Glossary of Terms for Consciousness-Based Education

Just as each discipline of modern science has its own terminology, a language in which it is best expressed, Consciousness-Based education has a terminology in which it is best expressed. We hope the following definitions are helpful for your understanding of the value of Consciousness-Based education.

Consciousness is the most fundamental field of everyone’s life. It is the source of all creativity and intelligence within us, and within the whole universe. Present-day education focuses on what is “known,” such as facts, figures, events, and ideas, but ignores the “knower.” Who is the knower? The knower is our own consciousness, our own intelligence.

Consciousness-Based education, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is education that develops the consciousness of the student—the knower—and awakens the student’s unlimited creative potential. Since it is the quality of our consciousness that determines our success in learning and in life, education that fails to develop the knower is not complete. Consciousness-Based education, on the other hand, is complete. It enlivens all aspects of knowledge—knower, process of knowing, and known—and systematically develops the total functioning of the brain.

Laws of Nature refers to the integrated, balanced, and holistic functioning of all the Laws of Nature. It is the intelligence that governs the whole universe, from its unified source, the Unified Field of Natural Law discovered by quantum physics. Natural Law creates the universe, upholds order in the universe, and nourishes the evolution of individual and cosmic life.

Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health^SM provides prevention-oriented, scientific, holistic health care which restores balanced functioning to the body and mind. It is for the prevention of illness, the preservation of health, and the promotion of longevity. It enlivens the total inner intelligence of the body, and restores the connection between individual intelligence and cosmic intelligence, bringing thought, action, and behavior spontaneously into harmony with Natural Law, the basis of good health.

Natural Law refers to the integrated, balanced, and holistic functioning of all the Laws of Nature. It is the intelligence that governs the whole universe. It creates the universe, upholds order in the universe, and nourishes the evolution of everyone and everything. Natural Law is the essential ingredient of individual and cosmic life.

Natural Law Curriculum is an interdisciplinary course of study. By exploring universal principles of natural law, students discover patterns of order and growth in their own daily life, in all aspects of human achievement, and in nature. They learn that the “unified field” of natural law—described by physics as giving rise to all the diversity, order, and harmony in the universe—is expressed within them as well. This study, along with the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, enables students to understand and directly experience their own unlimited potential and their connection to everything in the universe.

Nature is used in its broadest meaning to include all animate and inanimate objects, all forms of life, and all that exists in the entire universe from its unmanifest unified level to all its expressions, forms, and phenomena.

Transcendental Consciousness is the infinite reservoir of energy, creativity, and intelligence that lies deep within everyone. Transcendental Consciousness is the simplest form of human awareness where consciousness is open to itself. This self-referral state of consciousness is the Unified Field of Natural Law. The supersymmetric unified field quantum theories of physics have glimpsed this state of unity, which, through its own self-interacting dynamics, expresses itself as diverse forms and phenomena in creation.

Transcendental Meditation^® program is a simple, natural, effortless procedure practiced for 15–20 minutes in the morning and evening, while sitting comfortably with the eyes closed. During this technique, the individual mind settles down to transcend all mental activity and experience the simplest form of awareness, Transcendental Consciousness.

The Transcendental Meditation technique opens the awareness to the infinite reservoir of energy, creativity, and intelligence that lies deep within everyone. By enlivening this most basic level of life, the Transcendental Meditation technique is that one simple procedure which can raise the life of every individual and every society to its full dignity, in which problems are absent and perfect health, happiness, and a rapid pace of progress are the natural features of life.

The Transcendental Meditation technique is scientific, requiring neither specific beliefs nor adoption of a particular lifestyle. The practice does not involve any effort or concentration. People of all ages, educational backgrounds, cultures, and religions in countries throughout the world practice the technique and enjoy its wide range of benefits.

TM-Sidhi^® program is an advanced aspect of the Transcendental Meditation program. It trains the individual to think and act from the level of Transcendental Consciousness, greatly enhancing the coordination between mind and body, and developing the ability to enliven Natural Law to support all avenues of life to fulfill one’s desires.

Total Knowledge is the total intelligence of Nature, which is located in the most settled state of human awareness. Total Knowledge is Self-Knowledge. The unfoldment of Total Knowledge brings the discovery that each of us has the total administering intelligence of the universe hidden in the structure of our own brain physiology. It is the understanding and experience that the individual in his or her fully developed, fully educated status is cosmic.

Unified Field of Natural Law, according to modern quantum physics, is the field of pure energy and intelligence that underlies all the particles and forces of nature, and from where all the laws of nature which create and govern the universe are organized and expressed. Modern physics identifies the unified field as having the quality of self-interaction or self-referral. Ancient Vedic Science, the oldest system of knowledge in the world, long ago located the unified field as the field of pure self-referral consciousness, at the source of thought deep within each of us. Maharishi Vedic Science is the total restoration of this knowledge as a complete science of consciousness. The Transcendental Meditation technique is the process for contacting this most basic field of life, the field of pure consciousness, the Unified Field of Natural Law. Transcendental Meditation allows the attention to settle effortlessly through sequentially finer levels of the thought process until the awareness fathoms the source of thought, the field of pure consciousness, the field of the Self—the field of pure creative intelligence, which is the source of all thought, speech, and action.

Yogic Flying is the most powerful of the TM-Sidhi program techniques which demonstrates the ability of the individual to act from the level of Transcendental Consciousness, and thereby enliven the total potential of Natural Law in all of its expressions—mind, body, behavior, and environment. Yogic Flying demonstrates perfect mind-body coordination and is correlated with maximum brain coherence, indicating maximum orderliness and integration of brain functioning.