29 December 2004 Press Conference Highlights

Opening Remarks

Maharishi: ‘Jai Guru Dev. Invincibility to every nation, prevention from problems, prevention from suffering, prevention from negativity, prevention from the failures and shortcomings of human endeavour—the knowledge is with us. We have been proclaiming this to the world repeatedly and repeatedly. Those who have taken to it are starting to enjoy the fruit. 

‘I welcome the coming year to be helpful to life on earth. I hope with the positivity, harmony, and coherence rising in the world consciousness, through these peace creating groups of Yogic Flyers in different countries, life on earth will be free from suffering, problems, and failures. We have been repeating the same message for the last four, five decades in the world, and the same message will continue until the governments have heard.  

‘Now I welcome the influence of the world press to bring the message of enlightenment—Total Knowledge—to every individual in our world and invincibility to every nation in our world. Whatever life has been so far, it has been endeavouring to be better and better. Now should be the time to step onto the plateau of the fulfilment of all the endeavours of the wise throughout the ages. We welcome the press to welcome the New Year with a renewed, fresh wave of total Natural Law—the knowledge of total Natural Law, the will of God—in every nation.  

‘If there are any questions, we will have the delight of looking into those questions. But now enough has been said during the past fifty years. If still there are questions, we are ready to welcome the inquirers.  

‘It is a very good, very clear message from the greatest scientist in the world—not only scientist, but well-wisher of human life on earth—Dr John Hagelin. He is one of the most noble scientists, who is working for the Peace Government to establish an administration as efficient and orderly as the administration of the ever-expanding galactic universe. There will not be diversity bigger than the diversity of the universe. That holistic value of Natural Law administers the diversity of the ever-expanding universe. That administration is the administration in absolute silence, because only absolute silence can be all-pervading. In the modern terminology of physical sciences, Dr Hagelin informs us that it is called the field of total Natural Law, the Unified Field. The Unified Field is an open door to all possibilities on the level of the individual and on the collective level of groups of individuals, the collective level of the nations. 

‘The past of mankind has been in search of that field where suffering will have to be faced by no one and where happiness, bliss, and all possibilities will belong to everyone. That is our delightful possession—that field of knowledge which is the possession of the Vedic communities in India. This Vedic Knowledge, the knowledge of the Constitution of the Universe, the Veda, is lively in itself, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, total Natural Law, the Self of everyone.

‘The Transcendental Meditation Programme and its advanced techniques, leading to Yogic Flying, give the proof that man’s awareness is functioning on a level where it commands the basic energy and intelligence of Nature, the transcendental field of consciousness—all about it. “All about it” means the science and technology of it is there in the Vedic Literature and in the Vedic families of India.  

‘We are trying to revive this most precious knowledge whereby the whole world consciousness could be purified to the extent of no negativity and no suffering to anyone. Here is the programme. Once again, we are repeating it towards the end of this year and welcoming the New Year with a new light of life on the ground of total Vedic Knowledge.

‘It only needs a few hundred or a few thousand—even small youngsters, 15, 20, 30 year-old youngsters. They have to be engaged for life. This should be done by those who understand the words “enlightenment to the individual and invincibility to the nation”, the wealthiest people in the world for their own sake, and the governments for their own sake.  

‘I am inviting the governments to get away from warmongering because “as you sow, so shall you reap.” This is an invitation. I invite the world press to inform the warmonger nations that to sell their arms in the world and earn money and earn their livelihood from that money, which destroys life, is not good money. Value life on its level. Do not value life on the basis of money—how many billion this and how many billion that. All these are fraudulent words. Life is much more than any amount of money.  

‘Those countries who are living, who are earning their livelihood, earning their bread, from destructive means, get out of it, and you will be rewarded by Nature; or remain in it, and you will see the consequences of it. Put an end to this with the ending of this year, and have a neat, clean, bright and brilliant future for your own people and for the people of the world. . . . 

‘The governments worthy the name should prevent the problems of the nation. Prevention of problems does not need money. It needs withdrawal from the outside and exploration in the inner Unified Field, bringing the value of infinite order from inside to outside. . . .
 
‘We offer to the world what we have. We have abundance—infinite positive influence. In our own Self, we have the knowledge. We have been teaching the individuals, and now we want to create groups in every nation—just a thousand, two thousand people in every country—and the whole country will have a positive trend, a trend worthy of human beings. 

‘In ignorance, one could do anything. But it is a fraudulent level of notion which these governments are maintaining. We have been inviting the governments, and we will continue to invite these governments. . . . Only the light will eliminate darkness. Only the increase of positivity will eliminate negativity and destruction in the world.  

‘We want to remain on the positive side, and we are informing everyone every week, every day, every night, every hour, every minute of our life that there is a chance for every individual to rise to enlightenment, and there is a chance for every nation to rise to invincibility. With this, we welcome the New Year. 

‘If there are any questions, I will be happy to answer.’

