About

Our Inspiration

Swami Shailendra Saraswati was born in a family of diverse cultural influences.

His grandfather was a Vedic scholar while his father was an officer in the British Indian Army.

From childhood, he was exposed to both, the oriental and the occidental world views. Unable to reconcile between the two, he decided to follow the reliable path of science to find answers to the ultimate questions of life and the universe. Physics became his religion.

Though selected for admission to IIT's with a high merit, he decided to pursue pure science as a national science talent scholar.

After completing B.Sc. honours in Physics from Delhi University, he chose elementary Particle Physics as his specialisation in M.Sc.

It was then that he started to realise that at the quantum level of reality, it will become necessary to understand consciousness as the source course and goal of the physical universe which was not possible by purely objective physical means used in Physics of that time.

Disillusioned with objective science, his attention briefly turned to the surface world of poverty and mismanagement in all spheres of life and as a consequence he started to study management.

After completing MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, and working in the public sector for a few years, he again realised the futility of trying to change the world at a superficial level

The Journey….

In order to search for a real solution to the world's problems, and to find the true purpose of life, he embarked on a Chautauqua- an introspective journey within, while at the same time travelling in India and then in western Europe on a bicycle for about a year.

His search ended with learning Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) at a forest academy in Finland.

He was not yet ready to take a hasty decision or to abandon his natural scepticism about hazy metaphysical and pseudo-religious approaches based on blind faith which he had come across repeatedly till then.

Believing that in order to be reliable, any knowledge must be verifiable by both approaches- objective as well as subjective, he got into a routine of long meditations interspersed with a rigorous critical examination of the methodology used for the published scientific research studies on TM.

However after thorough examination from all angles he was forced to come to the conclusion that TM is in fact the panacea capable of creating a utopia.

Convinced of TM's potential to solve all problems of an individual and the world, he decided to dedicate his life to the practice and propagation of TM.

Natural support came when His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi chose him to accompany him on his repeated world tours and for more than 25 years since then, he enjoyed the good fortune of close personal guidance from Maharishi ji in his spiritual pursuits.

Surrendering his will to Maharishi's commands, he served his world wide movement in different capacities.

After serving as founding principal of Maharishi College of Management at Nairobi, Kenya and Dean of faculty at Maharishi International University at Oslo, Norway he taught Managerial Statistics and Physics at Maharishi University of Management at Fairfield, Iowa, USA.

The reason for choosing statistics was that he wanted to verify for himself the statistical testing methodology used in scientific studies on TM.

While teaching Physics, he became convinced that the Unified Field of all the laws of nature which according to Physics is the source of all matter, energy and intelligence in the universe, is nothing but the field of consciousness itself, the ultimate field of subjectivity and that it is this which is experienced through meditation and utilised to produce any desired effect through advanced techniques of meditation.

Having been convinced of the all powerful nature of consciousness based Vedic technologies; the question remained as to why India with all her Vedic knowledge was in a state of affairs as it is.

It remained to find out the misunderstanding which caused the Vedic literature to be misinterpreted.

This required a deep study of the whole of Vedic literature in original Sanskrit and he expressed his desire to delve deep into the Vedic scriptures, he studied the forty aspects of Vedic literature and finally, corroborated his studies with direct personal experience of the Vedic teachings by doing sadhana under Maharishi's guidance in the forests of Amarkantak, the source of Narmada River in the Vindhyachal Mountains for eight years.

After 40 years of continuous spiritual practice, he carved Vedic Life Meditation which is even more simpler and easiest in practice.

He established his five meditation centres both inside and outside of India, founding Vedic Life organisation to carry out the aims of teaching meditation all over the world, raising a group of dedicated teachers of meditation to carry forward the great works of spirituality, and to carve young budding minds in his own reflection; Mr Shakti Iyer being one of his ardent disciples… The immensity of his works enthral and influence thousands around the world.