After graduating from MIU in 2017, Tara De Santis returned to Canada — and took the Quebec music scene by storm. 

Under the artist name Véda, she has released over 15 songs and will be debuting her first studio album later this year. 

Her songs have garnered several hundred thousand plays, enabling her to secure three artists’ grants and a nomination at the Canadian Independent Music Video Awards for her song “Quiet.” She recently signed with the label Musicor and has been featured in many press articles, including one in the magazine Elle Quebec.  

As her artist name suggests, development of consciousness is foundational to Tara’s music. As a musician, he aims to create lyrics that foster unity and peace. She credits much of her spontaneous creativity to her TM practice. Tara learned to meditate at a young age and comes from a family of TM practitioners.

Tara came to MIU straight out of high school, enrolling in the Media and Communications degree program (now Cinematic Arts and New Media) and studying filmmaking and graphic design.

But she was most inspired by the digital music and sound design classes. They helped to give her the tools to make her music.

In fact, Tara wrote and recorded many songs in the recording studio on the MIU campus. Enlisting her professors’ help, she learned about mixing and mastering, enabling her to optimize the sound quality of her tracks to industry standards. 

She also volunteered at the local Fairfield radio station and frequently DJ’d in town. 

Last June, as part of the “Awards Night” event the evening before graduation that celebrates outstanding graduating students, the Alumni Office presented the Alumni Distinction and Service Award — given to MIU alumni who have distinguished themselves professionally or through community service — to Tara De Santis. 

If Tara’s dynamism as a student was any indication of her career path, it’s no surprise to see her making waves in the music scene. We’re excited to watch as Tara continues to infuse positivity and consciousness into the world through her music.  

Click here to visit Tara’s YouTube channel with its 191 videos.

Click here to see Tara on Facebook.

This article comes from the MIU Alumni Office. Subscribe to the alumni newsletter and visit MIU Connections to stay up to date with MIU Alumni News.

MIU alum Dustin Matos ’14 owns and operates his own digital marketing company, Psynthesis Creative, managing marketing for over 30 clients and with several contractors working for him. 

Dustin credits his entrepreneurial start to the late Gurdy Leete, who taught web design. “I don’t think I would be on the path I am now without Gurdy,” Dustin says.

It was Gurdy Leete who introduced him to his first client.

“No teacher at any previous school had ever encouraged me and believed in my professional abilities enough to give me my start in the design world,” Dustin says. “There are many special teachers at MIU, and they’re special because of how much they care about their students.”

Dustin lives a busy life. Beyond Psynthesis Creative, he is the marketing director for the software company Conest Software Systems and produces progressive rock music under the moniker The Amnesia Cycle. 

How does he balance everything? 

“At MIU I learned more about my deep inner self than I thought possible, and those lessons have made me a much more complete and well-balanced person in my life,” he says. “I don’t think I would have gained those experiences elsewhere.”

Dustin first learned about MIU from his cousin, Samantha Thomas, who had attended MIU and graduated in 2011. Samantha, coincidentally, also works as a marketing director. 

“MIU was described as a safe place that could help me to become healthier and learn without stress,” Dustin says. “That sounded very attractive to me. In my time at MIU, I formed great connections and friendships, I committed to my career in design and marketing, and I did in fact heal in ways. The combination of Transcendental Meditation, taking one course at a time, and the community were so conducive to me developing healthier habits and building a career I enjoy.”

Dustin’s younger brother Greg would later join him at MIU. Greg studied in the Cinema Arts and New Media program (then called Media and Communications).

“My time at MIU was one of the best times in his life,” Dustin says. “I really enjoyed connecting with people who I could relate to — people with a growth mindset who were seeking deeper meaning. MIU students tend to be bright, positive, open-minded, forward-thinking, and supportive. It’s a nice combo.”  

After graduating, Dustin moved back to New Jersey where he reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Kristina. After dating for a few years, they recently got married and now live in eastern Pennsylvania with their dog Brooklyn.  

Check out Dustin’s websites: Psynthesis Creative and The Amnesia Cycle.

This article comes from the MIU Alumni Office. Subscribe to the alumni newsletter and visit MIU Connections to stay up to date with MIU Alumni News.

In a first of its kind public demonstration, MIU professor Fred Travis, Director of the MIU Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition, demonstrated how a group of meditation experts can enhance the brain functioning of others — a major step forward in understanding how the Maharishi Effect works.

