Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and Governmentthem, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that theyshould declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal;that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that tosecure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving theirjust powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any formof government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of thepeople to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying itsfoundation on such principles, and organizing it’s powers in such form asto them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudenceindeed will dictate that governments long established should notbe changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experiencehath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which theyare accustomed, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuinginvariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolutedespotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been thepatient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity whichconstrains them to alter their former systems of government. (1776)The colonists realized that breaking away from Great Britain meantnot only severing ties with an oppressive parliament and unresponsivemonarch, but it necessitated the creation of a new government. Thefounding fathers chose to create a new form of government, not just anew version of the parliamentary monarchy they were rejecting.The form of this new government did not become clear until thesummer of 1787. Once again, many of the greatest minds of the timegathered in Philadelphia, this time to refine the Articles of the Confederationthat bound the thirteen colonies together. These Articles hadproven to be ineffective and a change was necessary if the new countrywas to survive. Was the country going to be a loose confederation ofrelatively independent states or a country with a strong federal government?History and recent events had given them reason to fear thestrength of centralized authority. Even a parliament of the people couldnot be relied upon to always reflect natural law and protect the naturalrights of its citizens. On the other hand, without a strong central governmentwould the individual states be vulnerable to attack by foreign84