Posts Tagged ‘Transcendental Consciousness’

Health India’s Editorial Team says Transcendental Meditation (TM) is taking the world by storm

January 14, 2014

Health India

Transcendental Meditation — a meditation technique that is taking the world by storm

Editorial Team January 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm

Meditation, a simple yet deep-rooted technique that helps you think better, control your emotions with finesse and even makes you a better person. First practiced in India, meditation is a method carried down through the ages. It was first mentioned in the Vedas and is well-known in India as a doorway to nirvana. But now the Americans have woken up to its benefits.

According to study carried out by Fred Travis, director of the centre for brain, consciousness, and cognition at Maharishi University of Management in the US, physiological measures and first-person descriptions of transcendental experiences and higher states have only been investigated during practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique.

After analysing descriptions of transcendental consciousness from 52 people practicing TM, Travis found that they experienced ‘a state where thinking, feeling, and individual intention were missing, but self-awareness remained’. A systematic analysis of their experiences revealed three themes – absence of time, space and body sense.

‘This research focuses on the larger purpose of meditation practices – to develop higher states of consciousness,’ explained Travis. With regular meditation, experiences of transcendental consciousness begin to co-exist with sleeping, dreaming and even while one is awake.

This state is called cosmic consciousness in the Vedic tradition, said the paper published in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Whereas people practicing TM describe themselves in relation to concrete cognitive and behavioural processes, those experiencing cosmic consciousness describe themselves in terms of a continuum of inner self-awareness that underlies their thoughts, feelings and actions, added the paper.

‘The practical benefit of higher states is that you become more anchored to your inner self, and, therefore, less likely to be overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of daily life,’ said Travis. TM is an effortless technique for automatic self-transcending, different from the other categories of meditation – focused attention or open monitoring.

It allows the mind to settle inward beyond thought to experience the source of thought – pure awareness or transcendental consciousness. This is the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness – one’s innermost self, said the study.

Wondering what it is? Here is all you need to know about the TM technique

Transcendental Meditation?

Also called the TM technique, Transcendental Meditation is a simple practice one does for 20 minutes twice in a day. All you need to do is sit comfortably and close your eyes. This meditation technique is not a religion, philosophy or lifestyle, it is simply a way to reach self-development.

This technique allows your mind to settle and gives you a chance to experience pure awareness, also known as transcendental consciousness. It allows you to experience the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness – your innermost self. It also allows your brain to attain deep rest helping you be more efficient and betters your cognitive functions.

Where did this technique originate?

About 50 years ago, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is considered the representative of Vedic tradition in our day and age. This form of meditation helped in restoring knowledge and helps people experience a higher state of consciousness. The most important aspect of this technique is that it is still practiced with the same technique and principles as it was when the Vedas were first written, giving it maximum effectiveness.

How do I learn?

The TM technique has local teachers who will guide you through the process. It consists of seven steps after which one can practice the TM technique on their own.

Benefits of the TM technique

The TM technique is known to calm your mind, directly affecting the stress that your brain experiences on a daily basis. According to the experts, practicing the TM technique regularly helps in developing total brain control, thereby making you more equipped to deal with every day stress. It indirectly reduces the production on hormones that are commonly produced when one is stressed and thereby stops the damage that is normally produced.

Apart from all this, a calm mind and body is the best way to protect your body from cardiovascular stress. The TM technique also has great benefits for students, it helps improve their memory, IQ and helps them fight stress.

With inputs from: IANS

Reference: Transcendental Meditation

Related: Transcendental experiences during meditation practice – paper published in @AcademyAnnals.

Health India also posts: Practice Transcendental Meditation to lower BP, heart and mortality risks.

See more news coverage: Transcendental Meditation and lifestyle changes both stimulate genes that reduce blood pressure and extend lifespan.

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Posted in Articles, Education, Health, Maharishi University, Peace | 3 Comments »

Transcendental experiences during meditation practice – paper published in @AcademyAnnals

January 13, 2014

Overview of research on individuals experiencing higher states of consciousness published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Today, millions of Americans say they practice some form of yoga and/or meditation. It’s become a health fad. Yet the goal of these practices seems unknown or elusive to many practitioners — transcendence.