Question: Number Required to Create World Coherence

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi, for that very beautiful, very compelling, very moving introduction to today’s press conference. There are a few questions, Maharishi, from the press on a variety of subjects—deep knowledge and the practical implementation of the knowledge.

‘Maharishi has said that an enlightened individual is the master of total Natural Law—the infinite organizing power that administers the infinite diversity of the ever-expanding universe with perfect order. If that is the case, why does it require 8,000 such enlightened individuals—the square root of one percent of the world’s population—to create coherence for the world, and not just 800 or eight or even one? Are there limits to what any one person can do for the world, even if he is enlightened?’ 

Maharishi: ‘Even one does the same thing as many do, but round about the one lots of negative things and lots of muddle are floating around in the atmosphere due to wrong doing, negative doing. That is why it needs a few. If the hall is big, it needs a few candlelights, maybe a hundred candlelights. Up against a hundred candlelights, one candlelight has its influence, but with a hundred it is capable of intensifying that influence, as with a group.

‘This group is just nothing. In the midst of 25 million people, 500 people are just nothing. It is as good as one single individual. From all the experiments done during the past so many decades in the world, we have come to understand that just a few people are needed. “A few” means the square root of one percent of the country’s population. It is a very insignificant number, but that insignificant number will be enough to influence the entire muddled influence in the whole national life. It is very necessary. Just the influence of one candlelight and a hundred candlelights, a hundred will certainly be more, but this is just nothing.  

‘We are teaching our children all mathematics, all geography, and history, etc., but we are not teaching them that level of invincibility in the transcendental field if we are not putting them to practise Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying. We are not putting them to that. When we do not introduce that neat and clean atmosphere of bliss and all possibilities, then we are not teaching them to make no mistakes. Then, when they make mistakes, we try to punish them. The whole thing has been a lack of knowledge—simple.  

‘Now, introduce this programme of enlightenment, and that means Total Knowledge in the mind and the intellect—Total Knowledge. With that Total Knowledge, the individual will be functioning from that level, the transcendental level which is the level of the field beyond boundaries—no boundaries. Then the influence of the individual will be unbounded—a frictionless flow for any thought of the individual. It will influence the whole universe, because that is the emission from the unmanifest field of eternal silence—peace.  

‘This is the peace which has come up to be recognized on the level of mathematically proven formulas, proving the existence of the Unified Field in one’s own consciousness. It is very systematically available to everyone within himself through these procedures of transcending and through these techniques of functioning in the transcendent. This we teach to the boys in one, two, three, four years. They begin to fly; they take off. Flying is the body lifting up in the air by virtue of a thought from the source of thought. This is the TM Sidhi Programme that demonstrates the command of the individual awareness over the force of gravity.  

‘Lifting up of the body is not something very ordinary. It has a command over the force of gravity: the body lifts up. This is the proof of our ability to function on that level which is completely free from inhibitions, completely free from resistance. Resistance-free functioning is universal functioning. You function here, and you want something there. But for that, it has to be that there are many in number. We have come to know this from the experience during so many years and experiments we have done, some on a small scale, here and there.  

‘It is on the basis of that proof that we are shouting from house tops that here is a programme for invincibility for every government, and we are proclaiming it. Those who do not understand, they cannot do it. But the knowledge is there, the programme is there, the technology is there, and the science is there. And we are there to train the people.  

‘Can anyone think what would be the price of the nation rising to invincibility—for just a few hundred people or a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand in these big countries like China and India and Russia? But it is the old people who sit as experienced politicians. Their experienced politics is useless. They are children in the field of politics.  

‘So the New Year comes with a new prevention-oriented administrative policy and efficiency. It is for this that the new administration has arisen with His Majesty Raja Raam, who has investigated pure life, pure consciousness, in everything that is physical. Every physical aspect of existence is nothing other than consciousness, and consciousness is self-referral, transcendental, the Unified Field.  

‘This is our possession. This knowledge is our possession on the basis of which we are going ahead, creating a beautiful world in our lifetime. This will be our gift to our children for all future.  

‘Consciousness: wherever there is physiology, there is essentially the Unified Field—Para Chetana, Unity Consciousness, pure consciousness, self-referral consciousness, which is Cosmic Consciousness, universal consciousness, Unity Consciousness. The ability to think from there is the ability to utilize at will the greatest administrative faculty of the universe, the greatest administrative element which is the field of consciousness, Vedic consciousness, total consciousness, Total Knowledge.  

‘Fortunately, even with all the distortions of these past centuries, there are still in the seed form these Vedic families of India who have custody of the Veda in their own thought, speech, action, and behaviour. It is very fortunate. With this remains of the seed of Total Knowledge, pure knowledge, it is possible for us to create a beautiful world. We are out to do so, and we hope the good will survive.  

