Modern Vedic Science | The St.Claire

The arts and the sciences flow from a single source. Both are informed by the same reality and their insights are the material with which we build our ideologies. However, the present is without representation: it transcends myth, our comprehensive vision of the world, and constitutes the self.

Brian Glassett is a PhD. candidate at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. There, he studies the science of consciousness and ancient Vedic tradition. As part of his research, he plans to start a radio show called Modern Vedic Scientist, which will air monthly on KHOE, the campus radio station of MUM. The first episode is planned to air at the end of October.

On Sunday afternoon our conversation revolved around Brian’s relationship to Vedic teachings and the difficulty of broadcasting these teachings to our world family. Illuminating the gift of transcending the self as our birthright and the knowledge that world peace is achievable through our collective consciousness. We began by discussing Brian’s early introduction to Transcendental Meditation.

I was given the gift early. I learned the T.M. technique proper at age 10. It was interesting for me because I was given this tech early, but I wasn't given the understanding of what the gift was. I never understood the magnitude, the grander of this gift until I was 20 years old. And I was so lost at that point that I was looking for something, some reality, some substance to this universe and it was right there in front of me! It’s so beautiful that I had to go through this whole journey of development to understand what had already been there. At one level, because it had already been there, given to me by my family, but in another way- in every human being who is walking around- it’s there! It’s always been there, but it’s been forgotten. The whole process of enlightenment within the Vedic tradition is considered a process of remembering. The word in the Vedic language is “Smrti” -meaning memory-, which is the eternal memory of humanness, to the end of the universe in all its grander. We are already enlightened, but we forget our true nature.

Life moves towards happiness. It wants to grow and evolve. This is a principle that is recognized early in consciousness-based learning. The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness. Life will always move in the direction of the greatest happiness. The basis of the entire transcending process is using the minds natural tendency to go to the field of the greatest pleasure. So, instead of going out, out, out; our senses are innocent. They just want to help us find that fulfillment that we're always seeking and we have just forgotten its inside, not outside.

Currently, in Fairfield, approximately 1800 people meditate to purify the collective consciousness of the entire US population. The community is working towards a figure of 2000 practicing individuals. This program called “Superradiance” which is a name derived from a principle of quantum mechanics. Superradiance is responsible for tidal forces and it allows for a body to move towards its lowest energy state, a quantum-path-of-least-resistance.

The community works towards 2000 practicing individuals because 2000 is calculated by taking the square root of one-percent of the entire US population. The power of this number comes from an observed phenomenon in the creation of coherent light in lasers. Imagine a flashlight emitting incoherent light in all directions due to the out-of-phase nature of the wave lengths of light. By simply putting the square root of one-percent of the total photons in phase with each other, all the rest of the photons align themselves creating a laser. The implication is that our human collective consciousness can be focused, purified, fully coherent, and in phase with one another.

In the process of transcending, you just use that tendency to follow this, sort of, path of breadcrumbs to increasingly finer levels -subtle layers of mind until you’re at the door of the infinite. And you've found it and there you are; and the only thing that’s there is you and so its just a complete loop back to finding yourself. Wait a minute -this is me! I'm not the body, the body is a beautiful manifestation of my consciousness, but it’s a gross form. It’s just a vehicle for me to see me in all my diversity. Me is the universe, me is Brahman, as we call it in the Vedic tradition. That’s the transcendental consciousness #4: waking, dreaming, sleeping…

Its been studied to have a distinct physiological signature which is distinct from the other three states that most people are familiar with and it’s a state of complete self referral. It’s a complete state of bliss. There is not object, it's just you looking at you and there’s nothing other than you. It's -ness, it's conscious-ness, it’s everything outside of time and space… that’s where everything flows out.

Knowledge, intellectual and spiritual knowledge, you resonate with that which is given you. That’s what really turns the table. When you speak to people about transcendence, it’s beyond words. You just can't ever describe such a subtle place inside them, but once they sit down and they experience that for themselves…

You see it happen here, it shifts, but not so starkly because people come here knowing that this is what’s good for them. It feels so much like them, so much like home.

That’s what I want to explore with my radio show is that become come here with a certain knowingness of this stuff. This really quiet blissful place. Then all of a sudden this esoteric knowledge starts to make sense. It doesn't sound so silly to say it’s both silence and dynamism at the same time. What does that mean?! To be both silent and dynamic? But yes it can! It always is!

This paradoxical linguistic engagement with these ideas reveals our reality: one of self-creation and self-collapse. We intersect with the experience of the thing, we have to describe it, and paradox emerges. Out of it comes silent dynamism. This perspective allows us to consider the world without opposites through the process of self-referral, but how do we represent a world in the face of our seemingly paradoxical experiences? This is the most fundamental problem of representation and a question I had for Brian: How does one represent transcendental meditation to another and communicate the way to enlightenment?

It’s an attitude of effortlessness and non-rejection and allowing nature to operate the entire thing. Once you engage natural law, it starts to guide you and you don't have to make any effort. You find the middle way. You find your path, your Dharma, spontaneously… effortlessly... simply by returning to your source energy. That source energy thereby informs your actions. It spawns desires in your consciousness that are evolutionary, which will guide you along that Dharma-ed path. That’s one of the problems with explaining it. You say it’s natural, it’s effortless and that doesn't register because it seems like you have to really work for it. That’s been the paradigm of spirituality for passed 2000 years. Attaining liberation, attaining enlightenment, or as Maharishi calls it, cosmic consciousness. It always seemed like something that was very difficult to do and therefore it became almost unbearable to people. Its become almost God and superstition lumped together for some people. The divine creative intelligence of the universe just does not exist in the paradigm of the modern mind.

To tell people its there, number one, and it’s easy to access, number two, and you can at least, in this lifetime, come somewhere reasonably close to enlightenment within your lifetime, that’s the prime message of Maharshi. It’s your birthright. What he calls enlightenment is normal human functioning. It’s not super human- its human. We are living below our level of highest achievement. We are not living up to our fullest potential, but we can be, in a very effortless way, by returning to our source energy everyday, by loving that to inform our actions, by letting it guide us…