How Does Transcendental Meditation Heal the Mind?
An excerpt of a lecture by Maharishi on May 2, 1959
“How does meditation heal the mind? The suffering, the agony of mind is: the poor fellow is not satisfied for his thirst of happiness. Mind is thirsty for happiness, greater and greater. At every moment it wants greater and greater joys.
From where it may come, but it should come, the joy should come and the joy should be added on, greater and greater. Mind is not finding any object anywhere which could satisfy this great thirst of the mind. It’s always wandering from here to there, just in search of great happiness, in search of that great happiness which will be permanent in its nature and which will be able to satisfy the great thirst of happiness of the mind. This is the agony of the mind. This is the suffering of the mind.
Readily the meditation leads the mind from this field of experience which fails to satisfy its thirst of happiness to the field of the subtler nature, which is more glorified than the field of the gross nature, and ultimately to the subtlest field of nature, Transcendental Reality, where the mind becomes bliss. It not only enjoys it, but becomes it.
When the mind becomes it, the individual mind becomes universal mind. The glory is greatest. It’s bliss, pure. Then the thirst of happiness of the mind is satisfied. When the thirst of happiness of the mind is satisfied, all agony of the mind disappears. Mind is blissful, submerged in bliss, becomes bliss. No tensions, no desire, nothing of worry, no misery left. The misery of the mind is not finding any medium of great happiness. Meditation leads the mind directly to the field of greatest happiness.
Great happiness inside, and the mind goes to it and comes out, and immediately tensions are released. Many medicinal-minded people have called this meditation to be the non-medicinal tranquilizer, (which) immediately tranquilizes the mind.
And this tranquility of the mind is just a side gain, not the main goal of meditation, just a side gain. Just as when we grow a tree of an apple, we do it for the sake of good apples, good fruit, but we enjoy the shade–and the shade of it comes much earlier than the fruit comes. So this tranquility of the mind is just the first gain of meditation, immediate byproduct of it. Not very important, not the goal of it, but it’s of great use in practical life today. That which is the headache of the best minds of the western world today, the question of tranquility, it’s a side gain; it’s a byproduct of this simple system of meditation, which needs nothing, only guiding the mind to go to the deeper levels of consciousness, unfolding the greater glories hidden there, experiencing positively, and coming out with that great happiness. This is how meditation heals the mind–immediately.”
