26 January 2005 Press Conference Highlights

Opening Remarks

Maharishi: ‘Jai Guru Dev. I wish one short lecture like this from Dr John Hagelin would be enough for the whole world for all times. This is like—you put on the finger and the switch is on. The whole thing is so practical, so simple, so systematic, so natural that there would not be the chance for anyone to miss it.  

‘The thing is that in the Vedic Literature, there is a word which is very, very important. The word is Smriti. “Smriti” means memory.
 
‘Now so many species are there in the world: insects, birds, animals—all those different species—and then the human species. It is known by everyone that the physiology, the brain physiology of every species, has a specific aptitude, a specific character, a specific display of Natural Law. Like a monkey—his brain physiology has that ability—jumps from branch to branch, from branch to branch. A tiger or any poisonous animal has that brain physiology that will have that memory. A tiger will always pounce upon someone, pounce upon, and kill someone.

‘All these species, in sequence, come up and appear in the human physiology. Those who have been a few times in the human physiology—a few generations—gain more and more of the divine character. When they are more and more animal character, then they are more the other kind of character.
 
‘Some people in the world belong to that kind of negative character: they would pounce upon everything, they would destroy everything, and destroy. They are so ingrained in their destructive capability that they enjoy doing it. They can only see destroying; they cannot be protective to anyone, because they are a different species. It is a different brain physiology.

‘This is the conclusion that I have come to finalize in my mind through all the fifty years of speaking out to the people and lecturing them, but even then, in our world we have those like scorpions who will always sting, all those like snakes who will always bite, and those like panthers and the tigers. They come from the animal kingdom very recently. They cannot understand anything other than what is fresh in their memory.

‘Therefore, I am coming to this conclusion, and it is in keeping with the tradition of Vedic wisdom. The tradition of Vedic wisdom says: do not give this knowledge without properly examining the deserving ability of the person. They say, “Masam Shanmasan Vatsaram”—test a man for six months, for one month, for six months, for one year, and then give him this knowledge.
 
‘When this is the ordainment of the path of wisdom, then that is absolutely true, and our experience also says, “Yes, it is true.” No matter what you tell a man, he is just not going to listen, because he cannot listen—he cannot understand. A tiger who always pounces on someone cannot have that tenderness of a rabbit. The rabbit will run softly here and there, but the tiger will jump upon it.
 
‘People coming from the animal kingdom to the human race are different species. Lots of people are there who, if they know something right, will go for it. And there are lots of people who know something right and will pounce on it—absolutely pounce. They think they are brave, they are brave—oh, absolutely brave—and “I will kill everyone.” They will find logic to destroy and logic to kill.  

‘But what has developed in our life experience is that just a small group of the right type of people, right type, can have their brains so trained as to have the memory of the supreme order that handles the administration of the whole galactic universe. Some people like that, in our hope, are sufficient to maintain order in nature. 

‘This is why I am about to come to the conclusion that telling the people, and hoping that they will do anything, is a mirage kind of thing. Do not waste time on a mirage. Just do what we can do ourselves; do not expect other people to do. Whatever is their fortune, whatever is their memory—memory is a great thing. It is just the memory that works in life. If one has a memory of something nice, he will do that nice thing, but there are people who will never do that thing. 

‘This is the time we can stop giving advice to the people and save our time from speaking and not worry about speaking, because we have been speaking—for years we have been speaking. A lot of people are following, some nice things have happened, but it is not enough, not enough.

‘So it is not the speech. I am coming to the conclusion that it is not the speech, but action that will do it. We are going to gather some nice people, some nice young men, in almost every country, and focus on Indian Vedic Pandit families. We will have a few groups of ten, twenty thousand people in some one country, and then produce the effect, rather than trying to waste our life through speeches. No?
 
‘This is the analysis of the world. Those coming from the animal kingdom in this generation—directly, like that—have to behave like that. We have to create a better world with some people other than those who are naughty and who are destructive. Do not worry about them. A scorpion will always sting—absolutely sting and sting and sting. So why worry about a scorpion? 

