22 December 2004 Press Conference Highlights

Opening Remarks

Maharishi: ‘Jai Guru Dev. All that has been said by Dr Hagelin is the truth of life, the true possibility. I do not have to add anything more. He has explicitly, in very simple words, brought the whole message, the message of all possibilities to every nation. We summarize it in one word: invincibility to every nation. National invincibility has its basis in the invincibility, freedom, and self-sufficiency of the life of the individual, and this is by exploring the internal of everyone’s consciousness, Transcendental Consciousness—Transcendental Meditation, the exploration the Unified Field of all the Laws of Nature and thereby opening the total Natural Law to support every thought, speech, and action of every individual.  

‘Like that, a few groups in the world—groups here, there, everywhere—will be maintaining the world on a kind of lighted level. And when the light is maintained, there is no chance for darkness. This is the time for lighting up the light everywhere in the world. And if there are any doubts about it, or anything in principle or in practice, then we are here to answer the questions.

‘We are lovingly inviting every government to be really competent to prevent problems for the nation, to prevent suffering in the nation through proper education, through proper health programmes, through all the programmes that we offer through Vedic Universities now, everywhere.  

‘Follow the advice of Dr Hagelin. It is very reliable because it is scientific. It is practically available to everyone because it is simple, and because it is the interior of everyone’s life—one’s consciousness. The Unified Field [has been proven] through mathematical equations and sung throughout the ages in the holy textbooks of different religions. It is a very surprising thing that the world has not yet taken it completely, but a good foundation has been made. It is better for the people who are concerned with their following to look into this field of knowledge, the Unified Field, and its practicality to make every nation invincible. If there are doubts, we are ready to answer questions.’

Question: The Mechanics of Transformation

Dr Hagelin: ‘Here is a rather profound question that comes from the field of modern science. Maharishi, astrophysicists once thought that all matter and information were completely destroyed when they fell into what are known as “black holes”—point singularities of space-time caused by gravitational collapse. Now, however, string theorists have proven mathematically that this in-falling information is preserved in its completeness, and that what ultimately emerges from a black hole depends in detail on what went in. Black holes are being described today as a type of “information transformation point”.

‘This description of black holes seems to parallel exactly Maharishi’s description of the transformation of Vedic sounds in the “gaps”. While physics offers few details about the mechanics of transformation within the singularity, Vedic Science reveals precisely the mechanics of this transformation.

‘My questions is: What is the significance of the singularity and the mechanics of transformation within the singularity? And why is it important for individuals to gain personal familiarity with these mechanics of transformation in their own consciousness?’ 

Maharishi: ‘That field is a field of all possibilities. Your question is so intelligent. It has the answer contained within it. A black hole is all darkness; everything is submerged there. The value of consciousness opening to the field of all possibilities is that whatever is inherent in it opens to single awareness. When the awareness is open to that, then the awareness is open to a level which is silent and dynamic, both at the same time.

‘That black hole is a field of potential dynamism. Just this word: potential dynamism. That means it is dynamic in its unmanifest state, and it is completely silent in its manifest state. So there is silence; there is dynamism. This is the field. We can see it as the basis of creation, the silent basis of creation.  

‘Vedic Science sees it on two levels. One level is the dynamic nature of it, and the other level is the silent nature of it. And the Vedic awareness of both of them at the same time is in the junction point of it. The value of opening our awareness to the junction point is that the mind remains silent and the mind remains dynamic, potentially—potentially dynamic and obviously silent. So here is the silent state of the mind which is potentially dynamic. That means all thought, speech, action—anything about it—is completely natural on that level of human awareness. This human awareness at that level, we call Transcendental Consciousness. It has transcended all the dynamism of it and has settled down in eternal silence which is potentially dynamic. This is a very beautiful state in which everything is a possibility.  

‘We can have a gross example of it. When a room is lighted, everything is clear about—this here, this here, this here, this. You put out the light, and then there's the darkness. And you put on the light, everything is clear. You put out the light, everything is unclear. So [whether] everything clear is there or everything is unclear there depends upon whether the lamp is lit or extinguished.

