The President of Maharishi Open University, Professor Tony Nader, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded his weight in gold for his scientific discovery that Total Knowledge—the total managing intelligence of the universe—is at the basis of the human brain physiology. The following are excerpts of an interview with Professor Nader by Dr. Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management, USA.

Dr. Morris: Professor Nader, Maharishi has been emphasizing that modern education is incomplete and harmful to the individual because it has a segmented approach—studying only specific areas of Natural Law such as physics or mathematics—and therefore enlivens only specific areas of the brain, never the total brain. As a neuroscientist, can you tell us if there is scientific research that confirms this?

Professor Nader: Many scientific research studies have shown that for each type of activity, there is one area of the brain that is enlivened. For example, if you are reading a word, there is a specific part of your brain that receives more of the blood flow and is therefore enlivened from that reading process. If you are saying a word, not just reading it on paper but speaking it out loud, then another part of the brain gets enlivened. If you are thinking the same word, yet a third area receives the blood flow and is enlivened

It has also been discovered that there are connections between neurons which are built up depending on the experience. There are many trillions of neurons in our physiology, and therefore so many tiny connections that build up this holistic brain that we have. If you are reinforcing one part, or another part, then these are the parts that get activated and enlivened.

So when in modern education you only focus on specific areas of study, then there are connections built up in the brain that are specific to those activities.

Dr. Morris: Then presumably this would mean that if you focused on mathematics or physics for 3 years or 7 years, just one section of the brain is getting enlivened by that kind of study?

Professor Nader: Yes. If you are a musician or a mathematician, a medical doctor or a painter, each one of these activities would actually enliven a different part of the nervous system. It is not a problem to enliven a part of the nervous system. The problem is that you are not enlivening the other parts. This is the difficulty that comes from focused education that is limited in its scope.

The other aspect that is harmful in the modern educational system is what is told to the students in terms of what to expect from life and their possible achievements. If you tell someone that they are limited to one kind of potential, then they create these limitations and boundaries in their mind. But this creation in the mind also has a physiological counterpart, which means that the brain itself becomes limited in its interconnectedness, and some parts of the brain are inhibited.

So if we don't understand the total potential of life, and we force on the student a specific experience, procedure, or specific behaviors and expectations, then we are really molding them into a shape that would create a very limited individual.

Dr. Morris: So, you are saying that if you used your total brain, there would be an infinite number of possible connections between all the trillion neurons in the brain. But if you only utilize a section of the brain, that huge possibility of the total brain would never actually be utilized at any time in your life?

Professor Nader: Exactly. You can imagine a humanity that has not experienced life in its totality, and therefore has developed perceptions of reality which are very limited, such as: "Life is a struggle, life is suffering, life is difficult." These are perceptions and expectations that can lead to actual physical transformations in the brain. After that happens, it's difficult to tell the people, "Look you can develop this ability, you can have sidhis, you can fly in the air, you can have your desires achieved by thinking, you can have intuition." These are things that people imagine to be impossible, or that are just stories coming from history. But the reality is that everyone can achieve these miracles. Everyone can live a miraculous life—which should absolutely be a normal life—if they know how to develop their full potential.

Dr. Morris: There is a very interesting dimension to what you just said. It seems that throughout history each generation has found it very hard to accept anything new. This is also true of our generation, and it may be just because of their education; the partial development of the brain actually prevents their ability to comprehend new ideas, to absorb and implement new and fresh things.

Professor Nader: Absolutely. It’s very important to have through the educational process the knowledge of our full potential. It’s important to understand the total potential of the human physiology, which is really cosmic, which contains all the Vedic Literature, all the organizing power of Natural Law, the whole cosmos.

This knowledge is not just an understanding on the intellectual level. It starts to open up the gate of life’s potential through the technologies that Maharishi is bringing out to completely develop the full potential in everyone.