24 August 2005 Press Conference Highlights

Opening Remarks

Maharishi: ‘Jai Guru Dev. We have been saying the same thing, and we will continue the same thing. Our practical programme to create harmony, integrity, and coherence in the national consciousness of every country is continuing, and the day will not be far when we will have the real goal achieved. That means that countries will not be fighting together.’ . . .

‘It is the system of administration that influences the life of the people. For how many centuries have people been trying this system of administration, that system of administration? In the end, they are hung up with this system of administration which divides the nation. It is those countries which are living in wrong Vastus. Examine the entrances of the parliaments and where the prime ministers or whoever is in charge of the countries are living. Look at their entrances and you will see they are not built according to the ancient system of laying out the buildings—Vastu buildings. They are not living in Vastu buildings. 

‘I remember Dr Hagelin said the other day that the President of the US is entering from the south gate. If he is entering from a wrong direction, see what he is doing. It is very evident. In every city, people do not need any scientific research. You look into every city. In every city, wherever the houses are facing south, there will be unrest in the house, all difficulties, and problems. On those streets where the houses are facing east, there will be harmony, happiness, and prosperity.
 
‘You can verify this in your own towns; you do not need any other criteria. Nobody should tell you; you find out for yourself. You find out from your own home, where you are living. Find out if you are living with a south entrance or west entrance or southern slope or western slope. Then you will be shrouded with this case and that unrest and that conflict and with fears. There will not be restfulness either in the head of the family or in the children. All this you can verify for yourself.  

‘I have been watching for about the last ten years that even those people who have been practicing the Transcendental Meditation Technique and have peace of mind, somehow, had unrest in the house—the children were fighting or something was happening. Then I found out that these people were living in wrong Vastus. Vastu is a system of laying out houses. It has its own mathematical calculations and directions—north, south, east, west, and all that.
 
‘I also found that thousands of teachers of Transcendental Meditation have been trained, but very few of them are teaching. All of them realize the greatness of it, but very few of them are teaching. The reason was that they were living in a wrong Vastu and could not think properly. Their thinking will be tangential; their logic will be off the straight lines.
 
‘I have asked all our teachers, if they want to be successful, to get out of their wrong houses absolutely, quickly. Even if they have to live in caravans, they should lay out the caravans so that the entrance is on the east at least. There is no way you can be peaceful by living in a wrong Vastu. There is no way. Whatever you do, there will be lack of peace, there will be lack of health, there will be lack of relationships, there will be lack of everything.

‘So we started this Global Reconstruction—reconstruction of the world. When we looked to palaces, when we looked to the great buildings of wealthy people, and the very strongly built buildings of the capitals of the governments, they all are wrongly laid out. It is no use saying their names. Every government building is very beautifully built by great famous architects. Those who built it built with big stones and very good, beautiful marble, but the buildings are facing in the wrong direction. So the minds of the administrators, the mind of the president, and the mind of the prime minister are completely off the track.’ . . .
 
‘We do whatever we can, and do it as quickly as we can. But what can we do?  As long as the people are living in wrong Vastus, whatever we do from outside will not rid them of the influence of the wrong Vastu. Then I always remember: “One has to carry one’s own cross.” No one else can carry anyone else's cross.
 
‘We are shouting without stopping [laughter]. Meditation is one thing; fine, meditation is one thing. That is the mental approach. Now we are asking the people to go for organic food and avoid poison. But there are countries that say, “Our factories must run. It doesn’t matter that they are producing poison, but we must sell poisons.” They create salesmen to sell poison to the people. This is because they are—they appear to be—human beings but are completely inhuman. They are living wrongly. What can they do? Their parents are living that way; they are living that way. That is how their brain has developed. 

‘I remember in a few countries for three generations of the governments, I have been telling them and telling them. For generations in India, I have been telling them and telling them. Who hears? Who can understand the voice, if they do not understand? But when we see the people running into the flames, we weep for them. We shout to them, “Wait, wait, don’t go, don’t go.” But they are running into the flames. We weep, seeing them burn. What can we do? 