Dr. Travis, PhD, Director, Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition, Maharishi University of Management

Fred Travis, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management

An article: Transcendental experiences during meditation practice, by Fred Travis, PhD, Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management, provides an overview of research on individuals experiencing higher states of consciousness. It is published today in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: January 2014, Volume 1307, Advances in Meditation Research: Neuroscience and Clinical Applications, pages 1-8.

The paper is based on a presentation Dr. Travis was invited to give at “Advances in Meditation Research” (AMR), a meeting of the nation’s top meditation researchers, which took place a year ago  at the New York Academy of Sciences New York City.

In his paper Dr. Travis explains that different meditations have different effects, and that meditation can lead to nondual or transcendental experiences, a sense of self-awareness without content.

However, after a search of the scientific literature he reported that physiological measures and first-person descriptions of transcendental experiences and higher states have only been investigated during practice of the Transcendental Meditation® (TM) technique.

TM is an effortless technique for automatic self-transcending, different from the other categories of meditation — focused attention or open monitoring. It allows the mind to settle inward beyond thought to experience the source of thought — pure awareness or Transcendental Consciousness. This is the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness — one’s innermost Self.

This figure, a 2 X 2 table, compares subjective and objective experiences during waking, sleeping, dreaming, and pure consciousness. As seen in this table, waking state contains a sense of self and mental content, thoughts and perceptions. In contrast, during pure consciousness, there is only Self-awareness, without any sense of time, space, and body awareness.

This figure, a 2 X 2 table, compares subjective and objective experiences during waking, sleeping, dreaming, and pure consciousness. As seen in this table, waking state contains a sense of self and mental content — thoughts and perceptions. In contrast, during pure consciousness (Transcendental Consciousness), there is only Self-awareness, without any sense of time, space, and body awareness.

Dr. Travis discusses a study of descriptions of Transcendental Consciousness from 52 subjects practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique and found that they experienced “a state where thinking, feeling, and individual intention were missing, but Self-awareness remained.” A systematic analysis of their experiences revealed three themes: absence of time, space, and body sense.

Specific physiological changes are associated with this subjective experience of Transcendental Consciousness. These include changes in breath rate, skin conductance, and EEG patterns.

Dr. Travis further explains that with regular meditation, experiences of Transcendental Consciousness begin to co-exist with sleeping, dreaming, and even while one is awake. This state is called Cosmic Consciousness, in the Vedic tradition. The paper presents first-person accounts followed by an overview of the physiological patterns associated with Cosmic Consciousness.

Whereas control subjects describe themselves in relation to concrete cognitive and behavioral processes, those experiencing Cosmic Consciousness describe themselves in terms of a continuum of inner self-awareness that underlies their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

In addition, the Cosmic Consciousness subjects showed the EEG patterns seen during Transcendental Consciousness along with the EEG patterns when they were asleep, and during waking tasks. This leads to higher scores on the Brain Integration Scale developed by Dr. Travis.

Dr. Travis suggests that such higher states of consciousness can be seen as normal developments beyond the classic stages described by Piaget. One simply needs a technique to experience transcendence and thereby facilitate the development of these states. The practical benefit of higher states, he says, is that you become more anchored to your inner Self, and therefore less likely to be overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of daily life.

“This research focuses on the larger purpose of meditation practices — to develop higher states of consciousness,” explained Dr. Travis. “This paper is the outgrowth of meetings at Esalen and the Institute for Noetic Sciences to chart the future of meditation research.”

Source: EurekAlert!

The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is the oldest continuously published scientific serial in the United States and among the most cited of multidisciplinary scientific serials worldwide. Established in 1823, the Annals is the premier publication of the Academy, offering volumes of review articles in special topical areas and proceedings of conferences sponsored by the Academy as well as other scientific organizations. You can find out more about them here: http://www.nyas.org/whatwedo/publications/annals.aspx.

Read the Foreword to Advances in Meditation Research: Neuroscience and Clinical Applications, by editor Sonia Sequeira.

Related: Health India’s Editorial Team says Transcendental Meditation (TM) is taking the world by storm

Medical News Today: Overview of research on individuals experiencing higher states of consciousness during transcendental meditation.

A PDF of the study is now available at ResearchGate.

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Posted in Articles, Health, Maharishi University, Peace | 1 Comment »

You Are God: Who? … Me? By William T. Hathaway

October 6, 2012

You Are God
Who? … Me?

