Consciousness-Based Education: A Foundation for Teaching and Learning in the Academic Disciplines

This paper frames a discussion of Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government in the context of the current divisive nature of government, showing that the adversarial tendencies of any style of government have only perpetuated problems in the lives of the citizens of all nations. The author examines various interventions, such as economic policy, which, if fully developed, are thought to provide a means to substantively alleviate national problems. However, the author indicates that no economic policy or other type of policy intervention has been able to relieve the poor of their poverty or mend the ills of society on a wide enough scale to produce a quality of life supportive of everyone’s happiness and well-being. The author’s conclusion is that only fundamental access to the unified field of natural law through individual and group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs can support a governmental policy attuned with natural law that is coherent and nourishing for all. I. Expectations and Experience Politics has been described as the art of the possible. This aphorism suggests the limited expectations that are widely held of what government can achieve. The expectations are colored by recognition of the difficulties which governments face in trying to accommodate conflicting pressures placed on them by various elements in the community. They also reflect disappointment in the performance of governments whose achievements almost routinely fail to match the idealism of their stated objectives. In the democracies, parties compete for the right to form a government. It is the political counterpart of what happens in the free enterprise economies characteristic of democratic societies. Just as firms bid for market share, so politicians bid for votes. They talk of “image,” of “charisma,” of “packaging policies,” and of the various ways in which they can improve their appeal to the electorate. They use advertising agencies and public relations consultants. Within this competitive framework the conduct of politics is adversarial. In this respect it has much in common with the way in which democracies manage their judicial systems. The interests of justice are felt to be served by pitting people against one another—the plaintiff against the defendant, the accuser against the accused. The impartiality, c o n s c i o u s n e s s b a s e d e d u c a t i o n a n d g o v e r n m e n t 28 which is seen as the basic virtue of the judicial system is sought within a structure that encourages people to behave in a wholly partial way. So it is with politics. In principle, democratic government is committed to administering the affairs of the nation even-handedly and in the interests of all its citizens. In practice, governments come to power through exploitative factionalism, through parties aligning themselves with certain constituencies of interest whose objectives inevitably bring them into conflict with other constituencies of interest. Free and democratic societies, through their management of economic, judicial, and political affairs, have institutionalized conflict. Much of the rhetoric of democratic idealism confers respectability and even nobility on conflict. A system which encourages dog to eat dog has been set forth as the finest and most honorable ordering of human affairs which the wit of man has devised. Winston Churchill remarked that democracy was the worst system of government—except for all the others. With all its shortcomings that reflect the state of the human condition, democracy remains as the broad framework which offers the best potential for government to achieve outcomes that meet decent aspirations and that honor human dignity. And yet democratic governments around the world frustratingly fail to satisfy their electorates. Cynicism abounds, directed not just at the parties that govern, but also at those that aspire to govern. At this time, when government administration has reached such a deplorable state of failure, the knowledge exists to create a national government capable of satisfying everyone. This knowledge has been formulated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the Vedic tradition of knowledge as his Absolute Theory of Government. Central to Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government is his insight that governments reflect the level of consciousness of their communities. Government is the pure and innocent mirror of the nation, faithfully reflecting whatever is presented to it. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1992,