Heilani Muehlman

HONOR 2109

Professor Hoffman

01/29/2017

Research Paper #1

This paper discusses the symbiotic relationship of an individual's depth of consciousness

and the coherence of the world. First the terms are defined, then their most basic relationship is

discussed, and then the relationship is reframed on a deeper level.

When the word consciousness is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is that one

is unconscious when they are asleep and conscious when awake. Through further investigation of

consciousness, one finds that consciousness pertains to how awake you are within yourself.

There are many levels of consciousness, ranging from the most manifest and surface level of

how one perceives the world, to much deeper levels where thoughts originate and there is a deep

awareness of the self.

When looking back at the great beings of the past, depth of consciousness seems to be at

the forefront of what has given them such greatness. Buddha is an excellent example of this:

They asked him, Are you a divine being? Are you a saint or an angel? but he denied

being anything of the kind. When they then asked what he was, he merely responded, I

am awake (buddh). And forever after, people called him Buddha, the Awakened One.

(Thomas 12)

Buddha attributed his greatness to being fully awake within himself. This means that he had very

deep consciousness. The average person can have very tangible benefits from experiencing depth

of consciousness.
 How fully awake you are within yourself can make one a happier person. Thomas Bein

goes on to explain what Buddha thought of happiness:

Since happiness is always available, the real question is whether you are available to

happiness. As the Upanishads tell us, joy is the underlying nature of things. You dont

have to manufacture it. You need only remove the obstacles, including your unexamined

concepts about happiness. When you learn to be available to happiness, these obstacles

vanish. (Bein 14)

Joy is always there at the deepest level of consciousness. To get there, first the surface levels of

consciousness must be transcended. In Beins approach to happiness, you must first be aware of

the natural source of happiness within you. Through this awareness within yourself, you can see

past all of the waves of the ocean to the calm depths of consciousness where there is always

bliss.

The coherence of the world depends on the depth of consciousness of individuals. World

coherence means people working together with clarity. It has been observed that the positive

emotions of one person have an effect on the emotions of the people who interact with that

person. This creates a chain effect that can create a more positive societal consciousness and

therefore greater coherence is created. This shows how the consciousness of one person can

affect the coherence of the world. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi uses the Bhagavad Gita to explain

how the positive consciousness of one person and the coherence of the world are in symbiosis:

Life is a battlefield of opposing forces. He who, like Arjuna, has recourse to divine

intelligence receives the light and shares the cosmic purpose of fulfillment both for

himself and others. But he who is trapped by temptation, like Duryodhana, becomes a
 drag upon life; he retards his own evolution and also hinders the progress of others.

(Maharishi 26)

A man who seeks to share his fully awake consciousness with others can uplift the consciousness

of others. This also can go the other way; if someone is stuck at the gross level of consciousness,

they can pull others down with them and decrease the coherence of the world.

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says to Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, O Arjuna

(Maharishi 126). This means to transcend the manifest world of birth, living, and decay and go

beyond to the deepest level of consciousness. This redefines the symbiosis between an

individual's consciousness and the world's coherence. What if this deep level of pure

consciousness connected us all? This means residing in it not only allows our actions to

positively affect others, but transcending to pure consciousness also creates a positive effect on

the world's coherence due to this deep level where we are all connected.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought a meditation technique out of the Himalayas called

Transcendental Meditation. In this practice one easily and effortlessly thinks a mantra, which is a

resonant sound without meaning, that allows the mind to experience deeper and deeper levels of

consciousness resulting in a state of restful awareness, pure consciousness, the deepest level of

consciousness. This has a myriad of benefits including stress release, reduced anxiety, lowered

blood pressure, reduced post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. Through this technique one is able to

gain access to that deep level of consciousness where we are all connected. This creates more

consciousness in the individual which creates a more coherent environment.

Physics talks about a unified field of natural law, which is the foundation of life and

connects everything in the universe. Quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin equates the unified

field of natural law with pure consciousness (Haglin 2987). Maharishis meditation technique
allows the human mind to reach this deep level of consciousness, the unified field, which he calls

transcendental consciousness or pure consciousness. This can be compared to an ocean where the

more surface levels of the mind can be analogous to choppy ocean waves on the surface while

transcendental consciousness can be compared to the deep ocean floor where the ocean is settled

and peaceful.

As the mind settles to deeper and deeper levels of thought, it experiences pure

consciousness which is the basis of all action and thought. Through accessing this field, one

becomes more awake within and consciousness becomes aware of itself. When consciousness is

self-aware, the only thing it knows is itself alone. By knowing itself, consciousness becomes the

observer, observing, and the observed (Johnson 80). This differs from thinking about thinking

which David Orme-Johnson describes in his research by stating, Introspection is caught in the

waves of consciousness and does not fathom the ocean of consciousness (Johnson 80). The

stressed, thinking mind is caught up in activity. Through the practice of Transcendental

Meditation, the individual is able to experience the Self, the universal Self, where we are all

connected.

As we discussed earlier, this field of pure consciousness, the Self or unified field, which

connects us all is also the origin from which life comes. It therefore is the field from which

thought and action manifest. If one can access this field and gain consciousness that is awake and

aware of itself, it will impact the coherence of the world from that level. Maharishi explains in

Life Supported by Natural Law:

When consciousness is flowing out into the field of thoughts and activity, it identifies

itself with many things, and this is how experience takes place. Consciousness coming

back onto itself gains an integrated state, because consciousness in itself is completely
 integrated. This is pure consciousness, or transcendental consciousness. From this basic

level of life emerge all fields of existence, all kinds of intelligence. This self-sufficient,

self-referral state of consciousness is the basis of the phenomenon of coherence that

radiates from such assemblies and influences the whole world consciousness.

(Maharishi 26)

Maharishi describes how this field that connects us all is the groundwork of all coherence. He

states that enlivening this deep field of consciousness is what catalyzes the growth of coherence.

The effect of creating coherence by accessing pure consciousness is known as the Maharishi

Effect. The Maharishi Effect states that if one percent of the population practices Transcendental

Meditation or the square root of one percent practices the advanced Transcendental Meditation

technique known as the Transcendental Meditation Sidhis, the world rises to a state of complete

coherence (Goodman 401).

This effect was scientifically tested. Groups of people practicing Transcendental

Meditation relocated to areas that were experiencing conflict and tested the effect large groups

transcending on coherence in areas experiencing war. A study by John Davies in 1999 looked at

conflict during the Lebanese War:

Box-Jenkins impact assessment analyses indicated that in contrast to nonexperimental

days, during the 93 days when the assemblies were sufficiently large for a predicted

impact in Lebanon there was an estimated mean 66% increase in level of cooperation

among antagonists, 48% reduction in level of conflict, 71% reduction in war fatalities,

and 68% reduction in war injuries (p < .0001 for each variable). (Davies 8)

This study shows that war casualties and conflict went down while cooperation increased. This

data indicates that a group of individuals with a more awake consciousness increases the
coherence of the world around them. This type of study has been confirmed by over thirty other

published papers and peer reviewed journals (Johnson 257-282; Johnson 206259).

This paper has examined the symbiosis of an individual's depth of consciousness and the

coherence of the world. On a basic level, it has been shown that ones increased awareness can

lead to increased coherence in the world through contagious happiness. Then this idea was

reframed to show that transcending to the field of pure consciousness, where everything is

connected and everything manifests, impacts the worlds coherence.

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