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Dr Robert Schneider discusses a paper by Dr Steven Schroeder in the New England Journal of Medicine - Part I
by Global Good News Staff Writer

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6 October 2007

In a recent Global Family Chat, broadcast live by satellite and over the Internet on the Maharishi Channel, Dr Robert Schneider presented an article on improving the health of the American people.

Dr Schneider said that an article was published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, the title of which was 'We can do better. Improving the health of the American people.' This article was by a renowned Professor of Medicine, Dr Steven Schroeder, at the University of California, San Francisco.

In this article about the state of health in the United States, which mirrors the state of health in other developed nations around the world, Dr Schroeder points out that the US spends more on health care than any other nation in the world, yet it ranks poorly, almost at the bottom, on every measure of health status.

'The answer is deceptively simple,' says Dr Schroeder in his article. 'The pathways to better health do not generally depend on better health care.'

'This is the paradox which we'll be discussing tonight,' said Dr Schneider in his presentation of the article. 'We will be discussing the true pathways to better health—which are not fully apparent to the American health care system or the American people—based on consciousness, which is being brought out now in Maharishi's Vedic Medicine programmes.

In his article, Dr Schroeder brought to light that of the 30 developed nations in the world, the US ranks about 28th in mortality rates and life expectancy from birth, and life-expectancy from age 65. It also ranks 22nd and 25th amongst these 30 nations in maternal mortality and infant mortality. This is despite spending the highest percentage of the GDP of any nation in the world on health care.

Dr Schroeder points out that health does not generally depend on health care, or at least on conventional health care.

Dr Schneider brought out some of the points from Dr Schroeder's graphics, which showed the proportional contributions of various causes to premature death: genetic predisposition is thought to contribute 30%; social circumstances, social environment, economic environment, housing environment, socio-economic status, class, social stress, and political environment contribute 15% to premature mortality. Environmental exposure—environmental toxins, air pollution, building environment, etc— is thought to contribute 5%.

Health care, medicines, and surgery, things you get in the hospital, and from the doctor, those types of conventional health care in modern scientific studies, are thought to contribute 10% to premature mortality. Behavioural patterns are thought to contribute 40%—almost half of all mortality from the conventional point of view is related to behaviour or lifestyle. 'What does this mean?' asked Dr Schneider.

According to Dr Schroeder in the New England Journal of Medicine article, 'These behavioral patterns include diet and exercise related to obesity, smoking, and other forms of substance abuse.'

Dr Schneider explained that at the basis of behaviour is thinking, and at the basis of thinking is consciousness. So even from a modern conventional allopathic point of view, consciousness is at the basis of at least 40% of all mortality. 'If we could change consciousness, we could change behaviour, because it is very hard to change behaviour otherwise,' said Dr Schneider.

Dr Schneider then looked at each of these contributions to the US mortality rate in the light of consciousness and Maharishi's Vedic Science.

'At the basis of collective stress, [the stress of the individual and society] is also consciousness. . . . ,' Dr Schneider said. 'The basis of collective consciousness is individual consciousness, so now we've got 55% of mortality is due to consciousness.'

Another factor is a person's building environment, Dr Schneider continued—the community design, the design of a city or country. We know from Maharishi Vedic Medicine that there is consciousness-based architecture and design, consciousness-based environmental design, so from this perspective, 60% of premature mortality is related to consciousness.

'Now what about genetics?' asked Dr Schneider. 'There is agreement that when we are born we have DNA, and our DNA contributes to certain trends in health during our life. This happens at the moment of conception; it is apparent at birth what these trends are in our life, and modern geneticists are working very hard to decode DNA to unfold the knowledge of trends in our life that are there from the first moment of our life.'

Dr Schneider said that Maharishi Vedic Medicine also contains knowledge of the trends of our life, and rather than talking about DNA, Maharishi Vedic Medicine—in the language of Jyotish or Vedic Astrology—talks about the influences of the Grahas [the planets] on our health, and how the Grahas form a picture of the trends of our life at birth: a snapshot of the cosmos at the time of our birth gives similar and more information as a snapshot of the DNA at our birth, showing the pattern of strengths and weaknesses and how those trends will unfold over time.

'The Grahas are said to be reflectors of ourselves onto ourselves, so the universe reflects back onto ourselves those trends which are due to us from our actions in the past,' explained Dr Schneider. 'But our actions in the past were also based on our thinking and our consciousness, so in that sense the trends of our life are based on our consciousness—and furthermore, and this is most important, Maharishi Jyotish gives technologies for neutralizing those trends which are there at birth, but which can be modified.

'In that sense we have the technologies using consciousness-based procedures of Maharishi Yagyas, supported by our own practice of Transcendental Meditation, the TM-Sidhi Programme and Yogic Flying; we have the technologies to change those trends—either to change the genetic predisposition or to change the expression.'

'A rocket ship can have a certain angle when it takes off, but yet the instruments can be adjusted to change that trajectory—even if the trajectory of the rocket ship becomes downward, we can still move the nose of the rocket up and change the trajectory. This is equivalent to modifying those trends which are based on genetic predispositions, based on consciousness or consciousness-based technologies,' said Dr Schneider.

There will be further explanation of the changes made through the Transcendental Meditation Programme on the contributing factors to mortality, in Part II of this article presented by Global Good News tomorrow, 7 October.

Copyright © 2007 Global Good News(sm) Service.

Global Good News comment:

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