Maharishi's analysis of the absolute principles of society encompasses not only those that structure an ideal society but also those that account for social disintegration and
disharmony. From the most expanded perspective, Maharishi (1967, 1986a) teaches, the fundamental cause of social disharmony of any kind, and of its most extreme manifestation-war-is to be found in the loss of the complete knowledge of life that is restored by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita:
When the philosophy of integrated life restored by Lord Krishna was lost from view, the idea grew that everything which life can offer is present on the obvious levels of existence, and that it would therefore be useless to aspire to anything that might lie deeper than exter- nal appearances. Society became dominated by this superficial outlook, insight into Reality was lost, the right sense of values forgotten and the stability of life destroyed. (1967, p. 1 0)
Here Maharishi makes it clear that underlying the "obvious levels of existence" is an absolute field, which, as we have seen, is the field of pure consciousness. This absolute field is "Reality": It is the essential content of life. The more superficial, relative levels are the different expressions, or modes, of that Reality. Elsewhere Maharishi ( 1980) speaks of this structure in terms of the analogy of a plant:
There is a level of the sap, which is not green, not white, but completely unmanifest. ... Reverberating within itself it comes to express itself in different modes-in terms of green leaf, green stem, white petal. It is reverberating in different terms, in different tones. (p. 9)
Complete knowledge thus includes Absolute, or unmanifest and relative, or manifest levels of life. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1967, e.g., pp. 105-106, 442). Knowledge of the surface values alone, without knowledge of their source, is partial knowledge, unre- liable and misleading at best. Action based on such inadequate knowledge must give rise to mistakes and its attendant suffering. The condition of a society based on such action is clearly depicted by Maharishi: "Tension, confusion, superstition, unhappiness and fear ... " (p. 10). The inner mechanics of this phenomenon are explained by Maharishi (1967) in terms of the loss of dharma, loss of the path of evolution. The mistakes made by people in their daily life through lack of complete knowledge produce a cumulative effect in the society:
Calamities, crises and catastrophes in a community or country are caused by the increase of negative forces resulting from the evil deeds of a majority of their people. A high degree of concentration of negative forces, without positive forces to balance them, ends in suffering and destruction of life. (p. 27)
The chain of cause and effect is here traced from "evil deeds of a majority of the people," to the "increase of negative forces," to "a high degree of concentration of nega- tive forces," and finally to "suffering and destruction in life." An evil deed is defined as an action that violates natural law: It deviates from the path of evolution, which is, as we have seen, identified by Maharishi as the path of righteousness. Such an action, it is explained here, creates a negative influence: It enlivens the destructive values of natural law. Many such actions accumulate and concentrate that destructive quality in the soci- ety at large. Eventually it breaks out in some form of suffering, which is described as being opposed to life. Maharishi elaborates on the nature of this breaking point in his commentary on 1.13,
(which also refers to verse 1.12):
https://www.mum.edu/pdf.../wellsMSVS6-1OCR.pdfSori, tuo URL ei taida toimia oikein...