The event took place at a press conference on January 11 In Hyderabad, India, during the 10,000 for World Peace Assembly that brought together more than 10,000 people from 139 countries to demonstrate the power of this novel but scientifically well-documented approach to peace.

The assembly was held at the Kanha Shanti Bhavan complex, the world’s largest meditation hall and the headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute in the outskirts of Hyderabad.

The demonstration began with a TM meditator seated on the stage in front of the 10,000 participants. Attached to her head was a cluster of electrodes connected to a computer monitoring her brainwave activity. Her brainwave activity in turn was displayed on two immense screens in the mammoth meditation hall.

As she looked out at the audience, Dr. Travis pointed to the lines of brainwaves seen on the displays — mostly fast beta (20 cycle/sec) brain waves.

Then he asked her to begin practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique. Almost immediately the pattern changed to clear rhythmical alpha brain waves (8-10 cycles/sec).

Then he asked her to open her eyes.

“What you were seeing was brain activity during a fourth major state of human consciousness, completely different from waking, dreaming, and sleeping,” Travis told the audience.

“In the ancient Yogic texts this is called samadhi. You see a quick onset of activity in the alpha frequency band, about 8-10 cycles per second, indicating a state of deeply restful alertness — the body is rested while the mind is fully alert. And you see how the brain waves from all the different parts of the brain have lined up, becoming much more coherent and orderly, and how they have increased in power. This is the signature of samadhi, and TM is the only meditation that produces this immediately from the first sitting. It’s from this brain coherence that all the many benefits of TM come.”

High brainwave coherence is correlated with high levels of intelligence, creativity, self-esteem, emotional stability, self-awareness, moral maturity, ideal social behavior, and learning ability, along with faster reaction time, reversal of aging, higher grade-point average, more ideal social behavior, and more frequent experiences of transcending.

Next, Dr. Travis asked her to close her eyes again and resume TM practice. This time the 19 lines of brainwaves were presented in a circle, indicating the level of coherence between different parts of the brain. Global coherence was indicated by all sensors being connected to all other sensors, as shown below:

These periods of global coherence would come and go during the subject’s TM practice. 

Then Dr. Travis silently gestured for the thousands of meditators in the audience to close their eyes and begin TM practice themselves.

Over the next two minutes, the periods of global coherence were more frequent and lasted for a longer time.

“Both the subject and the audience were contacting the same underlying, inner field of pure consciousness, enlivening it for each other and leading to deeper experiences,” Travis said.

“This is how it works,” Dr. Travis said. “We do not live in isolation. We are embedded in the world around us and we affect our world with every action. Action from pure consciousness has the largest effect. A large group of TM experts meditating together in one place radiate a powerful influence of coherence into their environment. This might change how the brain functions in people throughout the surrounding society.”

Dr. Travis was demonstrating the research that Travis and Bernard Markus conducted during the assembly. Markus created the EEG headsets and worked with third-party software companies to perfect the circle coherence.

“In our research, we looked at brain-to-brain synchrony between pairs of people while the 10,000 group collectively practiced their program,” Travis said. “We are in the middle of data analysis now to quantify how we might affect the brain functioning of others.”

Scientific studies on the Maharishi Effect

Evidence for the Maharishi Effect has been piling up for the past 50 years. Altogether 56 studies have been conducted to date, published in 28 leading peer-reviewed journals and scholarly publications.

Research studies had repeatedly shown, for example, that when one percent of a city’s population learns the TM technique, quality of life improves throughout the city, reflect in reduced rates of crime, automobile accidents, and suicides — all expressions of social stress and disorder. 

Further research had repeatedly documented that the same effect is produced when just the square root of one percent of a population comes together to practice the TM technique and the advanced TM-Sidhi program in one place. Beyond reduced crime, accidents, and suicides, results have included reduced rates of homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, infant mortality, drug and alcohol and tobacco use, drug-related deaths (including opioid deaths), and child and adolescent deaths by injuries — a remarkably broad spectrum of positive social changes.

But how does it work?

To those unfamiliar with the research, the immediate question is, how is this influence created?

The Maharishi Effect is clearly a “field effect,” that is, involving action at a distance — in this case, people sitting quietly with their eyes closed influencing the behavior of people some distance away.