By William T. Hathaway

The statement “You are God” seems an absurd and presumptuous blasphemy, so it needs to be clarified. According to pantheism, it’s not just you who are God; all of us are God. And it’s not just all of us who are God; everything is God. God is the universe in synergy, the whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

This contradicts mainstream Western theology, which is based on a split between creator and creature. According to this view, God made the universe with us in it and is now observing our behavior, rewarding us or punishing us based on our obedience to His rules.

The religions of the East and the mystic tradition of the West have a different view. They feel that God became the universe, manifested it, is it. Rather than observing the universe, God lives it. The universe is God’s active side, engaged in time, space, and matter. God is more than the universe, but there is nothing in it that isn’t God.

But if it’s true that we are God, why are we in such an ungodly mess? Because our unity with God is a living reality only in a higher state of consciousness. Reality, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, is different in different states of consciousness. Ordinarily we experience three state of consciousness: deep sleep, dreaming, or waking. Each has its own reality with distinctive physiological parameters of brain waves, blood chemistry, and metabolic rate.

Waking state is the realm of duality. We are bound in the relativity of time, space, and matter, so we perceive separations between ourselves and others. In waking state the idea that we are God is nonsensical. It contradicts our perceptions.

But it’s possible to experience a fourth state of consciousness that has its own reality and physiology. It’s called transcendental consciousness because it’s beyond the other three, existing at a more fundamental level. Here the duality and materiality of waking state are only surface conditions. The deeper underlying reality is unity, where the separations fade and everything, including matter, is experienced as one unified field of consciousness. Here your individual thinking mind merges with the mind of God. You’re no longer just a part of God. You transcend the boundaries of your small self and expand into the one great Self, the divine spirit animating the universe. All separations between you and God disappear, and you become One.

In transcendental consciousness you really are God and you really are experiencing a sacred life. The most effective method I’ve found for achieving this state on a regular basis is Transcendental Meditation. But even with TM, it’s usually a fleeting experience. In transcendental consciousness the mind is without thoughts. It reaches the source of thought, where it becomes pure Being — alert and aware but without an object of awareness, consciousness experiencing itself. This state is so blissful, so all-encompassing, so divine, that we think, How wonderful! And as soon as we have that thought, we’re no longer there.

But as we come out, we bring some of the energy, intelligence, and joy of this unified field back into our waking state of consciousness, where it enriches our life. And ironically, one of the ways it enriches it is by giving us a deeper appreciation of our separateness from God. The sense of separation we experience in waking state is a great aid to devotion. It’s easier to love something external to us, even if this externality is only partially true.

Each experience of transcendental consciousness also heals our nervous system of stresses we’ve accumulated in the past. It is these stresses, or karma, that make our mind unable to stay in that state while we’re thinking and acting. Once those stresses are gone, which usually takes many years, our mind and body function in that state permanently.

This is enlightenment, the height of human development in which our unity with God is a living reality, not just a concept. In this state we live the sacred life 24/7.

*

William T. Hathaway is a peace activist, award-winning author, and adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. His latest novel, Summer Snow, tells of an American warrior in Central Asia who falls in love with a Sufi Muslim and learns from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are available on a page of the publisher’s website: www.peacewriter.org.

Published with permission from the author.

Also see Radical Peace: People Refusing War, by William T. Hathaway, later republished on other websites listed at the bottom of the article as Conscious Peace: World Peace Depends upon Our Collective Consciousness.

Here’s a related article God? ~ Dr. Evan Finkelstein.

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Research breakthrough: High brain integration underlies winning performances

June 18, 2012

Research breakthrough: High brain integration underlies winning performances

World-class performers in management, sports and music often have uniquely high mind-brain development

Scientists trying to understand why some people excel—whether as world-class athletes, virtuoso musicians, or top CEOs—have discovered that these outstanding performers have unique brain characteristics that make them different from other people.

A study published in May in the journal Cognitive Processing found that 20 top-level managers scored higher on three measures—the Brain Integration Scale, Gibbs’s Socio-moral Reasoning questionnaire, and an inventory of peak experiences—compared to 20 low-level managers that served as matched controls. This is the fourth study in which researchers have been able to correlate the brain’s activity with top performance and peak experiences, having previously studied world-class athletes and professional classical musicians.

“What we have found,” says Fred Travis, director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, “is an astonishing integration of brain functioning in high performers compared to average-performing controls. We are the first in the world to show that there is a brain measure of effective leadership.”

