JMVRI Issue No. 21 contains two feature articles, the first is a lecture “Life Supported by Natural Law: Inaugural Address” by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (pp. 13–35) and the second is a research paper “Consciousness in Maharishi Vedic University: Vedic Knowledge for Everyone” by Dr Geoffrey Wells (pp. 37–113).
JMVRI Issue Number 21
JMVRI Paper 21.2
Consciousness in Maharishi Vedic University: Vedic Knowledge for Everyone
Author: Geoffrey A. Wells
This paper can be downloaded via the following link:
Citation: Wells, G. A. (2023). Consciousness in Maharishi Vedic University: Vedic knowledge for everyone. Journal of Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, 21, 37–113.
Summary (excerpt):
In the 1990s, Maharishi published a series of books which laid out Maharishi Vedic Science in detail. Maharishi Vedic University: Vedic Knowledge for Everyone appeared in 1994. In this book Maharishi presents the principles of ideal higher education, from the perspective of Maharishi Vedic Science. Maharishi’s teaching on consciousness is central to this enlightened theme. It is a teaching that is unprecedented on every level, in both principles and practice, and in its vision of possibilities.
The foundations of Maharishi’s teaching on consciousness in Maharishi Vedic Science may be seen in the passage above. Consciousness is identified as ‘the source of all thinking, of all existing creation’, thereby embracing both human life and the totality of creation. It is found, Maharishi explains, ‘out of relative existence where the experiencer or mind is left awake by itself in full awareness of itself without any experience of an object’. Here Maharishi is referring to the practice of his Transcendental Meditation, which is, as is known throughout the world, central to his teaching, and through which, Maharishi explained, these foundational principles step into practical life. We may note particularly the description ‘left awake by itself in full awareness of itself’. It can be said that, in Maharishi Vedic Science, Maharishi expounded the full meaning and significance of this description, consciousness ‘by itself’ and ‘of itself’. That is a development we will trace in this article.