What field carries it? From the beginning, scientists postulated that the coherence-creating effect was carried by the all-pervading “unified field” understood in quantum physics to underlie all forms and phenomena in the universe, giving rise to everything we observe around us. 

The many research studies on the Maharishi Effect indicated that the unified field must be more than just an abstract, mathematical construct — it must be a field of consciousness. When people close their eyes and transcend during TM and TM-Sidhi program practice, according to the theory behind the Maharishi Effect, they experience this universal field of consciousness within themselves — and in experiencing it, they enliven it. 

Because the unified field is all-pervading, it becomes enlivened in everyone. And this, the theory posits, leads people spontaneously to behave in a more orderly, harmonious way, resulting in reduced crime and the other positive changes revealed in the research.

What are the detailed mechanics?

But a question still remains: What, exactly, changes in the surrounding population, who are not meditating, that causes them to behave more positively?

MIU researchers Ken Cavanaugh, Ken Walton, and Nirmal Pugh attempted to find out what. They measured daily serotonin and cortisol levels in residents of Fairfield who did not practice the TM technique — clerical and factory workers, among others. They took samples for 77 consecutive days. 

Serotonin is known as the “rest and repair” hormone, higher levels associated with satisfaction and well-being. Cortisol, in contract, often called the “stress hormone,” is a direct indicator of stress.

The test results showed an unusual pattern. There were certain periods during the 77 days when the serotonin levels increased significantly and cortisol dropped significantly in all the participants.

These periods corresponded precisely with the rising and falling size of the large coherence-creating group in MIU’s Golden Domes.

In other words, when the group size increased, subjects’ serotonin levels increased and their cortisol levels decreased — suggesting that the subjects’ sense of well-being went up and stress went down. When the group size decreased, subjects’ serotonin levels decreased and their cortisol levels increased — suggesting their well-being went down and stress went up.

Earlier studies had shown that serotonin increases and cortisol decreases with regular TM practice. Now these same outcomes were being observed in the surrounding population.

The brain factor

Dr. Travis’s demonstration builds on these findings, showing that in the presence of a large meditation group, a subject’s brain functioning becomes more coherent.

Studies have shown that high EEG coherence is correlated with lower anxiety, greater emotional stability, greater self-esteem, increased creativity, increased intelligence, increased moral maturity, more ideal social behavior, and more. 

In other words, not everyone in society needs to meditate to create a society-wide effect. Even a relatively small group of TM and TM-Sidhi program participants can create these effects in the people around them — starting with more integrated brain functioning.

“This is not just talk about peace,” Travis said at the press conference. “It’s not just diplomacy or some collective desire for peace. This is directly creating peace from the deepest level of life to reduce collective stress throughout a city, a state, a country, and even the entire world.”

* * * * * * *

Thank you to Fred Travis and Mike Tompkins for their contributions to this story.

For more information about the Maharishi Effect, please see the website of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace – gusp.org.

Serotonin/cortisol study – K.G. Walton, K.L. Cavanaugh, and N.D. Pugh, “Effect of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Biochemical Indicators of Stress in Non-Meditators: A Prospective Time Series Study,” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 17 (2005): 339-376.

MIU alum Andrew Rushing is on the path to becoming a Maharishi Vastu architect. He recently graduated with a master’s in architecture from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). His next step was to attend the six-week Maharishi Vastu Architecture Training course in Nepal.

Prior to RISD, Andrew received his BA in Maharishi Vedic Science from MIU and was the valedictorian for the class of 2016. During his four years, he received the Ted Bergren Prize and the Mary Sue Schwartz Scholarship, both for academic excellence.

After graduating, he took training to become a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique, then taught in Encinitas and Santa Monica, California, before becoming the director of the TM Center in Phoenix, Arizona, where he taught for more than three years.

In 2020, he enrolled at Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 2023 with his master’s.

The Maharishi Vastu Architecture Training course was held in Champadevi, Nepal, from August 27 to October 8, 2023, above Kathmandu Valley in the foothills of the Himalayas.

“The Maharishi Vastu Architecture Training course was the culmination of my education,” Andrew says. “It combined the deepest knowledge of Maharishi Vedic Science with advanced design techniques and architectonics, positioning me to serve humanity by working with others to establish coherence in the built environment.” 