“Everyone wants excellence,” says Harald Harung of the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences in Norway. “Yet, current understanding of high performance is fragmented. What we have done in our research, is to use quantitative and neurophysiological research methods on topics that so far have been dominated by psychology.”

Dr. Travis, Dr. Harung, and colleagues have carried out a total of four empirical studies comparing world-class performers to average performers. This recent study and two others have examined top performers in management, sports, and classical music. In addition, a number of years ago Dr. Harung and colleagues published a fourth study on a variety of professions, such as public administration, management, sports, arts and education.

Measured Brain Activity

The studies carried out by the researchers include measurements of the performers’ brains by using electroencephalography, EEG. Hospitals use this equipment and method to determine possible brain injuries after traffic accidents. EEG, however, can also be used to look at the extent of integration and development of several brain processes.

The researchers looked at three different measurements that all reflect how well the brain works as a whole: 1) Coherence, which shows how well the various parts of the brain cooperate, 2) Amount of alpha waves, which reflect restful alertness, and 3) How economically or effectively the brain works.

The three measurements are then put together in an expression of brain refinement, the Brain Integration Scale.

World-class performance has so far been mostly regarded from a psychological point of view, especially speaking of management. Researchers often explain management skills as a result of special personal or psychological characteristics that some have, and others don’t.

“Our research in brain activity and brain integration is done from more of a natural science angle. By such means, we hope we are closer to an effective and comprehensive understanding of why some succeed better than others,” says Harung.

In all the groups of top performers, measurements were checked by using control groups. The controls were average performers, such as low-level managers or amateur musicians. The data gave one surprising result: Among the musicians, both the professionals and the amateurs turned out to have a high level of brain integration. In the two other studies, this measurement showed major differences between the persons with top-level performance and the control groups.

“We believe that for musicians, the explanation might be that classical music in itself contributes to such integration, regardless of your performance level,” says Dr. Harung.

Peak Experience

The researchers found it’s not just that their brains function differently; the world-class performers also had particular subjective experiences that were associated with their top performances.

Called peak experiences, these experiences are characterized by happiness, inner calm, maximum wakefulness, effortlessness and ease of functioning, absence of fear, transcendence of ordinary time and space, and a sense of perfection and even invincibility.

The first study was done on world-class athletes selected by the National Olympic Training Center in Norway and the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Besides screening athletes’ brains using EEG, each athlete was interviewed about their experiences while performing at their very best. The result was a wide range of peak experiences.

Former cross-country skier Thomas Alsgaard, who won 11 gold medals in Olympic Games and World Championships, said:

“The senses are so open that you have the ability to receive signals that are almost scary: In a way it is a ‘high.’ I receive an unbelievable amount of information. Much, much more—10-20 times more information—than what I manage to take in if I sit down and concentrate and try to perceive things. But I am so relaxed. And the more relaxed I am, the more information I register.”

Another athlete who participated in the research is the Norwegian handball keeper, Heidi Tjugum, who was part of the Norwegian national team that won one World Championship, one European Championship, two European Cups and a number of silver and bronze medals. She says:

“Sometimes I have felt that I am an observer—I just watch what happens. This is a good feeling. It is a very beautiful feeling; it is not that I feel I don’t have control. But it goes by itself—in reality I do not have to initiate anything at all. Extremely here and now—nothing else matters.”

These statements are similar to those the researchers gathered from other top-class performers, both among the musicians and the business leaders. As seen, they found a significant difference amongst the top performers and controls on several quantitative measures.

“Therefore, there must be some common inner attributes and processes that make top performers able to deliver at top level, regardless of profession or activity,” says Travis. “We found this common inner dimension to be what we called higher mind-brain development.”

Higher mind-brain development includes that various aspects and parts of the brain work together in an integrated way. Among world-class performers this integration is especially well developed.

Presenting a New Theory

The researchers have developed a new theory, a Unified Theory of Performance, which suggests that higher levels of mind-brain development form a platform for higher performance, regardless of profession or activity.

“It seems like these mind-brain variables represent a fundamental potential for being good, really good, in the particular activity one has decided to carry out,” says Harung.

For all three recent studies the researchers also found that top-level performers outscored the control groups in a test of moral development. Higher moral development implies an expanded awareness where one is able to satisfy the interests of other people and not just their own needs. Harung finds it remarkable that high levels of performance, in a wide spectrum of activities, are connected to high moral standards.

