Realization of the Cosmic Psyche by Direct Perception: Opening Individual Awareness to the Self-Interacting Dynamics of Consciousness

This article outlines the description, from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Vedic Psychology, of experience of the Ved — the perception, within the simplest form of human awareness, of the self-interacting dynamics of the unified field, the field of pure consciousness or cosmic psyche. This realization is described by Maharishi as developing through increasingly refined experience of the field of pure consciousness, cultured by his Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, until one clearly experiences the internal dynamics of the field of pure consciousness, termed the Ved. "Ved" means "pure knowledge." Pure knowledge is knowledge of the unified field of natural law on the level of pure self-referral consciousness — "Samhita" — where knower, process of knowing, and known are unified. Inherent in pure knowledge, according to Maharishi Vedic Psychology, is the complete organizing power of natural law, through which the field of pure consciousness gives rise to all manifest existence. Therefore, with the experience of the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness comes the ability to fully utilize the organizing power of nature for the enrichment of individual and collective life. In contrast to the knowledge of nature's functioning available through the objective approach of modern science, the knowledge of natural law through the subjective approach of Maharishi Vedic Science and his Vedic Psychology directly enriches the life of the knower and his or her environment through the very process of gaining knowledge. Maharishi Vedic Psychology thus emphasizes knowledge of the Self, the field of pure consciousness, as the basis of all other knowledge. This is the foundation of an education which can deliver the ability to make full use of natural law for personal and social fulfillment, and thereby create what Maharishi describes as Heaven on Earth. This is the sixth article in a series introducing the Vedic Psychology of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Address correspondence to: Department of Psychology Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa 52557 Modern Science and Vedic Science, Volume 3, Number 2, 1989 ©1989 Maharishi International University