‘We can open to the world press. Mostly what the world press is doing is ringing the bell of eureka. If some destructive man says something, immediately it goes around the world. This is the world press: completely blind of their own responsibility. All the British press and American press today are a shame to human life and human intelligence. Every little thing, like the sting of a scorpion, they broadcast around the world, as if that is the only happening that is happening. This is the world press.
 
‘But we are doing what we can do. And we let the press do what they want to do—doesn’t matter. We can, rather than repeating the same message again and again, just keep quiet and let the press ask questions, if they have any questions. That will be the best use of our time, Dr Hagelin. What else we can say? See if there are any questions from the press.’

Question: Connecting the Constitution of the Universe to Human Law

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you, Maharishi, for that fascinating analysis of the situation in the world today. There is interest from the press in many areas—health and governance. Last week Maharishi described the Constitution of the Universe as non humanly conceived laws that run the infinite diversity of the universe with perfect order. Maharishi also described the humanly conceived laws as deeply flawed, filled with human weaknesses and failings that cause a “bundle of confusion for the world.” To bring order to this confusion, Maharishi said he is offering governments the technology to connect the Constitution of the Universe with human law. What kind of technology can make this connection, and is there an easy way to reap the benefit of orderly administration through Natural Law without rewriting the existing constitutions or dismantling the present institutions of government?’ 

Maharishi: ‘The Vedic University is the answer, which we are very actively busy establishing—Vedic University. What will the Vedic University do? It will take the attention of the students to Veda.  

‘What is Veda? Now we are defining Veda in terms of the law. There is humanly conceived law and, for want of a perfect word, we say divinely promoted law—divinely promoted law and humanly promoted law. Humanly promoted law is not as unbounded, unrestricted, and unlimited as divine law. Divine law is that which is administering the ever-expanding galactic universe. The ever-expanding galactic universe is governed with perfect order and always and always and eternally always in perfect order. That is the Constitution, we say, of the Veda, of the Universe—Constitution of the Universe.

‘Now you have raised a beautiful point here. Now let us see, where is the Constitution of the Universe with reference to anyone, with reference to so many hundreds of species and so many different kinds of people, of mankind—all those so many different kinds? Cosmic law governs the cosmos. The cosmos is not a stationary thing; it is an ever-expanding cosmos, an ever-expanding universe. The ever-expanding universe is administered so perfectly, absolutely perfectly. That is the Cosmic Constitution of life.

‘Where is the Cosmic Constitution in human life? The Cosmic Constitution in human life is that point. It opens a big range of knowledge of physiology on the ground of consciousness.  

‘Now the meeting point of the administration of individual life and the administration of cosmic life is in every man. And where is the meeting point? The meeting point is from where a syllable pops up. A syllable, a consonant, a vowel—“A”, “I”, “U”, these syllables—come out. There is a big, huge knowledge about this in the Vedic Literature. Even in modern physiology, there have been gestures about it. They run parallel, but the more precise and more accurate knowledge, which you can lay your fingers on, is in the field of Vedic expression.
 
‘Vedic language teaches Vedic vowels and consonants. Some of them have their origin in the pulsating throat maybe, some in the pulsating palate, some emerge from the lips, and some emerge from the nose. Like that, there are areas in the physiology whose pulsations pop up as syllables, sounds. These are the Vedic sounds.  

‘These Vedic sounds are the sounds originating from—now we are talking of consciousness—the deepest state of consciousness, silence, absolute silence, which is the field of emptiness. “Unmanifest” is the word—from the unmanifest level, which is unmanifest, transcendental, self-referral—unmanifest, self-referral, transcendental field of consciousness. Physics, chemistry, and mathematics—these modern scientific disciplines—have indicated it in terms of the Unified Field. In the Vedic Literature it is the state of Yoga, a state of union, a state of summation of everything—unity of all diversity. 

‘Unity or diversity—the silent level of the throat or the pulsating level of the throat. Now the pulsating level of the throat can say “A”, it can say “Ka”, it can say “I”, it can say “U”. All these varying values of the vowels and consonants of the language, they are the junction point of the individual consciousness and cosmic consciousness.
 
