On July 9, 34 people became “Sidhas” — that is, they completed training in the TM-Sidhi program, a set of advanced techniques of the Transcendental Meditation program.

The training course culminated in a two-week in-residence experience at MIU.

“The course was great,” one participant commented. “The instructors were knowledgeable, fun, and compassionate. The course itself was mind blowing — life changing.” (Participants’ experiences were gathered anonymously.)

“I feel radiant radiant and transformed,” a participate wrote at the conclusion of the course. “Bliss for sure.”

Of the 34 participants, a dozen were local, including ten MIU students. But the majority came from far afield — one from New Zealand, five from Canada, the rest from all over the US. 

The TM-Sidhi techniques, based in the theoretical and practical knowledge of “sidhi” practice contained in the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, are designed to accelerate one’s growth of consciousness. Like the Transcendental Meditation technique itself, these techniques are simple, natural, and effortless.

Where TM practice enables one’s awareness to settle inward into the silence of pure consciousness, the TM-Sidhi techniques culture the ability to think and act from this field, to enliven and activate it, making its power available in everyday life. The result is that one’s thoughts become more purposeful and one’s actions more successful.

“Great, timely step in my evolution,” one participant wrote.

Another: “Restful. Peaceful. Amazed. Excited. Hopeful.”

“I am finding more compassion and understanding for others,” another said. “Here is the fruition of this program — understanding, compassion, and peace.”

TM meditators commonly report that TM-Sidhi practice accelerates their personal growth, and the research bears this out. Adding the TM-Sidhi program to daily TM practice, studies have found, leads to more rapid integration of brainwave coherence into daily life, more efficient and responsive nervous systems, and faster growth of creativity, intelligence, field independence, learning ability, moral maturity, and psychological health.

Creating peace in society

The dynamic inner peace people experience during TM-Sidhi practice extends outward into society. Studies show that people practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi programs in large enough groups (the square root of 1% of the population) create coherence in society as a whole.

This has been measured across many variables. Whenever such groups formed, crime rates fell in the whole society. So have the rates of traffic fatalies, other accidental deaths, drug-related deaths (including opioids), infectious diseases, and infant mortality. Warfare, when present, has decreased in intensity, and international terrorism has declined. 

This effect has been demonstrated at every scale of society, from cities to states, from nations to the world as a whole. It has been tested in cultures East and West, developed and undeveloped. No study has failed to yield this result.

Scientists predicted the outcomes in advance and measured the effects using open, public statistics. Rigorous statistical analysis showed that no other factors could account for these changes and that the odds of these changes happening randomly were vanishingly small. 

This phenomenon was named the Maharishi Effect, after Maharishi, who predicted it, introduced the techniques to achieve it, and articulated the underlying theory. Studies confirming the Maharishi Effect have been published in many leading peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Field effect of consciousness

Most scientists and philosophers today regard consciousness as a byproduct of brain functioning and therefore as limited to the brain. The theory behind the Maharishi Effect takes a radically different position, understanding pure consciousness as an underlying and all-pervading field, abstract and immaterial, that gives rise to everything in the universe — equivalent to the underlying unified field of natural law described in quantum physics.

In this view, when people dive within to experience pure consciousness, they awaken its qualities of peace, orderliness, and harmony not only in themselves but in the surrounding population. This is because all human beings partake in this field.

“I now have a sense of how the TM-Sidhi program can create world peace and heaven on earth.”

“I now have a sense of how the TM-Sidhi program can create world peace and heaven on earth,” one of the participants wrote. “Moving into a glimpse of the absolute [pure consciousness] elevated me toward the more I can be.”

“I felt this amazing experience of being face to face with the unified field . . . pure consciousness,” another wrote. “I knew at that moment that this is where we emerged . . . indeed we are pure consciousness.”

Wrote another: “I am so gratified to have received all this — a new life unfolding.”

Thank you to Sam and Melody Katz and Betsy Dearborn for their contributions to this story. Photo by Jim Davis.