Below is a book review of Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Netherlands: Maharishi Vedic University Press, 2016, Kindle Edition, $9.99. [https://www.amazon.com/Science-Being-Art-Living-Transcendental/dp/0452282667]
Editor's note: This book review was written upon completion of the Science of Being course at Maharishi International University and provides another look at Maharishi’s teaching, and his effort to link traditional scientific knowledge with the unfoldment of the seven levels of consciousness, as described in his along with other ancient texts, and contemporary scientific thought. While it’s a bit more academic, I hope you enjoy the read!
The world was ready for Maharishi, and he was ready for us. Spending decades not only preparing his intellectual mind by becoming a trained physicist, Maharishi was a scholar and teacher devoted to learning the wisdom of integrated life that was advanced by the Vedic Ṛishis of ancient India. Maharishi later introduced the Transcendental Meditation technique to the world through personal instruction and his book, The Science of Being and the Art of Living.
With China and India on the cusp of another futile war in November of 1962, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi retreated to Lake Arrowhead, California. It was in the San Gabriel Mountains with crisp air and tall pine trees that he recorded a blueprint for practical life based on ancient wisdom and contemporary scientific thinking. The Science of Being and the Art of Living was recorded and transcribed in just a couple of months time, where Maharishi integrated milenium of knowledge in 300 pages (Maharishi Vedic University, 1986). In this timeless account, Maharishi aligns traditional systematized scientific objective knowledge with importance of direct subjective experiences. The book’s four sections, being, life, living, and fulfillment offers an alternate path to happiness and contentment by bringing a more fully integrated state of Being to the surface.
Transcendental Meditation is a natural, spontaneous process that allows the practitioner to connect with the always present “Being”, and allow the “state of Being” to cultivate through the development of higher states of consciousness. Maharishi describes “Being” as “Underneath the subtlest layer of all that exists in the relative field is the abstract, absolute field of pure Being, which is unmanifested and transcendental. It is neither matter nor energy. It is pure Being, the state of pure existence. This state of pure existence underlies all that exists. Everything is the expression of this pure existence or absolute Being which is the essential constituent of all relative life. The one, eternal, unmanifested, absolute Being manifests itself in many forms of lives and existences in creation” (Maharishi, 2011, Being, The Essential Constituent of Creation). During Transcendental Meditation, the practitioner experiences this Being through bliss consciousness, where our natural state of peace, harmony, and clarity infuses with our everyday activities outside of meditation. Maharishi explains the two aspects of the technique as first taking the mind out of the gross relative field of life’s experience, to a quiet space at the source of your thoughts and the experience of un-manifested “Being”, then brought back to the relative field of existence well-infused with the state of Being. This natural state of Being, is accessed at the transcendental field and brought out into the relative, ever changing, field of direct experience or existence. Maharishi taught students how to access a deeper space of awareness where this natural state of Being unfolds spontaneously in Transcendental Consciousness (Maharishi, 2011, Art of Being). This personally guided form of instruction continues today, through certified teachers of the Transcendental Meditation technique.
In the first two sections of The Science of Being and the Art of Living, Maharishi focuses on being and life, and aligns the philosophical and systematized knowledge on existence with the subjective experiences that result. He defines the process at which pure consciousness is experienced through the practice of Transcendental Meditation and compares the mechanics of accessing thought from the gross level of the mind to the subtle state of thoughts to arrive at the source of all thought. The grosser levels of the mind include the “outer state” of life described as those attributes that exist in form, resulting in objective experiences while the “inner state” of life can be defined as the ego, intellect, mind, senses, and breath, all contributing to the subjective life experiences. Maharishi introduces a third aspect of life as the “transcendental” field where pure consciousness can be experienced (Maharishi, 2011, What is Life?). By directly experiencing this most subtle state of awareness, we align with pure consciousness, experiencing no mental activity, just blissful awareness of “Being”. From here, one develops capacity to experience transcendental consciousness during regular activity.
