The Sage and the Lotus: Mind, Body and the Five Worlds

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The Sage and The Lotus:

Mind, Body and the Five Worlds

Jeremy J Bowler

Revised Edition: September 2019

Copyright 2016 Jeremy J. Bowler

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Overview of the Book

PART 1. The Mind-Body Problem

Chapter 1. The Search for Truth

Chapter 2. Dualism

Chapter 3. Materialism

Chapter 4. Idealism

PART 2. Maharishi Vedic Science

Chapter 5. A Theory of Wholeness in Eight Steps

Chapter 6. The Materialisation of Form

PART 3. Towards a New World-View

Chapter 7. Shifting the Paradigm

Chapter 8. The Five Worlds Framework

Chapter 9. The Lotus on the Lake

PART 4. Wholeness in Action

Chapter 10. On Spiritual Development

Chapter 11. On Education

Chapter 12. On Medicine

Final Points to Ponder

APPENDIX: The Seven States of Consciousness

References

About the Author

Connect with Jeremy J Bowler

Thank you!

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Grandchildren.

May you find the fields of bliss and live your lives in happiness.

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Acknowledgements

Everything of value that I know about consciousness, I have learned from His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I have endeavoured to faithfully and accurately represent his teaching in this book, with the desire to help bridge the gap between what he taught and what the world at large thinks it knows.

There are two places in the book where I have felt it necessary to state that certain ideas of detail are my own (in Ch. 6 and Ch. 9). I have done that to avoid any confusion over what Maharishi actually taught, though I believe that the topics covered there require those ideas. I hope I have done justice to the subject. In any event, all errors are mine alone. For everything he has given, to me and millions of others, I can only say Jai Guru Dev.

My wife Janet deserves my heartfelt thanks for her tremendous support, advice and encouragement for my writing, indeed for all of my projects – and for her love and companionship on the journey of life.

Thank you also to my brother Dr Rick Bowler for a brilliant and necessary criticism at an early stage. Also to my dear son James, to Janet and to my esteemed friend Dr Ian Birnbaum for detailed feedback in the final stages. Those invaluable contributions are very much appreciated!

Others who have kindly taken the time to give me helpful comments include: my TTC Buddy Dr Keith Campbell and the wonderful Dr Vernon Katz.

Thanks to all my friends and family for being who you are. May you Live long and prosper!

Cover design: copyright 2015 Janet Bowler.

Licensed image used in the cover design: Golden lotus water lily pure background; copyright Charon at Dreamstime.com

Licensed Lotus image used in Chapter 9: White lotus flower in morning light, Close up image; copyright Vichailao at fotolia.com

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Overview of the Book

This book is about a new understanding of consciousness that comes from the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Sage from the Vedic Tradition of India. Maharishi influenced millions of people around the world during his teaching activities, spread over more than half a century between 1955 and 2008. Although what he taught seemed new and fresh, Maharishi claimed to be reviving an ancient knowledge, central to the origins of the Vedic Tradition. He certainly gave it new meaning and significance, in terms appropriate for our modern scientific age.

Maharishi is of course the Sage in the title of the book. What he taught can be encapsulated in the image of the lotus, floating serenely on the surface of the lake. The lotus provides an analogy, one used in ancient times to show the structure of individual existence and indeed the structure of knowledge itself. We will explain Maharishi's teaching and explore the meaning of the lotus on the lake in parts 2 and 3 of the book.

Meanwhile, we need an introduction: why is the knowledge represented by the lotus significant to us in our modern times? After all, we have science to give us accurate and reliable knowledge of ourselves and the world, and technology to implement that knowledge. Why should we be interested in knowledge from a forgotten age?

It is worth remembering that humans in any age have had minds, bodies and souls. At least some of them will have had the time, the curiosity and the intelligence to work to understand themselves and their worlds. Given that modern life is very much separated into different compartments and that, for all our scientific and technological developments, many people remain unhappy or unfulfilled, it may not really be surprising if we find that some people at some times in the distant past have had a better understanding of the wholeness of life than we do now. In any event, let us celebrate new and useful knowledge from wherever it comes.

A strange fact about modern times is that, despite our sophisticated science and technology, we have no real understanding of how our minds interact with our bodies, nor how life as a whole functions to nourish its parts. The first part of the book starts here. The Mind-Body Problem is introduced and used to provide a reason to look for new knowledge about wholeness in our lives. A discussion of this problem and some of the broad approaches to tackling it leads naturally into Maharishi's teaching and from there to an appreciation of the Five Worlds, including the World of Enlightened Vision, and the Lotus on The Lake.