‘The whole creation is a reality of the unmanifest field. The whole creation is the reality of the unmanifest field. Opening to that level is opening to the mechanics of creation. “Mechanics of creation” means lively functioning of total Natural Law. And then we say, “Lively functioning of the will of God.” All possibilities [are] there. That is why one wants to have it in one’s awareness. It is just a matter of knowledge, just a matter of knowledge that I am there.  
 
‘An example will be: we have a treasury in our house, but if we don't know it, then it doesn't exist for us. If we know it—just the knowledge about it—we are wealthy. Just not knowing it, we are poor. So poverty is foreign to one’s life. That is why, always, whatever a man is, whether a little boy or an elderly person, he is always and always wanting to know. Desire for knowledge is a natural thing because in the field of knowledge there are all possibility. In the absence of knowledge, the whole thing is dim and dull and sleepy and nothing is there.

‘One wants to be everything. The innate desire of every child or every young man or every old is that he wants to know everything. He wants to be everything. He wants to do everything. He has a desire. He wants to fulfil the desire. He is roaming about. Now, where to roam to fulfil the desire? Get within. Get to the transcendental field. Get to the Unified Field of all the Laws of Nature.  

‘Once you have the knowledge of the Unified Field of all the Laws of Nature, you have the sympathy, support and help and duty of all the Laws of Nature. You are the master of all the Laws of Nature if you know the transcendental field, if you know that thing which you have beautifully described in your question. You have answered it in your question! You have answered it.

‘Just that field, the vacuum, is nothingness. The example is the nothingness within the seed. There is nothing, hollowness, nothingness. In the Rk Veda, it is called tamas, “Dirghatamas”. That means long drawn silence, long drawn silence. When you meditate, what do you do? The mental activity becomes less and less and less and less and less and less. What are you doing? You are experiencing gross less. You are experiencing less and less and less, and then you are experiencing ultimately nothing. You are blank for all worldly activity concerned; you are nothing. But the knowledge of that nothingness is the potential of everything.  

‘The whole creation, the whole story of creation, is the story of the unmanifest. And unmanifest—the whole manifest diversity dissolves into that unified wholeness. Everything dissolves. It is a black hole. It is a word to express that thing that everything gets to be nothing there. All concrete things, all physical things, and all the objects of all the senses become completely frozen there. Nothing is there. But that nothingness, when opens to human awareness, then it is lively nothingness. It is the lively total field of Natural Law.

‘And because it is so enormously beyond words, one takes rest by saying, “The will of God, my Lord”. These are the words which try to describe the indescribable—indescribable because the mind identifying with it gets into that field which is transcendental, unified, which is nothing. And Rk Veda, the authority of total Natural Law, describes that one who has his awareness open to this level, total Natural Law serves him. Total Natural Law serves him—total natural.

‘This is education. Education is opening our awareness to the seed value of the whole creation. Creation emerges from there. This is why it is necessary to open our awareness to that thing. So that, that thing is there, but with knowledge it belongs to us. Without knowledge, we are devoid of it. So it is the knowledge of that one single level of nothingness that is the goal of all channels of knowing. And every channel of knowing is significant and true and substantial and right if it taps that value of infinite creative intelligence, infinite creative intelligence.  

‘With the grace of Guru Dev—the grace of our teacher, our master—and this tradition, the Vedic Tradition of Masters, throughout the ages, [we have] an eternal stream of knowingness, the eternal stream of knowledge. So we say Vedic Knowledge. “Vedic Knowledge” means knowledge of total knowingness. It is so simple. Those who have learned to meditate, they feel so blessed. Very automatically, very simply, and naturally the mind trickles down to the transcendent, and in that transcendental field, there is a field of all possibilities.

‘All possibilities is the field of all fields of creative intelligence, called Devata in the Vedic language. In the transcendental field there is the Constitution of the Universe where all the Devatas, all the fields of creative intelligence—Vishnu, Shiva, all Vedic Devatas—[reside]. They're all there. That is why one wants to enter into the field of all possibilities in the market of the Devatas there.  

