Ansoya Rani and Samuel Okorie spoke at the recent 69th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held March 10–21 at the UN headquarters in New York City.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the chief global intergovernmental body dedicated to promoting equal rights and opportunities for all women and girls, and this meeting is the UN’s largest annual gathering on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

“My speech was focused on empowering women with climate smart technology in addressing ecological issues,” Sam said. “I spotlighted the critical role women in addressing ecological issues but most importantly the need to empower women and girls in vulnerable communities to become resilient in the face of climate crises through climate-smart intervention programs and support.”

“We also talked about the application of technology of consciousness through the Transcendental Meditation technique, which offers an enriching experience that can greatly assist in achieving a more balanced and fulfilled life,” Sam said. “We discussed some benefits of Transcendental Meditation in countries like Bangladesh, India, and Uganda, we also shared our personal experiences and initiatives we are leading in our respective countries to empower women.”

“Standing at the United Nations headquarters in New York,” Ansoya said, “representing MIU as the president of the Student Government, was one of the most thrilling and meaningful moments of my journey. At first, I felt a little nervous speaking on such a global stage. Surrounded by leaders and changemakers was both exciting and overwhelming. But before starting my talk, I took five minutes to meditate. That moment of silence, of grounding myself in pure awareness, changed everything. When I opened my eyes, I felt ready not just to speak, but to take over the world.”

Ansoya, originally from Pakistan, is an undergraduate business major with a minor in Enlightened Leadership.

Sam, who came to MIU from Nigeria, has completed an MBA in ERP & Business Analytics and Sustainable Business (double honors) and plans to enroll in the new PhD in Regenerative Organic Agriculture. A veteran participant in global meetings on climate change and sustainability, he is a member of the advisory board of the UNFCCC’s Santiago Network (the UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which crafted the Paris Climate Agreement). Sam was also part of the MIU group that gave presentations at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates held in Monterrey, Mexico, last September, leading the three-person student team.

“Being at the UN headquarters was a fulfilling experience,” Sam said. “The event was both captivating and humbling, especially being able to share the podium with such influential individuals. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with people from diverse tribes, cultures, and ethnicities.”

“As student body president I was also honored to present an award to Arnetta M. Asapokhai, a remarkable woman who is a member of the UN,” Ansoya said. “It was a humbling moment, recognizing her contributions and standing alongside incredible leaders dedicated to making a difference.”

“Standing in a room filled with passionate changemakers, I saw how deeply connected our struggles and solutions are,” Ansoya said. “The energy was electric, and every conversation reaffirmed my belief that giving women access to technology uplifts entire communities. I left feeling more inspired than ever and I hope that one day, Sam and I will bring the UN to MIU, creating a space for global conversations right here.

“I was informed about the event via email from UN Women as well as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) youth constituency, and I saw it as leverage for MIU,” Sam said. “MIU sponsored our participation, and the event was attended by high-level dignitaries, politicians, founders, and members of the international community. The major outcomes of the event include support for providing women and girls from marginalized communities with gadgets to enhance their tech skills, offering tech education to empower local women, and supporting women-led initiatives that drive technology while making tech accessible for all.”

Reporting by Sam Okorie and Ansoya Rani.

In a remarkable come-from-behind win fueled by two thrilling tie-breaker victories in the singles matches, the MIU tennis team prevailed against a Cornell College squad in the spring season’s first match-up.

MIU fell behind early, losing all three doubles matches. (The doubles matches are one set each, with the team winning at least two of the three receiving one team point, while the singles matches count for one point each, for a total of seven possible points.)

MIU also lost the #1 singles match, with Cuong Do getting outplayed 6-3, 6-0 by a strong opponent.

Then the comeback started.

In the #2 singles match, Thanh Nguyen posted a commanding 6-1, 6-0 win.

The #3 match turned into an extended battle, with MIU student Juan Jose winning the first set, then tightening up and losing the second. But he regained his focus in the third set, closing out the match with a decisive 10-6 victory in the tiebreaker.

Jamil Johnson dominated most of his #4 match, securing a 6-1, 6-4 win despite a second-set rally from his opponent.

In the #5 match, Nicolo Bonasera struggled with his serve and the late afternoon lighting on his court. Although he found his rhythm later in the match, he ultimately fell 6-0, 6-3.

At this point the team score was 3 to 3.

In the sixth and deciding match, Jacob Sanditen found himself in a high-stakes showdown, fighting through long rallies. He won the first set 6-3, then lost the second 3-6. When the third set reached 6-6, it went into a tiebreaker. With the fiercely contested match on the line, Jacob delivered an electrifying 11-9 tiebreak win, securing the crucial fourth point MIU needed for victory.

“Jacob amazed both his teammates and perhaps even himself, overcoming a determined and highly skilled opponent with a brilliant display of focus and composure,” said coach Paul Stokstad.

With that match, MIU found itself in possession of its first team tennis victory since it last fielded a team 20 years ago.

The MIU players celebrated by echoing Cornell’s own chant — “Go Rams!” — in recognition of the hard-fought competition.

Since MIU brought eight players, Cornell graciously added two extra singles matches so that all MIU players could compete, with two Cornell players volunteering to play them, although those matches did not count toward the team total. This enabled MIU’s #7 player, Tarush Bhatia, and #8 player, John Saunders, to compete.

The Cornell players won both of these matches, giving Cornell a total of seven match wins to MIU’s four. But the match scoring system and two razor-thin tiebreak losses ultimately left Cornell short of the overall victory.