All that we think we know about ourselves and the world comes from a combination of three things: our own experience, what we learn from others and what we can reason for ourselves. Each of these three elements is strongly influenced by the culture in which we live and by the prevailing world-view within which we are raised. The current paradigm of industrialised western societies is biased towards material values and the scientific explanation of the world. As a result, there is an inability to properly comprehend the human mind and human consciousness.

Human experience is rooted in a two-way relationship between the subjective and objective aspects of life. In other words, between the mental and the physical aspects of reality. Actually we can add into the mix a third component which derives from our natural inclination to communicate and to work co-operatively with others – the social and cultural dimension. So it would appear that the sum total of human experience and knowledge can therefore be described in terms of a framework of three overlapping worlds: the physical, the mental and the social and cultural.

This framework has been described in detail by Sir Karl Popper (Popper and Eccles, 1977). Popper's Three Worlds Framework presents the interaction between the physical world, the world of individual human consciousness and the shared world of collective human consciousness as an obvious description of everyday human life.

Even theories about the world which ignore the fundamental importance of human consciousness rely on this three-way interaction for their own development. For example, scientific materialism, which says that everything is made only from matter and energy and which therefore makes a full understanding of human consciousness practically impossible, is constructed in a social and cultural context by human beings with minds.

Scientists use their minds to plan and control their experiments; they share and develop their knowledge in a collective mental effort through social structures such as professional organisations, and they do all this through the agency of their physical bodies, working within the physical world and the built environment. So we can see that even scientific materialism is underpinned by the Three Worlds Framework.

If we accept this framework of three interdependent worlds as a straightforward and practical starting point for describing the different aspects of human experience, then we soon find ourselves having to explain the interactions that allow the framework to function. How is it that an individual mind – with its peculiar mental character – can interact with the physical world through a body made of matter, and how is it that a number of individual minds can hold between them a collective understanding of different aspects of reality sufficient to form a culture? These are questions which have vexed the minds of our most able thinkers throughout the ages, and indeed continue to do so.

What is fascinating in our present age is that there is significant – and at times violent – disagreement about the answers. Various contradictory positions are adopted and vigorously defended, ranging from scientific materialism to religious fundamentalism. At the heart of the debate lies the famous (or perhaps infamous) Mind-Body Problem. What is the nature of the mind? What is the nature of the body? What is the nature of the interaction between them? What is the relationship between consciousness and matter?

This book introduces the Mind-Body problem and gives a novel solution based on an ancient knowledge of Consciousness, revived for modern times by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Maharishi taught Transcendental Meditation, a simple, natural and highly effective technique for the development of human consciousness, a technique used by millions today. He wrote many books and gave thousands of lectures. In his latter years, he consolidated his teaching into what became known as Maharishi Vedic Science, a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the world in terms of Consciousness. His teaching is central to this book and many references to his written works are provided.

The book is divided into four parts:

Part one

Introduces the Mind-Body problem and provides a discussion of three very general (but significantly different) philosophical positions on the subject. The three positions are: dualism, materialism and idealism. All three positions have some obvious strengths and weaknesses, which are discussed.

Part two

Gives a summarised description of Maharishi Vedic Science, a consciousness-based theory of knowledge which can be used to integrate all three apparently different mind-body positions. This theory of knowledge (attributable to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, e.g. (Maharishi, 1994)) is developed here in eight steps, to help the reader who may be new to this approach. This section is pure Maharishi. The principles are then applied, on the basis of further points from Maharishi, towards an understanding of worlds of experience, individual and collective consciousness, and the materialisation of form. This application, although underpinned firmly by Maharishi’s teaching, represents the author’s own understanding at the time of writing.

Part three

Returns briefly to the Mind-Body problem and to some issues raised in part 1. The intent is to show that, within the paradigm of Maharishi Vedic Science as outlined in Part 2, there is no Mind-Body problem. It does not exist. Mind and body emerge together from a deeper wholeness of life that underpins them both. Based on an understanding of this wholeness of life, ideas are presented about shifting the paradigm towards a new Consciousness-based World-View. These ideas include: further comments about language and world-view; a common-sense approach to different philosophical positions, showing how each position can be viewed as a valid, if limited, perspective on the world, derivable from the more holistic understanding given in Maharishi Vedic Science; and a reformulation of Dualism, which is used to suggest how the polarisation referred to in part one between science and religion could be bridged.

