His starting point was the fact that both the universe and our minds have a similar, parallel structure. Both are composed of layers progressing from gross to subtle, from manifest to potential, each state very different from the previous. The gross, macroscopic level of the universe is the reality we perceive with our senses. The laws of classical mechanics accurately describe its activities.
Beneath that macroscopic level lie molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels whose activities can't be accurately described by classical mechanics. The new science of quantum mechanics was developed to explain these levels of reality. Then physicists discovered that quanta -- the tiniest physical unit -- manifest out of quantum fields, which in turn have their source in a unified field of unmanifest potentiality. The laws of nature differ enough at these levels so that each needs to be dealt with on its own terms. We can't necessarily apply the laws of one level to another; they are related but are still quite different realities. For example, dynamism is far greater at the finer levels than at the surface: nuclear power is millions of times stronger than chemical power.
The mind has a similar progression. The surface level is our ordinary thinking awareness which mediates our sense impressions of the macroscopic level of the universe. Beneath that surface lies subtler, subconscious levels of mental activity that science is beginning to explore. Underlying it all is a transcendental field out of which thoughts arise and which mystics, artists, and philosophers of all cultures have contacted and described as a reservoir of creativity and dynamism.
Maharishi revived the ancient Vedic technique of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which allows the mind to effortlessly move from the surface down through the subconscious until it reaches this source of thought--an abstract, unbounded field where all thoughts fall away and the mind is left alert but nonactive, aware of its own nature, of its oneness with the universe. Here in the silent, thought-free state of transcendental consciousness the split between subject and object, observer and observed, is overcome, and the ultimate reality of unity is experienced. This is the state of samadhi, in which the mind absorbs some of the concentrated energy of that unified field and emerges ready for more fulfilling activity.
Maharishi realized that thoughts are the mental equivalent of quanta and that the unified field we experience in samadhi is the same as the unified field underlying the universe. This discovery affects all of our lives because it shows that each of us contains the essence of the universe; in fact in the state of samadhi, where our individual boundaries fade and we merge with wholeness, each of us is the universe. But when we come back to the boundaries of surface reality, and there to say that we are the universe is mere solipsism. Each reality needs to be respected on its own terms.
Other teachers from the Orient have taken the idealist position and stated that the manifest universe is just maya, an illusion. But Maharishi integrated the materialist and idealist positions and showed that both are true at their own level. These levels are different realities with their own laws of nature which are valid there. Our surface world really is composed of matter in motion, and that matter and its motions can be reliably measured. The fact that it manifests out of a nonmaterial unified field doesn't make it an illusion. Manifestations are real at their level.
Hagelin presents theoretical and experimental evidence that the unified field of physics and the unified field of consciousness are identical -- i.e., that during the meditative state, human awareness directly experiences the unified field at the foundation of the universe.
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