9 May 2007 Press Conference Highlights

Maharishi Defines Total Knowledge

Maharishi: ‘Jai Guru Dev. It is a very great joy, Dr Hagelin, to listen to your clarity with which you are expounding Unified Field Based Education, Unified Field Based Education—the education that is unified based, the knowledge that unifies all diversities. What unifies all diversity has a name: Vedic Knowledge. “Veda” means Total Knowledge.

‘Now, what does this mean: “Total Knowledge”? I'll give an example: The Total Knowledge of a building is in the bricks—bricks that make the walls of the building, and all that. The building is made of bricks. Now, what is the brick made of? The brick is made of—I am just explaining what Total Knowledge means.

‘Total Knowledge of the house means knowledge of the bricks. Now, Total knowledge of the bricks means knowledge of the grains with which the brick is made—total knowledge of the grains, not only the knowledge of the concrete grains, but the knowledge of the connecting space between the grains. Total Knowledge does not mean only the grains of the concrete—grains—but that which puts the grains together, and that is not a grain, but it is space. It is not grainy, is not material, but it makes a link between two grains—the space, the space, the space.

‘ “Total Knowledge” means what connects the grains, and not only what connects the grains, but what—one side of the space is connecting one grain, the other side of the space connecting other grain. So, it is not the space alone, it's not the grain alone. That means it is not the knowledge of the space alone, it is not the knowledge of the grain alone, but the knowledge of something mysterious that connects one grain with the other grain. We say “space”—the space.

The Unified State of Knowledge is from the Veda

‘All these different areas of knowledge together make the knowledge unified. That means, so many different levels of knowledge and not only them, but something that puts them together. That is the unified state of knowledge. That unified state of knowledge is from the age old tradition of Total Knowledge that is the knowledge of the Veda.

‘What is there in the Veda? There is a word, and there is a gap. There is a word and there is a gap, the word and a gap, the word and a gap, and a word and a gap. When you ask the Vedic Pandits to recite the Veda, they will say “Ag-ni-mi-le-pu-ro-hi-tam”. So he is reciting a word, and what he is not reciting, we call it a gap. So there is something concrete that comes out in reverberations. Every word is a reverberating something. And that something that is not the reverberation of a word, it is silence. And this silence is also not static; it is on the move.

‘When we say, “Ag-ni-mi-le-pu-ro-hi-tam”, the word comes out, but the word is inertia. It is propelled by something that is absence of a word. That is a line, we say. So the Total Knowledge—I am just defining Total Knowledge—Total Knowledge is just not the words, not the words, but something that put the words in relation to each other, something that is not a word, something that transcends the word. A word is that which we hear. In Sanskrit, it is called "Shruti"—you hear. For hearing, the sense of hearing is needed. So what you hear has its basis in the sense of hearing. It is a different object.

‘The sense of hearing is involved. In the sense of hearing, the hearer is involved, the subject is involved. I am hearing, you are hearing, he is hearing. So the ”I” and “he”, they become a subject, so that the subject is involved. When the subject is involved, the verb is involved, the action principle is involved. The field of action is one aspect of knowledge, and the field of action on the level of non-action is silence. So silence is another object, which is an object of knowledge. Silence is one aspect, action is another aspect.

‘Now, there is something that connects the silence with action. And what is that? The connecting agent is there. So the unified aspect is also there. So the two different aspects, silence and action, and the third aspect is the connecting aspect. The knowledge of each of these separately—knowledge of these very fundamental values of silence and action—and the third is the connecting link between them. When we say silence and action, we say the word and the gap, and the word and the gap.

‘This is the structure of the Veda, known to all literary people of the Veda. Any language [has] word and silence, word and silence, word and silence. In its essential nature, it is knowledge which knows its own nature to be non-silence. “Action” means non-silence. So [there is] the knowledge of silence and the knowledge of non-silence within silence. These are the engineers of knowledge. so, when we say “Total Knowledge”, this word “Total Knowledge” means silence and action, and action and silence together—the three qualities.

‘Action and silence—we summed them up to be knower, knowing and known—the three values. Silence is also knower—knower, knowing and known. Action is also knower, knowing and known in itself. And the connecting link has to have three on this side and three on that side—six. So these are the constituents of knowledge.

