Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmentof national economic performance for any nation, irrespective of itspolitical and economic system, through the reduction and preventionof economic problems and the promotion of prosperity and fulfillingprogress.In the following section, we outline the principles of Maharishi VedicScience, which explain how any government can utilize the skilled handof nature to administer society and thereby bring success to its effortsto promote economic progress and improve the quality of national life.A particular focus of this discussion will be Maharishi’s program foraligning national government with the government of nature throughthe group practice of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. As discussed in further detail below, Maharishi VedicScience predicts that the practice of the Transcendental Meditation andTM-Sidhi programs by a single group as small as the square root ofone percent of the national population will be sufficient to bring anynational government into alliance with natural law, the government ofnature. Maharishi (1990) explains that this will enable national law tobe brought into accord with natural law, thus making the government ofthe nation powerful, successful, and ideal. The predicted result of alliancewith nature’s government is to bring greater success to the activitiesof government, including its economic programs and policies, throughsupport of natural law; to improve the performance of the nationaleconomy; and, more generally, to promote a holistic improvement in thequality of life. These positive effects of the group practice of the TranscendentalMeditation and TM-Sidhi programs on society are knownas the “Maharishi Effect” (Borland & Landrith, 1977).We then examine key evidence validating these principles of MaharishiVedic Science by summarizing the results of research on the effect of thegroup practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programson the national economies of both the U.S. and Canada. Using statisticaltime series analysis, this research found that Okun’s “misery index”of inflation and unemployment, a commonly used measure of nationaleconomic performance, was significantly improved over the period 1979to 1988 through the collective practice of the Transcendental Meditationand TM-Sidhi programs by a single group comprising approximately the√1% of the U.S. population.390