“This incredible performance marked a historic milestone for the program,” Stokstad said. “Although Cornell technically won more total matches, MIU’s ability to perform under pressure and capture the most pivotal moments proved decisive. The win came as a testament to the team’s resilience, determination, and ability to rise to the occasion in clutch situations.”

Reporting by Paul Stokstad

In a groundbreaking comparison of meditation techniques, researchers from MIU, Augusta University in Georgia, and the US Army Reserve have conducted the largest review and meta-analysis to date on meditation for PTSD treatment.

The study found that meditation, especially Transcendental Meditation, offers a complementary approach that can enhance standard medical care, providing a natural and effective way to promote full recovery from post-traumatic stress.

Analyzing 61 studies involving more than 3,400 participants, the researchers compared four categories of meditation: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), other mindfulness-based techniques (MBO), other meditations (OM), and Transcendental Meditation (TM). They found TM practice significantly more effective than the other procedures.

The study was published in December in Medicina 2024, an international peer-reviewed open access journal that covers all problems related to medicine.

“Our findings show that all meditation techniques studied can help alleviate PTSD symptoms, but TM stands out as producing the largest and most consistent reductions across diverse trauma populations,” said lead author Dr. David Orme-Johnson, MIU professor emeritus. “Studies show that TM works in men and women, in youth and the elderly, in war veterans and war refugees, in women survivors of interpersonal violence, in prison inmates, in tsunami and earthquake survivors, and in nurses who became traumatized during the 2019 pandemic.”

“The results on the transformative power of TM are especially potent.”

— One of the study’s independent peer reviewers

One of the independent peer reviewers who looked at the study prior to publication described it as an excellent review for the research community because it explains how meditation procedures compare with one another and highlights key directions for further research. “The results on the transformative power of TM are especially potent and have come in line with increasing focus on non-pharmacological treatment for PTSD,” the reviewer said.

“I’ve been teaching TM in a hospital clinic for 12 years, working with soldiers experiencing PTSD and traumatic brain injuries,” said Dr. Vernon Barnes, the second author and emeritus assistant professor at the Georgia Prevention Institute at Augusta University (also an MIU PhD graduate ’96). “Our clinic is regarded as cutting edge for the treatment of complex concussion, which includes combat-related PTSD. TM is one of the few interventions with benefits that can be immediately translated into improved care in military medicine.”

A new standard in rigor and comprehensiveness

With its robust criteria for selecting the studies it examined, along with its advanced statistical methods, this meta-analysis sets a new standard in rigor and comprehensiveness. It included longitudinal research designs such as randomized controlled trials, controlled trials, and single-group case series, ensuring a comprehensive dataset. The researchers analyzed within-group effects, which show how much PTSD changes over time due to treatment, and then directly compared different meditation techniques on this measure.

“We employed meta-regression to identify predictors of effectiveness, such as type of trauma, age, and research design,” Orme-Johnson said. “These methods allowed us to control for all variables that influence the size of the effect, making our conclusions about differences in meditation techniques highly reliable.”

The review covered a wide range of trauma populations and was well accepted by subjects. Of the individuals offered TM, 86% were willing to try it, and 92% of them completed the instruction and continued the twice-daily practice, testifying to its accessibility and acceptability. “This meta-analysis surpasses previous reviews in scope and depth, making it an important resource for policymakers and healthcare providers looking to implement evidence-based PTSD interventions,” Dr. Barnes said.

The authors recommend large-scale clinical trials to further validate TM’s effectiveness and to explore how it can be integrated into diverse healthcare settings. With the growing recognition of meditation as a valuable tool for mental health, this study positions TM as a vital component in the future of PTSD treatment.

This study builds upon prior research from MIU and elsewhere indicating potential health benefits of Transcendental Meditation that include lowering high blood pressure, reducing cardiovascular risk, and improving mental health.

Study title and authors

The full study, Effectiveness of Meditation Techniques in Treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, is published in Medicina and available online here.

The authors are David W. Orme-Johnson, PhD, Maharishi International University • Vernon A. Barnes, PhD, Georgia Prevention Institute, Augusta University • Brian Rees, Colonel (ret.), Medical Corps, U.S. Army Reserve • Jean Tobin, Research Liaison, Transcendental Meditation for Women • Kenneth G. Walton, PhD, Institute for Prevention Research, Maharishi International University.

Additional reporting by Ken Chawkin

On December 6, 2024, MIU celebrated 90 faculty and staff members who have served the university for 30 years or longer. Many have worked for more than 40 years, and topping the list was Dr. Robert Keith Wallace, MIU’s founding president and current Chair of the Department of Physiology and Health, who has served for 52 years.

The day included three events: a banquet, an awards ceremony following the banquet, and a special concert that evening in the Golden Dome by the twice-Grammy-Award-nominated vocalist Chandrika Tandon.

MIU President Dr. Tony Nader gave the keynote address at the awards ceremony. Each honoree received a Lifetime Achievement Award, a medallion, a copy of Dr. Nader’s new book, and a substantial cash honorarium.

“I see this as recognition for the highest level of what humanity can be,” President Nader said. “You will always be remembered as a symbol of the highest values that humanity can give. You truly deserve this award. Thank you for being here.”

The Lifetime Achievement Awards banquet was held in the main dining room in the Argiro Student Center.