‘Take a few questions, and invite all our best well-wishers of the world in our Movement, in education. In every field, we have Total Knowledge—total Vedic Knowledge—and we will train the people from that tradition of Vedic Knowledge and create a beautiful, beautiful united world—a beautiful united world. We do not bother to waste our time in seeing who has failed. The whole thing has been a failure. Now, on that, we build up a mansion of eternal success, total success, all-time success. The future of the world is in the good hands of invincible governments.’  

Question: Vedic Classroom Routine

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi, for that beautiful answer. There is a question on the subject of Vedic Education. Last week, Maharishi described the classroom routine for a Vedic School—40 minutes of study followed by 20 minutes of meditation. How will this frequent alternation between study and meditation enhance the learning process? What will be the effect of meditating so much in school?’

Maharishi: ‘The effect will be Total Knowledge to every student. Total Knowledge to every student means there is a field of behaviour which is one field, a field of thinking—the mind—another level, a field of intellect another level, and the field of Being is another level. If we only teach behavioural values, then we are not teaching the three values to them which are more basic—the thinking level, intellectual level, and Being level. 

‘This lecturing—the book knowledge, we call it—is a part of education. More basic to that is refining the intellect. The mind can think anything, so much, so much, so much. And then there is the element of intellect, which decides what should really be done—the intellectual level. The intellectual level needs postulation of what the mind has thought about. So whatever the lecturer has given them—the new knowledge of this, this, this—he then helps them to understand. This is done by questions and answers, questions and answers. The students have to be intellectually awake and their intellects sharpened.  

‘But there is still a more basic level of thought, which is a quiet level, silent level, peaceful level—the source of thought which is the field of Being. This is the Unified Field. This is experience on its own level. It is not on the level of surface level that one can have the benefit of it. One has to be it.

‘The example will be: just as you get the information that you have in that room your treasury—one information. Then someone has to convince you, or you have to be convinced, that there is a treasury. But “there is a treasury” becomes real only when you go there, when you are in the treasury. So many boxes are there, but when you are in the treasury, you see so many boxes full of this currency, that currency. That is the treasure. Now you have to open each of the boxes and see that there is that currency.
 
‘So that experience of the Unified Field is different from the information about the Unified Field. The Unified Field is intellectually grasped through the mathematical equations, and that satisfies the intelligence, satisfies the intellect. But you have to put it into practice that it is like that. If you do like that, then this will happen. This is the technology of it.  

‘So experience is the use of technology, and knowledge is the informatory confirmation. In the mind, there is information; in the intellect, there is confirmation. In the transcendental field, there is experience of Being.  

‘Without the experience of Being, knowledge is a laughing-stock. There is a great deal of glory to the knowledge of a glass of water, but if you have not taken the water, only talked about the water—you understand it can be vapour and it can be ice and it can be like this and it can be like that, it can be all possibilities—it will not bring satisfaction to your thirst. It will have to be through drinking only.  

‘So the drinking part is practising the Unified Field—Transcendental Meditation. Without that, it is talk about Transcendental Consciousness, the field of Total Natural Law. Talk is all right, but it is a talk, it is intellectual information. It must be put to practise in order to justify that what we have heard is real.
 
‘Now this has not been in education. This we introduce in our education, and then we have Total Knowledge. “Total Knowledge” means knowledge which will be practised through the senses, which will be thought about by the mind, which will be decided about by the intellect, and which will be completely soaked in from the transcendental field of Being. Then intellectual thinking, mental thinking, and experiencing through the senses—the whole thing—will be so fresh and tidy and alert. It will be surcharged with total possible intelligence and energy. That will mean living Total Knowledge, living totality of life—living totality of the will of God from the religious expression, Total Knowledge in the scientific expression, and the Self, living the Self from the Vedic terminology. 

‘This is going to be the daily routine in the Vedic University classes, whether they are the classes for the high school, college, master’s degree, or Ph.D. degree—any degree. Experience which is lacking in the present university education will be supplied, then the education will be of Total Knowledge, and the result will be a totally educated man.  

‘A totally educated man will not create mistakes on any level of thinking or behaviour or on the level of Being. He will be a living cosmic structure, a living cosmic intelligence, a living cosmic energy. This should be the education and this is going to be the education in our forthcoming universities, in the Vedic Universities, Ayurvedic Universities, Agriculture Universities—all these Vedic themes of gaining knowledge through different perspectives. But each perspective will lead onto all these levels of behaviour, thinking, understanding, and Being—Being through experience, experience, experience.  

‘We are very happy to give this to our children in our world so nobody will suffer, nobody would suffer, nobody need suffer. Human life is worth that—all bliss, all success, all fulfilment. The Sanskrit, Vedic expression for that is “Purnat Purnamudachyate”—from fullness, fullness emerges. Life flows, not from fullness to emptiness, but it flows from fullness to fullness, from fullness to fullness.  

‘Life is the flow of eternity. This is the message of this year. We can call it from the time of Christ, 2004, and then, the 2005th year is going to be the year of Total Knowledge—Enlightenment for the Individual and Invincibility for the Nation. Such a beautiful joy to open the door of all possibilities for all future.’