‘The conclusion in my mind is to do what we ourselves can do; do what we can do and do not think much of anything else. Whatever coherence we can create in any country that will be our contribution for creating coherence in the national consciousness.
 
‘Governments are not in a position to hear. There are great statements by the fathers of the nation and somewhere mothers of the nation. They wish that all good should happen to their people, but they do not know what to do from the administrative point of view. The whole thing is a very bankrupt system with man-made constitutions. Now we are bringing the eternal Constitution of the Universe.’ . . .

‘We still have hope in a hopeless world. [laughter] We are trying to gather groups very soon, very soon. But the destiny of the people does not allow us to light the big lamp so quickly that immediately the deep darkness would simply disappear. It is the fate of the people.
 
‘Still I am hopeful; I am continuing. I have asked the world press so many times to tell their governments that overnight they can be invincible—overnight they can be invincible. Governments have so many schools, as Dr Hagelin just said. From these schools, if just a a few thousand students practiced Yogic Flying, within three months every government could rise to invincibility. Government can do anything, but their brains function differently, because they are working in non-Vastu buildings.
 
‘World press, help them. Help them. Tell them that phrase which they know, but tell them a thousand times once again, “The taste of the pudding is in eating. The taste of the pudding is in eating. Demolish your present building and build a new building, and then taste how the nation begins to thrive in economy, in trade, in relations, in everything.”  

‘Give this message to every government. It is not necessary to be angry with them, because if a man is rushing on to hell, you cannot stop him. He is running and rushing to get into the gates of hell. What can you do? Inform him before he starts in that direction. Tell him, “You are divine inside, you are cosmic inside, you are universal inside. Your soul is a Unified Field. You are bliss inside, you are a flow of bliss, you are a flow of total Natural Law. You are invincible, you are powerful, you are integrated.” Tell him these things a thousand times. Writing it once will not be enough. Keep on writing it every day, every day, every day. Keep on advising them in the name of God, in the Light of God—total Natural Law.
 
‘What else can we do? We can only tell them. But do not worry, the time is soon coming. We are going ahead day and night.
 
‘The Global Country of World Peace, as Dr Hagelin defines it, is a country without borders, a home of all the peace-loving people in the world—a concept. A country is a concept; any country is a concept. We have conceived of a country without borders, because we see every country with borders fighting with each other on the border. So let’s have a country without borders. We have a country without borders. It is an umbrella for all the countries within boundaries. Every country within boundaries has the protection of the umbrella of the Global Country of World Peace. We are proud of an imaginary Global Country [laughter], but that imaginary Global Country is bringing permanent peace.
 
‘At one time, a very good thought came to me, and the thought was: a man says, “How many good things can I do? Everyone tells me that this is good, this is good, this is good. How many good things can I do?” This was the logic of a man who would not do anything that he hears to be good, because everyone says, “This is good, this is good, this is good.” He has heard thousands of good things. Now [laughter] how many good things can he have? This is one of his reasons. The intelligence of these people is interesting. They say, “It’s a very good thing; everyone says this is good. How can I go by all the good that I hear?” Very interesting logic [laughter], but it does not matter.

‘Just as people like to do wrong things, we like to do right things. We think this is right, this is right, this is right, and our thing is very powerful, really very powerful. It is going to produce effects, and it won’t be very long until we will have a neater world, a cleaner world. Then the press will be the first beneficiary. The press will not have to report dirty things, wrong things, ugly things. The press will always report better things—better and better and better.
 
‘Let’s have questions, if there are any. One answer to all questions is: You do not have to wait very long. Very soon, we are going to have that floodlight where there will there be no darkness in any corner of the world and no negativity in any corner of the world. Every country will be peaceful, harmonious, homogeneous, and really enjoy freedom in invincibility—one word, “invincibility”.

‘Now that we have started the reconstruction of the world, and this construction is being given to the builders of the world. Builders always want orders. We say, “Now you build, you build, you build.” That is their profession; that is their hobby. So those people, who have the hobby of building, are invited to build. They will make a lot of money. Those, who change their homes to Vastu homes, will make money in their own home. All wealth will come to them, peace will come to them, bliss will come to them. A blossoming family will come to them, and their children will not fall sick. All those nice things that we know will be in every home, will be in every society. It will not take a long time. Before the year ends—before 2005 ends—we will have a lot of renewal of our problem-ridden world.