“It took a special group to comprehend inestimable significance of the life-changing knowledge we received from Maharishi at the founding of the university,” said President Emeritus Dr. John Hagelin at the banquet. “It takes a special heart, a special mind. You gave and have given for decades. What you have done is so important for the history of education, for the history of the world. Everything you do is precious. You have created the community we know as MIU. You’ve built it. You deserve all credit for it.”

The event was inspired last spring by the Board of Trustees Personnel Committee, co-chaired by Dr. Laura Wege and Josie Fauerso, who spent months helping plan and fundraise for it.

“What an absolute joy it was to help plan these special events for you, the heroes that have been working and teaching at the greatest university in the world,” Laura Wege said. “You are precious not only to MIU, you are precious to the whole world.  We love all of you here, and we are so deeply grateful that you chose the path you did in life.”

The awards ceremony included short talks from four representative long-term faculty and staff members.

Anne Dow, chair of the Mathematics department, recalled her first visit to MIU, for the historic Taste of Utopia Assembly, which brought together 8,000 TM and TM-Sidhi program participants for three weeks to create a global wave of harmony and which Maharishi attended. “I was invited suddenly, along with the other mathematicians, physiologists, and scientists at MIU, to attend a special meeting with Maharshi,” Anne said. “At that meeting, Maharshi explained that chemistry was the study of nature from the viewpoint of structure. And mathematics was the study of nature from the viewpoint of orderliness. And it was at that moment that I realized that I was going to quit my tenured faculty position at University of Queensland and get here within one year, whatever it took.”

Anne also recalled the academic projects Maharishi gave the faculty. “We had project after project where each department worked together to go deep, deep, deeper into their discipline and to the source of their discipline in the field of pure consciousness,” she said. “Our growth of consciousness and growth in our disciplines was phenomenal.”

Matt Jaffey, a programmer systems analyst in the IT department, applied to work at MIU in 1980, only to learn that there were no open positions. “After several attempts, I gave up and found another job, in Chicago,” Matt said. “Then, a day before I was to start it, I got a call with a job offer from MIU. I think of this as nature’s organizing to give me an opportunity to choose between a salaried position at a prestigious organization affiliated with the University of Chicago and working in the kitchen in the pot room. . . . But I knew that this was the best place to go to continue my own spiritual evolution.”

Matt took time out to get a degree in computer science at MIU and was then hired by the Computer Services department, where he has worked ever since. “Throughout the years, I have been grateful that MIU provided me with an opportunity to work in a job that has been such a dharmic match for me. And it has been very satisfying to provide my services to so many staff and faculty, many of whom I count as long-time friends in our spiritual adventure in this haven created under Maharishi’s guidance to promote Consciousness-Based education.”

Ruthann Bollinger, who works in the Accounting Services department, remembers moving to MIU from Houston, Texas, with her late husband Robert. “Now, with no disrespect to downtown Houston, the contrast in moving to the MIU campus was quite dramatic. I felt that we had arrived in some heavenly place. We hardly knew anyone here at that time, but I felt that everyone who walked by me on the sidewalk looked like a saint. Everyone who spoke to me sounded like a saint. Everyone greeted us with so much friendliness and appreciation and support. And all of that only grew over time and transformed our experiences and our lives here, both inside and out. Our decision to work at MIU was the best possible decision we could have made thirty years ago. I can’t imagine having been anywhere else or having done anything else other than working for Maharshi in this holy place.”

Ken West, a lecturer in photography in the Cinematic Arts and New Media department, also served as the director of MIU printing services and later as treasurer. He attended MIU during its first year, 1973–74, when it occupied a rented motel complex in Santa Barbara, California. In 1974 MIU relocated to Fairfield, Iowa, and Ken returned in August 1977 to work on staff. On his first night in Fairfield, as he looked across the campus, the light shining out from hundreds of residential hall windows reminded him of an ancient Indian text that advised surrounding oneself with people on the same spiritual path — people pursuing the highest goal in life, higher states of consciousness. “So that evening when I looked out on the sparkling lights, each light a place where a meditator was living, I knew that this was my home for the rest of my life — a place where I could serve Maharishi and his goal of bringing world peace to all mankind. Here we are 47 years later. A life worth living.”

Josie Fauerso, who was among the first university trustees, also addressed the award recipients. “In the future,” she said, “your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will hear your stories of coming to the heartland of America, to a neglected campus, and turning it into a haven of enlightenment. An accredited university educating people from more than a hundred countries all over the world. And a beacon light of Maharishi’s Vedic knowledge right here in America. And this is a life worth living.”

Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

Robert Keith Wallace • Susan Tracy • Craig Pearson • Melissa Pearson • Ken West • Cathy Gorini • Jim Shrosbree • Isabelle Levi • Michael Lerom • Brad Mylett • Tom Brooks • Harry Bright • Bill Goldstein • Craig Shaw • Vicki Alexander Herriott • Scott Herriott • Mike Shay • Tom Hirsch • Chris Jones • Ken Daley • Tom Egenes • Greg Guthrie • Elaine Guthrie • Sandy Nidich • Carolyn King • Robert Schneider • Anne Dow • Jim Karpen • Dennis Heaton • Dale Divoky • Rachel Goodman • Mike Davis • Sue Brown • Sandra Rosania • Nick Rosania • Martin Schmidt • Jane Schmidt-Wilk • James Bedinger • Linda Bedinger • Jonathan Worcester • Randy Bales • Bill Graff • Paul Morehead • Dolores Johnson • Sam James • Matthew Beaufort • Julie Beaufort • George Collum • Terry Fairchild • Fred Travis • Andy Cozzens • Marc Bouttenot • Gerry Geer • Richard Thompson • Keith Levi • Clyde Ruby • Jane Aikens • Jim Fairchild • David Fisher • Joanie Romes • Kris Wood • Sherri Shields • Rosemary Spivak • Michael Spivak • John Runkle • Susan Runkle • Lyle Nelson • Maxwell Rainforth • Rhoda Orme-Johnson • Bill Sands • Kit Healy • Dan Wasielewski • Ruthann Bollinger • Matt Jaffey • Sam Boothby • Ken Cavanaugh • Steve McLaskey • John Salerno • Shepley Hansen • Jerry Dee Lawley • David Goodman • Bruce McCollum • Bill Christensen • Arla Rabalais

You can  view the photo album here and the individual award recipient photos here. 

David Lynch was one of the outstanding creative geniuses of the past half century. He was one of the most effective advocates of Transcendental Meditation we’ve ever seen. And he was a great friend to MIU.

During his career, David was widely regarded as the world’s greatest living filmmaker. But he poured his creativity into many other forms — painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, woodworking, and music composition. His life and visionary work showed that consciousness is truly a field of all possibilities.

He had an extraordinary gift for communicating the benefits of TM practice. His words were always fresh, vivid, and compelling. In his best-selling 2006 book Catching the Big Fish, he wrote:

If you have a golf-ball-sized consciousness, when you read a book, you’ll have a golf-ball-sized understanding; when you look out a window, a golf-ball-sized awareness; when you wake up in the morning, a golf-ball-sized wakefulness; and as you go about your day, a golf-ball-sized inner happiness.

But if you can expand that consciousness, make it grow, then when you read that book, you’ll have more understanding; when you look out, more awareness; when you wake up, more wakefulness; and as you go about your day, more inner happiness.

You can catch ideas at a deeper level. And creativity really flows. It makes life more like a fantastic game.

He spoke on college campuses across America, Europe, and the Middle East on the theme of “Meditation, Creativity, and Peace.” In 2012 he released a film with that title, documenting his European and Middle Eastern tours from 2007 to 2009, when he visited sixteen countries to speak with students, accept national awards, and encourage TM practice as a technique for boosting creativity and securing peace.

Countless people have said that it was David Lynch who inspired them to learn to meditate. 

David prided himself on never missing a meditation. In Catching the Big Fish, he talks about his TM instruction in 1973, describing his first meditation experience this way:

I sat down, closed my eyes, started this mantra, and it was as if I were in an elevator and the cable had been cut. Boom! I fell into bliss — pure bliss. And I was just in there. . . . It seemed so familiar, but also so new and powerful. After that, I said the word “unique” should be reserved for this experience.

It takes you to an ocean of pure consciousness, pure knowingness. But it’s familiar; it’s you. And right away a sense of happiness emerges — not a goofball happiness, but a thick beauty.

After David had been meditating for a couple of years — but long before he became famous — he went with a friend to hear Maharishi speak at a large venue in Los Angeles. As he stood in a long line of people waiting to get in, Maharishi arrived, emerged from his car, and walked past them. David recalls all sound seeming to fall away during those moments. A short while later, a man came out of the building and motioned for David and his friend to follow him. He took them into the building and guided them down a series of long hallways, then opened a door and — to David’s amazement — led them out onto the main floor of the theatre right in front of the stage, gesturing for them to sit in two somehow empty front-row seats in an otherwise packed auditorium. A few moments later a woman approached them and asked, “Who are you?” “I’m nobody,” David replied. “Well, you must be somebody,” the woman responded, “because you’re sitting in the VIP section.”

David Lynch Weekends at MIU

Between 2006 and 2009, David came to MIU each spring for an annual series of David Lynch Weekends, intended to attract prospective students interested in creativity and the arts.

In 2009, the event attracted 200 guests from 27 states and countries as far as Italy. Besides question-and-answer sessions with David Lynch, the weekend included musical entertainment by MIU students, an introduction to the TM program by Bob Roth, a taste of the activities of the David Lynch Foundation around the world as documented by DLF.TV, and a presentation by Dr. John Hagelin on “The Cosmos Within: Exploring the Limits of Human Potential.” The capstone event was a concert featuring music legend Donovan, blues singer/songwriter Laura Dawn, and James McCartney, son of the famed Sir Paul McCartney, making his US debut.

David Lynch academic programs at MIU

David generously lent his name to the David Lynch MA in Film program in 2013, when it launched. Over the next three years, he invited each class of film students to his home in Los Angeles for a wide-open discussion in his personal studio. Students spent several more days visiting other filmmakers and significant people in the industry.

Amine Kouider, chair of the Department of Cinematic Arts and New Media and an award-winning filmmaker, was in one of those classes. “David greeted us in his studio with coffee and donuts and then happily answered every question we had. We all felt it was a privilege and gift to be with him.”

In 2016, the MA in Film transitioned into the David Lynch MFA in Screenwriting within the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts. David met remotely each semester with each new cohort of students for an hour of live Q&A, a tradition that continued until last semester.

“David’s commitment to our programs was unwavering.”

