How Ananda Marga can Contribute to Community Development and Society Building, Cosmic Thinking and Progressive Living. Article by Acarya Dhanjoo Ghista

Contributing to Community Development and Society Building is the prime agenda of Ananda Marga, by promoting

  • the spirit of: Sam’gacchadhvam’ sam’vadadhvam (Let us move together, let us sing together), Sam’vomanna’msi ja’nata’m (let us come to know our minds together),
  • addressing the critical living needs of people through progressive policies and reforms,
  • incorporating Baba’s Ananda Marga Ideology into the format of human society, to promote cosmic thinking and progressive living,
  • setting up Educational Institutions for developing new knowledge and discoveries, human evolution and heightened

So let us now embark on this noble odyssey. For that, we are presenting here the following Items:

  1. Embarking on the Ananda Marga odyssey, for spiritual development and dharma, holistic wellness and enlightenment (Pages 1-5).
  2. How can Ananda Marga grow by (i) caringly addressing common people’s needs and sufferings, and (ii) developing progressive reforms (Pages 5-6).
  3. How Ananda Marga can become integrated into communities through Master Units: teaching meditation, school education, shelter for homeless, farming and food production (Pages 7-8).
  4. The most significant contribution of Ananda Marga in this Sector and worldwide: setting up universities, to cultivate a more advanced civilization (Pages 8-11).
  5. Inspiring the young generation Margis in university education, to become community leaders, and contribute to progressive legislations (Pages 11-13).
  6. Presenting access to some of my books and articles, to provide information on many aspects of Ananda Marga(Page14-15).
  7. Building the Great Universe (Mahavishva), to develop a more heightened civilization on Earth (Page 15).

Item 1: Embarking on our Ananda Marga Odyssey, for Spiritual Development and Dharma, Holistic Wellness and Enlightenment

Baba has provided the key tenets and factors which guide society: spiritual ideology, scripture, spiritual practice, social outlook, socio-economic theory, preceptor.

I.      Now let us talk about Spiritual Practice, Sadhana (meditation) for Holistic Wellness and Enlightenment.

Herein, we will not go into the detail process of meditation, but just present how to make meditation personalized by recognizing and being continually aware of the pervading presence of the Divine Entity (or God or Brahma or Cosmic Consciousness) all around us and everywhere.

The first lesson, Iishvara Pranidhana, makes it easy to have direct contact with and ideation on the Divine Entity. With the ista mantra, the meditator is appealing to the Divine Entity to put divine energy into her/his mind, thereby (i) expanding the mind and literally lighting it up, (ii) purifying the mind by removing the embedded impressions in the mind (namely, samskaras), and (iii) making one divine and enlightened. In fact, this recognition and manifestation of the Divine presence all around us makes all the five lessons to become natural and realistic.

For example, it makes Guru Mantra automatic. Then in Pranayama, the Divine Entity is bringing prana (vital life energy) into the body, to purify the body: the nadis making the life energy to flow freely, cleansing the energy channels in the head, detoxifying the lungs and providing the body with an increased level of oxygen, stimulating the digestive system and improving the nutrient absorption, improving the immune system, and making the mind more peaceful.

In the fifth lesson Cakra Shodhana, the Divine Energy can enable energizing the cakras and their effects on body, mind and spirit.

  1. So, energizing the cakras can help to purify the lower energies and acquire the higher attributes of (i) compassion, devotion and love, associated with anahata cakra, (ii) self- expression, creativity and good relationships with others, associated with vishuddha cakra, (iii) intuitive knowledge, forgiveness and compassion, associated with ajina cakra, and (v) highest level of consciousness and enlightenment, associated with sahasrara cakra.
  2. Also, by energizing the cakras, as shown in the below figure, through the associated endocrine glands and their hormonal secretions, the organs can be affected, resulting in curing of ailments, such as dementia and epilepsy, hypertension and arrhythmia, indigestion and

Figure 1. Cakras or Energy Centers and their association with the Endocrine Glands

 

II.   So then based on our acquiring all these benefits, what we can say is meditation?

It is taking time off from worldly endeavors to spend time being and living with the Divine Entity, who keeps beckoning us for it. The mind is who we are; it governs our character, personality and living values. Hence, this removal of samskaras by the Divine Entity and liberation of the mind, is the most significant aspect of this fundamental lesson. It enhances our personality and thinking, and makes us more evolved.

