28 February 2007 Press Conference Highlight

Health Benefits of Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation

Dr John Hagelin, renouned quantum physicist and Minister of Science and Technology of the Global Country of World Peace, interviewed special guest Dr Robert Schneider, the foremost preventive cardiologist in the world. Dr Schneider is a professor of Physiology and Health and the Director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention. He is the author of scientific research papers, many of which have been funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), on the health-promoting benefits of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and other aspects of Maharishi’s Vedic Medicine.

On February 28, the results of an extremely significant study, funded by the NIH, were announced in a global press release by the University of Pennsylvania and, simultaneously, by the journal 'Ethnicity and Disease', a top publication in the field of heart health. The title of the article was 'Transcendental Meditation Reduces Congestive Heart Failure, a New Study Shows'.

The study shows the tremendous effect of the Vedic Approach, the holistic approach of total Natural Law-based medicine, Transcendental Meditation, in preventing the number one killer in the world—heart failure. Every year, in America alone, nearly 300,000 Americans die of congestive heart failure, over 2.5 million people are hospitalized from the disease, and half a million new patients are diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Despite advances in conventional treatment, the number of deaths from congestive heart failure has increased in the past decade.

Congestive heart failure is the end result of all heart diseases, the most common of which is coronary artery disease, hardening of the arteries. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, strokes, and poor life style cause hardening of the arteries, which restricts flow of blood in the heart. When the heart muscle does not get enough blood flow the muscle itself fails. When the action of the heart fails, the heart cannot pump enough blood. People get tired easily, cannot walk far, and cannot do normal activities. The failing heart is prone to become the dying heart; the five year mortality rate of people with this condition is about 50 per cent.

Dr Schneider described the results of this carefully controlled study showing marked reductions in heart failure simply as a result of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation. The people in the study had been hospitalized and were in advanced cases of the disease—they had already been stricken by and were living with the results of heart failure. The group practising Transcendental Meditation showed significant improvement on the ‘six-minute walk test’, as well as reduced depression, improved quality of life, and fewer re-hospitalizations.

Dr Schneider said that earlier research that he has conducted with other collaborators around the world has shown that the Transcendental Meditation practice can reduce risk factors of heart failure like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stress, and stroke, and thus can reduce measures of heart disease, such as hardening of the arteries, as well as change the brain basis of heart disease. This is the first time that anyone has looked at the end result of all heart diseases—the failing heart—and has shown that even in this very advanced condition, a person can be saved and further progression can be prevented with mind-body intervention alone, not using drugs or surgery.

About a year ago, Dr Schneider conducted another study on death due to heart disease. This study showed an increase of survival rate over five years in people suffering from heart disease. There was a 50% drop in cardio-vascular mortality in subjects who added Transcendental Meditation to their daily routine. This was compared to the result of using drugs. For example, the drugs used for hypertension, reduce cardio-vascular mortality by about 25% after five years, and the cholesterol reducing drugs that are being widely prescribed now reduce mortality by about 30% after five years. The study demonstrates that this holistic intervention using the body's own internal pharmacy in an integrated, comprehensive way based on the Unified Field of health, at the basis of the physiology, was more effective than modern therapies. In addition, it had no harmful side-effects, and in fact, holistically improved the health of the body, as well as the quality of life and emotional well-being of the practitioners, which is completely beyond the capability of modern approaches to health.

In this press conference, Dr Bevan Morris, the President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Maharishi University of Management, USA, and the Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace, also spoke about the role of Maharishi Central University in solving the world's problems. He described the details of the establishment of this new university of Total Knowledge in the USA.

Maharishi has been repeating that it will not take a long time for the complete transformation of the world now. The time has come, and the time is here for the press to observe what has happened, what is happening, and how quickly the history of all negativity is changing to all positivity. The economy and every other phase of life is going to be better and better. This is Maharishi’s admonition to the press today: watch out for all of these changes that will be occurring day by day from now on and report those to the world. This will be a great joy for the world press and a great achievement for the world press.
 

Dr Hagelin: ‘Transcendental Meditation is one aspect of Maharishi’s Vedic Medicine, which enlivens Veda, Total Natural Law, which includes all the Laws of Nature that uphold human health, the total intelligence that upholds the human physiology, restores balance, maintains homeostasis, and prevents disease with only holistic side-benefits. This is the distinguishing factor between Maharishi Vedic Medicine and all other systems of medicine, including even Ayur-Veda. It is Vedic, holistic, Unified Field-based Medicine, transcending even the eight Prakritis, the three Gunas—the three Superfields in the language of modern physics. Vedic Medicine transcends even these fundamental ingredients of the physiology—indeed of the universe—on the differentiated level to the super-unified source of the diversified universe, enlivening Total Knowledge, Total Natural Law, for the holistic enlivenment of the whole physiology.

