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Hard to imagine that a small town such as Fairfield would be the site of some of the most advanced mind/body research in the world. Consider the recent findings: The seemingly elusive state of human "enlightenment" is now actually being measured in the lab. Cardiovascular disease is being treated without the cost and side effects of drug therapies. The human body is being linked to the environment and to ancient texts in both function and form. Insurance companies are saving 90 percent by insuring those who meditate. All these findings and more have come in the last two years from the research of one Fairfield institution--Maharishi University of Management.
Faculty at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) have studied the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique for the last 25 years. In that time they have published many articles in the most prestigious scientific journals, such as The American Journal of Cardiology and The Journal of the National Medical Association. The quality and results of these papers have attracted increasingly prestigious grants, including a $1.7 million grant to Dr. Robert Schneider, Dean of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine.
The Mind
What is the full range of the mind? Practice of the Transcendental Meditation program is predicted to lead to stabilized higher states of consciousness, otherwise known as enlightenment. An early paper by faculty member Dr. Fred Travis of the psychology department demonstrated that the three common states of consciousness, waking, sleeping, and dreaming, have a common source: a fourth state that is experienced each time we pass from one state to another. This fourth state experienced during TM practice is called Transcendental Consciousness and is characterized by a phenomenon called "restful alertness." Several of Dr. Travis's more recent papers documented reliable indicators of this state, such as significant changes in breath patterns, indicating deep rest; skin conductance changes, indicating heightened alertness; and subjective indicators such as happiness, silence, and unboundedness.
Transcendental Consciousness can also be integrated with waking, dreaming, and sleeping. A primary indicator of this state is "witnessing," an experience where Transcendental Consciousness acts as a silent, unchanging observer. Dr. Lynne Mason compared the brain waves of 11 individuals (nine women and two men) experiencing witnessing during sleep to those of new meditators and non-meditators. The witnessing subjects exhibited higher EEG alpha activity, characteristic of Transcendental Consciousness, along with typical delta activity seen during deep sleep. They also exhibited significantly lower muscle tone--an unexpected finding that is being further investigated. The subjects who reported more frequent witnessing experiences exhibited greater cortical balance and evenness between tasks.
The Body
Not all people are convinced by talk of enlightenment and higher states of consciousness. The truth is, money rules the lives of most Americans. Several papers have documented saving up to 90 percent on health costs resulting from the TM technique and related practices of the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health program.
The Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health program (MVAH) involves many of the same principles as the Transcendental Meditation technique, namely, ease and naturalness. It is a preventive method of health care that combines healthy habits with a regular daily routine. Light exercise and simple dietary guidelines are emphasized, not hard physical labor and drastic lifestyle changes. Practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique and occasional treatments, such as oil massages and aroma therapy, blur the line between medicine and luxury while improving health at the same time.
University researchers Dr. David Orme-Johnson and Dr. Robert Herron compiled data on the expenditures of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa over the last 11 years. The faculty, staff, and their dependents at MUM were compared to their counterparts at other Iowa universities, and to the general population, all 600,000 insured persons. Hospital use and expenditures were lower for the MVAH group over all years, on all outcome measures, in all age groups, and in all disease categories. The most extreme savings came in the age group of 40 and above, who experienced a 90 percent reduction in utilization and expenditures. The disease most affected by the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health was cardiovascular disease, in particular, hypertension--a disease afflicting 1 out of every 5 people, or 45 million Americans. Cardiovascular disease was 11.4 times lower in the MVAH population than was standard for Iowa. These findings are complementary to an earlier finding by Dr. Herron that Transcendental Meditation is as effective as hypertension medicines, but can cost less than half as much as drug therapy over several years and produces none of the harmful side-effects.
If cardiovascular disease is an epidemic among Americans, it is doubly so to the African American. African Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to suffer from cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease accounts for 35 percent of the total death rate for African-American men, and 45 percent in women. This figure is five times higher than in the white population. This may be related to the fact that many of the risk factors for high blood pressure are both more common and more severe in African Americans. Elderly black women are the most affected of any race or age group, with over 75 percent of elderly black women suffering from this disease.