‘This is Vedic Knowledge, the ultimate, and “ultimate” means the Constitution of the Uni-verse. This is uni-verse—uni-verse of knowledge—three on this side belonging to knower, knowing, and known in the field of silence; and knower, knowing, and known in the field of action. Silence and action putting together three on this side, three on this side. This completes the field of the knowledge. That is the Veda. This is insight into knowledge that is Vedic Knowledge.

‘Dr Hagelin has described it in terms of the Unified Field, but these many details are there within the structure of the Unified Field. That is why the uni-versity, versified unity—the concept that Dr Hagelin has brought about in his university—has this wheel within the wheel, wheel within the wheel, wheel within the wheel. And this structure is available to us in the knowledge of the Veda. It is beautiful. This is one lump of knowledge with ingredients into one, different from the second, different from the third, different from the other one, two, three. The one, two, three uniting, and one, two, three, separating—one, two, three uniting, and one, two, three, separating. Three uniting, three separating; three uniting, three separating; three uniting, three separating.

‘This becomes the total structure of knowledge. How, from the Vedic Tradition, [are] these fine ingredients of knowledge open to one awareness? How? The first step is transcend diversity. Come to Transcendental Consciousness, and then pick up the ingredients there. That is Sutras, Siddhi Sutras, pick up. And then pick up the differences of the Sutras, and transcend the differences of the Sutras, and come down to more unified level, where you are left with your three levels, and come down to more, to those three levels, in order to find some, we can say, co-operative or differential values of the three.

Total Knowledge in the Vedic Literature

‘The three are called, in the Vedic language, Rishi, Devata, Chhand. And the three are Rishi, Devata, Chhand of this kind and the Rishi, Devata, Chhand of the other kind. That means one Rishi, Devata, Chhand belonging to the silence value, and the other Rishi, Devata, Chhand belonging to the dynamism value—silence value, dynamism value, silence value, dynamism value.

‘In the Vedic Literature, it is the value of Gyan—knowledge—and the value of Kriya—the value of action, action. Knowledge and action—and knowledge itself is in the full value of action, but also one aspect of knowledge has no action. Itself, all by itself, in no action, it is all silence. But silence cannot be conceived on its own value because, silence itself is not inertia. It knows itself. It is self-referral. This self-referral makes it into three divisions. It is self-referral. It knows itself. It is knower and knowing and known. So from this one abstract, what one gets is three concretes. It is concrete—once in the three—one concrete, two concretes, three concretes. This is the structure of knowledge. And this is how, step by step, one goes from one to three, and suddenly from one to two, and suddenly three. This is Total Knowledge.

‘In the Vedic Knowledge, all these mechanics of unified diversity are taught to the children in three syllables—”A”, “I”, “U”. “A” is the first lesson of Total Knowledge. Within “A” is shown “I”, within “A” and “I” is “U”. The whole alphabet of the Vedic Language is so profound. All this knowledge is available to the Seers of the Veda.

‘And it is a joy for everyone, the students of the Veda, to see how the first Seer of the Veda, Madhuchchhandas, saw the whole Veda sequentially in layers of “A”; and within “A”, layers of “I; and within “I”, layers of “U”; and within “A”, “I”, “U”, the whole of the Veda; and within whole of the Veda, the whole of the Vishwa, the whole of the universe, the whole of the five elements.

‘Now, here we go into the structural dynamics of creation and all that—the five Mahabhutas, and then from there the creation in the eight Prakritis, eight values. From where [do] the eight come? It comes from: two into two, four; and four into two, eight; and eight into sixteen, like that. Two, two, two, two, two, because there are two—knowledge and action, knowledge and action, silence and action, silence and action. The whole theme of duplicating, triplicating, making quadrupals, multiplying by five is completely dependent on the structural constituents of knowledge.

‘It is its own theme, which Dr Hagelin comes out in terms of the scientifically described system of gaining knowledge, step by step, from one to infinity, step by step, from one to infinity, step by step, from one to infinity. The Central University which Dr Hagelin has conceived, this one Central University which Dr Hagelin has beautifully conceived—he has conceived because he sees what the constituents of Total Knowledge are. From a complete abstract something, when you analyse “A”. What is “A”? And what is “I”? And what is “U”? “A” is the Rishi, the Seer. And through what he sees? He sees through Devata. So, he is Rishi, Devata and Chhand. Chhand is that which hides. So all that hides is within “A”. All that opens, Devata, is within “I”. And “A” itself is Totality, and that is called “Brahm”.