‘Dr Hagelin is reminding the world and reminding the world press, week after week, “Let’s go this way.” It does not matter, we are going that way with our fleet—we are going. We are not alone. We are with millions of people, but we want more people. We want a group of a few thousand in every country.
 
‘What we have seen is that a lot of countries, particularly poor countries, have a lot of land. From the land, the development of agriculture—organic agriculture—will improve the economy of the poor countries, and they will be better off.
 
‘We are awakening all the people, rich or poor. A man is a man, whether he is wealthy or not, but his Self is the Unified Field. The Self of everyone is the Unified Field. That is the source of all integrity. The Meissner Effect has been mentioned, but how many people know the Meissner Effect? It doesn’t matter. They will understand lack of sickness and lack of all negativity. They will all be better and better and better. 

‘Let’s see, if we want to pause on the questions or you can assure them, Dr Hagelin. You have been assuring them all the time [laughter]. One thing of great satisfaction is that this dawn is rising, and soon, not very long, we will have the midday sun. There we rejoice, because the knowledge is completely unhindered. It is there. It is only a matter of some groups in every country, here and there.

‘The world is destined to be a right world, a glorious world, a peaceful, happy world. We want the flow of bliss in every behaviour and in every thought of every person in every country. Globally we want grand, unified nations—a grand, unified world. It is going to happen. 

‘So reassure them, and if there is any new question, it will be a joy to answer it.’

Question: Capital Building Orientation and Governmental Failure

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi, for this very beautiful introduction that gave deep insights into the mechanics of the transformation of the whole world.
 
‘Maharishi, there are questions from the press. The first question comes from the editor of the Patriot News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is the capital of Pennsylvania. He found His Holiness’s comments about government building orientation to be fascinating and worth sharing with his newspaper readers. He says, “The main entrance of our ninety-nine-year-old state capitol building faces west. The House and Senate chambers have members facing south and north, respectively. Since July 7th this year, when our lawmakers voted to increase the salaries of all three branches of the government, taxpayers across our state have been outraged and are demanding them to rescind the pay raise that comes at a time when other public services are being cut. Does His Holiness feel that the building orientation and layout may be at the root cause of this public unrest? Considering that we will celebrate our capitol’s centennial—hundred-year—anniversary next year, does Maharishi really think we should abandon our historic and beautiful State House and build new?” ’ 

Maharishi: ‘Absolutely, abandon it overnight. Look to the history of the last hundred years. That building has not allowed government to be successful. For every year out of the hundred years, go back to the history, and you will find the government has been a failure. This won’t be only in one instance, there will be ninety-nine years of instances of failure of the government in that building. Trace the history of it.

‘Absolutely, abandon it quickly. Then the government—the same government—will thrive, and the same people will thrive. If you do not abandon it now, abandon it in the next generation. Then the next generation will thrive. If you continue with this building, you will count every year as the failure of the government. There is no way for the government to be successful if the entrances are, as you describe, in the south and west and all that. Absolutely, absolutely, tell them.’

Question: Practicality of Working Less and Maintaining Material Comfort

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi. There’s a major medical study out this week which found that the world has become a culture of long hours of overwork, and that this culture is literally killing people. People are dying younger from working too hard. I know that Maharishi advocates shorter hours of work and longer time spent in meditation. But many people work hard out of fear that they will lose their job and will lose their ability to provide the best quality education for their children, the best health care for their family, and so forth. My question for Maharishi is: In today’s pressure-packed world, does Maharishi feel it is truly practical for an individual to work less and still be able to maintain his level of material comfort and security?’ 