‘Here is the meeting point of the absolute order in the universe and the disorder, or we can say order in terms of the individual—order in terms of the ever expanding cosmos and order of the individual. Individual means either a destroying tendency or a supportive tendency, either truth or untruth, either ugliness or purity. The meeting point of the two constitutions—the constitution of the individual and the Constitution of the Universe—is the meeting point of the cosmic order, eternal cosmic order, and eternal disorder of the individual. That is the meeting point of the cosmic reality and individual reality—universal consciousness and individual consciousness.  

‘In the Vedic Literature, it is given out in terms of Smriti, memory: whether the memory is belonging to the one, or the memory is belonging to the other—either one or the other. This is science investigating into the reality, and locating them both on one level so that one could say, “Here is the wave on the ocean, and here is the wave rising from the ocean.”

‘It is the unmanifest reality which then appears to be manifest. Now this reality and the appearance of the reality is the meeting point of knowledge and ignorance. This is individual inception in the universal structure of cosmic order. That is more natural, more natural, more natural, because something that is natural is always undisturbable. It is ultimate reality. The unmanifest is ultimate reality, and manifestation—this, this, this—is like the waves in the silent ocean.

‘In the Vedic Literature, Purana is that eternal value. That is Sanatana; that is Dharma; that is the nature of Atma; that is the nature of Brahm, Totality, completely on that level from where the individual sound comes up.

‘Cosmic law and individual law both have their meeting point on the level of consciousness, which is the finest, finest value of physiology. So much research has been done on this physiology. His Majesty Raja Raam was crowned to be the First Ruler of the Global Country of World Peace, because he saw a unifying characteristic within the throat of everyone, within the nostril of everyone, within the palate of everyone, within the tongue of everyone, within the lips of everyone.
 
‘Wherever there is physiology and pulsation of physiology, that is the pulsation of the knowledge that puts together the cosmic order and individual order. Cosmic order is eternal—eternal cosmic order, ever the same, non-changing. And this individual order is left to the winds—memories, so many memories.  

‘The example, which we always say, is very clear: the hollowness of a banyan seed. The hollowness is completely hollowness, nothingness, unmanifest, but that unmanifest is the bundle of memories, the ocean of memory. From that ocean of memory, separate memories pop up: memories of the branches, of the leaves, of the flowers, of the fruits, and all that, all that.  

‘This is how from the unmanifest, unified state of life, the diversified state of life comes up. The gardener knows to enjoy the fruit by watering the root. That is why Vedic wisdom through education demands the memory of the person to be of that reality which is the basis of all thought, which is the source of all thought, which is the promotional physiological and psychological intelligence within the man and within the throat of man and within all these values which are very specified. 

‘But in education, this is not taught. Therefore, the cosmic character of total Natural Law remains out of human concept, out of human knowledge. And when Totality remains out of human knowledge, then disintegrated knowledge runs about faltering over everything. That is chaos and suffering.
 
‘Religions have grown on the ground of suffering. We tell those who believe in suffering that you do not believe in God in order to suffer, but that the path to God-realization is, at every step, more and more of godliness, more and more of brilliance, more and more of wholeness, wholeness. You cannot proceed towards the light and expect darkness to increase. . . .  

‘Ask all those religious preachers who preach suffering if religion is a path to God. They will say, “Absolutely, religion is a path to God realization.” And then you ask them, “If you move towards light, do you expect darkness to increase? If you move towards God, do you expect suffering to increase?”  

‘If moving towards God is moving towards suffering, God forbid we do not want that God. You want to realize God because He is everything, because He is everything, because He will take you out completely from suffering, He will put you on the waves of bliss. He is bliss—merciful Father—and if you move towards Him, you do not increase in suffering. 

