With Transcendental Meditation we spontaneously create a situation where action is restful and a joy in its process, and it’s a greater joy in its results.

Integration of life and the nature of Self-realization
by Enlightenment, the TM Magazine online, issue 22
12 January 2015

Excerpt from a talk by Maharishi
on June 23, 1971 in Amherst, Massachusetts.

There’s an experience that we all look forward to during our practice of the TM technique. Our mind and body leave the boundaries of daily life behind and settle down to a deep and profound level of rest—an unbounded state of inner silence.

Over time, we may notice that the inner silence we experience during TM begins to stay with us after meditation, and is integrated into the activity of our day. We may have a calmer mind to deal with the seemingly infinite number of requests at work. Or perhaps a colleague or family member is no longer able to “push our buttons.” Or we have the patience to sit and listen to a child’s story at the end of the day.

In this lecture, Maharishi speaks about how we naturally integrate this inner silence with outer activity and enjoy greater fullness of life.

Maharishi: We alternate rest and activity, and rest and activity, and rest and activity, and a time comes when that restful activity becomes a reality. If the activity is restful activity, then it’s the real joy of activity. As long as activity is tiring activity, it’s no good.

What we want is restful activity—action and rest simultaneously. Then we are not devoid of our link with the infinite, even when we are playing about in the finite. Then our activity will be like the activity of that arrow which does not lose the momentum of strength which it had gained when it was pulled. So with full momentum the arrow is flying, never losing the momentum.

The mind never loses that awareness. That unbounded awareness becomes an all-time reality. Wherever, whatever the mind is engaged in, that restful activity never goes. Spontaneously, we maintain restful activity.

When the action is restful, then action is a joy in its process, and it’s a greater joy in its results, but it’s no more tiring and tedious when one is acting. This spontaneous situation we create through the practice of Transcendental Meditation. We call it Transcendental Meditation because it takes our mind, it takes our awareness to that unbounded, transcendental area which transcends all the relativity, transcends the field of change.

So the whole procedure is automatic. . . because the surface values of activity and the depth of life. . . these are the two areas of what we call life. Life is structured in these two values simultaneously—activity and non-activity—just as the flower is structured in two values: this white of the petal and the colorless sap in every fiber of the petal.

So the surface, manifest value of life is richer when the awareness of the unmanifest is more solidly established. With that establishment of unbounded awareness, every aspect of life is in tune with that infinite value of life.

And when every boundary of life, every little bit of life is in tune with that boundless aspect of life, then every aspect is strong, flourishing, fresh, encouraging. Then every aspect blooms in life. Otherwise, every aspect loses life.

The whole purpose of integrating the inner silence with outer activity and creating a spontaneous situation where both activity and silence continue to be there at all times, the whole purpose of this is to live fullness of life.

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