On Sunday, August 2, 1998, His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi inaugurated Maharishi Open University. The one-hour telecast reached people in 150 countries through a global network of seven satellites.

Maharishi and the other speakers on the broadcast explained that Maharishi Open University has been established to offer, via satellite, enlightenment through Total Knowledge of Natural Law to every busy person in the world, every student in college or university, every mother raising a family, and every retired person seeking the ultimate goal of life—the full enlivenment of the ocean of knowledge, bliss, and organizing power, which is the total potential of everyone’s consciousness.

Through its courses, the speakers said, Maharishi Open University will deliver Total Knowledge in a short time. These courses will enliven Total Knowledge of Natural Law in consciousness and physiology, enabling everyone to enjoy increasing mastery, vitality, and success in daily life. This is possible, the speakers said, because human physiology itself is the expression of Natural Law.

Maharishi delivered the key-note address at the inauguration. The following are highlights of that address:

"After teaching Transcendental Meditation in the world for forty years, it is a great joy today to establish Maharishi Open University. The purpose of this university is to open the field of Total Knowledge for everyone. Maharishi Open University is an international university. It will offer Total Knowledge to everyone in every part of the world. Even if one has only a short time, only one or two hours a week, Maharishi Open University will offer Total Knowledge in a very short time.

"We know that knowledge has organizing power. This has been the unfoldment of knowledge through all the scientific experiments and research in the field of Natural Law for so many hundreds of years. Total Knowledge of Natural Law has within it infinite organizing power. It is that which governs the infinite diversity of the universe. The perfect order prevailing in the universe is the performance of Total Natural Law.

"It is very fortunate that modern physics has discovered the existence of a Unified Field of All the Laws of Nature, and, further, has discovered that this unified field is a field of consciousness. All about consciousness—the total field of knowledge of consciousness—is available in the Veda and Vedic Literature.

"What has been most fortunately discovered is that the Veda and Vedic Literature is within the physiology of everyone. With this, we have Total Knowledge embodied in everyone’s physiology.

"Everyone has consciousness, everyone’s body is the expression of consciousness, everyone’s behavior is the expression of consciousness, but perfect behavior is lacking because education is not consciousness-based. Maharishi Open University will offer consciousness-based education, making it possible for everyone to have his consciousness rise to a level which is the level of the total intelligence of Natural Law.

"The result of consciousness-based education offered at this university will be that very quickly people taking these courses will rise to higher states of consciousness. With this happening in every country, the collective consciousness of every country will be more coherent. A more coherent collective consciousness in a country will make the government more coherent, more integrated. It will improve the efficiency of the government. With governmental efficiency increasing, administration will nourish the life of everyone.

"In the current system of education in the world, students take either physics or chemistry or mathematics or medicine or agriculture. But we are talking of knowledge of Total Natural Law. It is the basis of having all aspects of life in perfection, because Total Natural Law is nourishing to life. Anything that is nourishing to life is not nourishing to just one aspect. It is like the gardener who waters the root and supplies nourishment to all the thousand aspects of the tree. Like that, Maharishi Open University will serve to be a gardener to whisper the formulas of Total Knowledge of Natural Law. It will give total educational value; it will offer the fruit of all knowledge.

"It will offer total health care, which means total prevention and total cure, a perfect system of health care which will prevent diseases in the first instance and, whatever diseases are prevalent, will cure them. This is because in the administration of Natural Law there is no disease.

"So we are very happy to ring the bell of Eureka in the fields of education and health care. And now we can speak about the most efficient system of administration; the most efficient system of defense, which gives invincibility; the most efficient system of agriculture; the most efficient system of economy. Maharishi Open University will bring out those themes of economy that will enable every government to feel affluent with enough money everywhere.

"The result of this university will be an independent man—a self-sufficient individual, a self-sufficient nation, and a beautifully, uniformly peaceful and harmonious world."

Dr. Bevan Morris, Chairman of the Council of Supreme Intelligence of Maharishi Global Administration through Natural Law, served as master of ceremonies during the telecast:

"Each week, the Sunday broadcast of Maharishi Open University will lay out the total range of knowledge. This knowledge will be available as courses for the public during the week via satellite in their homes. Maharishi Open University will soon expand to 24-hour broadcasts seven days a week, so that the University’s courses will be available in almost all countries of the world.

