Dr Bevan Morris on the enduring power of the Science of Creative Intelligence course

Last summer we hosted online the Advanced Lecture Series with Dr Bevan Morris. It was a big success, with hundreds joining each session live, and many more catching up with our online platform.

Back then many participants requested that we hold Maharishi’s Science of Creative intelligence course online, with Dr Bevan Morris hosting.

Now, we’re happy to announce that we have listened to your request. Starting this month, Maharishi’s classic course on the Science of Creative Intelligence will be hosted by Dr Bevan Morris and Dr Ashley Deans online.

For those in the Transcendental Meditation community who are not familiar with the Science of Creative Intelligence, we wanted to give you an overview of the concept and a taste of what to expect in the course.

So, I sat down with Dr Bevan Morris, the Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace, to get some insights into the Science of Creative Intelligence and see why it is important to take this special course.

Declan: What does the Science of Creative Intelligence mean?

Dr Morris: Science means authentic knowledge, verifiable knowledge.

The Science of Creative Intelligence means authentic knowledge of the field of pure
Intelligence, the transcendental field, which is expressed in the streams of Creative
Intelligence in the whole universe.

The Science of Creative Intelligence gives both intellectual understanding of that reality of pure Creative Intelligence, and the direct experience of it through the Transcendental Meditation Technique, and its advanced programmes.

What is the Science of Creative Intelligence course about?

It’s a 33-lesson course. It’s all Maharishi videotapes, about 20 to 30 minutes or so.
Maharishi made them as a course, as a sequence of unfolding knowledge.

They actually can be seen from the beginning by even those who have not yet learned
to meditate. The first three lessons are the introductory lecture and preparatory lecture, and then a person can learn Transcendental Meditation in the usual way, and then continue with the remaining lessons.

So it’s 33 lessons. And in each lesson, there is a summary, then the course participants
watch the Maharishi SCI tape. Then there are questions from the students to the
teacher, and then there is a longer summary, and then questions that the teacher
places to the students, and then finally an illustration by the students of the main point of the lecture.

Everyone gets to take some minutes to take the main point from what Maharishi has
said in the tape and make a little illustration, for example, he may have been talking
about diving within. So one might make a diving illustration or something like that.

So it’s a whole sequence like that. Every time, it’s a highly structured lesson with all
those elements in it, the main points, the tape, questions from the student to the teacher and from the teacher to the student, and review again of the summary points and illustration.

What’s the history of the course? Why was the course created?

Maharishi had already really foreshadowed the course in his book, The Science of
Being and Art of Living because that was his first book, published in 1963. And you can
see it’s the science of Being. And he wanted to take the whole field of the knowledge of Pure Being, which had been described throughout the ages by all the great sages and prophets, to take it into the realm of systematic inquiry and scientific understanding in a scientific age.

It was not good enough just to have all of those beautiful insights. Maharishi wanted it to be in the form of a full science, which means both knowledge, intellectual understanding; and direct experience, empirical experience — in this case, the experience of the transcendent itself, of the field of Pure Consciousness itself. So that knowledge would resonate in a scientific age as a systematic phenomenon, not as something that was mystical or strange or out of the realm of science.

How many times have you taken or led an SCI course? Can you tell us what the experiences of past participants have been?

Maharishi recorded the lectures in Fiuggi Fonte, Italy, and he also had an SCI symposium there with many speakers speaking about great poets, artists, and scientists. For example, I remember, there was a wonderful explanation of Dante Alighieri, the great Italian poet, and the Science of Creative Intelligence.

At the same time, he was also recording these beautiful tapes that became the SCI course. So, I was able to be present for that.

I went to Cambridge University after that, and just then for the first time SCI became available to the Transcendental Meditation Centres, but to offer the course we had to buy a TV and a video player.

The video player weighed about 50 pounds, an enormous heavy thing. We had to borrow some money to buy the TV and the player, and then many students and administrators from Cambridge University came to our centre for the 33-lesson course.

And I just remember it was just a magical time when everyone was just floating in the waves of Maharishi’s amazing insights that were so profound. Looking back on it, we did not get the full magnitude of Maharishi’s talks, they were so profound. I think nowadays we’re more able to understand the deeper points of Maharishi’s knowledge because Maharishi unfolded his Vedic Science over the years, so we’re all more familiar now with that than we were back then.

