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Inspiring graduation ceremony Last Saturday 234 students graduated from Maharishi University of Management. This included 54 undergraduate students, 177 graduate students, and 3 PhD students representing 41 countries. This year’s valedictorian was Joshua Paling, from Australia, who received his BA in Maharishi Vedic Science. For his senior project, Mr. Paling created a website of the principles of the Maharishi Vedic Science program including a searchable database of terms and principles of Maharishi Vedic Science, Vedic expressions in Sanskrit and English, and quotations from Maharishi. Mr. Paling, who is planning to apply for the Transcendental Meditation Teacher Training Course, also created a business model for Maharishi Invincibility Centers that will offer prospective teachers an internship to generate funding for their training course and gain experience in running a center. Salutatorian Charles Machia announced the class gift to the University: a rose garden featuring medicinal plants. Mr. Machia is a Sustainable Living graduate from the US who specialized in natural building. Dr. John Hagelin offered congratulatory remarks to the graduates. After all the degrees had been awarded, University president Dr. Bevan Morris delivered the traditional charge to the graduates. This year he quoted from Maharishi’s own comments to our graduating students in 2003. The commencement address was given by Stephen Collins, the distinguished American actor, writer, director, musician, and long-time participant of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. Mr. Collins has appeared in 15 theatrical films and starred in five television series, including "7th Heaven," the longest-running family drama series in network television history. His acting work has also included Broadway productions, theater work, TV miniseries, and TV movies. He learned the Transcendental Meditation technique in 1976 and the TM-Sidhi program in 1980. He has participated in World Peace Assemblies such as the Taste of Utopia Assembly at MUM at the end of 1983, and he assisted a group that taught the Transcendental Meditation program for many years at San Quentin Prison in the 1980s. A member of the Advisory Board of the Media and Communications program, Mr. Collins gave a talk earlier in the week to the students in that program and agreed to teach an acting workshop this coming academic year. In his commencement address, Mr. Collins said to the graduates: “If you want to help this country survive and become invincible the way Maharishi wanted it, you are going to be in the business of changing minds, and your meditation is a tool that will help you enormously.” He encouraged graduates to stay consciously “countercultural,” by which he meant not opposing the culture but moving it forward—for example, opting out of the petroleum-based economy, eating fresh organic locally-grown non-GMO foods, and seeking enlightened health care. He envisioned a new brand of patriotism. “A patriot in the year 2010 is someone who is willing to create a society that runs on sustainable energy,” he said. “A patriot in 2010 gets the word out about the Maharishi Effect.” During the Graduation Awards Ceremony the previous evening, the annual Vyasa Award for outstanding research by a graduating PhD student went to Dr. Robert Oates, who received his PhD in Maharishi Vedic Science. The title of his dissertation is Consciousness and the Quantum: Maharishi’s Self-Interacting Dynamics of Consciousness as the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Dr. Oates has worked for the University and other organizations offering Maharishi's programs for 40 years and has written 11 books, including Celebrating the Dawn, about Maharishi's 1974 tour around the world to inaugurate the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. In addition to Robert Oates, Shih Ming Huang and Wen Chien Sanchez received PhD degrees in Management. To watch the graduation ceremony, go to the Maharishi Channel. © Copyright 2010 Maharishi University of Management
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