"Existing universities offer all knowledge in one campus, but Maharishi Open University offers Total Knowledge in one brain. Pre-eminent among the faculty at Maharishi Open University is its President, Professor Tony Nader, M.D., Ph.D. Under Maharishi’s guidance, Professor Nader has discovered the Veda and Vedic Literature—the total administering intelligence of the universe—hidden in the human brain physiology. This historic discovery and its applications for the improvement of human life will be a central subject of study at Maharishi Open University."

Professor Tony Nader, M.D., Ph.D., President of Maharishi Open University, then described how the University will fulfill the aspirations of the wise down through the ages for an ideal system of education:

"Every student who goes to a university wants to achieve all his or her desires, to develop his talents to the maximum so that he can live life in perfect health, in fulfillment and prosperity, and can achieve what is best for himself and his society. This is not only the dream of every student, it is the dream of their parents, their teachers, their society, and the whole world. It is, in fact, the age-old dream of all the sages and scientists of all time. All have wanted to educate people who can do right things, who can achieve their desires and yet not conflict with those of anybody else. His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi offers us, in Maharishi Open University, the means to achieve this dream through developing our full potential.

"Our full potential is the potential of the universe. It is the potential of all the organizing power, the administering intelligence, that governs this universe in perfect order. Under Maharishi’s guidance, it was possible to discover that human physiology contains all this administering intelligence. The knowledge that Maharishi brings to us is the knowledge of how big we are. We are as big as life, as big as the universe, as big as what is known and what is unknown—we contain totality. Today this knowledge is scientific, and Maharishi Open University will enable every student to know it, not just on an intellectual level but know it in every fiber of his being and live it in every moment of his existence."

Professor Michael Dillbeck was the next speaker. Dr. Dillbeck has made a more thorough study than anyone in the world of the large body of scientific research on the effects of the consciousness-based educational approach being undertaken by Maharishi Open University. Dr. Dillbeck and his wife, Dr. Susie Dillbeck, are the International Vice Presidents of Maharishi University of Management:

"Maharishi Open University offers Total Knowledge in human consciousness, which is enlivened through the technology of Maharishi Vedic Science—the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, including Yogic Flying. This technology of consciousness has been shown by a large body of scientific research to enrich all areas of individual and national life. Over 600 scientific research studies, conducted in more than 200 independent universities and research institutions in 30 countries, document the benefits of this program for mind, body, behavior, and society. The results of these studies taken together indicate that Maharishi’s technology of consciousness can solve the problems found in all areas of society, including education, health, business and industry, government, and defense."

The final speaker was Professor Susie Dillbeck, a world expert in the field of consciousness-based education. Dr. Dillbeck has supervised the establishment of Maharishi Universities, Colleges, and Schools throughout the world:

"We all know that the progress and vitality of the nation depends ultimately on the knowledge and values imparted in the home. For the coming generations to be powerful and free from stress, the children should be given, from the very beginning of their lives, that knowledge and experience which leads to spontaneously right thinking, behavior, and action.

"The responsibility for this lies primarily with the mother. In practical terms, this means giving the children all that they need to blossom in their full potential. It means knowing how to prevent sickness and maintain health, knowing how to promote positive influences and avert negative influences in the immediate home environment and from the distant environment, and knowing how to give children the fruit of all knowledge, even as the tree of knowledge is growing. In Maharishi’s words, the fruit of all knowledge is happy, healthy, problem-free, fulfilled life in harmony with Natural Law.

Maharishi Open University is now making this possible for all mothers by delivering into the home the most profound, practical knowledge for life—Total Knowledge of Natural Law. These special courses for bringing perfection to the family and creating Heaven on Earth in every home will be offered by the ladies’ wing of Maharishi Open University."

About Maharishi Open University

Maharishi Open University is being offered under the auspices of Maharishi University of Management, Holland, with the support of Maharishi University of Management, USA.

Courses can be taken by students, professionals, mothers raising a family, or retired people, part-time or full-time, via satellite at home or at a Maharishi Open University college.

The programs of Maharishi Open University are broadcast in English. A second audio channel provides translation into a variety of other languages, depending upon the particular satellite.

For more information on Maharishi Open University write Station 24, 6063 NP Vlodrop, The Netherlands; or visit their web site at: www.MOU.org