A strategy for improving the functional health and well-being of Cambodian university faculty and staff

The range of outcomes and published record on the Transcendental Meditation technique across 50 years of research in education, business, and government makes its application unique. Its association with health and relation to an individual’s quality-of-life have also made the technique useful in some developing countries. Data related to application of the technique to higher education in Cambodia have been accruing since the early 1990s. The 26-year research program begun by these authors associated with Transcendental Medita-tion and non-verbal intelligence, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, learning, memory, and personality in university students, as well as its collective effects on economic and social indicators and reduc-tions in socio-political violence and crime, makes for an uncommonly rich body of knowledge in a country where empirical research has been rare. Indeed, the early studies in this research program represented among the first published research on higher education since the 1960s, after which Cambodia was plunged into civil war, genocide, and ongoing social turmoil and political conflict until 1993. The present study, which is a modified version of a study previously published in ASEAN Journal of Education, extends this research program to include a preliminary investigation of the practice of Transcenden-tal Meditation by faculty and staff in three regional Cambodian universities and examines its impact on health and well-being. Findings generated by a concurrent, quasi-experimental mixed methods design suggest the practice may be of benefit to university personnel as measured by physical mental and social health, perceived health, self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, among other quality-of-life variables, thereby adding to previous results associated with higher education in this increasingly important south-east Asian nation

Health and school performance during home isolation at Institucion Educativa Privada Prescott in Puno, Peru

Approximately 2,000 indigenous students at Institución Educativa Privada Prescott in Puno, located in the Andes high on the Altiplano of Lake Titicaca, have been instructed in Transcendental Meditation. In this study, we examine the impact of home isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic on physical, cognitive, and emotional health, and school performance for a group of 54 meditating students and contrast these results to a comparison group of 53 meditating students who reported their health and learning prior to the pandemic. The study is the first to consider the association of home isolation on students practicing meditation in a group: A) at the same time of day and in the same place as part of their daily school routine; and B) during online sessions at the same time of day but in a different place. Findings indicate both approaches to group meditation before and during the pandemic produced favourable results for health and school performance

Managing the Built Environment for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention With Maharishi Vastu Architecture: A Review

Background and objectives: The evolution of healthcare from 18th-century reductionism to 21st-century postgenomic holism has been described in terms of systems medicine, and the impact of the built environment on human health is the focus of investigation and development, leading to the new specialty of evidence-based, therapeutic architecture. The traditional system of Vāstu architecture—a design paradigm for buildings which is proposed to promote mental and physical health—has been applied and studied in the West in the last 20 years, and features elements absent from other approaches. This review critically evaluates the theory and research of a well-developed, standardized form of Vāstu—Maharishi Vastu® architecture (MVA). MVA’s principles include development of the architect’s consciousness, universal recommendations for building orientation, siting, and dimensions; placement of key functions; and occupants’ head direction when sleeping or performing tasks. The effects of isolated Vāstu elements included in MVA are presented. However, the full value of MVA, documented as a systematic, globally applicable practice, is in the effect of its complete package, and thus this review of MVA includes evaluating the experience of living and working in MVA buildings. Methods: The published medical and health-related literature was systematically surveyed for research on factors related to isolated principles applied in MVA as well as on the complete system. Results: Published research suggests that incorporating MVA principles into buildings correlates with significant improvements in occupants’ physical and mental health and quality of life: better sleep, greater happiness of children, and the experience of heightened sense of security and reduced stress. The frequency of burglaries, a social determinant of health, also correlates. Potential neurophysiological mechanisms are described. Conclusions: Findings suggest that MVA offers an actionable approach for managing a key social determinant of health by using architectural design as preventive medicine and in public health

Consciousness-based education in Bali: a second and third-person embedded multiple-case study of Negeri Bali Mandara

Consciousness-based education has been described as both an innovative method for developing the consciousness, and thereby the creativity, learning ability and behaviour, of students, and a pedagogical approach designed to reverse negative trends in schools. For either purpose, it has in the last 20 years been implemented in hundreds of schools in 49 countries, for which a considerable body of literature documents its impact on the mental and physical health, learning ability, social relations, and academic achievement of students. However, while the approach has been implemented in two schools in northern Bali, Indonesia – SMA Negeri Bali Mandara and SMK Negeri Bali Mandara – the nature and scope of its potential impact on individual and collective life have yet to be examined. Using an embedded multiple-case research design, the present study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences and viewpoints of current students, former students, teachers, a Principal, and parents of students participating in consciousness-based education in Bali. Results from this unique educational setting indicate that outcomes are somewhat consistent with international findings, but several unique characteristics of secondary education in Bali have emerged which shine further light on understanding this novel pedagogical approach to student development

