Bliss Consciousness

Ganga Nath (Friend of Vikram Oberoi) writes: During college, I read every book I could find on Eastern Wisdom. I learned about Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. Then one day, while walking through my college campus, I saw a poster for a lecture on Transcendental Meditation (TM), as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I knew who Maharishi was because I’d seen a photo in Life Magazine of the four Beatles with him in India. I had already read a book by Hermann Hesse called “Magister Ludi - The Glass Bead Game”. It’s the story of a young boy, Joseph Knecht, who goes to study at an elite boarding school for boys where he eventually becomes the Master of the Glass Bead Game, a game that requires expertise in all fields of science, art, music, literature and history to win. When he first arrives at the school, the Music Master, who will become his spiritual mentor, tells him that, of all the things he will learn at the school, meditation is the most important. I already understood that meditation is the key that unlocks life's greatest treasures, so I attended the introductory lecture on Transcendental Meditation and a few weeks later I was initiated into TM. Right way, I began experiencing a deep state of inner peace combined with greater clarity of mind. The effects were so dramatic on my quality of life that I soon decided that I wanted to become a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. I had found my calling in life. 

In 1973, I attended a ten week Teacher Training course with Maharishi in La Antilla, Spain. There were a thousand of us from around the world in a small seaside town near the border of Portugal. We met with Maharishi in a huge blue tent on the beach. After completing the course, I returned to my hometown of Sea Cliff, Long Island and started a meditation center on the North Shore of Long Island. I taught TM full-time for the next 7 years. This was a boom time for TM. Maharishi would appear on the Merv Griffen show with meditating celebrities like Clint Eastwood and there were lines outside of TM centers with people waiting to be initiated. Meditation had become mainstream. Because of scientific research conducted at Harvard Medical School showing that TM lowered high blood pressure and improved health in many ways, doctors, lawyers, housewives and students were eager to learn to meditate. 

In 1978, something happened that changed my life forever. I attended a Six Month Advanced Training for TM teachers in St, Moritz, Switzerland. There were 100 of us men staying in a hotel high above the picturesque town of St. Moritz surrounded by snow-capped mountains. We had the entire historic Hotel Chantarelle to ourselves from April to October. It was a very intensive course. We meditated around 10 hours a day and periodically fasted. We also read daily from the ninth Mandala of the Rigveda, devoted to purifying Soma, the sacred potion of the Vedic religion. One morning I woke up and was flooded with bliss. Every cell in my body was vibrating with intense bliss. It was like a full body orgasm that doesn’t stop. But, not only was I flooded with bliss, everything I looked at was permeated with the same Pure Bliss Consciousness. The walls, the carpet, the trees outside, the mountains, the clouds, it was all Bliss Consciousness. In India, they call this Satchidananda, or Existence Consciousness Bliss. All my life, I’d been rather introverted and shy but that old personally dissolved in Bliss never to return again. Friends on the course were concerned. One said, “You’re not the person I’ve known for years. You are a different person. Maybe you should see a psychologist when you get home.” There was no going back. The old me died that day in St. Moritz. I knew my true nature to be Bliss and I was free.