In addition, a new Five Worlds Framework is introduced to encourage discussion and research towards the new paradigm. This new framework expands Popper’s three-worlds framework by bringing into consideration the systematic experience of pure consciousness by large numbers of people (via Transcendental Meditation) and the consequent experiences of higher states of consciousness, in which pure consciousness is integrated into the activity of daily life.

Maharishi himself taught that there are seven major states of human consciousness, complete with seven corresponding worlds of experience. That teaching is outlined in the Appendix for reference but it requires some modification to provide a structure that follows on directly from Popper’s model. The five-worlds framework presented here better suits the purposes of the book at this time.

Also in Part three, a connection is made between the Vedic structures of knowledge described in Maharishi Vedic Science and the traditional images of the Chakra system, the subtle structures of consciousness described in Laya Yoga. Maharishi rarely spoke directly about either Laya Yoga or the Chakra system but his teaching can certainly be applied to illuminate this area of yoga knowledge. The connections made in this book provide the basis for a detailed understanding of the structure of individual existence within the new Consciousness paradigm, one that leads directly to the analogy of the Lotus on the Lake which is introduced and explained.

Part four

Presents an outline of three applications of Maharishi Vedic Science, as examples of the practical value of the main theory, and as evidence for the beginnings of a revolution in our collective understanding of consciousness. The three examples are: Spiritual Development, Consciousness-based Education and Consciousness-based Medicine.

The conclusion of the book

Is that Maharishi's theory provides a detailed description and understanding of ourselves and our universe in terms of consciousness and structures of knowledge. Maharishi’s teaching that the universe is one unbounded ocean of consciousness in motion becomes more and more convincing as human experience develops within the Five Worlds Framework.

The key to this human development is a full understanding and application of three basic principles taken from Maharishi’s teaching:

1. Knowledge is structured in consciousness,

2. Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness,

3. Consciousness can be systematically and naturally developed (via the appropriate educational programmes) through a sequence of states towards a full wholeness of awareness; an awareness in which all the diverse parts of life are experienced as reverberating within a unified whole.

In presenting these ideas it is argued that scientific materialism, or indeed any kind of materialism, has missed the essential nature of human life which is consciousness itself. Materialism is, therefore, inadequate as a basis either for understanding human life or for developing a programme to unfold its full potential. This point has serious implications for modern education, which are touched upon in part four.

A set of final points to ponder

Are added at the end to highlight some interesting further applications and consequences of the theory, including a speculation on life after death and reincarnation.

An Appendix is also given

In which Maharishi's teaching on the Seven States of Consciousness is described in more detail.

References

Are cited in the text and listed fully at the end of the book.

Vedic terms

Especially those used often by Maharishi, have been written with a capital first letter (e.g. Atma) to give them an emphasis in the text. Apologies to grammar purists who may wish to suck their teeth at this transgression.

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Part 1. The Mind-Body Problem

In this part of the book we'll consider the nature of human experience and the search for understanding about the reality of human life. What are the different parts of life and how do they fit together? We'll find that the Mind-Body problem is central to this search and we'll discuss it in some detail.

Three different philosophical approaches to the Mind-Body problem are described. They are: dualism, materialism and idealism. Each of these conventional approaches is in fact quite broad in scope and has been dissected by philosophers into many different versions and variations. We will not worry unduly about that here, since the purpose is to contrast the main approaches in terms of obvious strengths and weaknesses as a preparation for parts 2 and 3. References are given for the main sources used, to help the reader who might want to explore further.

The intention in this part of the book is to highlight the difficulties in understanding the nature of human consciousness in modern times, as a prelude to part 2 in which a new theory of consciousness is described.

In part 3 we'll return to some of the issues highlighted here, in order to draw some conclusions using the new theory.

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Chapter 1. The Search for Truth

Perspectives on Reality

Ever since human beings learned to think, it has surely been natural to reflect on the meaning of life. What is the nature of reality? is a question asked by thinkers in every age, going right back to ancient times.

From one perspective, the answer is simple: reality is what you or I (or we together) experience it to be. The snag with that simplistic approach arises from the very fact that we can think. In order to share our thoughts we must communicate; in order to communicate, we have to learn a language; in order to learn a language, we must absorb the particular meanings of the words and symbols used by others; in absorbing those meanings, our understanding of the shared world is changed – and with it, the ideas that we are likely to think about and that we might wish to share.

Thus, our thinking about reality is embedded in, and influenced heavily by, the culture in which we are raised.