— Amine Kouider

“David Lynch was a beacon of consciousness and creativity,” Amine said. “David’s commitment to our programs was unwavering. He delighted in meeting with our students and sharing his wisdom and experience. His motto for us was ‘meditate and create.'”

Reflections from Stuart Tanner, program founder

Stuart Tanner, assistant professor of Cinematic Arts & New Media at MIU and an acclaimed documentary film producer and director, created MIU’s original David Lynch MA in Film program along with professor Gurdy Leete and Joanna Plafsky, and he worked with David Lynch at its inception.

“We had scholarship funding for the best applicants during the first years of the program,” Stuart recalls. “Students submitted their films as part of the scholarship application. David wanted to be personally involved in reviewing those films and awarding the scholarships.

“We went through all of them together, all sorts of different kinds of films — music videos, animations, dramas, experimental films. We talked about each them, discussing their merits, back and forth. It was not like I was talking with the foremost avant-garde surrealist cult filmmaker in the world. We were just two buddies talking about these films. It was a unique and fantastic experience and a lot of fun.”

“My conversations with him were always like that,” Stuart said. “He was always easy with you. It was always one hundred percent authenticity with David. He was a committed, kind, insightful, brilliant filmmaker. The humanity was always there. You could talk with him about anything — film, art, anything — and what you always got back was thoughtful, penetrating, and laced with humor and universality. I don’t think there’s anyone David couldn’t reach. He was unique.”

“When we’d visit him in Los Angeles at his home studio, those couple of hours were a powerful experience for everybody,” Stuart said. “The way he handled the students was incredible to watch.”

Reflections from Daniel Nearing, program director

“For more than half a century, David Lynch has been ‘Catching the Big Fish’ of ideas from the depths of his consciousness,” said Daniel Nearing, the current Director of the David Lynch MFA in Screenwriting program. “He is a giant of American and international cinema, yet no matter the medium — film, painting, drawing, music — he has shown us what it means to live The Art Life with unflinching integrity and heart.”

“He has also been in recent years the most vocal, influential proponent in the world for the Transcendental Meditation technique,” Nearing added. “He insisted that TM be a part of our curriculum from the start, and as a consequence has forged a generation of screenwriting voices in alignment with the source of his own magnificent visions.”

In a recent email to the MFA students, he referred to the class’s latest conversation with David: “As we spoke with him that last time, Alexandra (class of 2025) shared that her father had recently died and asked David if he had thoughts on an afterlife. David held court, as only David could do, with wisdom, intellectual agility, and grace. Let’s hear this again from him and take it to heart. He’s there now.” And then he shared this video clip from that Zoom call.

* * * * * * *

Quotations from David Lynch: David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), 28 and 4.

Everyone is invited to join in celebrating the work of four artists in the 2025 Thesis Exhibition, the apex of MIU’S two-and-a-half-year Low-Residency MFA program in Visual Art, held in the Wege Center for the Arts.

There will be an artists’ reception on Thursday night, January 16, from 6:30 to 8:30 in the Wege Center.

Featuring painting, collage, installation, and sculpture, the exhibition presents a showcase of each artist’s thesis work.

Four MFA students are exhibiting their work: Niloofar Monfared, Eva Sainte Rose, Cortys Winston-Sandefur, and Sam Foster.

• Niloofar Monfared, a newbie visual artist from Iran, now based in Iowa. Her work currently is focused on drawing, collage, and painting. In addition to her MFA from MIU, she holds a BA in Consciousness and Sustainability from MIU.  
• Eva Sainte Rose, a multidisciplinary artist in Los Angeles. Her focuses include painting, collage, video, and motion graphics. Her work has been featured in the following digital art collectives and online magazines: Mundane Magazine, Feltzine, Post Vision, Tax Collection, Friday Magazine, Jawbreaker Zine, Lithium Magazine, and Ok Whatever.
• Cotys Winston-Sandefur, born and raised in Oakland, California. She has exhibited her work nationally at venues like Oak Park Art Gallery in Chicago, the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles, and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, California.
• Sam Foster, originally from Lawrence, Kansas, received his BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) in 2012, where he studied painting and experimental film. He currently lives in Lockhart, Texas, just south of Austin, where he has been a long-time member of Spellerberg Projects, an artist-headed studio and gallery.

by Niloofar Monfared

Banner image at the top: Angel-2000, by Eva Sainte Rose.

Learn more about the Low-Residency MFA in Visual Art – now accepting applications for the Summer 2025 entry.

The Low-Res MFA in Visual Art is supported by a grant from the Wege Foundation.

Additional reporting by Susan Metrican.

MIU President Tony Nader put forward a practical pathway to reduce global tensions and relieve the global mental health crisis as part of his keynote address during the UN’s first annual “World Meditation Day,” held on December 21.

“Meditation is not a luxury — it’s a necessity,” Dr. Nader said. He described it as a simple, mechanical, universal re-set system that promotes peace and health and doesn’t depend on any belief or way of life.

Dr. Nader cited the constitution of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which states, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” The authors of the constitution recognized that world peace depends on inner personal transformation, Dr. Nader said. But no one has had a technique to accomplish this systematically and on a wide scale.

But this is exactly what the Transcendental Meditation technique accomplishes, he said. The practice enables us to “go back home” to “our true inner self,” to “enliven that on an individual level and enliven it in society. And then, naturally, spontaneously, the right decisions will be made and we can have a life of peace and harmony and well-being.”

Comparing the process to resetting a computer, Dr. Nader described meditation as a powerful prevention tool for protecting against mental and physical illness.