Maharishi: ‘Absolutely. Success belongs to the power of thought. If the power of thought is powerful, then all avenues of achieving anything would gather around one. If the thought force is powerful, then it is like when an arrow is fully drawn back on the bow, it goes very fast and hits the target. If you do not pull it back—you pull it a little bit—then the arrow will fall down near you. If the mind is consciously aware of its source, if the thought is projected from its source—the Unified Field, the transcendental field of consciousness—then it is surcharged with tremendous energy and intelligence. Then total Natural Law serves you. You can imagine how much you can accomplish when total Natural Law, which governs the universe, supports your single thought. You can accomplish anything from thought.

‘Accomplishment depends upon the power of thought. The power of thought depends upon how much your awareness is drawn from within. If your awareness is drawn from the transcendental field, then it is surcharged with tremendous energy and intelligence, and the thought force will bring fulfilment through the power of total Natural Law.
 
‘The theory is very simple, the philosophy is very simple, the practice is very simple. But again I would say, if one is living in a bad Vastu, one would hear these words but not be able to put them to practice, because there is some force which is preventing one from being successful. That is called “luck”.  

‘That is why we have asked the builders of the world to build lucky homes, to build fortune-creating homes. For a builder, it is just nothing. Instead of tilting the building, he could build it straight—north, south, east, west—and that is all. The whole thing is simple.

‘The wrong layout of the building offends the harmony of Nature. This offended harmony cannot be soothed; you cannot overcome it. Natural Law is a powerful thing that governs the universe. If you can make all your movements, all your relationships, all your activities according to that, it is ready to push you forward to any extent. If you are mischievous about it, and you do not follow it, then you have no grace with Natural Law.

‘The word “fortune” or “luck” is with reference to support of Natural Law or no support of Natural Law. If you eat non-organic food, if you take poison inside, then whatever is the result, you have to bear with it. If you eat organic food, the results are good health, vitality.  

‘All life depends on each individual. The individual depends upon how the parents have educated him. That is all that the individual knows. So it is for the parents to nourish their children in a proper way. “A proper way” means at least according to Natural Law. Be simple, be natural—simplicity, naturalness—and follow all the etiquette of building a house and eating proper food, etc.
 
‘Civilization is going to be better through our Vedic Education, Vedic Health Care, Vedic style of building houses—Vedic everything. “Vedic” means full of Veda. “Full of Veda” means full of knowledge. “Full of knowledge” means in complete alliance with total Natural Law. Natural Law is a tremendously powerful force and tremendously powerful intelligence.’

Question: Vedic Techniques for Healthy Brain Functioning

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi. This is a question that seems to be on many people’s minds, because the Associated Press has reported this week on several recent brain studies showing that people with an active brain who have a good education, intellectually stimulating jobs, read books, etc., stay mentally alert and healthy throughout their life. For that reason, doctors are now prescribing mental gymnastics to keep the brain active and healthy in later years. Would Maharishi please comment on how his Vedic techniques, such as Transcendental Meditation and the TM-Sidhi Programme, can be used to exercise the brain and keep it healthy? Or does it work on a completely different principle?’ 

Maharishi: ‘The principle is that of bringing the emptiness, nothingness, unmanifest, zero to our conscious awareness. Our conscious mind should be held up, suspended, in the unmanifest. No space-time boundaries are there—nothing is there. The unmanifest—all that you call zero-point motion—is the experience of the Transcendental Consciousness. You transcend all relative experiences and let the mind be on its own, self-referral intelligence. That self-referral intelligence is hung up in its own self-referral, non-relative, absolute state of unmanifest—complete unmanifest. Only this experience engages the total brain.
 
‘Any experience in space-time boundaries does not use the total brain. The total brain only comes to function when there is the awareness of transcendental wholeness, which is the awareness of infinity, unboundedness, transcending all space-time boundaries. “Unmanifest” is the word—unmanifest. An example is when all the waves of the ocean have settled down, the ocean is completely silent in itself. The experience of this engages the total brain. Therefore, in an experience of unity—“unity” means unified values of all possible diversities—in that silence is the togetherness of all diversities, but in one state of unity.
 