‘This is the strength of proclamation of Dr Hagelin: that he is going to give Total Knowledge to every student of his University. And what that Total Knowledge is: they are the constituents, the grains, and that which connects the grains to make the infinity, abstract infinity. He is able to give Total Knowledge to every student in one syllable, “A”, which is already implicit and explicit in the structure of the Veda.

‘There is a language in the world which is called Vedic Language. And all the thousands of languages prevailing in the whole span of time of the universe, all these, are all the languages with reference to one aspect of the Vedic Language or the other aspect of the Vedic Language—one aspect of the Vedic Language or the other aspect of the Vedic Language, just as I said, a brick. A brick has thousands of grains—a grain in the middle of the brick, and a grain in the end of the brick. There is something different in the grain middle of the brick and in the grain at the edge of brick. They are different, different. All are grains, but each grain has its own speciality.

‘When we are considering the structure of the combined values of the grains, like that are the fields of knowledge within one syllable. They are different fields, even within one syllable. A syllable may be the beginning syllable or the middle syllable or the end syllable. So there is uniformity, composed of diversity, and from this reality, is the word “uni-verse”—versified unity, unity versified.

‘This is how, in the eternal unity of Total Knowledge, all the innumerable aspects of knowledge are existing. They are available for scrutiny, they are known, as you know something from a magnifying glass. When we see a magnifying glass, what is a magnifying glass? It expands the vision. It unfolds the vision: something that is unified—two grains. You take a magnifying glass, and immediately you see that they are made of two. They are made of two, and you can say, “They are made of two.” One is attracted to the other, one is attracted to the other.

‘So, like the magnifying glass is your vision in the transcendental field where limitations do not get registered—unlimited. And [it] is that unlimited, when our awareness becomes familiar with the unlimited values, that begins to see the junction point within the one with the other, junction point within the one with the other. Then you begin to see. In the beginning you may say this point is in this point, but later you begin to see there is some difference in the points. There is some difference in the points.

‘These are available in the different stages of Vedic Literature. One is called the Samhita, Ved. One is called the Vedangas. One is called the Upangas. One is called the Sthapatya Ved and the Dhanur Ved. These are all different names of the different qualities.

‘As our vision becomes familiar with the one, we begin to see that the one is made of two; that two are made of four; they are made of eight; they are made of ten; they are made of infinity—infinity at every point. All that infinity at every point is—take any point, take a word, it is called Shabda Brahm—Totality in the form of a sound.

‘How many sounds are there? So many alphabets, so many syllables, so many words, so many words are there. What is a word? It is a composite of the letters. So Shabda Brahm, Shabda is also Totality. It is Brahm. Letters are also Totality—that is also the Brahm. And these letters are made of fine unmanifest vibrations. That is also Brahm. Complete unmanifest, complete self-referral, that is also Brahm—so Brahm, Brahm, Brahm, Brahm, Brahm, Brahm, Brahm, Brahm.

‘Brahm is also Totality, Totality, Totality. So ultimately a phrase comes out in the field of knowledge: “Totality is all that there is”—“Sarvam Khalvidam Brahm”. All this is Brahm, Brahm, Brahm. Because, when you see two grains, it is Totality you see as one—total one. When you go deeper into it, you understand two, two, two. And when you go deeper into one, you get into abstract Totality, abstract infinity. You can make any divisions that you want. These are the different fields of knowledge. When words enters into anything, from anything you deliver Total Knowledge, and it steps onto Total Knowledge as you go to the finer and finer and finer and finer.

‘A speciality of the Central University will be to hand over to the student one word, one syllable. And then enter into that, and then enter into that, and enter into that, and enter into that, and enter into that. Enter into that, from both levels. Experientially, these are our higher techniques of transcending, higher techniques of Transcendental Meditation. But at the same time, each level is open to scrutiny by the intellect.

‘In the classes, the students will get an intellectual probe into the different levels of reality. In their closing the eyes in the classes, they will investigate into the Transcendental Field, into the abstract field. Transcendental Meditation makes the awareness come out of all sensory perceptions, go to the mental perception, go to the intellectual perception, go to the self-referral transcendental Being, and that is called the Unified Field. That is called Totality.

‘This experience of Totality in the Central University will not deprive the visible world from being appreciated in its entirety. The visible world being appreciated in its entirety makes a man promote that which is very necessary, which we call “administration according to Natural Law”.

