Global Good News: Excellence in Action

In a Global Press Conference on 28 June, 2006, Maharishi responded to a student's question on how he could create a better world saying, 'Go to learn Transcendental Meditation.' By students simply learning Transcendental Meditation, its advanced techniques, including Yogic Flying, and practising Yogic Flying in groups, governments would become problem-free, Maharishi explained.

Not fully clear on how this could be, a member of the press expressed, 'Maharishi is using the group practice of his Yogic Flying in the country to create coherence in the collective consciousness of the nation and thereby improve the economy and make the government better. My question is: I think I can understand how meditation techniques practised in groups could make a country more peaceful. But how does it improve the economy? And how does it make the government function better?'

Maharishi answered in the form of an analogy: 'Water the root to enjoy the fruit.' He explained: 'In the same way as when the root is watered, all expressions of the root, all the tree's branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits—big, sweet fruits—come out. How do they come out? Because there is a continuous flow of nourishment from the source—the source, which gives rise to the plant which becomes the tree.

'Transcendental Consciousness is the source. When the attention goes to the source, it is enlivening the source. This is the theory of attention. Wherever the attention goes, the attention does something to the point which it strikes. It is natural; it is natural. So the phenomenon of transcending is getting away from the gross value of life and, in so doing, all the levels of the gross values are nourished. This is the scientific theory of attention. Wherever the attention goes, it enlivens creativity there; it enlivens life there.

'That is how the influence radiates throughout the world. It radiates throughout the world from the field of the transcendent, not from the field of any relative, because the relative has boundaries, has limitations. This is from the unlimited value of life, unlimited, from Transcendental Consciousness, the Veda, the level of Transcendental Consciousness. . . .

'The attention reaches the level of life which is frictionless flow. That means the attention goes, and enlivens the totality of Being, totality of life in oneself—this field of pure life. That is why we say this is the flow of the Will of God. This is the light of God, the supreme administrator of the universe—Total Natural Law, which governs the universe, the unified-versified value of life.

'It is beautiful. Attention, attention, attention must go there. And the Transcendental Meditation Programme takes the attention systematically from the gross to the subtle to the subtle to the subtle and takes it to the subtler and subtlest.'

Maharishi's opening remarks of the press conference expressed this same point: 'Water the root to enjoy the fruit—this has been the slogan for the last fifty years, ever since the Transcendental Meditation Programme was given importance in the daily life of the people. This enormous boon to life on the relative level has emerged from the people taking their attention to the finest field of life, and even beyond the finest field of life, the transcendental field of life.'

"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