For over 50 years, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi marked January 12th as a traditional day of celebration for his worldwide Transcendental Meditation organization. Achievements of the previous year were reviewed with a look forward to the coming new year as a renewed opportunity to more boldly advance his meditation-based, consciousness-based programs to bring enlightenment to every individual and peace to the whole world family.
This year, in Maharishi Invincibility Centers (TM centers) worldwide, the tradition continued with great celebrations. For very good reasons.
Maharishi’s message in 1958 when he left India to embark on his first global tour to bring Transcendental Meditation to the world was the same as it is today: Every human being is born with infinite potential—and realizing that potential is the birthright of everyone, so that everyone can rise above suffering and enjoy the truth of the ancient maxim: “Life is bliss.” Maharishi offered his Transcendental Meditation technique as a simple, natural way to live the fullness of life.
Now, 54 years later, Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation is mainstream: practiced by more than 6 million people of all ages, nationalities, and religions, and offered in businesses, schools, military bases, hospitals and prisons. And, as Maharishi foresaw, the benefits of the technique extend to all areas of life, including education, healthcare, business, rehabilitation and the military. Here is a brief review some of those benefits:
Health
more than 350 peer-reviewed studies on the TM technique have been published in medical and scientific journals.
During the past 40 years, more than 350 peer-reviewed studies have been conducted on the TM program at over 200 independent universities and medical institutes, and have been published in leading medical and scientific journals.
For example, neuroscientists have found that the Transcendental Meditation program promotes the full potential of the brain—the basis of increased IQ, creativity, memory, academic performance and emotional maturity.
Tens of thousands of medical doctors throughout the world now recommend the Transcendental Meditation program to help alleviate the deleterious effects of stress, and eliminate the cause of psychosomatic illnesses. In addition, thousands of medical doctors have incorporated into their practice Maharishi’s Vedic Approach to Health to prevent disease and promote total health.
Education
Thousands of schools, colleges and universities throughout the world have incorporated the Transcendental Meditation program in order to help reduce student stress and improve student brain development. Research shows that the effect of adding the “Quiet Time/TM Program” to the school day improves students’ academic performance and their behavior.
Peace
Maharishi’s programs to create world peace have resulted in the establishment of large groups of people practicing the TM & TM-Sidhi program in all parts of the world. The largest groups are in India and the United States.
“Contentment, power, wisdom, and the ability to support all things—these qualities, and many more besides, are found in the nature of the person who, while living in the world, has gained equanimity of mind. That stable state of evenness of mind belongs to the field of pure consciousness, pure creative intelligence, which is the very source of life-energy, the reservoir of wisdom, the origin or all power in nature, and the fountainhead of all success in the world.”
–Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
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