-faceted problem-solvers and have an integrated understanding of nature and knowledge. The evidence provided by the last 25 years of experience at Maharishi University of Management indicates that the addition of the Maharishi Science of Creative Intelligence and Vedic Science-based curriculum to modern science based institutions creates a learning experience which easily meets and even transcends these laudable goals. ‘As a response to the problem of knowledge explosion and its attendant over-specialization in higher education, educators began to emphasize the value of interdisciplinary studies 25 years ago (see, for example, Kockelmans, 1971; 1986). Many believed that if knowledge could be presented to students in a more integrated and holistic fashion, it would be more effectively used to solve the problems which confront society. ‘Over the years universities have implemented various kinds of interdisciplinary programmes designed to meet this goal of creating citizens who are more effective problem solvers.’ In addition, ‘Interdisciplinary courses have been introduced…as a more effective means to meet the general education requirements than simple liberal arts distribution requirements set by most universities. ‘The thematic approach to interdisciplinary studies has been successful in enriching students’ enthusiasm for learning and, to some extent, giving them multiple perspectives on many current problems facing society. However, because this approach brings together various specialised disciplines of modern science, issues of integration and communication can frustrate the larger goals of the programs. ‘In an effort to do more than mix the perspectives of different disciplines, some educators argue that interdisciplinary studies should provide students with a more unified and coherent perspective of knowledge. [These] educators … tend to espouse the need for what is often called “transdisciplinarity”.’ The transdisciplinary view of knowledge asserts that interdisciplinary efforts must begin with principles that are ‘universal enough to provide a unified and coherent view of all knowledge.’ ‘Many new candidates for [such universal principles] have emerged in recent years including synergetics, neuronal networks, quantum computing, chaos theory, non-linear dynamics, and general systems theory … Although these approaches have discovered fundamental Laws of Nature, none of these attempts have been successful in providing a completely unified framework for all disciplines. ‘Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of a worldwide system of universities based on the knowledge and practice of his scientifically validated Transcendental Meditation® program, has created a new approach to interdisciplinary studies. This approach includes two fundamental components: 1) An intellectual approach in which faculty refer in all courses to a set of universal 2) An experiential approach, based on research in consciousness through the Maharishi ‘Maharishi recognized the requirement for a comprehensive interdisciplinary studies program in his 33- lesson course, which introduced the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) as a new academic discipline in 1972.’ SCI provided ‘a common ground made lively in the awareness of every knower, every student, rather than structured solely around a particular intellectual approach to various disciplines. In this spirit, Maharishi, working with the faculty of Maharishi University of Management, created the Science of Creative Intelligence curriculum to locate this common basis for all disciplines. The curriculum locates the fundamental value of any knower as an unbounded field of pure consciousness, pure creative intelligence.’ As Maharishi states: “Interdisciplinary study must locate a common basis, a link which will join together all the seemingly divergent branches of learning and provide a common meeting ground for them all. If that common ground belonged to everyone on the level of his own awareness, the awareness would be open to the values of all branches of learning. Until such a profound, stable, and non-variable basis of all branches of learning dawns and becomes permanently established on the level of one’s awareness, there is no way to achieve the goal of interdisciplinary study.” (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1972, 28–5) ‘The Maharishi Science of Creative Intelligence curriculum, being more comprehensive in its approach, is more likely to fullfil this intellectual goal of interdisciplinary studies than other more restricted sciences. But the truly unique component of Maharishi’s approach to interdisciplinary studies, which has the farthest reaching implications for educational outcomes, is the laboratory component of his Science of Creative Intelligence curriculum referred to above—the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhis programmes. Maharishi derived the deepest principles of the Science of Creative Intelligence curriculum through analysis of the experience of the pure field of creative intelligence. These principles would be abstract insights for students if left only to intellectual discussion and verification.’ Copyright © 1997 Journal of Modern Science and Vedic Science Global Good News invites you to read the full version of this paper, ‘The Knowledge and Experience of Self-Referral Consciousness and the Fulfilment of Interdisciplinary Study’ by Samuel Y. Boothby, from The Journal of Modern Science and Vedic Science, Volume 7, Number 1 (1997), The Silver Jubilee Issue, Maharishi University of Management, USA.
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