While many research articles have documented the ability of Transcendental Meditation to reduce high blood pressure, Dr. Schneider looked specifically at the effects on this high-risk population. In a three-month study, he monitored the blood pressure of three groups of African Americans aged 55 to 85. One group was taught the Transcendental Meditation technique. A second was taught Progressive Muscle Relaxation, a technique widely held to reduce stress. And one was given lectures on lifestyle changes known to reduce blood pressure, such as eating less, stopping smoking and drinking, exercising more, and avoiding salt. The Transcendental Meditation group showed results comparable to the effect of prescription drugs, but without any side-effects. The level of improvement suggests 35 percent fewer strokes and heart attacks can be expected. Further, 80 percent of the subjects were still practicing Transcendental Meditation several years later when the researchers contacted them again. Medication and lifestyle changes seldom have such remarkable rates of compliance, due to the side-effects in the case of the drugs and the difficulty of breaking old habits in the case of lifestyle changes.
The American Heart Association sent out over 800 press releases, resulting in over 1,000 articles covering this research. In response to these findings Dr. Norman Kaplan, one of the world's foremost experts on hypertension, is quoted in The American Medical News, a publication of the American Medical Association, as saying that he would recommend Transcendental Meditation to patients that asked about it. On the financial side, the National Institutes of Health have awarded $3 million in grant money to continue researching the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique on hypertension.
The Connection
One of the key findings in this research was that Transcendental Meditation improved blood pressure regardless of risk factors. The Transcendental Meditation group also cut back on drinking by an average of 6 drinks a day. This was more than the lifestyle education group. Dr. Orme-Johnson and Dr. Herron's paper showed the MVAH to reduce all disease expenditures for all ages. How Transcendental Meditation can be effective on such a wide range of health issues was the subject of a paper by university researchers Drs. Chris MacLean and Ken Walton.
It has long been known that stress affects the health, but no one knew exactly how. Drs. MacLean and Walton found that Transcendental Meditation changed the levels of hormones affected by stress in the body. It is these hormones that seem to be behind stress's ability to cause disease, and it is Transcendental Meditation's ability to reduce the level of stress and improve the body's ability to handle stress that seems to be behind its abilities to prevent and heal disease.
As Dr. Travis's "junction point" research showed, there is a level of awareness that is the source of our thought processes, our consciousness. MacLean has found that experiencing this level of awareness changes the hormonal makeup of the body positively, but the question is why.
Dr. Tony Nader, a researcher affiliated with the university who is based in Holland, may have found the answer in his discoveries of the structure of the human physiology. Dr. Nader discovered that not only does the structure of the human body mirror the structure of the universe, but that the structure of the human body is exactly the same as the structure of the most ancient scientific texts known to man: the Veda and Vedic Literature. These texts are ancient descriptions of the universe, the human body, and their nature and paths of evolution. From every level of the whole body, even down to the details of each strand of DNA, the structure and function of the human body, the universe, and the Veda are identical. The Vedas state that the universe is, at its most basic level, consciousness. Modern physics has identified this as the Unified Field, where all the four forces are seen to be expressions of one force. That level is also what seems to be experienced in the state of Transcendental Consciousness. These findings indicate that when the consciousness of the body is influenced by a stress, physical or mental, it cannot express fully the consciousness of the universe. Removing that stress allows the body to function as it was intended to function: perfectly.
Not just in America, but around the world, more and more physicians are becoming aware of the shortcomings of modern medicine. Holistic and natural health practices are growing in popularity and research is showing that many techniques are safe and effective. The Transcendental Meditation technique has led the way by directly addressing the areas of greatest concern. The faculty of MUM are publishing research in some of the most prestigious journals in their fields because their research is strong, it is supported by grants from the best public and private sources, and it is solving the greatest problems in modern medicine as well as developing entirely new levels of understanding about human consciousness.
Looking into the future, this year will see more research on higher states of consciousness. Long-term studies of the effects of the TM technique on hypertension are underway. Two MUM alumni, Jonathan Schwam and Sherry Levesque, have convinced three health insurance companies to cover half the cost of learning the TM technique, and they are working to convince more companies.
The main focus in health care right now is the prevention of chronic or incurable disease. Numerous MVAH clinics are opening up around the country with the goal of not only preventing any new chronic diseases, but the cure of those that already exist. In the past, that might have seemed an extraordinary goal, but given the evidence amassed by researchers at Maharishi University of Management, it now seems well within reach. Indeed, health, for them, is not simply the management of disease but a perfectly functioning mind and body. And if they have their way, it will be the birthright of everyone on earth.
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