In a grand celebration held in the Golden Dome on October 16, the campus community commemorated the presidency of Dr. John Hagelin and inaugurated the new presidency of Dr. Tony Nader.

“It’s my honor and joy to be part of this university that we all adore,” Dr. Nader said. “It’s really a great honor and joy to be with you and to receive this invitation. It is a pleasure to accept it and be welcomed and embraced by you so warmly.”

Dr. Nader, a medical doctor trained at Harvard and MIT, where he received a PhD in neuroscience, is a globally recognized expert in the science of consciousness and human development. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s successor, Dr. Nader is head of the international TM organizations in over 140 countries. His recent book, “Consciousness Is All There Is,” was a New York Times best-seller.

Dr. Hagelin said he was “amazed and delighted” that Dr. Nader accepted the invitation to assume this leadership position. He praised Dr. Nader’s brilliance and outstanding academic and medical credentials and said that he is “deeply steeped in the knowledge of consciousness that makes our university stand apart.”

Dr. Nader becomes MIU’s sixth president, following the presidencies of Dr. Robert Keith Wallace (1971–1976), Dr. David Orme-Johnson (1976–1977), Dr. Lawrence Domash (1977–1980), Dr. Bevan Morris (1980–2016), and Dr. John Hagelin (2016–2024). Wallace and Orme-Johnson were present at the celebration.

Appreciating President Hagelin

The event was filled with appreciation for outgoing president John Hagelin.

“These last eight years have been a time of extraordinary growth and development for Maharishi International University,” said MIU Provost Scott Herriott in introducing Dr. Hagelin. During his tenure, Dr. Hagelin — a noted quantum physicist and international president of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace — expanded MIU’s academic program offerings, doubled the enrollment, substantially increased philanthropic giving, renovated buildings, and beautified the campus, Herriott said.

“Thank you so much for your generous support,” Dr. Hagelin said. “Thank you for the honor of serving this university, the most important university in the world — it is already that, and it will become much more known as that over time.”

“I have been looking forward to an opportunity to shift back to being more with the faculty and the students on the level of knowledge — to helping our faculty and precious staff and students to go deeper in their experiences and into knowledge,” he said. “And to speak Maharishi’s knowledge and to promote MIU on a global scale.”

“I felt it was time to move back to where my stars are, where my heart is,” Dr. Hagelin said. “I come alive when I have an opportunity to speak deep knowledge.”

“The endowment of this university is from its faculty, from its scientists, from its staff, from its students.”

In his inaugural address, Dr. Nader expressed his excitement that Dr. Hagelin will return to the world arena to promote the knowledge and technologies of consciousness that are so critically needed today.

He also applauded the dedication of the faculty, staff, and students over the past five decades.

“Many big universities have billions of dollars of endowment,” he said. “The endowment of this university is from its faculty, from its scientists, from its staff, from its students. It’s a human endowment. We have a huge endowment — all those who have served 30 or 40 years, 50 years, with heart, with fullness, with purpose. That is the spirit of MIU. That spirit you cannot find anywhere else.”

He praised the faculty scientists for their discoveries, remarkable for a small university: the discovery of a fourth major state of consciousness, the discovery of the Maharishi Effect, the discovery that pure consciousness is identical with the unified field as described by quantum physics, and the discovery of the significant benefits of TM practice for heart health.

“It is hard to imagine scientific discoveries more consequential and transformational to human life than these,” he said. “These are the scientific geniuses that MU has attracted and has nurtured so that they can nurture the world.”

“Upholding and strengthening MIU’s mission”

“On this occasion I want to commit myself to upholding and strengthening MIU’s mission,” Dr. Nader said. “I want to recommit all of us to upholding and strengthening MIU’s mission, all of us. MIU is education for enlightenment — higher education for higher consciousness.”

Dr. Nader then made a series of commitments toward this end, each greeted with applause.

“As president of MIU, I will help give all students a clear path to enlightenment, and all faculty and staff as well. We will give robust support for everyone’s Transcendental Meditation practice, with regular checking and an emphasis on twice-daily group meditation.

“We will promote regular TM Retreats for all students, faculty, and staff.

“We will remove the financial barriers to learning Advanced Techniques and the TM-Sidhi program, making it easy for students to learn these techniques if they wish to.

“We will steadily build the size of our coherence-creating group on campus so that the experience of pure consciousness becomes more and more vibrant on and around our campus, increasingly palpable, and so that group program becomes irresistible.”

MIU’s responsibility to the world

“MIU is not just for our own growth to enlightenment,” Dr. Nader said. “MIU is for enlightening the world as a whole.”

He recalled how forty years ago, at the end of the historic Taste of Utopia Assembly, which brought together more than 7,000 meditation experts from 46 countries to create a worldwide wave of peace and harmony, Maharishi charged the group with creating a permanent group of 7,000 — the size large enough at that time to create an effect of coherence and peace for the whole world.

“We must remain steadfast in our desire to fulfill this charge, making Fairfield, Iowa, a planetary center for creating coherence, peace, and harmony in world consciousness,” he said. “All of you who have participated in these large gatherings know from first-hand experience how powerful and transformative they are. We want that all the time at MIU.”

Dr. Nader committed to building participation in the four large gatherings that MIU now holds every year, “so that MIU becomes a mecca for thousands of people who wish to dive within as part of a huge group, to experience incredible personal transformations and transform world consciousness.”

Shared governance

President Nader spent the four days prior to the celebration meeting with the university faculty, staff, students, and leaders of the wider Fairfield community. 

“These people form the university’s heart and soul,” he said. “I am deeply moved by everyone’s passionate commitment to gaining enlightenment, to building the university, and to creating peace in the world.”

“It became immediately clear to me how much everyone feels ownership of this precious institution — how much everyone feels personally invested,” he said. “This is a powerful, powerful asset. I commit to making the governance even more inclusive — not just to hear everyone’s voices but to find ways to include people in important decision-making.”

Dr. Nader was especially impressed with the students, who he called “the life breath of the university.”

“Our future leaders will come from their ranks,” he said. “Therefore I want to find ways to empower our students in the life of the university.”

In concluding his address, President Nader said, “We already have in our hands the knowledge and technologies of consciousness to meet every challenge we face and achieve a flourishing life for everyone. Not tomorrow but now, in this very generation. Thank you, Dr. Hagelin, and thank you all for everything you are doing to fulfill MIU’s remarkably important mission.”

Photography by Ken West