‘The experience of Transcendental Consciousness alone—a hundred times underline the word “alone”—the experience of this alone engages the total brain. Only in this experience of unboundedness does the total brain come to function. As the conscious mind experiences this repeatedly, more and more often, it uses more and more of the full brain. Therefore, the use of the full brain becomes a habit. Through this practice over and over, again and again, the use of the full brain becomes habituated, then every thought will have some of this contained in it. The thought will be in space-time boundaries, but the flow of every thought will have the memory of that total unboundedness. Therefore, every thought will be supported by total brain functioning.
 
‘This is the procedure which we want everyone to have, and which we want parents to give to the children from ten, twelve, fifteen years of age, so that in two, three, four years, their conscious mind becomes habituated through practice. “Habituated” means habituation in total brain functioning. It should become a habit. That means always, through every thought, day and night. If a thought comes, it comes on that level utilizing the total brain.
 
‘It is so simple. Everyone who practices Transcendental Meditation knows it is so simple. It is so simple. That is why we hope to be able to have a few thousand people engaged in this. It will be a perpetual situation in a country if the government does it. But the governments do not seem to be coming forward, so we are creating such a situation. The only difficulty for us is that we want it to happen as soon as possible. So we are speeding up our performance in this country and in that country. If we focus on one, two, three countries, at least in those countries, we will be quick. But that will not satisfy us, so we are going ahead with as many possibilities as possible and spreading our force, whatever it is, in all directions.
 
‘Now the builders have come; we have involved builders in it. The builders will bring a lot of money. Builders will earn a lot of money, and they will donate to our charitable organization, to world peace, nationally and internationally. There will be lot of money, and we will be able to engage a lot of people. They will practice Yogic Flying and will create coherence. With that coherence created, there will be more sensible thinking on the part of everyone in society, including the government and all.  That is our programme. We hope we can achieve it quickly. We are all right on our way.’  

Question: Mechanics of Anticipating Future Trends

Dr Hagelin: ‘Several years ago, Maharishi began pointing out the hazards of modern medicine, and more recently, the flaws of democracy. Now, suddenly, the dangers of modern medicine are being reported everywhere, and there is a growing awareness about the dangers of democracy. Now Maharishi has begun to highlight the hazards of the improper layout of homes and buildings. Based on past experience, I have no doubt that the layout of houses will soon become a big issue with the public as well. My question is: How can an enlightened person, such as Maharishi, anticipate in advance, trends that no one else is able to see at the time? What are the mechanics of seeing or anticipating the future?’ 

Maharishi: ‘The future is dependent on the present. Every step we take, we take on the basis of the present level of world consciousness. Whatever Natural Law comes along, we take that step, and then take that step, and then take that step, because we go by Natural Law—simple, simple, unadulterated simple. We follow Natural Law.

‘Dr Hagelin, you have very beautifully summarized all these years in these three, four steps. This has actually happened. And how did it happen? It happened naturally. We have inaugurated Sat Yuga on the last full moon, and then it began to happen. It will happen; it should happen. Now, this Vastu must happen. Only, gradually, gradually, people should know, people should know, people should know.
 
‘Our criteria is very simple: look to your own city, your own states. Look to the houses in the east or north or south, and conclude yourself how long you want to live immersed in difficulties. You have the freedom to do it. [laughter] We give the people themselves the ability to diagnose. They diagnose and decide how long they want to remain in that situation or quickly come out of it. 

‘In Ayur Veda, there is a system of diagnosis by feeling one’s own pulse. You feel your pulse, and you know how much off balance the pulse is. So we say, in this case of knowledge, you can feel it yourself. You do not need anyone’s opinion or advice. Look at it and then decide how long you want to live in the mud, or you can rise above the mud like a lotus. The whole thing is so beautiful.

‘You can come out of the mud, because nobody likes that. It is just a matter of the total atmosphere, which has a great influence on the individual. We are aiming at purifying the total atmosphere. Harmony and positivity will be in the national consciousness of every country and in world consciousness, through these big groups. We are finding our way to create big groups, even though it is not happening so quickly. We cannot attribute it to our lack of effort, but to the lack of luck of the world. It is due to the lack of luck of the world that it is not going so fast. But it is enjoyable, this way or that way. We are on the right way.’