‘Today's administration and the administration of the past times have been on the basis of man-made concepts. Man-made concepts are concepts in limitation of space and time. And what governs life in space and time? Not the man-made concepts, but the reality of the unmanifest field—fluctuations of the unmanifest field. In the manifestations, there are so many consonants, so many vowels, so much language, and so many numbers, and all that. But in the reality, it is the experience in the quieter areas of all these that takes us to the junction point of two quiet values. And two quiet values, where one differs from the other, are silence and dynamism.

‘The words of the Totality, the totality of knowledge in the Sanskrit language are such beautiful words. They say “Nirguna Nirakara Saguna Sakara”. One talks of complete abstract, and complete abstract is complete concrete. Complete abstract is complete concrete—one—complete infinity. Infinity is completely one; infinity is completely many. So, one is determined between the two.

Total Knowledge Necessary for Total Education

‘It is a very delightful system of educating the children.
In the light of this Total Education, all education so far has been completely useless and a fraud. It was misguiding the people. I am very frank about it. Education so far has been the opposite of what it should be.

‘Now, here is Total Education, capable of being handled in one syllable, in one word, and within that word, details, details, detail, detail, detail, detail until no detail is any more possible in the abstract unmanifest field—“Nirguna Nirakara Saguna Sakara”. “Nirguna Nirakara" means completely beyond everything, and completely beyond everything is that concrete experience of reality, Totality. This is the field of Total Knowledge.

‘So far the whole thing [education] was a fraud. It was a fraud. That is why there is this fraudulent world everywhere. That is why there is the time of all misery, opposite to life. Life is bliss, and life is being lived as hell. This has a name, Kali Yuga, the age of darkness, the Dark Age.

‘But even in the Dark Age, there is a sample of reality. There is the darkness of the night, and there is the dawn of the daylight—darkness and light. This shows that if anyone is caught up in the night, he has only to know that it is coming to an end. Night is not a lasting thing. Ignorance is not a lasting thing, and this is the time when ignorance is being replaced by complete Total Knowledge.

‘I marvel at the expressions of Dr Hagelin. He is able to conceive of the Central University, where he wants to train 40,000 students. It will take a year or two or three year for the students to become 40,000, but then this number will be completely enough. Even much before, he will create invincibility in the world consciousness by creating small, small areas of this Central University. Dr Hagelin will have small, small universities in all these small, small countries, and each country will rise to invincibility with a few people like that.

‘So the whole future of the world, as far as education is concerned, is so bright and so full of hope, absolutely. I congratulate you Dr Hagelin, you are able to speak Vedic Wisdom on the level of the wisdom of modern science.

‘The wisdom of modern science is made on the basis of physical enquiry, which is open to the senses. But Dr Hagelin has realized the basis of the senses. The senses require the physical—some physical ears and eyes and all that—but the basis of this is mind and more abstract, the intellect and more abstract, the ego. The ego of the individual then comes on the level of cosmic ego. That is the field of Aham—I am “A”. I am Totality. I am Total Veda. I am the Constitution of the Universe. And, I am the expression of the Constitution in terms of the universe. “Aham Vishwam”—I am the universe.

‘Before I am the universe, I am myself—I am Totality. “Totality” means I am abstract. I am concrete, abstract, concrete, abstract, concrete, abstract—one, many, many, one, many, point, infinity, point, infinity, point, infinity. That is Aham. That I am—Aham. And that is Brahm—Totality. That is universality. I am the universe. I am the Veda—Total Knowledge. This is Total Knowledge. This is the Total Knowledge that will be the realistic value of knowingness of each student of the Central University.

‘Beautiful, Dr Hagelin, go ahead. You have the blessings of the eternal tradition of Vedic Knowledge, and you have the appreciation of the modern scientific age of scientific knowledge. Your balance measures concrete values, and your balance measures equally well abstract values. You have a balance, and the balance is a Unified Field of concrete and abstract. This is your Totality.

‘This is your Central University, and you have your companions who are bringing out its structure very quickly. You have well selected America, which has been the most creative country in the scientific field. So, you have chosen the central point of America to be the seat of your Central University. You will be the guiding light of the whole world from that centre of America.

‘Congratulations to you for bringing out so clearly the total field of Knowledge and associating it with the brain functioning, with the heart functioning, with the whole physiology. And you have the support of the greatest scientist of this age, Raja Raam, who said, “Consciousness is the basis of physiology”. His research in the field of consciousness is at your disposal. You are representing his Science and Technology Ministry. In every way, you are so fortunate, and the world is so fortunate to have you in its midst.

‘All Glory to Guru Dev. Jai Guru Dev.’