‘Maharishi was talking today about an extraordinary property of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. Transcendental Meditation is a very fundamental, key aspect of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. Transcendental Meditation is a consciousness-based technology, a consciousness based treatment. Consciousness, according to the research of Maharaja Nader Ram, is the basis of the physiology, the holistic value of the human physiology. This understanding is completely consistent with modern physics, which has discovered the Unified Field, the unified source of the diversified universe, including the diversified physiology. So even modern physics corroborates Raja Nader Ram’s discovery that the physiology arises from consciousness and is ultimately nothing but consciousness in precipitated form.

‘Now what does that tell us? It tells us that if you are a doctor you can treat the body, or the heart, on many levels. You can treat it on a completely superficial level, for example with physical therapy that works with the muscles, ligaments and bones—the macroscopic physiology. If you’re a pharmacologist or an internist the primary tool is drugs, pharmacology. This is molecular medicine, which manipulates the molecular level of the physiology by adding some molecules in attempt to restore balance in the physiology, which is a bundle of probably, give or take, 100,000 organic molecules. So if you are deficient in one hormone for example, an internist or an endocrinologist may give you a drug to increase that, but who knows what the effect is of that drug on 100,000 other organic molecules in the physiology? That is the problem with molecular medicine. It inevitably is fraught with side-effects, and as Maharishi emphasizes there thousands of articles outlining the very negative side-effects of modern medicine.

‘Modern medicine mostly stops at the molecular level. On a deeper level of the physiology, on the nuclear level, there are techniques of nuclear medicine of diagnostics and even some treatments but it is sort of a remote field of medicine. And beyond that there is no electro-weak unified medicine, there is no grand unified medicine, there is no super unified medicine in modern allopathy. It is in Vedic Medicine only and particularly Maharishi’s Vedic Medicine that the Veda has been restored. Vedic Medicine is really Unified Field-Based Medicine.

‘Even before Maharishi, Ayur-Vedic medicine did treat the body still at a very deep level, the level of the so called Doshas and Prakritis—Vata, Pitta, Kapha. This is a very deep level of physics, the level of the Superfield, on the verge of Unity, but still in the field of diversity—three, Vata Pitta, Kapha—three, not one. Maharishi said, ‘No, you can’t stop at Vata Pitta and Kapha. Medicine should be Vedic.’ This means it fundamentally occurs at the unified level, the Samhita level of consciousness.

‘Transcendental Meditation works on the level of consciousness—it enlivens consciousness. This is the speciality, the power of Maharishi Vedic Medicine—it is enlivening Total Natural Law. And when you enliven the totality of Natural Law by stimulating its unified basis, then immediately all the Laws of Nature, Total Natural Law, is enlivened and the relationships between the Laws of Nature is enlivened.

‘On the basis of that, Maharishi is announcing a new system of medicine to prevent aging that will be specific to people of 50 years old, 60 years old, 70 years old—specific to re-enliven certain Laws of Nature that are starting to go weak. At a certain age a few Laws of Nature become a little sluggish—kind of non-functional. This new system will reawaken those laws. At a different age it will reawaken other laws that might be starting to go to sleep. And how? By enlivening again and again the totality of Natural Law. That is why Maharishi Vedic Medicine is holistic and that is why it is free of negative side-effects.’

Dr Schneider: ‘The explanation that you have given from Maharishi is the only one that can explain the profound effects of Transcendental Meditation on heart disease, and with no harmful side-effects. It must be the source of the physiology that is recreating the physiology. We are recreating the heart. Where did this new functioning of the heart come from? It is recreating itself from within itself through the enlivenment of all the Laws of Nature within the physiology.’

Dr Morris: ‘The fact that the side-effects of modern medicine are the third or forth cause of mortality in the United States, is a shocking finding that makes the oath ‘Do no harm', which is taken by the medical professionals, really a mockery. I hope the media will think deeply about not just this one study but also the whole thinking about medicine and the future of the world. That comes out of this study and your discussion of it.

‘I think this is an example of why Maharishi Central University is so needed in the world. This is the university of Total Knowledge that Dr Hagelin is founding at the centre point of the United States in Kansas.