‘It is very fortunate for the whole world that in this scientific age, the research in physiology has revealed the existence of all the Devatas—physical values of the Devatas and the consciousness value of the Devatas—within the human physiology. And this is what gives us the authority to speak in the common language of today. Otherwise, it could only be heard in the Vedic language through the tradition of the Vedic Pandits of India, the tradition of the Vedic Pandits in the Vedic Language. But now we can talk about it in English to the extent possible.'

Maharishi further explained that: Maharaja Adhiraj Raja Raam was crowned as the First Ruler of the Global Country of World Peace, because about ten years ago he saw ‘the continuity of the abstract field of consciousness into the precipitated field of the physiology, divergent physiology.'

Transcript resumes: ‘All the physiology of the body, different aspects and all, they're all the aspects of the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the real substance.

‘And that consciousness substance is that unmanifest field which, by its own nature, is this, that, and everything. It's Atma—"Atmai Vedam Sarvam, Brahm, Ayam Atma Brahm.” All these are beautiful exhortations that , That alone is everything. And therefore, to know everything and to be able to do everything, this Vedic Knowledge is necessary, and this Vedic experience is necessary. Quietly, by eternally remaining self-referral. By no other way but eternally remaining self-referral, it is the creator of the infinite diversity of the ever-expanding universe—huge. Where? Just remaining inside, remaining inside.  

‘An example is: when children play [with] the kite, they pull the string to themselves, then the kite rises high. They pull it, and this pull within makes the kite rise high in the sky. Just like that, pulling the mind to itself is the system of controlling the whole field of Natural Law and all possibilities of energy and intelligence—creativity. All those words are significant all together in one self-referral dive of the mind—this Transcendental Consciousness, Transcendental Meditation.

‘The question is asked by the knower of reality. I was very glad to hear a question from someone who has put in the answer in his own question. Just the substance of knowing, that's all—knowing is all that is important. In this age of knowing, children have to know; they have to know. Now they have to know everything, but the teachers and parents, they themselves do not know where to take the child in order that he feels he knows everything.  

‘This is why it is very necessary, very timely, to satisfy this global thirst for knowledge of every rising generation. Total Knowledge—Total Knowledge is necessary. So, we are establishing all these universities of Total Knowledge in the field of education, in the field of health, in all these, economy—all these modern [disciplines] whatever they are.

‘The exploration of the Self fulfils the requirement of any goal of life, any goal of life. This is missing these days. Not that a man becoming an engineer, he is enlightened. Not only becoming a doctor, he is enlightened—not becoming this or this or this. No. Every man should have the ability to be anything.

‘That is this knowledge, Vedic Knowledge, to take the awareness to the transcendental field. And there, you cook what you want to do. You have only to order what you want, and you are served with a cooked main dish. You don't do; certainly you don't have to do anything hard, no, no no. Soft, softer you can think, [and] presently you can move mountains and create worlds. This is the knowledge that is our pride, and we want all children of all future and present and to do this, enjoy this.  

‘We are offering [it] to the governments. The only thing is that the government people have to be in that atmosphere which could enable them to understand what we say. When we say “invincibility”, any intelligent president says, “Oh, that is a gossip. Where is the invincibility?” Let him know that invincibility is within himself. . . . Such a stupidity prevails in the world—such stupidity. But that’s what the world is. But it is going to be a better world. Going to be a better world now. It is going to be a better world now.’  

Question: Religions and Creating Heaven on Earth

Dr Hagelin: ‘Thank you very much, Maharishi, for that absolutely magnificent answer to that wonderful question—so profound and so profoundly practical to accomplish anything and everything in life.