So everyone just loved floating in the knowledge like that. It was a magical atmosphere for those couple of months when we had the SCI course, that was the first time. And then I led it a couple more times while I was still there as a student.

I’ve heard people can experience huge transformations while taking this course. Why is that?

Well, Maharshi explained that the path to enlightenment is: you walk on two legs. One is intellectual understanding, and one is direct experience.

Direct experience we have during our practice of Transcendental Meditation and Advanced Techniques. And now we have the Sidhis as well.

But also intellectual understanding is essential to rise to enlightenment. And somebody just said to me, the other day, when I was saying, well, we’re going to have the SCI course and I’ll be involved in leading the SCI course. He said, ‘Oh when I took the SCI course, I was just different afterwards. I was completely different after the course was over.’ And I said, ‘Oh, why is that?’ and he said, ‘This is because once I understood the profundity of what I was doing when I was practising Transcendental Meditation, my experiences got so much better.’

Not that the practice changes, it’s always the same effortless practice. But something about resetting the intellect on that very high level that Maharishi’s teaching provides gives one a deeper appreciation of what one is doing and a greater commitment to one’s practice. And it directly leads to one’s deeper experiences of the transcendent.

People feel that there’s a real evolution of experience that comes with the knowledge that SCI gives.

Who should take the course?

It should be anybody interested in enlightenment, particularly anyone who has learned Transcendental Meditation who really would like to just take the next big step. It’s really like that big step to take, to deepen one’s understanding.

But also at the moment, it’s a recommended course for anyone who’s going on Transcendental Meditation Teacher Training. It may become required in the future, but at the moment, whether one is going to do TTC this year or in a later year, it’s good to take SCI to be ready to become a teacher of Transcendental Meditation.

What are the benefits of SCI being available online?

Because of the conditions in the world, it’s very difficult to gather together in one place. Also SCI is quite a long course, 33 lessons, two a week for 16 weeks or so.

So it’s not so easy to gather people to do it in person. It would take, even if it was possible to do it in person, at least two to three weeks in a residential situation.

So online delivery gives the chance to take it when the world is not able to travel to in- resident situations, and it also provides the flexibility for people, whatever time zone they’re in to see the lessons because the lessons will be recorded. And then the course participants can watch it at their leisure, on whatever are convenient days of the week and convenient times. So it gives a lot of flexibility and convenience, and it gives the chance for people to do it immediately rather than waiting until the world gets better in the health situation.

Of the 16 principles of SCI, which one is your favourite? Why?

I think ‘Seek the highest first’ is my favourite. They’re all favourites, all 16, but I like that one because there was one time on my birthday when Maharishi was meeting with me, and as he walked out of his room, his meeting room to go into his other room, it was late at night and he turned back as he stood in the door and he looked back at me and said, ‘always hold onto the highest.’ And that went deep in me. So, I’ve tried to do that in life. Seeking the highest first means, of course, seeking the transcendent, transcend. But it also means everything associated with that. Go for the highest and best, and don’t waste time on lesser things. So that’s why that has stuck with me.

What piece of advice would you give to the world right now?

Well, I feel that the single thing Maharishi brought back into the world, which was completely lacking during many centuries, was to transcend, to experience Transcendental Consciousness, which is that inner bliss value of human existence, which is the field of all possibilities.

This is the seat of Creative Intelligence, the field of pure Creative Intelligence. So that’s the main advice. And not only to experience it, but to go ahead with the Advanced Techniques and then with the TM-Sidhi programme, so that one can learn to think and operate from that Transcendental field of existence, and create a beautiful future for the whole world.

The Transcendental field is the unbounded ocean of consciousness, and through the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi programme, we can move it, thrill it and create from that level, which is infinitely correlated with everyone in the world and with the whole universe, powerful waves of harmony and peace.

This is what we know as the extended Maharishi Effect when people practising the Sidhis in a group improve the whole quality of collective consciousness of the world, relieving stress and strain, and increasing positivity, harmony, and good health in the world. So, this would be my advice.

Do you feel inspired to take the course?

You can apply for the course here, which starts on 24 April.

Want to know more about the SCI course?

You can read all about it here.
We look forward to seeing you on the course!

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