Consciousness Based Education
Ashley Deans, Ph.D.
'Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment ... itself is a very ordinary kind of school,' Dr Deans said. 'But what we find is that by adding this element of Consciousness-Based Education to the traditional curriculum, that the experiences and achievements of the students are absolutely extraordinary.
'Students practise ... Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation Programme before they go to class, and then they take the regular classes of physics and mathematics and art and science and physical education—all of the things that students at conventional schools take—and then before they go home in the afternoon, they practise Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation Programme together.
'... Education has a three fold structure... of ''knower, process of knowing, and known''. And at most schools the emphasis in education today is on the ''known''. But the problem with this book-based approach to learning is that it doesn't satisfy the student, because every student naturally, if you look at a young child, they want to know everything.
'But, what you find is, that when the students go through a conventional school by the time they are 16 or 17, many of them have lost interest in education. They are completely overwhelmed by the volume of knowledge that is available today, and so these students, 80 per cent in many countries, just drop out of education by the end of high school. .... But a great number of students lose their interest in education, and this is because the information-based system of education today does not address the complete structure of knowledge.
'... Education today... fails to develop the total creative potential of the knower. And when I say the total creative potential of the knower, what I mean is the ''consciousness'' of the knower. By consciousness we mean ''intelligence'', we mean ''creativity''. We mean ''breadth of comprehension''. We mean ''receptivity'', ''moral reasoning'', all of the qualities that make a good student.
'These qualities are not really developed in modern education. Every teacher in every classroom knows that the state of consciousness of the student is fundamental to the process of education.
'If you are teaching a class first thing on a Monday morning then you may find that some of the students may be in the sleeping state of consciousness, and then it is very difficult, impossible, for learning to take place. So Consciousness-Based Education develops higher states of consciousness in the student—more alertness, more wakefulness, more intelligence, more creativity—and then all of the conventional approaches to education will be successful.
'... What a student at Maharishi School does when they first come to school in the morning instead of rushing off to mathematics class, they sit quietly together in a group, they practise Maharishi's [Transcendental Meditation] programme. And this allows their awareness to settle down to that Unified Field level within, that field of pure consciousness ... described as being the fountainhead of Total Knowledge, information and organizing power in the universe.
'The total creative potential of a student we now understand is infinite creativity, infinite potential—and this infinite creativity and intelligence can now be applied by the student for success in what ever level of undertaking they do.
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