The remaining two sections focus on living and fulfillment. Maharishi offers tools for all aspects of living including thinking, speaking, action, behavior, health, education, and more. He shares that when we approach these many aspects of life from a point of pure awareness, we are infused with the powerful source of creation that can be accessed in pure consciousness. Through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, the “capacity of the conscious mind enlarges not only as the basis for the great expansion of knowledge in every field of science, but also brings to man a direct way to fulfillment” (Maharishi, 2011, Introduction). All of the tools are designed to bring forth the individuals’ natural state of being, and realize fully bliss consciousness where equanimity of the mind persists through great joy or negative emotion (Maharishi, 2011, Karma and the Art of Being). Maharishi explains that fulfillment in life occurs as transcendental consciousness stabilizes and moves one toward Cosmic Consciousness through “the practice of Transcendental Meditation, which enables the individual to rise to a state of Cosmic Consciousness without much struggle and strife. The individual then comes in tune with the cosmic life, the movements of the individual are in accord with the movements of the entire cosmos” (Maharishi, 2011, Karma and the Fulfillment of Life).
Traditional science studies the objects of the known, without investigating the knower and the process of knowing. With the discovery of the unified field theories, modern science begins to support Maharishi Vedic Science “because its objective approach has now uncovered the reality of pure subjectivity” (Hodak, 2019). Vedic Science includes “the self interacting dynamics of consciousness” and reveals the subjective influence of the knower and the process of knowing on the known, which “brings human awareness in tune with those fine creative impulses that are engaged in transforming the field of intelligence into· the field of matter” (Hodak, 2019). The two sciences are complementary in that modern science begins with the unified field and the perceived objects of the known, where Maharishi Vedic Science includes the subjective relationship of pure consciousness at the unified field as the “self referral, self-interacting state that expresses itself in the infinite variety of the whole” (Maharishi, 1986). It is this systematized knowledge that can be compared to contemporary scientific field theory where matter is defined at the gross observable level but is born out of the fields that mediate interactions between separate objects (Sutton, 1999). Maharishi’s systematic approach to access pure consciousness appears to complement the maturing science of consciousness, where findings may point to consciousness as an attribute of the electromagnetic fields found in the universe (Murphy, 2019).
One of the striking parallels between traditional science and Maharishi Vedic Science is the possibility that life is created before us from predictive vibrational consequences that result in the creation of life experiences. Maharishi’s teachings allow us to experience this first hand by providing tools for all aspects of life to access pure consciousness and ensure alignment with laws of nature such as gravity, matter, and light.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in the mechanics of meditative practices and a desire to simplify this powerful tool for living. One of my favorite quotes from the text is Maharishi describing Being as ”the technique of making thought powerful” (Maharishi, 2011, How to Make Full Use of the Almighty Power of Nature). We are taught from birth to experience and respond to the observable material world, living lifetime(s) in a reactive state of existence. By cultivating the tools laid forth in The Science of Being and the Art of Living, one can directly experience the powerful individual life that follows, by making thoughts more powerful and experience the seamless merging of those thoughts that lead to actions and experiences supporting self and mankind.
REFERENCES
Hodak, P. (1988) Maharishi on Modern Science and Vedic Science. In Modern Science and Vedic Science 2(3): i-iii, 1988. [Class handout]. Online: Maharishi International University, STC 508.
Murphy, T. (2019) Solving the “Hard Problem”: Consciousness as an Intrinsic Property of Magnetic Fields. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, Volume 10 (Issue 8) pp. 646-659. Retrieved from https://www.jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/835.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, (1986). Life Supported by Natural Law, MIU Press: Washington, DC, pg 25-27.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (2016). Science of Being and art of living: Transcendental Meditation. [https://www.amazon.com/Science-Being-Art-Living-Transcendental/dp/0452282667]
Maharishi Vedic University (1986). His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -Thirty years around the world: Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, (Vol. 1). The Netherlands: Maharishi Vedic University Press.
Sutton, Christine (1999). Unified Field Theory. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eds). Encyclopedia Britannica (July 20, 1998). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/unified-field-theory