‘Wrong things have gone in the market in the field of knowledge—all kinds of things. But it depends upon the fortune of the people, what kind of water is waiting for them to bathe in, to dive into, to dip in. Cosmic law is just at that point of the inception of an idea or thought; the source of thought is that point where cosmic and individual law meet together. And that is what is called total realization in which you see, “This is cosmic law: it is non-variable, unified and it is variable, diversified.” But both are there. You can realize that junction point.
 
‘This is the beauty of the Vedic Literature. Purana, Smriti, Shruti—Shruti Smriti Purananam—eternal, uncreated, ever the same. Purana: ancient, eternal. This eternal memory, memory of the whole thing, is like the memory of a family, one kind of memory, total memory. Now when you go deep into it, “Ah, yes”, then family: uncle’s memory, father’s memory, mother’s memory, this memory, daughter’s memory—so many different memories. But total memory? Family’s memory. 

‘In the teaching, the memory and the physiological area for each memory are fine, fine physiological areas. Our doctors here, who are designing a course of Vedic Medicine, are designing those fine points in the physiology which belong to the flowing consciousness level, flowing intelligence level. From there, they will bring balance between the transcendence and the relative; they bring the balance. 

‘Our approach to health is by having that level of intelligence open to our awareness which is on one side diverse and on the other side unified—the cosmic individual. That is why we say, Brahm and Jiva, ”Jivo Brahmaiva Naparah”, and all these beautiful expressions of the Vedic reality about the individual. “You are cosmic, you are Brahm”; “Aham Brahmasmi”; “That thou art”; “You are also Brahm, I am also Brahm”; “All this, which we see together or singly, is all Totality, Totality, Totality”. The teaching is very, very neat and clean and simple and total.  

‘Now we are putting forward to our world family that knowledge which will give man access to all possibilities, access to absolute order in daily life. I am saying this when I am surrounded by the people who prefer to suffer in the name of God. The whole thing is wrong, and we are only right, yes? [laughter] We are the only right, and everyone is wrong. How to say it, Dr Hagelin? Just enjoy saying it? We are the only right, and everything is so wrong. It is an enjoyable expression, but it comes out as an answer to the question from the press. What else can I say? [laughter]’  

Question: Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health

Dr Hagelin: ‘Maharishi, that is very beautifully put. I do not think we could say it any better than that. I think history bears us out, as well as the scientific research and the experience of millions of people all over the world who are experiencing the bliss of growth towards God realization through Maharishi’s programmes. 

‘Maharishi, this next, interesting question is in the field of health and Vedic Medicine. It comes on the tail of a significant scientific announcement this week. On Friday, the American Journal of Hypertension, one of America’s premier scientific journals, will publish a new study that shows Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation to be the single most effective way to reduce high blood pressure in adults. The journal will also report that Transcendental Meditation is the only approach so far that significantly reduces the need for antihypertensive drugs. This study was conducted by scientists at Maharishi University of Management in collaboration with researchers at other major universities. The findings are highly significant because (1) antihypertensive drugs cause a wide range of harmful side effects, (2) more than 65 million Americans suffer from high blood pressure, and billions throughout the world, and (3) doctors forecast that, within a few decades, one out of every three people in the world will suffer from this silent killer of heart disease.  

‘The question for Maharishi is: Do these Vedic therapies allow an individual to successfully manage his health despite his genetic predisposition?’

Maharishi: ‘I think your question is very timely. Just yesterday, Dr Feldman issued a circular to the press regarding our Vedic Approach to Health Clinic in Lancaster, Massachusetts. I wish we had Dr Feldman with us, and if he is meditating now, then he will tell you the whole text tomorrow. What it says generally is that the clinic has stopped the use of medical doctors and medical allopathy because it has proved to have poisonous side effects—heavily poisonous side effects. It is recorded in thousands of press articles and scientific research reports that it produces poisonous side effects.
 
‘So our clinic in Lancaster is going to stop their consultation with allopathic doctors and the use of allopathic medicine, just because knowing, so heavily knowing that it is poisonous in its side effects. Knowing that it is poison, we do not want our friends who come to us for relief to be given poison knowingly. So that announcement is going out from our clinic. 

