Research Proposal for the Doctoral Program in Maharishi Vedic ...

2History of Maharishi Vedic ScienceThis section locates the Discovery of Veda and Vedic Literature as the culmination ofMaharishi Vedic Science. It traces the antecedents of the discovery in the early writingsof Maharishi, and summarizes Maharishi’s more recent comments on the discovery.Development of ConsciousnessIn 1953, His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi left the silence of Uttar Kashi, the Valleyof the Saints, in the Himalayas, on a pilgrimage to the south of India. In the course of histravels, he recognized the need of the people for techniques and programs to developconsciousness, to live life in bliss. Having spent years in the presence of his master, GuruDev, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Maharishi waswell versed in the eternal truths of Vedic Literature and realized that Atmai VedamSarvam, “All this is Atman only” (Nrisimhottaratapaniya Upanishad 7). Atma, the Self,pure consciousness is the reality of all of creation.Maharishi defines consciousness simply as awareness. “Consciousness is that which isconscious of itself” (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1994, p. 53). However, in that simplicity iscontained everything as he further elaborates, “Consciousness is wakefulness, unboundedalertness, pure intelligence, pure existence, self-referral fullness, all knowingness – theself-sufficient and unmanifest source, course, and goal of all creation” (MaharishiMahesh Yogi, 1994, p. 58). Consciousness is the silent screen upon which projects allthoughts and activities, all impulses and desires. The simplest state of human awareness,when thought and activity are stilled, is the field of unbounded awareness, pure