‘The next question is from a writer for the Gulf Times of Abu Dhabi. He asks, “Respected Sir, please explain how the Global Country of World Peace is going to approach the problem of poverty—including the problem of polluted drinking water—that is faced by third world countries. And how many years will it take before this problem will be solved? Thank you.” ’

Maharishi: ‘As long as it takes the Muslim world to follow Mohammed, and as long as it takes the Christian world to follow Christ, and as long as it takes the Buddhist world to follow Buddha, and as long as it takes the Vedic world to follow the Veda. All that Mohammed has said, all that Christ meant, even though the Bible was written much later but it was written by his followers, whatever it is, and Buddha the same [as] this—as long as these religions, religious people take to follow their ideals, so long it will take for the world to be Heaven on Earth.

‘As long as it takes a scientist to follow the science, which is a systematic investigation into the reality. And a systematic investigation into the reality, because reality is everywhere omnipresent, should not take long. But if it takes long, they are misguided people; they are roaming in darkness; they have lost their path; they are not scientists.  

‘If a Muslim is suffering, he is not Muslim. If a Christian is suffering, he is not the follower of Christ. If any religious man is suffering due to whatever—little water or little air or polluted this or polluted this—he is not following his religion. Because following his religion means he is breathing that reality which is bliss; he is drinking that reality which is nectar—all those nice things, all those nice things. So, the religious platform has gone into the hands of misguided people, misguided people.  

‘There are religions and religious preachers in the world who say life is suffering, and if you do not suffer you are not a right man, you have to suffer and all that. The whole thing is a muddle of reality. Reality is so simple! It is so simple. That is the only thing which is simplest. Anything else is complicated. Anything else is complicated. Science is so simple because of its completeness. Religion is so simple because of its total infinite creative potential—so simple.

‘If a religious man is suffering, it means he has gone away from religion. They are fighting among themselves that I am Muslim and I am Christian and I am this, and I am this. The whole thing is non-religious.

‘What the religious preachers lack is simplicity of praying. Meditation is just a prayer, but a silent prayer. Silent prayer, one would see, how difficult can it be? That's the simplest thing—not to do anything! And it is much simpler than the simplest to dive within oneself. Transcendental Meditation—simpler than the simplest thing—and it is the essence of every religion.  

‘When we see religious people crying for this or crying for this and crying—one is being looted by the others and the other is being dynamited by others, the whole thing is completely non-religious. “Religion” means “My Lord, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, within me, outside me, everything, like that.” This is living religion.

‘All this suffering, all this looting other countries, going to other countries, massacring other countries, drawing the blood of other countries—and some prime minister who is a destroyer of nations, he goes and he tells to his spies, “You have done well. It doesn’t matter if you die, because you are dying for a good cause and all that.” Ask him why not he is dying for a good cause?

‘We heard, the Prime Minister of England going to Iraq or somewhere there, and he says, “Doesn’t matter, you are a great man, and you are dying for good and all that.” Ask him why not he is dying for good! Such hypocrisy! Such absolute barbarism, barbarism, barbarism. The world is on a very wrong, wrong, wrong thing.

‘We have the knowledge of lighting the light and keeping everyone in the light. But if people want to suffer, nobody can make them enjoy, because they are dragging their life into suffering. Fine, go ahead and suffer. No one can make you enjoy.

‘Just follow what a scientist says—Dr Hagelin, a quantum physicist, expert in the field of nothingness. “Quantum scientist” means knower of nothing. That nothing is the potential of everything. It is a beautiful thing.’

Question: Location of the Divine

Dr Hagelin: ‘The question is where is divinity?Maharishi recently said that the divine nature of man is available to the human mind only on its own transcendental level. But if the mind has to go in to experience unity and divinity, what good does that do the outer world of change and decay? And why does the divine remain hidden on one level and not fully apparent on all levels?’

Maharishi: ‘Take the example of a tree and look at the tree at the emptiness of a seed. Or we can look at a little more gross: on the level of the sap. The sap is there, and the concrete expressions of the sap are there. Completely sap. And even then, the sap has its reality in the still more refined, finer values of the sap in the emptiness, just nothingness. So, nothingness is expressed in all the values, concrete, physical values of the tree.

