Abstract

This dissertation documented the beneficial effects of the technology of Vedic Sound utilized in the Maharishi program for reading Vedic Literature to transform human awareness, physiology, and environment in the evolutionary direction of Natural Law. ;His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has made his Vedic Science and Technologies of Consciousness available throughout the world and over 600 scientific research studies have documented their benefits. The Maharishi program for reading the Vedic Literature is a Vedic Technology of Consciousness that involves specific procedures for reading verses of the Vedic Literature, not as an intellectual exercise, but as a technology of sound. Maharishi Vedic SciencesRTM identities Vedic Sound as the expression of the infinite silence and dynamism in self-referral consciousness---the Veda---that unfolds into specific frequencies of intelligence. These frequencies, expressed in the sounds of the forty branches of the Vedic Literature, embody the structure and structuring dynamics of Natural Law in self-referral consciousness responsible for the evolution of consciousness into all forms and phenomena in the universe including the human physiology. ;This study on reading Vedic Literature found three areas of results of development of consciousness similar to: benefits documented in the 600 scientific research studies, Maharishi's descriptions of higher states of consciousness, and the forty structures and structuring dynamics of Natural Law available in the 40 branches of the Vedic Literature. ;These results were presented using the Prachetana Chart format from Maharishi Vedic Science as a method of verifying personal experiences of development of consciousness through three angles of knowledge: the Vedic Literature, scientific research on growth of consciousness, and scientific principles. The Prachetana format connects individual experience to all streams of knowledge available in modern science and Maharishi Vedic Science. ;The research results of this program documented over three years indicate that reading the sounds of the Vedic literature trains the brain and whole physiology to function in that same sequential flow of intelligence as the structure of Vedic Sound in self-referral consciousness, resulting in the development of human potential and higher states of consciousness