I can understand Maharishi’s current focus on the wealthy people in every country. He has noted the failure of TM to make significant inroads to the middle-class, working-class and the poor. I suspect that in the beginning, He saw the potential usefulness of the “leisure time” that existed in the western developed societies. These efficient economies had provided a promising environment for evolution of the masses by generating and distributing wealth to a majority of the people. This permitted them to make time free to rest and recreate. Consequently, the arts, sports and academic pursuits gained general acceptance and increasing popularity; but the vision of possibilities for “rest” had not been realized.
The highest use of leisure time, the ultimate purpose of leisure time, is also the ultimate purpose of culture: to spiritually enlighten the humans who live within it. Leisure time is a gift to those few souls who deserved to be born into a culture that provided that resource. Rest, not activity, is the purpose of leisure. All activity is some form of labor, whether enjoyable or not. Labor is tiring and dulling to the mind and senses. It is a complete waste of leisure time to spend it in some form of activity when the highest use of such time is for rest; the deeper the rest, the better. The deepest rest is found in transcendental consciousness, whose physical artifacts measure out to be far deeper than the deepest sleep, but without losing awareness.
Those fortunate souls who have been born into a leisure culture, but who elected to stay busy acquiring wealth or power, have wasted their entire lives by squandering this opportunity to spiritually evolve. Culturing the mind, senses and nervous system requires free time and a rested body. These conditions do not exist in the lives of the vast majority of struggling humans on this planet. It would be the great exception, if not a miracle, to see someone from those ranks emerge enlightened by the end of their life. On the other hand, with these living conditions appearing to be commonplace in modern, developed societies, one should expect legions of enlightened beings emerging in each generation. Because such advancement of the human race is not happening in our leisure cultures, the cultures are being wasted and those wasted souls will be demoted to lives of hard labor (which they so obviously enjoy) in their next life.
I would like to finish this commentary with Maharishi’s own words in order to emphasize the integrity of the big picture, one which we may not comprehend, but which we may have faith in; not blind faith, but faith based upon experience: personal experience and scientific experience.
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His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Over the 49 years that Maharishi has worked day and night to enlighten the world, he has very, very rarely said anything about the unique state of enlightenment that has coordinated and driven this magnificent effort–his own state of consciousness. Maharishi hardly ever talks about himself–but in a talk last month to his World Peace Parliament, he reveals a little of his inner life, of what it is like to enjoy the highest possible state of human development.
I can think of only one other public occasion where anything like this has happened. It was during a truly gripping and intense interview of Maharishi, conducted by a very feisty Washington Post columnist — who had surely been primed by her editor to attempt to provoke Maharishi to say something ill-tempered or unwise. But of course, Maharishi, with his usual brilliance, skillfully parried all her provocative questions, and also dropped in many gems of his Vedic wisdom.
The interchange I refer to happened when she asked him, “Have you no shame?” . . . to which Maharishi immediately replied,
“NO SHAME, NO WEAKNESS, NO FAILURES”!
Now without further delay, here are Maharishi’s brief comments about life in enlightenment, and the huge advantage to be enjoyed by anyone wise enough to ally him or herself with this great and unprecedented force for good in the world:
MAHARISHI: “…and anyone who has the knowledge, he is a lighted lamp in his town, in his family and all that. And when you are not able to do anything in your environment, (when you) tell me that you have tried this and you have tried that . . . and nothing is possible. I will remove all your…”
“I stand before you having crossed all the hardships of life. And I am before you with the most delicate level of intelligence, the pure field of God, pure divine, pure royalty.”
“If you are a founder of world peace you are able to do everything. Keep contact and you will succeed in raising your nation and your world to be an invincible nation, an invincible world.”
“I am completely aware that these words may be shocking to the people. But tell them that I am not speaking lies. I am with the simple expression which is the total reality of all life and total reality of every single individual life, transcendental reality. And there is the seat of all architecture, all engineering, all capability of achieving anything. So when that is the case let us achieve, let us achieve a good, a beautiful world for our family, our community, our country, our generation…”
Jai Guru Dev
(With thanks to Joerg Schenk for the transcription.)
