Global Good News: Excellence in Action

Governments around the world are plagued by problems. Even as a very young student I could not help but notice this, and that one leader after another made beautiful campaign promises, but once in office he did not deliver them. Was there something that happened when he took office that prevented him from doing what he wanted? How could I, as a student, get involved in a positive way?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in a global press conference on 28 June, 2006, reflects on the history of failure in government that I had innocently observed, saying:
'All the ages have been trying to improve the quality of life in their domain through government.

'One man was able, and he became a king. He tried his best to make the people happy, and he did not succeed. Another man took him over; a third man took over the second man; a fourth man took over. Even wars were waged. They felt that "I can administer those poor people, and this government is torturing them. This government is not able to eliminate poverty. This government is not able to stop sickness and suffering. This government is not able to give them proper education. This government does not have this and this. I will do this, and I will do this."

'So each one thought that he could do better. And then, for that, they fought and fought and fought wars. The whole history of mankind is the history of fire—these wars. And we do not want to describe it more; it is enough everyone knows it.'

Government is an innocent mirror
Maharishi does not just offer these lamentations. He presents a clear, fascinating explanation of government failure and proposes a simple, blissful solution.

In the book entitled, Maharishi's Absolute Theory of Government, Maharishi presents the concept of collective consciousness. He explains that government is an innocent mirror of the people, simply and purely reflecting what the nation presents to it. And just as the consciousness of an individual governs that individual's activity, so the consciousness of the nation governs the activity of the nation. Therefore, the decisions of government are actually the expressions of the national consciousness, the collective consciousness of all the individuals in the nation.

Maharishi explains this point in his book saying, 'Although the members of every government have their individuality and their own opinions of the nation's needs, while engaged in the process of governing, their actions are determined by factors beyond their personal lives—by the collective destiny of the nation.'

He refers to a poignant passage in the Vedic texts which elucidates this concept of how the ruler is ruled by the people: 'Durodyana the king in the epic Mahabharat expresses his inability to do what he knows to be right and to refrain from what he knows to be wrong. He says: "There is some power present in my heart that prompts me to do, and I have to do that. . ."' 'The conclusion,' Maharishi says, 'is that the ruler cannot rule with full justice, even if his own thinking is right and just, if national consciousness is not coherent and integrated.'

The solution—coherence and bliss
In the 28 June 2006 press conference, Maharishi spoke of his Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme, including Yogic Flying, saying, 'Then came a field of knowledge the attention could really reach. That area is bliss—just bliss—fulfilment, bliss. And the flow of bliss and the flow of fulfilment was found to create coherence in the collective consciousness of a village or of an area or in a family. So this coherence was positively experienced in the field of the behaviour of the people, in the field of the thinking of the people, in the field of the health of the people, in all the fields of human interest. . . .

'The technique came which could take human awareness to that level of administration of life from where nothing is negative, everything is positive. . . We found a formula from the tradition of perfect knowledge, from the Vedic Tradition, that could take human awareness presently to investigate into the reality of the bliss.'

Indeed, Yogic Flying produces bubbling bliss in the flyer. And, as Maharishi explains in his Absolute Theory of Government, a group of as little as the square root of one per cent of an area's population practising the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme, including Yogic Flying, 'together in one place is sufficient to neutralize negative tendencies and promote positive trends throughout the whole population'.

So, Maharishi continues in the press conference, 'It is possible to create waves of bliss and then to characterize the whole area of one's territory in terms of fulfiling activity, bliss. . . .

'Every government has the desire to do everything for the people so that no one suffers, no one meets with any resistance and all that. But it is necessary to adopt this programme of creating the groups with ordinary people—we say ordinary people. They practise Yogic Flying, and they create coherence. The word "coherence" is very important—that integrating influence in the world consciousness.'

A Group for a Government
Such a group of Yogic Flyers Maharishi calls 'A Group for a Government'. In his Absolute Theory of Government, he presents the enormous role of a coherence-creating group saying 'once [it] is created in the country, [it] will always uphold the collective consciousness of the nation in full alliance with the collective consciousness of the whole universe.

'This group will enliven the infinite organizing power of Natural Law in the national consciousness of any country; it will enliven the evolutionary, nourishing power of Natural Law in national consciousness, and as the quality of national consciousness always has an indomitable influence on the government, the quality of infinite organizing power of Cosmic Intelligence, enlivened in national consciousness by the group of Yogic Flyers, will spontaneously be inherited by the government; the government will govern through the nourishing power of Natural Law; the government will govern through the supreme rulership of Cosmic Intelligence.'

Putting these thoughts in historic perspective in the press conference, Maharishi expressed, 'This has been the quest, the search, of all the wise throughout the ages: something for everyone, so that no one gets into the channel of suffering in any way. No one suffers; no one is without perfect health. Administration, the government as a whole, will be prevention-oriented, problem-free government.

'The proclamation of the [Transcendental Meditation] Movement today is that every government is to rise to invincibility. The flag of every nation, the freedom-bearing flag of every nation, is to rise to real freedom in fulfilment, coherence, freedom from sickness and suffering, freedom from negativity. No country will have an enemy in the neighbourhood or far away. No country will be negative to anyone. This was the search of the wise throughout the ages, and that search has now been brought to everyone within his own nature.'

Students take action
Large groups of Yogic Flying students are now forming in Latin America and around the world. Flourishing in their academic and personal lives, the students are quietly doing what I wish I had known to do as a young student—raising the collective consciousness of their nations with the spontaneous result that their governments are rising to truly nourish their people and be invincible.

"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