“This should give an extra push to act morally, in addition to a better self-image, fewer sleepless nights and a good reputation,” Dr. Harung says. “The key to top-level performance, therefore, seems to be that we make more use of our inherent capabilities.”

Implications of the Research

The discovery that the brains of world-class performers have similar characteristics raises some important questions, such as: 1) Is there a way one can develop one’s brain to have more of these characteristics and thereby perform at a higher level? And 2) Can measuring a person’s brain predict the potential for someone to be a world-class performer?

These and other researchers have actively explored whether meditation techniques, for example, can help to actively cultivate one’s brain. Research by Dr. Travis and others has found that Transcendental Meditation practitioners do have greater EEG coherence, greater presence of alpha waves, and, in some advanced practitioners, a very efficiently functioning brain. A coherent brain is a high-performing brain.

In addition, researchers have been exploring possible applications to predict performance ability in general and leadership ability in particular. For example, if a corporation has preliminarily selected five candidates for its CEO position, the above measures could be administered to aid in the final decision. Or these measures can be used to assess the effectiveness of training or education in increasing an individual’s performance capacity.

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Scientific Literature

1. Harung, H. S., Travis, F., (2012) Higher mind-brain development in successful leaders: testing a unified theory of performance. Cognitive Processing Vol 13, Number 2, 171-181, DOI: 10.1007/s10339-011-0432-x

2. Harung, H. S. (2012). Illustrations of Peak Experiences during Optimal Performance in World-class Performers: Integration Eastern and Western Insights. Journal of Human Values, 18(1), 33-52, doi:10.1177/097168581101800104

3. Travis, F., Harung, H. S., & Lagrosen, Y. (2011). Moral Development, Executive Functioning, Peak Experiences and Brain Patterns in Professional and Amateur Classical Musicians: Interpreted in Light of a Unified Theory of Performance. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(4), 1256-1264

4. Harung, H.S., Travis, F., Pensgaard, A. M., Boes, R., Cook-Greuter, S., Daley, K. (2011). Higher psycho-physiological refinement in world-class Norwegian athletes: brain measures of performance capacity. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, Vol 21, Issue 1, pages 32, February 2011, doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2009.01007.x

5. Harung, H. S., Heaton, D. P., Graff, W. W., & Alexander, C. N. (1996). Peak performance and higher states of consciousness: A study of world-class performers. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 3-23

Related Articles

New study sheds light on “peak experiences” in world-class performers | New research looks at brain integration in top athletes and in long-time meditators | ‘Brilliant minds’—New Research on the Brain State of Virtuoso Musicians and How it Relates to TM | ScienceDaily: Musicians’ Brains Highly Developed | Freakonomics: Do Musicians Have Better Brains?

Source: EurekAlert!

Latest Study

Does Practice Make Perfect Or Are Some People More Creative Than Others? Study finds brain integration correlates with greater creativity in product-development engineers. The study was discussed on TMHome: Brain integration, the key to creativity, citing Medical News Today’s report on the study. Science writer Fiona Macrae had some questions for researchers Fred Travis and Yvonne Lagrosen before she completed her article for The Daily Mail: Forget ‘practice makes perfect’ – meditation is the key to success, study claims.

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Posted in Articles, Education, Health, Music, Sports | 4 Comments »

A Wake-Up Haiku

May 31, 2012

A koan is an unsolvable riddle meant to stop a Zen meditator’s analytical mind from thinking, and hopefully transition into a state of no-thought, the state of transcendence. There is a classic Zen koan meant to do just that, which asks the question: What is the sound of one hand clapping? Here is one tongue-in-cheek answer meant to enlighten or wake you up.

A Wake-Up Haiku

Solve this Zen koan:
The sound of one hand clapping?
A slap in the face!

© Ken Chawkin, May 30, 2012, Fairfield, Iowa

Luckily there is a simpler way—the effortless practice of Transcendental Meditation, which allows the conscious thinking mind to transcend. With the help of a mantra, a specific harmonious suitable meaningless thought-sound, together with step-by-step instructions from a qualified TM teacher, the mind naturally, effortlessly settles down to lesser and lesser states of mental activity, to the least excited state of awareness, when the thought drops off, leaving the mind without an object of attention, yet deeply restful and alert, fully awake inside. This inner unbounded wakefulness is the basis for all clarity, energy, and creativity after meditation.