‘There are so many states in USA which permit other—they call it alternative— medicine. There are states which prohibit all that. We are open to the choice of the people. If they make a choice for Vedic, then they will have Vedic. Many things are mentioned there: relaxation, etc. They have used the words “physiological purification” through spa techniques. These are all known words in the US market: “spa” and “Vedic whispers” which they call “Vedic Sound”. For vitality there are herbal preparations. These will be used, and the other things will not be promoted in our Vedic Health Care systems.  

‘Very soon, we are establishing Vedic Medical Colleges everywhere to give the people a chance to use the body’s own energy to redress their disorders and to make use of the body’s own intelligence—the self-referral, Unified Field of Natural Law—to repair the imbalance that has grown due to so many things—diet and behaviour and speech and all that. Anything negative has its repercussion on health. Anything untrue spoken has its effect on the health. Anything. People are all aware of all these atmospheric impurities, breathing difficulties, water pollution, and air pollution—all kinds of pollution.
 
‘It will be from the education. Our Vedic Health Care is a part of the Vedic University curriculum. In our Vedic University, everyone would know about his body, about his consciousness, about his intelligence, about his cosmic potential, about his individual responsibility. So it will be from the education.
 
‘That is why we are introducing our education everywhere. The whole thing is very complete. Now it depends on how soon we are able to reach every home and how soon we can create some groups here, there, everywhere, so that the whole world consciousness can remain highly integrated, coherent, and positive in order that everyone feels buoyant from the support of Natural Law and lives a field of all possibilities in daily life.  

‘Education: we are trying to do it, and we are going to do it. Whatever we are able to do in our lifetime, the next generation will continue, and then the next generation will continue. It may take two, three generations for the whole world to be completely revived—life free from suffering, free from all those problems and difficulties and inadequacies.  

‘In the field of security, in the field of defence, we are raising one word, which people just think is impossible and not practical. The word is “invincibility” to every nation. That is our practical offer. Just a few hundred people in small countries and a few thousand people in some bigger countries, practising Yogic Flying and gaining command over the force of gravity, will be functioning on that level of the orderly functioning of the universe.  

‘It is a very beautiful field of knowledge, and we are proud of it. We invite everyone to have it.’

Question: Description of God in Vedic Science

Dr Hagelin: ‘Naturally, there is a global fascination with God and religion. Maharishi often speaks about the will of God, the light of God, and the power of almighty God. Yet there are different conceptions and understandings of God which have been promoted by different religions: that God is a personal deity, with whom one can have a personal relationship in life, or that God is pure, unmanifest abstraction that you cannot know personally but with whom you can unite after death. How does the Vedic Literature and Vedic Science describe God?’

Maharishi: ‘In that one word memory, Smriti. As much as one can participate in that word, “memory”. How much memory? Half memory, 50% memory, or 100% memory, or 20% or 80% or 100% memory—it is all on memory. It is the same as the treasury which may be hidden in our room in our own home, but it is the memory of it; it is the knowledge of it. If we have the knowledge, then we are rich. If we do not have the knowledge, we remain poor. It is a matter of recognition.
 
‘That is why knowledge has importance in life. If one knows, then one enjoys it. If one does not know, doors are closed. That is why knowledge has been given such great importance, and the whole beginning years—20 years—of everyone’s life are dedicated to gaining knowledge.  

‘Some people who are less civilized, less advanced, they go by what they see. They think that, “Oh, the boy should be able to buy the vegetables in the market; he should buy paper and this.” So they teach the boys buying and selling, and the market is all that is important to them. Those who know the power of thought teach the boys how to think from the source of thought, whereby all that they think will begin to happen; Natural Law will obey their thought.  

‘It depends upon how much the next generation gets from the previous generation—from the fathers or mothers or teachers or friends—how much. They can only give whatever they know. The present education gives the knowledge of this: you can count into billions, and you can have this theory of economy and that theory of politics and this theory or that theory. The whole thing is surface values.

‘Vedic Education is from the depth of everything, from the unmanifest. It explores the field of the unmanifest, it takes the attention to fathom that knowledge of the unmanifest which is the source of everything. 

