April 2025
Dear Friend,
This issue of our monthly mini-magazine features an article about the qualities of women; highlights two of our exceptional courses for women; quotes a former NYC Commissioner on how TM heals victims of domestic trauma; offers a unique volunteer opportunity; and provides some insight into the potential of women as peacemakers.
- Last month’s blog written by women for women
- Articles
- About women
- Good Health Through Prevention: A Maharishi Ayurveda course
- Ties to the Universe online course for women
- Women as Peacemakers
- Volunteer as a teacher at a Thai school for meditating girls
- What women say: Former NYC Commissioner on TM and healing from domestic abuse
If you missed our March blog posts, the links are below. You can also visit our blog homepage at any time to use our search feature for previous topics. Our articles are diverse, informative, sometimes funny or fascinating, and always relevant to women.
Past articles include Meditation or Medication? Today’s Plague of Pill-Popping from 2013 and What are you Wearing? The Fabric of our Lives: Lucia Kennerly on Consciousness, Sustainability, and Nature from 2022.
How to Produce a Life-Supporting Effect Through Every Thought and Action
Excerpted from a talk by Maharishi at Humboldt College, California, 1972
The computer of cosmic intelligence, which is in charge of the whole creation…. There is that Almighty, omniscient, intelligence.
Human intelligence can take into account (a) hundred items: my home, my family, my friends, my job, and this and this and this and this. And so much, every item, should be properly handled and therefore my action should be this.
How Transcendental Meditation Helps Relieve the “Fight-or-Flight” Response in PTSD Patients
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition a person may develop after experiencing or witnessing a distressing or terrifying event. The fight-or-flight response of people with PTSD remains overactive, causing them to mentally relive the severe trauma over time and disrupt them for life. Although clinicians don’t fully understand why and how this disorder occurs, at least one program has proved to reduce the stress in the nervous system as well as help symptoms — the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique.
About Women
Women are the very foundation of any social structure. Our most fundamental accomplishments are taken for granted the way we take breathing air for granted. Whether or not a woman is a mother of children, her maternal nature naturally manifests in countless ways for the good of this world. The nourishing power of women is a force of evolution in and of itself.
What we need to be celebrating and acknowledging and re-enforcing is our ability to hold on to our authentic voice in its intrinsic nourishing power. And this extraordinary nourishing power of ours includes qualities that, on the ground of strength, righteousness and integrity, uphold the more refined, more gentle, more subtle and more beautiful values of life—which, in turn, elevate life to the realm of graciousness and dignity and higher moral and ethical inclinations.
As we step fully into what has been a man’s world for centuries upon centuries, and as we look back on a history that appears to be so dominated by men that we have to set aside a special month to be able to identify the extent of the contributions that women have made in the history of civilization, we may come to appreciate that our greatest accomplishment has been, and will always be, our ability to most fully reflect the more tender, more merciful impulses of our own nature and to infuse those values into the world around us….
It is time to understand our own nature—our own power—on our own terms, such that we can live authentically. In so doing, not only will we find our way to personal fulfillment, but we will transform the world as well.
Ultimately, every one of us must take the journey to our innermost Self. This is not only the best way to celebrate being a woman, it is the only way to fully experience the glory of who we are. Otherwise we are left to reflect on what we have done in the light of what men have done.
The point here is certainly not to limit our aspirations in any way. It is only to remind ourselves that in order to accomplish and contribute anything of substance, it is essential that we live in accord with our own feminine values—values that we must discover by ourselves, for ourselves. By knowing ourselves deeply and fully, we will be able to define what it is, for ourselves, that constitutes real progress and true accomplishment.
As an organization dedicated to this process, we offer every woman the opportunity to experience the innate strength and happiness that forms the bedrock of our self-sufficiency, which in turn is the foundation from which we give and nourish and heal ourselves and the world around us—a world that needs us now more than ever.
— excerpted from Women’s History Month through the Lens of Feminine Values
Good Health Through Prevention Course Begins in April
Open to the general public as well as to the meditating community, this in-depth course, designed by Maharishi himself, will demonstrate how to prevent ill health by bringing all areas of life into harmony with natural law.
This course will cover 16 different topics including the fundamentals of a healthy and wholesome diet, importance of good digestion and metabolism for prevention, the importance of a balanced diet for prevention, and maintaining harmony through healthy daily and seasonal routines.
Taught with beautiful detailed charts, the Good Health through Prevention course will be easy to follow, even if you are not familiar with Maharishi’s Vedic knowledge.
“Prevention is the spontaneous ability to prevent violation of Natural Law through all thought, speech, and action.”— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Welcome Spring with holistic tips and tools for improved health. Please email educationdirector@tm-women.org for more information or to sign up by April 15th.