Each society has its own culture which is underpinned by a shared world-view that gives specific meaning and weight to daily experience. That shared world-view will emphasise some experiences as more significant than others, giving rise to an understanding of reality that will be different for different cultures.

For examples of different world-views, with their own particular impact on the significance and reality of human experience, we could consider and compare the following three (out of many possibilities): the culture of the Australian Aboriginal People with their close relationship to the land, the animals and the Ancestral Beings, and the importance to them of the Creation Period, or Dreamtime; the culture of the Norse People prior to the Christianisation of Scandinavia, with their notion of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, with its nine connecting worlds, and a pantheon of gods to rival the Greeks and Romans; or the Christian culture of medieval Europe with its three-world conception of Heaven, Earth and Hell and its own idea of the place of man in the greater scheme of things.

In the world today, there are a number of different co-existing belief systems about reality, competing sometimes for followers and ranging from the hedonistic, scientific or commercial versions of materialism, through various kinds of humanism, mysticism and the various non-religious approaches to spirituality, to the different religious or quasi-religious views of life, the universe and everything.

It seems, however, fair to say that in much of the modern world some kind of materialism holds sway, with the occasional nod given in the direction of some version of religion or spirituality – as long as that doesn't disturb the materialistic paradigm too seriously.

Of course, there are people who are deeply religious and deeply spiritual right across the range of faiths; even though it can seem that many who profess to a religious or spiritual persuasion often put that part of their life into a separate compartment from everyday activity, which in turn often seems to be dominated by a practical materialism. Perhaps that is understandable – either that or become a fanatic. The ability to fully integrate a deep spirituality into the practical routines of daily life in society, without succumbing to extremism, can sometimes seem to be beyond both conception and reach for us ordinary mortals.

As a consequence of all this, people understand the world – and their relationship to it – in a variety of very different ways.

Thus, we can ask a range of questions about reality that will seem vitally important, trivial or nonsensical depending on whether we share a particular cultural perspective or not.

For example: Is the world flat or round? Does the Earth go round the Sun or the Sun around the Earth? Is our life ruled by gods, by Fate, by Chance or by Natural Forces that obey scientific laws? Is there life after death? Is there a God or many gods – or no God? If there is a God or gods, can He, She, It or They be appeased – or engaged to support human endeavour – and if so, how?

Or: how important are dreams to our understanding of reality? Are dreams themselves real? Do trees dream? Do I believe in omens? Do humans have a sacred role in the scheme of things? Do animals, or plants? Are humans just biological machines with evolved brains? Are there aliens from another planet who have been watching humanity for aeons and who like to keep us confused with crop circles and strange structures on the ground and who fly about in mysterious unidentified space-craft, occasionally abducting the odd person for nefarious purposes?

Or even: are the Earth and its treasures there for humanity to plunder or are we an intimate part of a living planet with a key role to play in its welfare?

We could even ask: is the physical form that we might perceive in front of us, say of a table or a cow, really there? Does it exist in its own right, independently of the perceiving of it or does the reality of its existence owe something to its being perceived?

Even if we might feel confident in asserting that the physical form is externally real, even when it is not being observed, can we say the same thing about the meaning we attribute to it? To what extent is cowness real or what do we mean by the reality of the table as a cultural artefact?

Clearly some aspects of the meaning of those words depend on the way we interact with the objects referred to, or the way we organise our observations (or both). Again, we see that key aspects of what we consider to be real depend heavily on perspective and culture.

Once we start to consider the details and varieties of human experience in the light of the vast range of possible interpretations, then we can be forgiven for feeling confused. The simple question what is the nature of reality? is not so simple after all.

Nevertheless, there are a number of factors that most people could agree on, which can provide useful starting points in an attempt to make sense of our experiences:

The first is that there are at least three inter-related worlds of human experience which overlap yet appear to have their own distinctive features: the physical, the mental and the social and cultural. These three together present a version of Karl Popper's Three Worlds framework, which he used as a very helpful basis for discussing the relationship between mind and brain with the eminent neurophysiologist John Eccles in their influential book, The Self and its Brain (Popper and Eccles, 1977, Ch. P2).

It seems easy to agree that certain objects in each of these three worlds are real. Take, for example, a book. The book has a physical form that is a real object in the physical world – it can be picked up, handled, analysed into its component physical parts. It can be felt, weighed, seen, smelt and even burned.

The physical character of the book however is not necessarily the most significant aspect of its reality to us as an object. It also has a social or cultural significance – a reality in what we can call the collective consciousness of society. This aspect of the book is an object in the third of Sir Karl Popper's worlds – what we are calling here the Social and Cultural World. It is an object that exists in terms of the content of the book – the shared meaning, knowledge or experiences that the book conveys to anyone in the culture when it is read.