‘What we find is the answer from the Vedic field of knowledge: it's so complete. The answer is, in one word, Smriti. “Smriti” means memory. The tree is there in the unmanifest seed, but it is not the tree; it is the memory of the tree. Look at the excellence of the expression: the Veda expresses the whole tree in the nothingness of the seed. Just as the whole physiology has been found in the Unified Field, fluctuations of the Unified Field. There is nothing but that: nothingness is fluctuating within itself. Nothingness is fluctuating within itself.   

‘So the whole universe is not anything out of nothing. The whole tree is nothing other than nothingness in the unmanifest. That has been and will always remain within mathematical accuracy. It will always remain in, again the Vedic word, sequential. There is a sequential evolution of nothingness into everything concrete. But there is a sequential arrangement, sequential arrangement,sequential arrangement . So, there is a systematic progression also, but in the end, the systematic progression is contained in the self-referral nature of the Unified Field itself. So, the whole thing remains an abstract concept. The abstract concept is unmanifest, so we say an ocean of unmanifest, ocean of infinity, ocean of all possibilities, totality of Natural Law, completely totality of Natural Law.

‘That is why it is very easy for the mind to settle down and get onto that level consciously and know that it is emptiness, but know this emptiness is the potential of everything. That is why, all the time, the slogan is: “Know thyself”. Know thyself.

‘And then, in this knowledge of thyself, you will have the knowledge of everything that you do. Not only knowledge, but the power to do everything. And “the power to do everything” means the power to create creation. By what? Just by being the basis of all creation. And “being the basis of all creation” is beyond the creation; it is the source of creation. That is why it is called transcendental, transcendental, the Unified Field of all the Laws of Nature.

‘Once my awareness is on that level, then my awareness is awake in all possibility, then, I am an educated man. I have the ability to do anything that I want. And then what I have to do: just want. And furthermore, I don't have even to want. Whatever is necessary floats around me. All Natural Law serves me. All Natural Law serves me. It is very beautiful knowledge, very beautiful knowledge, very beautiful knowledge. and unnecessarily people are suffering. Unnecessarily people are suffering. Unnecessarily people are suffering.’

Question: How to Recognize the Enlightened

Dr Hagelin: ‘Throughout the ages, during the time of Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed, and certainly in today’s world, there are always people who claim to be enlightened or claim to speak the Truth. How does an unenlightened person, like myself, know when another person is, in fact, enlightened and is therefore speaking a truth worth following?’

Maharishi: ‘The answer is: the taste of pudding is in eating. Somebody is eating the pudding. He says, “How nice and so beautiful and all that.” How do I know if what he is saying is right? I have to eat the pudding, and then I can know whether he was saying right or wrong. There is no way for anyone, without experiencing the reality, to judge the emotions of the other man—whether he is saying right or wrong. There is no way.

‘The taste of pudding is in eating. You get to know it and then you get to know it. That's all. Without knowing it, you cannot, because it is a thing that is devoid of any duality. There is no experiencer, experienced, and process of experiencing in that field. It is it, that's all. It is it. Without being it, one could keep on gesturing about it. It is not through lecturing; it's not through hearing; it's not through anything other than Being, because on its own level it is that—not on any other level.

‘That is why [it is] transcendental, and that's why the significance of Transcendental Meditation—a process that allows the conscious mind to trickle down in sequence and come to that field where the individuality is no more in space and time boundaries. It is unbounded. Being it, then one knows, “Yes, yes, what I was hearing was a right thing.” Without experience, there is no way to know.

‘That is why those who start meditation, in the first five minutes, ten minutes, they open the eyes and say, “Thank you very much. Thank you very much.” They have taken a dive into it, don't know how far they have gone, but they have gone enough to say, “Thank you.” In one first dive, whether it was a dive to the bottom of the lake or just the surface of the lake, but they have dived into it. Then they have had some kind of taste of it. So simple.  

