Global Good News: Excellence in Action

During a Global Press Conference broadcast on the Maharishi Channel from MERU, Holland, on 14 August 2002, Maharishi was asked ‘What exactly is enlightenment? Is it the same as whole brain functioning, or is it something else?’

Maharishi answered that it is the whole brain functioning, but we add one more thing to it—‘fully-developed whole brain functioning.’ He explained that a child's brain is small; a man's brain by the age of 20 or 25 years is more developed.

‘Full development of the brain can touch the cosmic level of creativity of Natural Law,’ Maharishi said. ‘The cosmic level of creativity of Natural Law available to human awareness is the state of enlightenment.’

He then explained that we can have a ‘glimpse of enlightenment in the conscious awareness of the source of thought, from where intelligence becomes creative intelligence. On that level is the level of enlightenment; on that level is the utilization or existence of total Natural Law.’

On that level the whole field of enlightenment is to make our awareness known to that level—the source of thought—Maharishi said, ‘so that any thought that rises has the total intelligence of Natural Law—that means cosmic level of Natural Law—in every thought.’

‘Cosmic level of thought functioning is the functioning from the level of enlightenment,’ Maharishi continued, ‘and that will mean absolutely no mistake. That is one thing; but absolutely all possibilities lively in every thought. All possibilities lively in every thought—that is the state of enlightenment in which man will not make mistakes; man will hit high from the most supreme level of intelligence. He will be thinking, speaking, behaving, all those values, from that fully enlightened awareness on a permanent basis.’

Maharishi explained that it is from there that one lives the Vedic expression 'I am Totality'—‘all the beautiful exhortations about the supreme level of individual life on the level of cosmic life—individual [is] a cosmic individual.’ That is the state of enlightenment, in which every thought has the support of Natural Law.

‘That is our strength,’ Maharishi said, ‘that knowledge of educating the awareness of the people to become familiar with their own source of thought. Level of their intelligence open to conscious awareness—that is the programme of gaining enlightenment.’

Maharishi added that the groups of Vedic Pandits and the peace-creating groups of Yogic Flyers everywhere in the world ‘will be practising [experiencing] that value, the source of thought, which will capture the total potential of creativity of Natural Law, and then the world will be a purified world.

‘All this dust and dirt of dark ages will disappear, and a new world will be created,’ Maharishi said. ‘That is our field. That is our field. We are expert in educating the people for enlightenment through very simple [techniques]. Transcendental Meditation, the Transcendental Meditation Sidhi Programme, and Yogic Flying are very simple procedures. That is our strength to recreate an ideal world. That is it. It's a beautiful question,’ he concluded.

"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