His interest in enlightenment and human potential sparked at an early age. “I had a number of spontaneous experiences that I found to be very meaningful but couldn’t find any answers,” Andrew says. In researching online, Andrew came across Maharishi Vedic Science and decided to enroll at MIU.     

“My experience as an MIU student exceeded my expectations,” he says. “After learning Transcendental Meditation and then the TM-Sidhi program, I joined what was known as the Prep Purusha program to make the most of what MIU offers in terms of development of consciousness.”    

Andrew remains connected with his former classmates. “The relationships I cultivated at MIU are some of the most significant in my life,” he says. “You get a sense real quick that the people there are motivated by ideals that are not so commonplace elsewhere.”  

Andrew worked with Vastu architect, Jonathan Lipman, to convert the Fairfield IT and Business Park — the large office building five miles north of campus that was donated to MIU several years ago — into dormitories for MIU ComPro students. Jonathan has been the architect for all of MIU’s Vastu buildings, starting with the Dreier Building in 2000.

Andrew returns from his training in Nepal, he plans to continue to work on projects with the US Maharishi Vastu Architecture office as they become available. 

This article comes from the MIU Alumni Office. Subscribe to the alumni newsletter and visit MIU Connections to stay up to date with MIU Alumni News.

Krista Noble’s PhD in Maharishi Vedic Science has launched her into a career as an author, professor, and public speaker specializing in Maharishi Vedic Science.

She has taught graduate courses at MIU, the Holmes Institute (Colorado), and the University of Philosophical Research (Los Angeles). She has lectured at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) and Stetson University (Florida). 

And she has participated in many international academic conferences, delivering talks on Vedic knowledge at the World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES) conference (where she holds a lifetime membership), the Science & Scientist conference, and the Science of Consciousness conference.

She has spoken at three Nerd Nite events, a monthly gathering held in more than a hundred cities. In Orlando, her topic was “Why the Heck Are We Conscious?” She gave a similar talk at a Nerd Nite event in Los Angeles. At another Nerd Nite event in Orlando, she spoke on “The Top 5 Misconceptions About Yoga & Meditation.”

And she’s been featured on several podcasts. On the “Entangled” podcast, she spoke on “Materialist vs. Vedic Cosmologies & Seven States of Consciousness.”

Altogether she has given approximately 90 presentations on consciousness and human potential at a variety of educational organizations. 

Dr. Noble has published articles and poetry in thirteen national magazines and literary journals, including New Age Journal.

As a recent milestone, she has secured a prominent literary agent who will represent her first nonfiction book, an exploration of Vedic knowledge. 

Academic training

She is a second-generation MIU graduate. Her parents are both MIU grads who met at the university and later married. Her father, Paul Noble ’81 is a Transcendental Meditation teacher, and her mother, Michelle Noble (formerly Morley) ’80, is a Sidha.

Krista learned the TM technique at age ten and began studying Maharishi’s Science of Being and Art of Living and his translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita with her father around this time. “I always found these books fascinating and inspiring” — so much so that they eventually propelled her towards graduate study of Vedic knowledge at MIU.

“My time at MIU was deeply enriching,” she says. “I loved how the university emphasized the meeting point between the knowledge gained in class and the experiences cultivated through TM practice.”

She earned a master’s degree in Maharishi Vedic Science in 2013 and a PhD in the same field in 2018. She received the Veda Vyasa Award, given to the PhD graduate with the most outstanding doctoral research. Her research focused on contrasting the physicalist (materialist) paradigm with the Consciousness-Based paradigm of Maharishi Vedic Science. 

“My time at MIU was deeply enriching,” she says. “I loved how the university emphasized the meeting point between the knowledge gained in class and the experiences cultivated through Transcendental Meditation practice. I also made wonderful connections with other MIU students and professors.”

She acknowledges the role of her meditation practice in her personal growth. “I have found the TM technique and the TM-Sidhi program to be incredibly powerful tools for developing consciousness,” she says. “They have made me a more joyful and centered person.”

Visit Krista’s website at https://www.kristanoble.com, where you can subscribe to email updates, book her as a speaker, and watch her recorded talks.

This story comes from the MIU Alumni Office. Subscribe to the alumni newsletter and visit MIU Connections to stay up to date with MIU Alumni News.