‘But when the man has lived a life of suffering, never he was given any experience of transcending or any peek into that reality—never in life. And he has become old, 70 years, and all his children and grandchildren say, “You are the wisest among us because you are the oldest.” But the oldest knows he does not know.

‘All these people, presidents and prime ministers and all this, they're all aged people, and they talk better than others, they can have some lecturing capacity, but that is not administratorship.The administratorship is in the technique of arriving at that door from where Natural Law obeys your command. [It is] open to everyone, open to everyone. Do it. Don't waste your life in either this little thing, that little thing. No, no.

‘It is not the name of religion that will help you. It is the experience of religious practice, which is the exploration of the light of God, that will help you. Your name: Muslim, Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or anything—it is not the name of the religion that will help you. It is the experience of religious life, which is the light of God, that will help you.

‘Start Transcendental Meditation, and know it. Don't waste your life in the name of religion or in the name of God or in the name of science or in the name of arts or this or this. It's a waste of precious life—waste of precious life.

‘Now our offer is invincibility, offer is invincibility, offer is invincibility.’

Question: Safeguarding Ancient Cultures

Dr Hagelin: ‘Can Transcendental Meditation help revive and safeguard the ancient culture of Native Americans and all indigenous peoples throughout the world? And if so, how?’

Maharishi: ‘Group meditation to clarify the collective consciousness. And when the collective consciousness is neater and cleaner, then wrong things that are floating around will disappear as ignorance disappears with the onset of light. There is no other way.

‘When you say ancient heritage, the “ancient” means eternal. You go to the ancient and you go to the ancient, and you find the same thing. You find the same thing. The same thing is what? Unity, unity, unity anywhere unity, unity, unity, unity. So all the cultures and all the Laws of Nature belong to the ancient.

‘The word “ancient” in the Vedic Literature is a great word, a word of total heritage. “Total heritage” means heritage of the knowledge of the totality of Natural Law.

‘Totality of Natural Law is in self-referral consciousness, unified. Modern science has discovered it in terms of this, there is a word: Unified Field. The word is a new word, “Unified Field”, but it has the same material which is ancient, which is “Puran”, which is eternal, undying, unbounded, infinite, eternal. The whole literature of the Puran belongs to the most ancient. And most ancient is what? Most ancient is that which is always everywhere. It is the unmanifest field.  

‘What is the unmanifest field? Like sap in a tree. The unmanifest, we say, [is] the light of God or, you can say, the Law of Nature, the Law of God, the desire of God which has created creation, like that, like that. It is something which is undying, which is unlimited, infinite, eternal, omnipresent, at all times. That is why it is Transcendental Consciousness. The whole world of phenomenon and this physical world is based on that level, as a tree is based on the sap level. Tree is based on the sap.

‘The gardener waters the root to enliven the sap, to enjoy the fruit. So, it is a basic level, the Unified Field, which is ancient and which is always ancient—one thousand years later. Today’s transcendental field will be ancient thought. So ancient is ancient, and it is the present as well, and it is the future as well. Ancient is not different in the future and present and in the past. It is one wholeness, unity of all diversity, unity which is the potential of all diversity. And one can dive in and go from diversity to that unity, Transcendental Consciousness, and all possibilities are there. So, tell the people, “Don’t waste your time.”  

‘I have heard, Dr Hagelin, when you spoke in Washington and at other universities there, the response of the youngsters was so great. I have heard the stories about it. It is very necessary to save the present generation from being lost as the past generations have been. . . .

‘Your effort in the US to round up the youngsters is very much appreciated by the present generation and will be a guiding light for all future generations. I am hearing [that there is] great applause, and when the students respond to you, the teachers also say, “Oh yes, it is good for you to meditate.” They also begin to say something like that. And similarly the experience of our chief of the education there. You can invite him, to hear his experiences of this week.

‘Your Peace Government—voice of the Peace Government—is a very healthy tone. It's a very healthy tone. It rings the bell of eureka. The government has to be in peace. They have to know how to administer without negativity, without suffering, without failures, and without problems.’