In 1968 the Canadian Broadcast Corporation was allowed to film Maharishi during a long TM retreat held at Lake Louise outside of Banff, Canada. This was then broadcast on Canadian television as a half-hour special.

Question: You drew an analogy between the surface of a lake and inner life and the mind. How are they analogous?

Answer: The depth of the lake, and the ripples, and the beautiful reflection of the glacier, remind me of the story of inner life. The mind is deep like a lake; the ripples on the surface represent the conscious mind, the activity of the mind on the surface. And the whole depth of the lake is silent, and that is the sub-conscious mind, which is not used by the wave.

But if the wave could deepen and incorporate more silent levels of the water, the waves could become the waves of the ocean—the mighty waves. This is what happens in Transcendental Meditation. The surface activity of the conscious mind deepens and incorporates within its fold the depth of the sub-conscious. Nothing remains sub-conscious. The whole sub-conscious becomes conscious, and a man starts using the full potential of the mind.

And the reflection of the glacier on the water is like the impression that the objects of the mind perceives, and as long as the mind is not capable of maintaining its essential nature, which is bliss consciousness, so long the mind gets imprinted by the perceptions of the objects, and this is called the bondage of the mind.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on to say: “…Such a life, where the value of the matter dominates, is called material life, and the spirit gets annihilated. But when, through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, the mind goes deep within to the source of thought, transcends the thought and gains bliss consciousness, and is capable of maintaining that, even when it comes out into the worldly experiences of objective nature, then it is called spiritual life. That the spirit is not capable of being overshadowed anymore by the objective experience, and this is spiritual life; this is life in eternal liberation, and without this, life is in bondage…”

And finally, Maharishi continues to say “…What is needed is the bliss out of Transcendental Meditation, the joy, the happy mood. If all the population of the people could practice Transcendental Meditation, they would enjoy all this nature to the maximum. We are going to create a society free from suffering and stress and strain, and then, really, the gift of God on Earth, such pretty nature, will be enjoyed by everyone.”

Speaker: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Location: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
Date: 1968
Length: 25:30

Author: Cheryl Stone

Project Manager

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