The book could be available in a hardback edition or as a paperback, or as an e-book or an audio-book. In every case, the culturally-defined content of the book is the same, although the physical form in which the meaning is encoded is different. Thus the book as a social or cultural object exists independently of the physical form in which it is encoded, even though a physical form of some kind is required.

Then we have the third version of the reality of the book – what it actually means personally to a given reader. This is formed by the individually unique set of thoughts, impressions, experiences and emotions that are invoked in the mind or consciousness of the reader as they read the book. Certain aspects of those thoughts and experiences are unavailable to anyone else – unless the reader decides to engage in a separate act of communication for the purpose of sharing.

These individually specific thoughts and experiences can be considered as objects within the mind of the reader – existing within the reader's own unique mental world. They can be recalled, examined and analysed by the reader from a variety of different perspectives. They can be communicated to others if required. Hence, we must reasonably agree, they have a reality of their own.

The interesting thing about the Three Worlds framework is that it is just that – a framework to facilitate discussion. It is not an explanation. It is obvious to any practical person that each of the three different versions of the book described above are real in their own right, and yet it is also obvious – indeed it is our daily experience – that they are all connected intimately together.

I can take a physical book out of my local library, keep it for a while on my own bookshelf, pick it up and read it and enjoy all the elements that others have enjoyed that perhaps made me want to read it in the first place and that establish its place within the culture. I can enjoy my own private thoughts on reading it and discuss both the resulting culturally shared and private experiences with others in my on-line reading circle. Or I can study it, read other books about it and take an exam on it to gain a socially important qualification. I can take it back to the library for others to read.

Exactly how all these different subjective and objective aspects are connected together is another story. It is surprising but true to state that there is no general agreement about this important issue in our modern-day society at the present time – not even amongst (especially not amongst!) experts such as philosophers, scientists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists or theologians.

Another dimension to human life is the spiritual dimension. Some may want to classify human experience to conform to the mind/body/spirit model – as if spirit is a different kind of thing to mind and to body.

In some views of reality this is so. Certainly there will be different views about the meaning of the terms spirit and spiritual, but it cannot be denied that cultures throughout recorded history have placed importance on the idea that certain aspects of human experience transcend the purely mental and physical planes of existence.

In this work the word spiritual is taken to mean both holistic and transcendental. Holistic means that there is some bigger context to the operation of the parts. Mind, body, the physical and social environments – all these are parts contributing to the whole of life. To consider the spiritual value of life in this way, therefore, means to consider how all these parts make a whole.

Spirit in that sense is not the same kind of thing as either a mind or a body – and is therefore not to be considered as a separately existing entity. On the other hand, as we will see, it is possible to consider that the whole has a reality that transcends the parts and therefore there is, in certain contexts and circumstances, a useful purpose served by talking about spirit or spirituality as if it has its own separate and distinct reality from any of the parts of life.

A theory which could hold the three worlds together and provide a satisfactory understanding of how they relate to each other would be a spiritual theory of life because it would be holistic. The theory discussed in parts 2 and 3 is certainly holistic. It is also cast in such a way that it has a basis in a reality that could be called transcendental – going beyond the specific, relative, distinctly differentiated aspects of reality to a source in an ultimate value of wholeness.

Such an ultimate value of wholeness could be described as the basis of both spirituality and spiritual development. Each of the three worlds has a part to play in a spiritual understanding of life but we will see that the holistic understanding required to integrate them transcends the limitations of any one aspect. Actually, we will see that three worlds are insufficient to fully represent human experience, especially when we take proper account of both spirituality and spiritual development. We need at least five worlds and this is explained in Part 3.

Returning to the idea that there are some things on which we might agree at the outset, we can add (to the idea that we have to account for the physical, mental and social and cultural dimensions of experience), a second factor – we all have to be educated. In order to operate within the Social and Cultural World, all human beings without exception have to be initiated, socialised and educated into certain ways of managing, understanding, extending and communicating our experiences. This is accomplished both at home and at school – and in the interactions involved in our participation in social groups.

Social and cultural values change over time as does the common language with which those values are highlighted and communicated. Which experiences are desirable or worthwhile? Which are forbidden or taboo or ignored? Which are to be developed and extended? What is the meaning and significance of any particular experience? Which aspects of any experience are emphasised, and which are diminished?