“It doesn’t depend on believing in it,” he said. “It doesn’t depend on a particular way of life, a particular religion, a particular belief in anything. It’s simple and mechanical.”

The ever-present stress, danger, and fear in the world activates the brain’s fight-flight-or-freeze response and shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s CEO, responsible for thinking and planning effectively, Dr. Nader said. Unless we give our brains a chance to re-set, we may develop physical and mental health challenges — a global issue today.

Fortunately, he said, the world’s great knowledge traditions developed procedures for calming the brain so we can think and plan clearly — and now we need those meditation techniques more than ever.

Evidence based

Dr. Nader reviewed research showing that Transcendental Meditation practice easily and effortlessly allows the mind to settle down into a state of inner peace and quiet. This experience dissolves stress and promotes integrated brain functioning, yielding extensive benefits for mental and physical health, including heart health.

He described further peer-reviewed research showing that this effect of inner peace radiates into the environment and can cause whole societies to become more peaceful — reflected in reduced rates of crime, infectious diseases, accidents, suicides, and even reduced war violence and war deaths. He described a dramatic 1993 study in Washington, DC, in which researchers predicted that violent crime in DC would drop 20% when a large group gathered to practice TM together — and it dropped more than 23% during the final weeks of the two-month study.

Explaining the underlying mechanism at work, Dr. Nader said that when one’s mind settles inward beyond thoughts and perceptions, one experiences and enlivens the field of pure consciousness, the unified field of natural law at the basis of everyone and everything, creating waves of harmony, coherence, and peace everywhere.

Other diplomats emphasize the value of meditation

More than 200 people gathered to hear Dr. Nader speak. These included diplomats from about 30 UN member states, including senior diplomats from the core group of countries that sponsored the proposal for World Meditation Day — India, Sri Lanka, Liechtenstein, Nepal, Mexico, and Andorra — and leaders of UN-affiliated non-governmental organizations.

The diplomats from the six core UN member states also spoke at the event, emphasizing that meditation is a vital component in all diplomatic efforts to achieve conflict resolution and peace.

Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking by live video conference from Zurich, underlined the universality of meditation, its contribution for effective diplomacy, and its benefits for individual and collective well-being.

The UN General Assembly — all 193 member nations — had unanimously passed a resolution on December 6 declaring December 21 to be World Meditation Day. The resolution was sponsored by Andorra, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Iceland, India, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sri Lanka.

Additional reporting by Adrienne Schoenfeld

Long-term Transcendental Meditation® practice can help reduce the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and death by about 50% in high-risk individuals.

This is the finding of systematic review of all the published studies on the TM technique and cardiometabolic disease internationally.

The study, entitled “The promising role of Transcendental Meditation in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases: A systematic review,” was published earlier this year in a top medical journal, Obesity Reviews. The study was summarized on the website of the World Obesity Federation, publisher of the journal.

The study was conducted by a research team at RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), a public research university in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Study authors also included MIU researchers Dr. Robert Schneider and Dr. John Salerno. Schneider is dean of the MIU College of Integrative Medicine, director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, and professor of Physiology and Health. Salerno is associate director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention. 

The research group systematically reviewed all the published scientific literature — 45 studies conducted over a span of 30 years — on the effects of TM practice on risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, collectively called cardiometabolic disease. Systematic reviews offer one of the strongest methods of scientific research because they combine all published studies on a particular topic — regardless of where, when, by whom, and what was found — in a single overall analysis.  

RMIT Distinguished Professor Barbora de Courten, one of the investigators, said that Transcendental Meditation, which is widely used in Australia and worldwide, had been shown to improve resilience to stress and benefit heart heath.

“Psychological distress has a profound effect in contributing to the onset and progression of cardiometabolic diseases and the associated risk factors,” de Courten said. “We found compelling evidence that this meditation technique effectively lowers blood pressure and reduces insulin resistance — thereby decreasing the risk of diabetes — among other cardio-metabolic health benefits.”

This new study corroborates and extends earlier American Heart Association scientific statements and Cochrane Systematic Reviews on the usefulness of Transcendental Meditation practice for lowering high blood pressure and preventing cardiovascular disease.

“Because of the promising finding to date uncovered in our systematic review, we are currently planning a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Transcendental Meditation on wellbeing, mental and cardiovascular and metabolic health as well as productivity in our staff at RMIT University,” Professor de Courten said.

Key findings of the study

The systematic analysis of the published research showed that long-term Transcendental Meditation achieved a reduction of blood pressure similar to some mainstream medications, de Courten said. 

“This meditation technique may also play a role in preventing the thickening of artery walls associated with atherosclerosis. This can help improve blood flow to the heart and brain and increase exercise tolerance. All these beneficial effects from Transcendental Meditation can ultimately prevent the occurrence of heart attack, stroke, and death.” 

“This study of thirty years of research together brings all the research up to date, corrects misunderstandings in the field by other reviews, and gives us an expanded picture of the broad health benefits of TM practice,” Schneider said. “The fact that the study calls for phase III clinical trials indicates that the phase II trials were successful. It’s a big thing for everyone here.”

How does meditation help prevent diseases and promote wellbeing?

“Lowering sympathetic tone and related mind-body mechanisms contributes to lower blood pressure and reduced diabetes and metabolic syndrome,” Dr. Schneider said.