‘On one side, it is being founded on the analysis of the present situation in every field. In health care we just saw the analysis that leads us to the conclusion that the administrators are devoid of the knowledge they need in order to protect the population and secure their welfare.

‘The same conclusion can be reached in education. Education is fragmented in its approach therefore developing the brain only partially. This leaves functional holes in the brain, which leads to all the stress and strain in the world. All the wrong behaviour in the world is due to this fragmented kind of education. Now just as in health care there is a prevention-oriented approach, likewise in education there is a Total Knowledge-based approach that enlivens the whole brain. This leads to higher consciousness—life lived in an evolutionary direction without mistakes and problems created by wrong behaviours.

‘Any field of life that one can analyze one can find the present situation inadequate—for example, in agriculture that is filled with poisons and is poor in its nutritional values, causing ill health, and architecture that has wrong orientation that is damaging to the fortune and health of its inhabitants.

‘You can go down the whole list and in every case Maharishi’s new university in Kansas will give the students the knowledge of how to prevent problems.

‘Now, as president of the new university in Kansas, Dr Hagelin will train a whole new generation of leaders of the world who have the knowledge to have prevention oriented administration, in every dimension and every field of life.

‘So this is why Dr Hagelin is founding this university. I am very happy to be there with some of the top leaders of the Global Country of World Peace who are working on this project, under Dr Hagelin’s direction. Yesterday we went to the very centre of the United States, measured by the precise digital map and mathematical formulae that give a point, down to the seconds of longitude and latitude. It is in a valley and there is a very soft feeling there. From now on, it will be celebrated in the structure of Central University, which will extend roughly 30 square miles, and contain 50 sub-campuses. To the west of the central point will be the residences of the Vedic Pandits, and Vedic Mandaps, or pavilions, where they will perform specific programmes to enliven the Unified Field of Natural Law in its holistic value in the life of the whole of America.

‘To the west of that will be the residence of Dr Hagelin, the President of Maharishi Central University. Stretching to the east for many miles will be 50 campuses, one for each state. In the first year, each campus will have 200 students, with a dining hall, student union, classroom and exhibition building, residence halls with yogic flying halls for the students, a winter garden (conservatory), a big hall for indoor sports and an indoor swimming pool, an administration centre, and a building for faculty. Ultimately there will be four campuses of 200 students for each state, one for each year. This will total 800 students from each state—40,000 top students altogether.

‘Each campus for 200 students is laid out on 200 meters by 350 meters, about 17 1⁄2 acres. All the campuses will be built with fortune-creating buildings—perfectly oriented to the east and built according to cosmic structuring principles of the universe out of non-toxic materials. The whole campus will be very convenient and comfortable for all top students of the world.

‘Together with Kuber-ji, the Minister of Finance of the Global Country of World Peace, Dr Hagelin has prepared a document that approaches all the banks of America for the resources to construct the campuses.’

Dr Hagelin: ‘This Total Knowledge University is a complete departure from universities of the past. So far universities have been able to promise the principle of all knowledge on a single campus—a campus comprised of a library with the books of every discipline and multiple faculties—one for Physics, one for the Arts, Chemistry, and so forth. But no university can promise or deliver all knowledge—Total Knowledge for every student—in every brain. That is the incredibly powerfully approach of Maharishi’s Unified Field-Based Education, which is Consciousness-Based Education, which is ultimately Vedic-Based because ‘Vedic’ means the totality of knowledge, the holistic value of knowledge, the Unified Field. . . .

‘So every student will be completely grounded in the totality of knowledge from the standpoint of the Unified Field Theories of modern Physics, which give us a unified foundation of all knowledge. From one formula, the Lagrangian of the Unified Field, the whole field of physics can be derived, and every discipline can be unfolded and rigorously derived from the fundamental unity, the holistic value of all knowledge in the Unified Field. So the students will be grounded in Total Knowledge as they gain specific knowledge of other disciplines. More than being intellectually grounded in Total Knowledge, the students will be experientially established in Total Knowledge with the experiential technologies of Vedic Science, Transcendental Meditation and the TM-Sidhi Programme, including Yogic Flying, all of which stimulate Total Knowledge in brain physiology itself.

‘Maharishi’s Central University is taking the best of all that Maharishi is offering in the field of education and expanding it in a university for 40,000 students from all over the world. This is the ultimate in education, for which it is being called a ‘super-knowledge university’—the University of Total Knowledge, a new capital of education for the whole world.’