‘It depends upon what the knowledge is in what part of the civilization in the world. There are universities of this kind and that kind with all kinds of knowledge being given—all engineering, all music, all different things. But Vedic is Total Knowledge of everything. Total Knowledge of everything gives a man that competence to make use of total Natural Law in his thinking, from the source of thought, from the transcendental field.
 
‘Those who know this, they talk about this, they teach others, and others gain from them. Those who know just marketing—“I am a marketing manager” and “I am a production manager”—all these things have their own values, but are very limited. Life is too precious to be lost in these little, little gains. Life is too precious, because it is made in the image of God with the total possibility of living practically in daily life the total divine, total divinity. In whatever words, it does not matter; language is no barrier. It is the content, and that content is through experience. Only the experience takes away the agony of all the differences of expressions in different languages and all that. The reality in our awareness, that is the only thing. That is so blissful for its practice and programme.
 
‘But when the parents do not know, they do not know. When the teachers do not know, they do not know. What they can see? But there are some people now, a few thousand teachers here and there in every part of the world, gradually, and whatever they are able to inform the people, they are teaching them. The number is increasing, because it is so simple, so useful, so complete. It makes life complete and takes it away from the fragmentation which belongs to the very early stage of human civilization—the animal kingdom.’

Question: Vedic Education and Factual Knowledge

Dr Hagelin: ‘Maharishi said recently that his Vedic Universities will take away all the shortcomings in every field of knowledge—education, health, and so forth. Are the needs of knowledge primarily experiential? Do students need to experience Total Knowledge at the source of thought within their own minds? Or will the Vedic Universities also offer new factual knowledge about education, health, etc., that the modern sciences do not yet provide? And if so, would Maharishi please explain what new factual knowledge is needed to make the existing fields of knowledge complete?’

Maharishi: ‘The word is silence. Too much noise is given to the boys, without the experience of what it is. When it comes to experience, it is the experience of silence. Silence is not being taught, either intellectually or experientially. That is why knowledge remains—I would plainly say—knowledge remains unproductive. Unproductive means that you want to have something, and you have to work hard on it. Working hard, you lose your heart and mind, and then you do not get it.  

‘That is not education. Education should make it very easy for the educated man to achieve anything. Otherwise, what is the use of education if you keep on struggling? Are you educated? No. Non educated people only would prefer to struggle, because they do not know how to do things; they only do that much. Knowledge means more comprehension, more unboundedness, more far-sightedness, more insight.  

‘The present theme of knowledge is just like medicine; it is full of poisonous side effects. Education is also full of poisonous side effects and poisonous direct effects because it uses the learning age in such superficialities. There is no depth to it. The depth of it is only in experiencing it. That is why the phrase that is common in the field of the wise people is “knowing by being.” Then you know a thing—by being it, completely being it. 

‘Rather than so much lecturing to student, and their trying to remember, and examining them, and giving them less marks or more marks which is the drama of the players in field of knowledge, experience is necessary. Classes should not be just talkers. They must give the experience of that level of intelligence from where talks begin. Have the memory of that. Open your awareness to that level from where all thoughts rise, all thoughts rise, like the ocean of knowledge from where all the waves come up—the ocean of knowledge.  

‘Education should be of the ocean, and not just talk of the ocean. It is like talk of water: “Water is like this and like this,” and a huge amount of lecturing about it. But that will not satisfy the thirst. You satisfy the thirst, and then tell them about how nice it is and all; then all that telling will be meaningful. Otherwise, talking about it can excite the desire for it but will never fulfil or never satisfy. 

‘That is why educated people cannot handle their lives. They may have big names and big articles in their names—this scientist and that geography expert and this historian and all that. But in their daily life, they cannot live Totality. It is too superficial.

‘Education deprives the students from living total life, because it does not give them Total Knowledge, it gives fragmented knowledge. They are born with a brain physiology which can be completely open to everything, but they are not given that opportunity to be that Total Knowledge. 

‘But it does not matter what the case of education has been. We are forwarding our education to be complete.’