Responding to climate change: the contribution of Maharishi Vedic Science

The scope and reach of the climate change challenge is clearly unprecedented, as is its level of global urgency. We review the broad results of the scientific program associated with it. These results identify serious impacts on physical, biological, and human systems, as separate systems and as cascading through them. The global risks associated with these impacts are daunting. Modern analytic approaches to this order of complexity and uncertainty have so far made only a limited contribution to its understanding and resolution. In particular these approaches identify a crucial gap: the understanding and modelling of the whole, rather than the parts, of the system. We then advance the promise of Maharishi Vedic Science in providing this missing scientific knowledge, in principle and in practice. In particular we explore a model offered by Maharishi Vedic Science which describes eight levels of Natural Law to embrace all the complex diverse systems of which the global climate system is comprised. Further we review the technologies through which Maharishi Vedic Science offers to restore balance, integration and orderly growth to all systems from their foundation in the Unified Field of Natural Law. We outline the extensive scientific research program which has provided robust support for the predictions of Maharishi Vedic Science with respect to both individual and collective life; which extend, we suggest, to the global community and to the global challenge of climate change

Meditation practice by primary and secondary students in Peru: a confirmatory study of health and school performance

Schools in Perú have not typically been the sites of research on meditation or its possible role in student health or primary and secondary education outcomes. This retrospective observational study seeks to begin redressing this evidentiary shortfall by confirming results from an earlier, smaller-scale study of 91 students in Huay-Huay, with a specific focus on the practice of Transcendental Meditation at Peruvian schools, some in remote locations with indigenous students. Five hundred and twenty primary and secondary students at four schools in Lima, Cusco, Puno, and Ventanilla were asked to rate their experience of meditation and its relation to four factors using a paper-and-pencil questionnaire: physical health; cognitive health; emotional health; and school performance. An average of 66% of students agreed they had benefited from practice of Transcendental Meditation in each area of health and school performance, and regularity of practice was a moderate predicator of higher scores on each variable. These quantitative findings are suggestive of a role to be played by the addition of Transcendental Meditation to primary and secondary school curricula in Perú

Health and School Performance: An Exploratory Quantitative Study of School Children in Huay-Huay, Perú

A paucity of data in school children generally, and in non-Western schools specifically, related to health, school performance, and practice of meditation necessitated this study. The fact that almost no prior research of this type has been conducted in Latin America makes the present investigation especially worthwhile. This mostly quantitative study was carried out with 91 randomly selected school children, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years, in a remote Peruvian town in the central Andean mountains called Huay-Huay. Using a 47-question, paper-and-pencil instrument to ask students about their experience with meditation in four categories (i.e., physical health, cognitive health, emotional health, and school performance), this observational study considered whether or not the practice of meditation had a self-reported impact on student personal health and academic life, and if so to what extent. Data indicate that a majority of children in Huay-Huay reported benefits across all measures, and these were apparently stronger when students practiced meditation more regularly. Qualitative reports support these conclusions. Gender and grade level did not appear to influence this outcome

Putting Brahman to practice: the structure and function of Maharishi’s unified field chart

Since the early 1960s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi embraced the power of visual communication to more effectively convey the central concepts, principles, and themes of his Vedic Science. His early adoption of visual aids, including the first computer-generated images of interhemispheric brainwave coherence and electroencephalic ordering, and illustrated textual graphics of advanced scientific phenomena, such as the Third Law of Thermodynamics, immunology, gerontology, the Josephson Effect, and the Meissner Effect, has meant that a significant number of innovative images appear throughout the published literature on Maharishi Vedic Science. Types of images employed by Maharishi during the last 50 years range from photographs and photographic elements, schema, scientific charts, artist’s impressions, diagrams, and graphs to a host of conceptual maps and graphic representations of the human physiology, some extending to large-scale foldout charts and 3D models. Maharishi also developed important visual communication tools and conceptual wall charts for use in education which detail and explain advanced topics and show an integration of contemporary scientific and humanist thought with, or parallel to, Veda and the Vedic Literature. These tools include comprehensive charts of the Constitution of the Universe and Maharishi’s Apaurusheya Bhāsya, Veda in the human physiology, a reorganization of the 40 aspects of Veda and the Vedic Literature, the Richo Akshare Chart, and the Unified Field Chart, all of which are unique to Maharishi. This paper is the first in a three-part series to investigate the development and application of Maharishi’s Unified Field Chart by presenting two main topics: the structure of the Unified Field Chart (including its design, use of colours and text, and evolution); and the function of the Unified Field Chart (including its application to every academic discipline and area of human life). According to Maharishi, the ultimate purpose of the Unified Field Chart is to foster the growth of higher states of consciousness

Aymara childrens’ practice of transcendental meditation in Peru: a learning history model of parent and teacher perceptions

Practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique in schools and universities throughout the world has been well researched over a 50-year period suggesting it is a useful tool for student development and learning. However, introduction of the practice into school systems throughout Latin America is a relatively recent phenomenon and no research has been published on the likely or actual outcomes from this initiative. Moreover, research conducted on the practice in international settings has typically involved investigation of standard educational variables - such as academic performance, intelligence, and behavior - and has mostly used only quantitative methods and designs to do so. For this study, conducted on the practice in Puno, Peru, we have adopted a learning history approach using a third-person action research method of semi-structured interviews to hear and understand the distinct voices of parents and teachers about the consequences of practicing Transcendental Meditation on the personal, academic and social lives of Aymara school children. Results from frequency and saliency analysis indicate that a series of confirmatory as well as unique knowledge outcomes have emerged in this setting, and these are discussed in the context of international empirical results to create a learned history of the practice in Peru