Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

absolute principles of societyAbstractIn his commentary on the conversation between Arjuna and Lord Krishna inthe Bhagavad-Gītā, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi presents principles that governthe most evolutionary, and therefore ideal, individual and collective life insociety. Maharishi derives these principles from an analysis of the role that thefield of pure consciousness—the unified field of natural law, the total potentialof natural law—plays in structuring the evolution of the universe, includinghuman life. Maharishi describes the mechanics of how natural law governsevolution through the instrument of dharma—the cosmic force of evolutionthat keeps life progressive. In addition, Maharishi describes how natural lawstructures the diversity of evolutionary paths through family dharmas thatuphold the most evolutionary lifestyles for different individuals with differentpsychological and physiological characteristics. Based on these principles,Maharishi explains that individual suffering and collective catastrophes likewar result when individuals use their free will to violate natural law, deviatingfrom the evolutionary process structured by cosmic and family dharmas.Thus, all problems in society ultimately stem from individual thought andaction, and an ideal society can only be structured by teaching individualshow to spontaneously think and act in accord with natural law. Maharishi’sVedic Science makes available technologies for promoting individual growthto higher states of consciousness, in which all thought and action is spontaneouslyin accord with dharma, the total potential of natural law. Maharishipredicts that societies of such enlightened individuals will create a perfectcivilization—Heaven on Earth.IntroductionIn his Vedic Science, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has brought to lightthe complete science of consciousness available in the Vedic literature.The essential insight of Maharishi’s Vedic Science is that theentire universe is the expression of a fundamental field of pure intelligence,of pure consciousness. The Vedic literature itself, Maharishi(1986a) explains, embodies the eternal self-interacting dynamics of thefield of pure consciousness. These self-interacting dynamics give rise toall the laws of nature that structure creation and guide its evolution (pp.24–49; please also refer to Dillbeck, 1989).Maharishi (1972) teaches that for human life, evolution expressesitself in the development of higher states of consciousness, in which the101