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Note: Nurses can receive 22 CE contact hours for participation in this course.
This nursing continuing professional development activity was approved by the American Holistic Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.”
Ties to the Universe Online Course for Women
May 5 – June 25, 2025
TM for Women and the International Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education invite you to attend a wonderful online interactive course that connects the profound principles of nature with principles in our personal lives. With beautiful visuals, the course illustrates the 16 fundamentals of life as explained by Maharishi.
Participation offers meditating women a deep, intuitive appreciation of how the laws of nature operate intimately within us and also inthe universe. This awakens the connection of our inner nature to the nature of the world around us.
Course leaders: Renee Erickson and Susan Marcus are certified teachers of the Transcendental Meditation technique and of Ties to the Universe.
Course schedule:
Every Monday and Wednesday evening,
May 5 – June 25
9pm-10:15pm Eastern Time;
8pm – 9:15pm Central Time;
7pm – 8:15pm Mountain Time;
6pm – 7:15 p.m. Pacific Time
Course Fee: $200.
Aside from having learned the Transcendental Meditation technique, the prerequisite to taking this 16-lesson course is a free 40-minute introductory meeting which you can attend online at 6 pm P.T. (9pm E.T, etc) either on Monday, March 17, or Wednesday, March 26, or Monday, April 14, or Wednesday April 23.
Email Renee at rerickson@tm-women.org to let us know on which date you’ll join the Introduction and for the Zoom link.
“The genius of this course is how the principles are stitched together, each building upon the last, so that when the final one arrives—that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—it becomes an “aha” moment.”– JF, previous course participant
Women as Peacemakers
The text below is excerpted from our 2016 blog post called The Shampoo Summit: Women as Peacemakers.
We connect with each other and provide support systems that help each other to deal with difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” supports production of serotonin – a neurotransmitter that aids in combatting depression and can create a general feeling of well-being. This tendency to gather together and to support each other indicates women’s potential to express a wider range of cooperation, compassion and camaraderie in worldly activities, such as in business and governmental arenas.
According to a Pew Research Center study published in 2014 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, women generally tend to be true to their ethical values even when it might be to their financial or career advantage to not. Other research studies have shown:
- Women’s aversion to inequity is strong.
- Women’s cooperation and contribution to their group is consistent and doesn’t need to be motivated by competition with other groups.
- In the U.S. congress, women are less partisan, supporting the conventional wisdom that women are more likely to compromise.
In the documentary “Wise Women Speak,” Ambassador Swanee Hunt, Director of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Women and Public Policy Program, relates this story:
So I went to the U.N. and I said, “How come there aren’t any women on the negotiating teams in Africa in these various conflicts?” And the U.N. official said, “Well, that’s easy—the warlords refuse to have women… because they’re afraid the women will compromise.” And I thought, bingo!
And that says it all.
Teach English to Meditating Girls in Thai School
Dhammajarinee Witthaya School, Thailand’s only free boarding school for girls from underserved backgrounds, is seeking passionate, female, English-speaking volunteers to help improve students’ English skills. As a volunteer, you’ll make a meaningful impact by teaching conversational and written English, assisting with classroom activities, and engaging students through storytelling, games, and projects. In return, you’ll experience a warm, family-like environment with free lodging and meals, while also having the opportunity to practice the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi Program in a group (for those who have learned). Room and board are provided.
Ideal candidates are fluent or proficient in English, in excellent health, passionate about teaching, and flexible, patient, and able to commit for at least three months. Prior teaching experience is a plus but not required. Located in Ratchaburi, Thailand, the school provides a nurturing space where girls receive free education, instruction and group practice of the TM technique, nutritious meals, and holistic support to break the cycle of poverty.
To learn more, visit www.thaischool.org. If you are interested in applying, please contact: specialprojects@thaischool.org
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TM FOR INDIGENOUS WOMEN: HOW TO HELP
We teach women in American Indian communities to implement mental health and stress reduction. The TM technique reduces anxiety, depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, trauma, and health conditions such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, and high cholesterol—benefits that have been published in leading scientific journals. Please contribute to this outreach:
“I have seen firsthand the transformative effect of Transcendental Meditation on the lives of domestic violence survivors and their children. The deeply-rooted emotional impact of abuse can take a lifetime to heal—TM can be a powerful tool for victims to begin the healing process for themselves and their children.”
— Yolanda B. Jimenez, former Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence.
Watch video interview about Transcendental Meditation and healing from domestic violence.
Editor’s note: We’d love to hear your comments on the benefits you’ve received from the TM practice. And, with your permission, we’ll publish them here for other women to enjoy. Send your comment to info@tm-women.org