TM allows the mind to experience its own essential nature beyond thought—transcendental consciousness or pure awareness, called turiya in Sanskrit, a 4th major state of consciousness at the basis of the other 3 relative states of consciousness—waking, dreaming and sleeping. With regular practice, over time, a natural integration occurs in the nervous system as it unfolds its inherent ability to live the two states simultaneously—a 5th style of functioning called Cosmic Consciousness. With continued practice, utilizing advanced techniques, including the TM-Sidhi program, the evolution of even two more states of consciousness develop—a 6th, God Consciousness, a refined experience of the 5th; and ultimately a 7th, Unity Consciousness, where the individual is truly universal.

Related posts: Words—a poem on the nature of words and mind | Upon waking uP by Ken Chawkin | Are all meditation techniques the same? | John Hagelin — “Only Higher Consciousness Can Transform Our World” — Beyond Awakening Blog and THP: How Meditation Techniques Compare.

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Donovan and Deepak talk about meditation, music, on abc carpet & home via livestream

May 2, 2012

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images

Here’s an online streaming event with Donovan and Deepak talking about the old days with Maharishi, Transcendental Meditation, The Beatles, and the music from the 60’s. Thanks to Linda, Donovan’s wife and muse, for suggesting Donovan be on this special event: http://livestre.am/1IWyp on abc carpet & home via @livestream.

Also see: Donovan shares his excitement and fulfillment after playing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | Billboard interview: Donovan Q&A: Catching Up With a Folk Rock Superman | Ode to Donovan by Meghan for Altavoz: Conan introduces Donovan while holding the DLF Music vinyl box-set “Music That Changes The World” | Donovan Inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | Donovan and Ben Lee on Good Day LA | The former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunion for David Lynch’s benefit concert airs on New York’s THIRTEEN, Sunday, April 29

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A Tribute to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

June 16, 2010

A Tribute To The TM Guru

By: newagephilosopher

Mahesh Yogi was a genius, who formulated the Seven States of Consciousness. He founded the rationale and methodology for generating higher states of Consciousness.

Dr Keith Wallace, ex President of MIU, defined Enlightenment as the full development of Consciousness, depending on the harmonious functions of every part of the human body. He said that India is the home of the most profound knowledge and procedures for the development of Physiology.

What the ancients meant by Supreme Knowledge, Jnana, was that state of perfect order, zero entropy, he says in his article The Neurophysiology of Enlightenment. In his PhD Thesis The Physiological Effects of Transcendental Meditation, he conclusively proved the existence of a Fourth Major State of Consciousness.

Here is an abstract of a study posted in the sessions at the Lucidity Associations Conference on Higher States of Consciousness in Chicago in 1990.

Vedic psychology, as presented by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, delineates seven major states of consciousness (Maharishi, 1972). The daily cycle of waking, dreaming, and sleeping constitute the three ordinary changing states of consciousness. In addition, Maharishi’s Vedic psychology describes an invariant sequence of higher stages of consciousness. The fourth state of consciousness, termed transcendental consciousness (TC), is characterized as a content-free state of restful alertness, the ultimate ground state of the mind, pure consciousness (Maharishi, 1969). In this state, awareness becomes completely self-referral consciousness, has nothing other than itself in its structure (Maharishi, 1986, p. 27). Maharishi describes TC as follows:

This is a state of inner wakefulness with no object of thought or perception, just pure consciousness [TC], aware of its own unbounded nature. It is wholeness, aware of itself, [Self-awareness] devoid of differences, beyond the division of subject and object, transcendental consciousness (Maharishi, 1977, p. 123).

TC is held to be as distinct from the ordinary waking state as waking is from dreaming or sleeping. Recent research reviews have identified over twenty physiological correlates distinguishing TC from simple relaxation, sleeping, dreaming and waking (See Alexander and Boyer, 1989; Alexander, Cranson, Boyer and Orme-Johnson, 1986; Wallace, 1986; for a complete review).

He had given millions the experience of Transcendental Consciousness and his contribution to humanity was immense.

He took Indian Philosophy far and wide and made Geetha one of the most popular books ever! May his soul rest in Peace!

He defined the Geetha as the Lamp lit by the Lord at the altar of humanity, redeeming Man from Ignorance! He travelled far and wide with the message of Vedic Wisdom and was adored by Nobel Laureates and intellectuals. He was one of the greatest sons of India!

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

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