Excellence in Action resulting from students optimizing brain functioning





     

Travis
Talking about his experience in Transcendental Meditation, the author Mack Travis says, "Inside, you have found a space—a space that is quiet and peaceful, a space without boundaries, a space that is yours and yours alone."

 

 

Discovering our source of peace and happiness
by Mack Travis at Enlightenment Magazine online
24 December 2014

Maharishi tells us, “Expansion of happiness is the purpose of life, and evolution is the process through which it is fulfilled.” We can speed our evolution and our road to happiness by learning this simple mental technique, which will take us within in a reliable manner and set up the environment within ourselves for love, wealth, and happiness. It will enable us to intuit our duty in life—our dharma—and then, just as the mask falls from the ceiling of the airplane when there is a lack of oxygen, we can reach up, pull it to us, and breathe deeply. We can experience for ourselves that the purpose of life is the expansion of happiness. It is not something ephemeral. It is a real experience that grows in us the longer we practice Transcendental Meditation.

Over the years, I have often marveled at the peace and happiness that descends on me from the practice of Transcendental Meditation. I have come to accept it. I no longer question it. In fact, I have come to expect it in a humble sort of way. It’s not a miracle. Maharishi has told us to expect it, as stress is relieved from our lives. Roadblocks dissolve. Intuition expands. Our per­sonal dharma becomes apparent to us. We learn to turn inward for the answers to our problems.

The expansion of happiness is not a hedonistic sort of thing. It is a natural outcome of transcending. But it was fascinating to me to read the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s reasoning about happiness, for it parallels the knowledge from the Vedas, composed millennia earlier, that is embodied in Maharishi’s technique of TM.

Writing in his Nicomachean Ethics in 350 BC, Aristotle made a reasoned argument that the final end of everything we do is to produce personal happiness, which he terms eudemonia—a flourishing, virtuous life of right action and excellence. If we think about it, following Aristotle’s line of reasoning, we realize that we plant the seed and tend the crop, not as an end in itself, but to grow food to eat. We eat, not as an end in itself, but so we can live and be healthy, and have an opportunity to seek our happiness. Similarly, we study to have a career, not just as an end in itself, but in order to support ourselves and our families finan­cially, with the anticipated end result of happiness for ourselves, our spouse, and our children.

In Aristotle’s day, he used the example that bridlemakers made bridles not as an ultimate end, but to enable the soldier to guide the horse in order to win wars to accumulate more real estate, more wealth and power, all to produce more happiness for individuals. There is nothing we do in our life that has an end more important to us than our own personal happiness. Even helping others has as its goal—what? We do for others, but doing for others gives us a sense of well-being and personal happiness. Our happiness is quite simply the ultimate end in itself.

In Aristotle’s words: “What is the highest of all goods achievable by action[?] Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness.” He arrives at this conclusion by pointing out that happiness is something we always choose for its own sake and never for the sake of anything else. We choose honor, pleasure, reason, and virtue for the sake of happiness. We do not choose happiness for the sake of honor, pleasure, or virtue, but only for itself. Happiness is the “ultimate good.”

When you practice the Transcendental Meditation technique and settle down to finer levels of the thinking process, you will find that you have gone deeply into yourself. Inside, you have found a space—a space that is quiet and peaceful, a space without boundaries, a space that is yours and yours alone. You find that this is a space you can return to whenever you practice Transcendental Meditation. You have transcended the surface of life, the relative part of your existence. You have transcended the thoughts; you are at the source of thought, the absolute part of your existence. This space is unbounded. It is always there, and it goes on forever. This space is pure consciousness.

With Transcendental Meditation we have a technique to experience the Absolute. It is not dependent on belief. It is an experience, and we quickly realize that it is from here that we gain total relaxation, both mental and physical. It is from here that we gain immense strength. It is from this inner space of pure consciousness that we gain clarity of thought and peace of mind. It is from here that our actions truly emanate, and it is pure consciousness that is our ultimate source of joy and unbounded happiness. As Maharishi says, “We have transcended to the home of all the laws of Nature—we have found our Self.”

--------------------

About the author:
Mack Travis is an avid sailor, successful businessman, and civic leader. He learned Transcendental Meditation in 1974 at the age of thirty-one. Since then, he has meditated every day, twice a day, using the TM technique.

© Copyright 2014 Maharishi Foundation USA, a non-profit educational organization.

 

   
"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

Excellence in Action Home
Search | Global News | Agriculture and Environmental News | Business News | Culture News
Education News | Government News | Health News | Science and Technology News
World Peace | Maharishi Programmes | Press Conference | Transcendental Meditation
Celebration Calendars | Ultimate Gifts | News by Country | Album of Events | Ideal Society Index | Research | Worldwide Links | What's New | Modem/High Speed | RSS/XML