Scientific experiments have shown that, during the Transcendental Meditation programme, there is a greater participation of the whole brain in the response to a stimulus.

The Brain Integration Report Card
by Global Good News staff writer
10 March 2009

Developed by the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at M.U.M., the Brain Integration Report Card supplements traditional measures of student progress such as grades or performance on standardized cognitive and performance tests.

The Brain Integration Report Card includes a measure of integration of brain functioning along with scores on standards of psychological measurements and evaluation of subjective reports of self-development.

The five components of the Brain Integration Report Card include: brain wave patterns during tasks; emotional stability levels; moral reasoning levels; practical intelligence, behavioural strategies, emotional response strategies, and categorical thinking; and self-report measures of development of consciousness. The growth of these measures are indicators of increasing health, happiness, and success.

Mission of the Center
The mission of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition is to delineate brain functioning during higher stages of human development. The Center's research is focussed on practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique because it quickly leads to the state of Transcendental Consciousness, pure self-awareness, and with regular practise leads to higher states of consciousness.

Transcendental Consciousness experiences [during Transcendental Meditation] are marked by:

1) slow inhalation called "apneustic breathing" from 10–60 sec in duration or marked reduction in breath volume (40%),

2) increase of frequency of peak power in the EEG, and

3) skin conductance orienting at the onset of these experiences. 

Explanation
Maharishi predicted in 1963 that changes in breathing would be a major marker of the experience of Transcendental Consciousness. He predicted:

'If the breathing could be brought to a state where it was neither active nor passive, that state of extremely delicate breath where the breath could be said to be flowing and yet not flowing, the metabolism would be established in a state of suspension between activity and no-activity on the level of Being. This would harmonize the body with Being. Life would be sustained, but its expression would be silent in the relative existence. This is the state of the nervous system that would keep the mind awake in itself, and, with reference to this state of self-awareness of the mind, the whole body would be sustained in itself.' (Science of Being and Art of Living, page 197). 

Breath suspensions from 10–60 seconds long were the first published marker of Transcendental Consciousness in 1982. Recent research has clarified that the breath is not actually 'suspended' during so-called respiratory 'suspensions'. 

Kesterson and Clinch, using a spyrometer, discovered that slow inhalation occurs throughout these periods, called apneustic breathing. This type of breathing is supported by different respiratory drive centres in the brain stem than breathing seen during waking. This finding supports the argument that Transcendental Consciousness is a state of consciousness distinct from waking, sleeping, or dreaming. 

Distinct physiological patterns have been reported in subjects reporting the experience of Cosmic Consciousness, a fifth state of consciousness in which Transcendental Consciousness is maintained alongside waking, dreaming, and deep sleep: 

    * During quiet eyes-open sessions, increased theta/alpha EEG is seen in frontal and central areas of the brain.

    * During activity outside of meditation such as computer tasks, increased frontal coherence, increased alpha/gamma power ratios and more appropriate cortical preparatory response.

    * During sleep, increased theta/alpha power and decreased muscle tone are reported along with increased REM density during dreaming. 

Maharishi describes Cosmic Consciousness as:

'The nature of the Self, the essential nature of the Self, should be lived through all experience, and that will be a positive gain; then it is cosmic consciousness. One aspect of it is this transcendental, eternal silence, bliss absolute. 

'Another aspect is relativity; relative experiences, the ever-changing field of existence is another aspect. Both taken together are Cosmic Consciousness, and when both are experienced, both are lived at the same time, then this is fulfilment of life.' (Thirty-Years Around the Globe, 1986, page 257)

Distinct physiological patterns have been reported in subjects reporting the experience of cosmic consciousness:

* During quiet eyes-open sessions, increased theta/alpha EEG is seen in frontal and central areas of the brain.
* During activity outside of meditation such as computer tasks, increased frontal coherence, increased alpha/gamma power ratios and more appropriate cortical preparatory response.
* During sleep, increased theta/alpha power and decreased muscle tone are reported along with increased REM density during dreaming.

Dr Fred Travis, Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition, concludes, 'If the purpose of higher education is to enable an individual to think and act successfully, then education is significant only when it enlivens the whole brain. Therefore, the level of integrated brain functioning is a reliable gauge of the success of a student's educational experience.'

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