Question: Maharishi, you speak of creating an effect of peace in a field that few people are aware of. Yet your meditators create change by accessing this field. Is it possible in simple terms to describe the mechanics behind such a phenomenon?

Maharishi: The example is the profession of a gardener. You water the root to enjoy the fruit. The gardener waters the root. He takes care only of one thing—the root. The sap is enlivened through the root. To enliven the sap, take care of one thing. Everything else, thousands of leaves, branches, fruits, they are all the expressions of the same one sap. So take care of the sap.

Like the sap is the consciousness. We have hands, feet, nose, this whole physiology. But inside is one field of intelligence or consciousness, and that is what Dr. Hagelin described as the field. So the “field effect” is the effect of nourishing the whole tree, the diversity of the whole tree, from the level of the sap. So if you handle the sap, you are handling successfully the innumerable expressions of it.

Handling consciousness means take your awareness to the field of pure consciousness, and from there you have brought nourishment to every aspect of the physiology, the whole of the physiology, because everything that a physiology is, is nothing other than consciousness. Just like everything in the tree is nothing other than sap. So handle the sap.

“Take your awareness to the field of consciousness, and from there you have brought nourishment to every aspect of the physiology, the whole of the physiology.” —Maharishi

“Know Thy Self”

That is why, throughout the ages, the wise have advised the population to “Know thy self.” That’s all. Know thy self. That is now very practically done through the practice of Transcendental Meditation®. You open your awareness to that field of intelligence, and you are enlivening the basis of all physiology.

The basis of all physiology is enlivened. That means all the near and far environment, everything will be made lively, just as by watering the root you supply nourishment to the sap, and it in turn supplies nourishment to all its expressions.

So consciousness is the basic field of life, which is the Unified Field of life. There is no difference on that transcendental level between the intelligence of one man or the other. It’s all one flat field of intelligence. So we take care of one thing, and thereby nourish all things that we want to nourish. That’s all.

“So we take care of one thing, and thereby nourish all things that we want to nourish. That’s all.” —Maharishi

Enlivening Cosmic Intelligence Within

That is our technique of knowing our Self. Knowing our Self means knowing our own awareness—taking our awareness to the deepest level of our own consciousness or intelligence. That is the Unified Field within everyone. So it’s a technique of handling one thing whereby everything is spontaneously and thoroughly and completely handled.

It’s a beautiful expression of knowledge. It’s a beautiful tradition of enlivening the total cosmic intelligence within the individual. It’s very great, very great.

Watch the video here ►