The answers to these questions are, to a large extent, culturally determined, even if they have a biological or sociological basis. They can be hidden behind and within the language, customs and rules of a society. Experiences of any kind, in any of the three worlds, are coloured by, are filtered through, this cultural dimension of human life, creating a shared heritage of belief and understanding within which individuals and social groups are largely constrained to function.

Examples include our shared attitudes towards human sacrifice, or communal sex or the divine right of kings. Historians and anthropologists tell us that there have been societies whose attitudes to these things have been quite different from those prevailing today. More mundanely but equally importantly, what about our shared attitudes towards money or material goods, or the treatment of animals or the elderly, or the value and meaning of happiness or of spiritual development? What is our attention repeatedly focussed on through the media and daily conversation? What values are silently emphasised or diminished by the way we organise our working lives or our leisure time or our relationships, or our education system?

Related to this is the fact that no-one can live a successful life on the basis of a constant and instantaneous re-appraisal of understanding. Habits, customs, routine, tradition are all important aspects of daily living that apply to thinking as well as to behaviour. Societies have sophisticated ways of maintaining themselves, involving all of these elements.

Even societies which value free speech and individuality of expression place strict limits on those values in the interests of peaceful co-existence, stability and security. Multiculturalism is only possible on the basis of a set of civic values that can be shared and supported by all the different cultural factions.

What this tells us is that established world-views or belief systems will have a tendency to sustain themselves. Cultural inertia, expressed through traditional values and established patterns of thought and behaviour, is bound to act to maintain the status quo. Of course cultures can change sometimes dramatically, for a range of reasons, but in periods of relative stability it is likely that the development or promotion of alternative views that are significantly different from the shared norm will meet with resistance, antagonism and even, in some circumstances, violence.

The existence of each individual's own unique mental world, however, presents an important factor that can help to mitigate this cultural inertia. Every person has both private and shared worlds of experience. A group of people may share a common environment, language and culture but each person has a degree of mental space for their own private thoughts.

Thus, although it is decidedly difficult to think outside of the cultural norm, it is possible. Meaning that individuals can make a creative contribution to the development of the prevailing culture and hence to the world view.

In addition, families and other social groups within a stable modern society may also have their own physical and social space within which their own particular values can be promoted, subject only to conforming broadly to the shared laws, customs and values of the wider society.

It is possible therefore for individuals and groups to break out of the box and to find new ways of thinking about themselves and their own worlds of experience.

In conclusion to this section, we can say that what any one person takes to be real depends upon a combination of physical, personal, social and cultural influences. These influences involve both subjective and objective elements of experience and both individual and collective values of consciousness. Socialisation, education and curiosity all play their part. Individuals participate collectively in the creation of a shared world-view which defines what is real and which emphasises the importance of certain aspects of human experience over others.

The Big Picture Polarised

The purpose of this book is to present a novel understanding of reality based on the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and especially on his detailed exposition of what has come to be called Maharishi Vedic Science. This understanding allows the possibility of integrating a range of apparently different – even contradictory – conventional perspectives into a coherent and holistic vision of life.

In order to begin to do that, we need to confine our consideration to the big picture questions of reality; questions such as: what is the nature of the world?, what is my place in it? and what is the real purpose or meaning of (my) life? In so doing, we will of necessity focus attention on human consciousness, as the vehicle for all our knowledge and experience. Consciousness is the basis for all meaningful human activity and it is on this ground that all perspectives on reality are formed.

The intention is to present a model of human consciousness that allows different world-views to be compared in an illuminating way. We begin by considering briefly the polarisation of cultural influence in modern times, represented very broadly by science on the one hand and religion on the other.

The scientific world-view has, through technology, become deeply embedded in the economic and hence political and social aspects of human life and – because it deals in detail with the objectively describable aspects of reality and minimises the importance of the subjective aspects – it tends to promote a materialistic view of the world.

In the view of what may be called scientific materialism, the world is believed to be made only of matter and energy, whose behaviour is describable in terms of known – or yet to be discovered – scientific laws of nature. There is no room in this modern version of materialism for Nature with a Purpose, for a Creative God, for Divine intervention or for Life after Death.

On the other side of the polarisation, there remain many people – in all cultures – who hold various kinds of spiritual or religious views about life, even amongst scientists. For such people the hard version of materialism robs human life of a deeper purpose, even of a satisfactory explanation for much of everyday human experience. It certainly takes no account of the more rarefied kinds of spiritual and religious experience that have been described throughout the ages – and which can be found even today – except perhaps to discount them as illusion or