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Students’ desire for spiritual experience On 8 June 2005 during the Global Press Conference with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Raja John Hagelin of Invincible America, and Minister of Science and Technology of the Global Country of World Peace, relayed a question from the press to Maharishi on the subject of education and students' desire for knowledge and spiritual experience. The Press asked Maharishi why students are hungry for spiritual experience. The Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California had reported that spirituality and prayer are increasing on college campuses. A survey of more than 100,000 current freshmen showed that 80% said they are interested in spirituality and 76% said they are searching for a deeper purpose or meaning in life. The study also found that student affiliation in mainstream, organized religions is on the decline, while a general interest in spirituality, prayer, and meditation is increasing. The Press asked Maharishi why today's college students are so hungry for spiritual experience, and how the International University of World Peace would satisfy that spiritual hunger? Maharishi answered that students are hungry not only today, but the measurement of that hunger has only started recently. All students of all ages, students of all times, have wanted to know more and more. It is only that the measuring has started recently, so it is felt that today students want to be more and more. 'More and more desire of life is not foreign to anyone in any generation at any time in the whole of time,' Maharishi said. 'The desire for more and more is completely natural, not only on the level of desire, but on the actual living level—not only the desiring level. The desire for more and more is a natural desire, because somewhere more than the most is available to life. The memory is there that I am infinity; I am Totality. The memory is there, even if I am at some level of wakefulness, or dreamy, or completely unavailable in deep sleep.' Maharishi explained that all these levels of knowledge or levels of wakefulness about the Totality are there in a natural way. And we can have it because we have deep sleep naturally rising to dreaming, to waking, and naturally to Transcendental Consciousness, to Cosmic Consciousness, to God Consciousness, and to Unity Consciousness. 'The whole thing is very natural. It is absolutely natural, and that is available in the awakening of the dream from the deep sleep, and the awakening of the dream into waking,' Maharishi said. 'Waking, dreaming, sleeping; waking, dreaming, sleeping by nature happens. By nature it happens. The nature of life is a circular motion, [over and over and over] again. Now, at the junction point of the waking state, instead of getting into sleep, one gets more wakefulness.' Maharishi further explained that this theme of rising into pure wakefulness of infinity, eternity, unboundedness, is a natural phenomenon in Nature. It is not an artificial thing. That is why it is just a matter of awakening—bringing it to the awareness of the students, giving them a lead into that experience through Consciousness Based Education, and telling them something about it. This fulfils their desire for more and more knowledge, for more and more ability to act. 'More and more ability to act is not a new thing in this generation.' Maharishi continued. 'It is forever the field of life. We say that the holistic value of life is in circulation. It goes through deep sleep, dreaming, and waking, and then, from waking, passing on the bridge that has been mentioned. The bridge is the pure field of Transcendental Consciousness—the pure field of consciousness. It is as if the river is going and a pond is there. You come from one side, you sit on the boat, you sail on the water, and you land on the other side. 'The whole thing is natural to life. The only difference is whether the bridge and the crossing over and the landing on the other side is an experience.' This is what education does. Education unfolds that which is hidden from view. 'It is capable of unfolding it because that which is hidden from view is existing,' Maharishi said. 'That which is hidden from view is not hidden from its own existence. It is existing—only it is hidden from view. 'Knowledge unfolds that and brings the information on the intellectual level. It also brings the experience of that unboundedness towards which all streams of aspirations, all desires of the mind, and all decisions of the intellect are moving—always—by nature, in that direction. 'It is not that now the students are aspiring for it. Only, the measuring has started now. Physical sciences have started to explore all those levels of life that were there all the time. The discovery of a thing is not the creation of a thing. It is the discovery of an already existing thing, which one had forgotten in one's memory. Now, the memory of it brings it to the conscious level. 'It is no surprise that the wholeness of life opens to awareness when the wholeness of life is a field of investigation and a field of gaining knowledge right from the beginning for every student at a tender age. Then he grows with it more and more. The whole thing is very natural.' © Copyright 2009 Global Good News®
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