“Transcendental Meditation practice leads to greater integration of brain functioning as measured by EEG coherence,” said Dr. Fred Travis, director of MIU’s Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition. “In addition, TM practice resets the body’s stress response system, leading to lower stress reactivity and sympathetic nervous system activation and likely inflammation.” Travis did not participate in the study.

Reporting by the RMIT public affairs office.

Banner photography by Nappy on Unsplash.

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

At a global event that brought together 15 Nobel Peace Prize winners, renowned leaders of peace organizations, distinguished academics, and more than a thousand university students from around the world, MIU President John Hagelin presented a “brain-based approach to peace” that offers a scientifically-validated, field-tested, low-cost solution to the perennial problem of war and violence in the world.

It was a timely and powerful presentation. Previous speakers had stressed that the world is now closer to nuclear war than at any time in history and that the challenge before us is immense.

The gathering was the 19th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, held in Monterrey, Mexico, September 18–21.

This annual event, internationally recognized as one of the most important gatherings in the field of peacemaking, brings together Nobel Peace Prize winners and others to tackle global issues and promote peace and human thriving. Launched in 1999 by Mikhail Gorbachev, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in helping end the Cold War, the Summit celebrated its 25th anniversary in Monterrey.

The Summit was structured around seven key themes related to peace, with panel discussions led by Nobel Peace Laureates and other peace leaders. Dr. Hagelin was invited to speak during the closing, summative panel, entitled “Global Peace: Time to Act.”

World peace through inner peace

The precursor to war and violence, Hagelin said, is stress. Stress in the individual shuts down the prefrontal cortex — the higher brain — while stimulating the amygdala, triggering the body’s fight-or-flight response. Mounting stress is causing ill health, psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and rising levels of social violence throughout the world.

The traditional approach is to try to reduce the stressors — oppression, poverty, injustice, prejudice, and so on. But this has proven difficult if not impossible, he said. But there is a way to directly reduce the stress itself and thereby reduce violent behavior.

Hagelin reviewed studies showing how the Transcendental Meditation technique has been used in prisons to markedly improve prisoner behavior and reduce recidivism, and how the Pentagon has used it to significantly reduce PTSD in veterans.

Then he showed how the same effect can be leveraged through large meditation groups to reduce stress throughout society.

“The first stage in the emergence of war,” he said, “is mounting social stress — acute political, ethnic, and religious tensions in critical hotspots throughout the world. These mounting tensions, if left unchecked, frequently erupt into social conflict.” Traditional efforts — ceasefires and negotiated settlements, for example — typically yield only fleeting relief. Because they don’t reduce the underlying stress, they fail to provide a stable basis for lasting peace.

In contrast, Hagelin summarized studies demonstrating how this brain-based or consciousness-based approach reduced violent crime in Washington DC by 23% while improving the quality of life for the whole city. And he described how the same approach dramatically reduced the intensity of the Lebanese Civil War in the early 1980s, with seven different studies confirming this effect.

Altogether 55 studies on this effect, known as the Maharishi Effect, have been published in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings. The effect has been demonstrated all over the world and at every scale of society, from cities to states and from countries to the world as a whole.

“No other approach to peace in history, as far as I know, has had a comparable track record of success,” Hagelin said. “And this particular approach to peace is not that difficult. It’s relatively easily and cost-effectively implemented in schools and colleges” as well as in the military and in police training.

“Even a small fraction of a population produces demonstrable results,” he said, adding, “It has been very effective in Mexico itself in certain school programs here.”

He then described how the effect works — how Transcendental Meditation practice allows the mind to settle effortlessly inward to its basis in pure consciousness, which is identical with the unified field, understood in quantum physics to lie at the basis of all change throughout the universe.

“Meditation expands consciousness,” Hagelin said. “It takes our scattered mental activity, our disorderly EEG, and transforms it into coherent brain functioning.” Coherent brain functioning in turn is correlated with high IQ, learning ability, memory, intelligence, creativity, and moral reasoning. 

“Regular practice of meditation brings inner peace, inner stability, inner fulfillment, inner contentment,” he said. “It brings life-supporting behavior.”

As a result, he said, “You know yourself for what you really are — unbounded, universal being. And you recognize others as unbounded universal beings — you recognize others as your own self. That brings the golden rule of behavior. And that brings a peaceful world. This is world peace through inner peace, an evidence-based, scientifically proven process.”

This is the central approach to peace recommended by the Global Union of Scientists for Peace, founded by Dr. Hagelin to help prevent of terrorism, war, and social violence through cutting-edge, field-tested solutions in the areas of conflict resolution, national security, and global peace.

Click here to watch Dr. Hagelin’s talk.

Hagelin’s panel also included, as pictured above:

• Carlos Slim, the Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, ranked as the wealthiest person in Latin America and the 11^th wealthiest in the world, according to Bloomberg (he was ranked #1 from 2010 to 2013 by Forbes), with a net worth of $105 billion. His foundation focuses on support for education.
• Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014 along with Malala Yousafzai, for efforts to ensure child education and prevent child suppression. He presaged Hagelin’s talk by saying that consciousness is the foundation of life and that education is the birthright of all children.
• Óscar Arias Sánchez, the former President of Costa Rica, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 as the architect of a peace accord also signed by Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras, designed to end the long-raging civil wars in those countries. He also won the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and has been awarded fifty honorary degrees.

