The simple addition of the Transcendental Meditation Programme to the students' daily routine results in their more integrated brain functioning, better focus, better academics, and more harmonious behaviour.

Good news for the computer generation and their elders
by Global Good News staff writer
4 January 2011

The cover article of the December 2010 issue of Philadelphia magazine caught my eye. It’s entitled, ‘Why Kids Are Getting Stupider’ with a subtitle, ‘How Texting, Facebook, Twitter & Google Are Creating Generation Clueless.’ I chuckled at the choice of words but knew that the writer is serious and is concerned, as I am, about the impact of our world of electronic gadgets.

I treated myself to a copy of the magazine and eagerly read what Sandy Hingston had to say. She voices her feelings, backed up by expert opinion, about the new generation’s short attention span and inability to read books. And they do not have a grasp of even the most basic information, she points out, citing her son Jake, just out of high school, who doesn’t know the days of the week. ‘He’s shaky on the months, too,’ Ms Hingston adds parenthetically.

She goes on to tell us that teens caught up in the electronic world, ‘including the average 3,329 text messages they send and receive each month—or more than a hundred per day,’ are ironically less equipped than adults to utilize the Internet world. The journalist offers this as the finding of consulting firm Nielson Norman and explains that this is because these kids ‘don’t have the reading ability, patience or research skills to successfully complete what they set out to do online.’

Hingston also cites the thoughts of Kathleen Taylor, author of Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain, who expresses the need for face-to-face interaction and the feedback that comes with it. “’On the Internet,’” the journalist quotes Taylor, ’you get nothing, no body language, no gestures.’

In a broad sense, Hingston’s concerns can be seen to be first: as a result of kids’ online lives, ‘their brains are different from ours’ even to the point where they can’t remember basic information; and second: ‘Where can he [referring to her son] go online to find out what being human means?’

A happy solution

Since the Internet and the world of technological gadgets is here to stay, a remedy for Hingston’s legitimate concerns would be most welcome. And that is what I’d like to propose—one simple addition to the daily routine of children which is already being used in many schools worldwide with outstanding results including more integrated brain functioning, better focus, better academics, and more harmonious behaviour.

That addition is called ‘Quiet Time in the Classroom.’ Students learn a simple, scientifically validated mental technique, called Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation, which is practised a few minutes twice a day.

Def Jam co-founder, Russell Simmons, explains that the Transcendental Meditation Technique ‘teaches a young person, or any person, to be still.’ With that, Mr Simmons comments, ‘They get to understand themselves, or they get to count their blessings or be still long enough to count the numbers in their math class or to do the science that’s put in front of them or the English that they want to study or whatever it is. They get a chance now to focus . . .’

Mr Simmons further remarks, ‘When you have distractions and noise in your mind, you can’t comprehend properly and you can’t do your job. Comprehension comes from stillness, focus comes from stillness, and the Transcendental Meditation Technique is the practice of touching that stillness for a few minutes twice a day.’

(I can feel Sandy Hingston’s sigh of relief even as I write.)

Ample scientific evidence

The director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management, Dr Fred Travis, explains this stillness, as well as the integrated brain functioning offered by the Transcendental Meditation Programme, in scientific terms. First, the brain researcher assures us,  ‘No matter what experiences may have happened in the past that have shut down these brain circuits, the brain can be changed if you choose specific new experiences.’

This should be most welcome news as Sandy Hingston displays in her article a graphic illustration of the brain, pointing out the effects of the electronic world on it. These include: ‘the erosion of the executive attention network in the frontal lobe’ of heavy computer users; the overriding of brain logic systems by the more primitive limbic system as a result of multi-tasking; and the continued release of stress hormones created by the stress of computer games.

In contrast to this, the Transcendental Meditation Technique creates a unique state of restful alertness that allows the elimination of accumulated stress and fatigue and develops the total brain. Referring to the extensive scientific research on the benefits of the technique, Dr Travis explains: ‘Research shows that Transcendental Meditation provides a highly specific new experience of the silent basis of the active mind. This is a state of inner wakefulness without particular qualities or attributes. And according to the research, this experience creates a more integrated functioning in the frontal areas of the brain. In fact, Transcendental Meditation is unique in its ability to exercise this critical part of the brain—to make the brain healthier and able to function together as a whole.’

Dr Bob Roth, Russell Simmons’ teacher of the Transcendental Meditation Technique, emphasizes this holistic functioning of the brain brought about during the practice. ‘Transcendental Meditation,’ he says, 'doesn’t change any one part of the brain but actually wakes up the whole brain. It creates a coherence and integration between the two hemispheres of the brain, between the front and back of the brain so that the whole brain is now integrated and talking to different parts. This is very important,’ Roth points out, ‘because we can see how this experience of transcending distinguishes itself from a meditation technique that might involve concentration or control of the mind.’

Benefits right from the start

Long-term educators Drs Michael and Susie Dillbeck also advocate the Transcendental Meditation Programme to ‘hoist schools out of the murky waters and into the light.’ Speaking from their extensive experience with this programme, the Dillbecks share what they have observed, addressing Sandy Hingston’s concern about kids learning what it means to be human as well as pointing out the other benefits which they have noticed right from when the practice is begun.

‘As soon as students start practising the Transcendental Meditation Technique,’ the Dillbecks tell us, ‘their innate creative intelligence and bliss begin to be expressed in greater receptivity to knowledge; in academic, artistic, and sports achievements, in harmonious relationships. To watch the contrast is like seeing an outboard motor replace oars. The same acceleration of progress and fulfilment is enjoyed by teachers and administrators who start the practice. Spontaneously such students and teachers produce a school environment that is purposeful and joyful, conducive to learning and to living in harmony with Natural Law.

'The regular experience of Transcendental Consciousness also exerts a steady, salutary influence on the students’ thinking and behavior: their impressionable, flexible, and dependent natures start to respond only to what is useful for their growth. Increasingly students are impressed by what is life-supporting and not by what is not; they come to depend on people who are wise and positive, not on those who will narrow their possibilities in life. As one father remarked, they seem to develop a shield through which only good can penetrate.’

Human values par excellence

Perhaps the most convincing words about the human values developed as a natural result of meditating come from the children of Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment (MSAE) where all the students, faculty, and staff enjoy the practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique. As reported in a book entitled, Growing Up Enlightened—How Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment is Awakening the Creative Genius of Students and Creating Heaven on Earth, a senior was asked if most students at MSAE would feel that they should help unpopular students. His response speaks for itself:

’Yes, . . . Actually at [Maharishi School] I don’t know any really unpopular students. We don’t really look at students as being popular. There are some students who are more active in certain areas of the school than others . . . but I wouldn’t really say that anyone is unpopular. When a new student comes to the school, I guess you could say that they wouldn’t be as popular because they wouldn’t know as many people. But it seems to me—and I see it every day and know I do it—my friends and I go out of our way to make the new students feel at home, make them feel comfortable, and help them, especially in a situation like this.’”

As the Dillbecks suggest, 'Let us introduce the Transcendental Meditation programme and the knowledge of enlightenment into our educational institutions and watch our children, our communities, and our nation thrive in every way.’

Let’s go from ‘generation clueless’ to a generation with fully developed brains, ‘clued in’ to their own deepest values, awakened to their full potential.

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