After his presentation, Hagelin was able to speak with Dr. Karen Hallberg about collaboration. Hallberg, a prominent Argentinian physicist who also spoke at the Summit, has just been appointed Secretary General of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization founded in 1955 that brings together scholars and other leaders in pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for its work on nuclear disarmament.

Dr. Hagelin had given two very short prerecorded talks at the previous World Summit of Nobel Laureates for Peace, held in December 2022 in South Korea. The distance and times involved precluded him from attending in person or speaking live. But this time it was a major talk during the highest-profile panel.

Faculty workshop

MIU faculty members Craig Pearson and Gerry Geer presented a workshop on the same theme. Entitled “Close Your Eyes and Change the World: The Extraordinary Possibility of Creating Positive Change Through Meditation,” this was one of about 15 workshops held during the Summit, concurrently with the main Summit panels.

“We had no idea whether anyone would come to our workshop, since the Nobel Laureates were hosting a Summit panel on peace education at the same time — and other workshops were taking place then too,” Geer said. “So we were delighted that about twenty people showed up, all college students.”

“They were all engaged and excited,” Geer said. “At the end of our talk they wanted to take a group photo, and several asked for selfies with us. Even our Spanish translator was inspired, since she remembered hearing about the Washington DC study in 1993.”

MIU student presentation

Three MIU students — Sam Okorie, Dylan MacDonald, and Muna Askar — created and presented a proposal for a “Peace Lab,” described as “a platform for youth from around the globe to present innovative projects and startups in the realm of peace.”

Entitled “Art and Science of Peacebuilding through Technology of Consciousness,” their proposed project had four components:

• Cultivate a global network of youth peace ambassadors equipped with the skills and knowledge to promote peace in their communities.
• Establish the MIU Peace Lab as a leading center for mentorship, capacity building, and knowledge dissemination in the field of peace-building through technologies of consciousness.
• Develop a user-friendly digital platform to facilitate youth exchange programs, knowledge transfer, and global collaboration in peacebuilding efforts.
• Provide a virtual space for conflict resolution and mediation, leveraging the transformative power of meditation to foster peaceful dialogue and understanding.

Muna Askar is an undergraduate student in the Regenerative Organic Agriculture program and one of the chief organizers of the annual Harvest Festival, to be held Saturday, September 28.

Dylan MacDonald graduated cum laude last June with a BA in Enlightened Leadership and was named that program’s outstanding student along with receiving a Development of Consciousness award. He has just started the master’s program in Enlightenment and Leadership.

Sam Okorie, from Nigeria, recently completed the MBA in Sustainable Business and is now a student in the PhD in Management program. Already well known internationally as a climate activist before coming to MIU, he had spent three days in Bonn at the beginning of September in his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Santiago Network, where he represents children and youth globally, helping ensure that they and other vulnerable groups receive the support they need in the face of loss and damage associated with climate change impacts. Prior to Bonn he had spent time in Geneva, Switzerland, in the same capacity.

Also present at the Summit was Dr. Ash Pachauri, founder, director, and senior mentor of the worldwide POP (Protect Our Planet) movement, who was MIU’s commencement speaker in 2022. It was Pachauri, the senior advisor of environmental security in Dr. Hagelin’s Global Union of Scientists for Peace, who first connected MIU with the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

MIU participants’ experiences

“Coming to the Peace Summit in Monterrey with the knowledge that we have as meditators felt like we had some secret answer that we were tasked with bringing to conference,” MacDonald said. “People asked many questions and repeatedly brought up many problems, and I felt it was our responsibility to let it be known that we actually have a solution. This feeling empowers you, not in a way that makes you feel greater than others but that makes you want to connect with these brilliant and selfless people and allow them to see the light emanating from within.”

“The most fulfilling highlight for me,” Geer said, “was seeing our own President Hagelin step out onto the Summit stage to address all the Nobel Peace Laureates and the thousands of attendees about our proven, innovative approach to peace — a truly appropriate setting for this life-changing knowledge. Equally inspiring was the passionate, heartfelt commitment of all those Laureates and attendees to the cause of peace. This historic Summit will no doubt change the world — and lead to many collaborations on peace projects between MIU and the Summit attendees.”

Interview with Muna Askar

Overall, what was it like to be a participant in this global event?

“I feel incredibly inspired by the gathering of people from all fields of life, all ages, from all over the world. With passionate young adults dominating the crowd, the future is in bright hands.”

What was your impression of the Nobel Peace Laureates and other peace leaders?

“The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and other activist leaders acknowledged the present conflict in the world. Their words were filled with rightful grief and anger towards the suffering they witness. The call to action was one of awareness through education, sharing information, and being relentless in hope and strength.”

Do you feel they presented practical solutions?

“There seemed to be a lopsided quality leaning towards problems rather than solutions. Needless to say, I was disappointed at the lack of understanding of the root of the problem. It wasn’t until Dr. Pearson and Dr. Geer gave a captivating presentation on the Maharishi Effect with a crowd full of college students who ate it up. One woman came up to me afterwards practically begging for this to be shared with students all over Mexico, wondering how she could access this information to open the minds of her peers to this solution.”

What was it like to be in an audience of 1,500 people when President Hagelin presented the model of consciousness?

“It warmed my heart to see youth all around me engaged and affirming their support in this truth, further empowering my commitment to transcending as a worldwide peacemaking technology. I am so grateful to have received the opportunity to have this experience with such a brilliant group. Transcendental Meditation continues to be the simplest path towards world peace.”