In this way, we can cultivate a personal relationship with the Divine Entity, and become part of the divine community. This can also develop our cosmic mindset to cultivate heightened knowledge, to better address the needs of the physical world.

Finally, our Dhyan lesson enables us to have an intimate relationship with Baba. In simple terms, meditation can benefit the body, mind, and spirit:

  1. Body: Boosting the immune system, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, and reducing heart
  2. Brain and Mind: Increasing brain gray matter, enhancing cognitive function and
  3. Spirit: Increasing compassion and empathy, reducing stress and depression, and improving relationships.

Now it is important for us to actually validate the benefitting effects of meditation on our body and mind. For that, the meditation teachers (acaryas) need to become involved with medical centers or medical schools in teaching meditation to the patients of the doctors, and publishing joint-authored journal papers on the physiological and medical effects of meditation. This is long overdue.

Let us now take ‘what is meditation’ to an even higher plane, as conveyed by Baba: “What is the real meaning of sadhana? To satisfy the Guru is your sadhana”.

“What is Guru puja? To carry out the Guru’s orders is Guru puja”.

“Guru krpa, the grace of the Guru, is the only thing spiritual aspirants need. Their path, from initiation to nirvikalpa samadhi, is called sadhana”.

III.       Dharma is Spiritual development for our evolution, and our responsibility to Baba, to evolve for the Greater Good.

Real lasting progress comes from Spiritual progress, when one makes a march towards the Cosmic Hub by doing meditation. So, let us practice sadhana, and realize Parama Purusa. That only will give us everlasting peace. For that very purpose, we have come on this earth, and that will be the real progress.

Imagine for a moment that the fate of the entire human race rested on our shoulders alone—that humanity’s evolution depended entirely on our willingness to transform our consciousness, and become an exemplar of humanity’s highest potential for the world. Imagine that, for us evolving became an evolutionary imperative. Would not the quality of awareness and care with which we approached our interactions with others become more profound?

Where the spiritual path really begins to get interesting is when we recognize that transforming ourselves in the deepest possible way is in fact an evolutionary imperative, with profound consequences far beyond ourselves. If we begin to recognize that in everything we do, we are in fact accountable to Baba, for the Greater Good, then something truly miraculous can begin to happen in our dedication to develop a more heightened civilization on our planet Earth, for progressive living of all the people.

IV.      Benefitting Effects of Ananda Marga Meditation:

  1. In these acute times, people can stay protected from corona virus by combining meditation with vegetarianism, as represented by my cover article in Prout Journal: Addressing Corona Virus Crisis: Animal-caring and Meditation, Progressive Thinking and Living: Prout August 2020, Pages 13-16 [Link: August 2020], to bring about a spiritual civilization on the Earth. This article presents the purport, basis and practice of meditation.
    The COVID-19 has taught the world a big lesson, to (i) stop greed and killing, stop polluting the Earth, stop fighting among one other, stop caring about materialistic things, and (ii) start loving our neighbors, start caring about the earth and all its creatures. Hence, there has hence never been a better time to be a Vegetarian. In fact, even in the West, vegetarianism has ancient roots. Many of the early Greek and Roman philosophers, including Plutarch, Pythagoras, Seneca and Porfirio, followed a meatless diet as a refusal of inflicting sufferings on innocent animals. “As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love” by Pythagoras. Even luminaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Descartes were vegetarian: firstly, out of awareness of the suffering of animals, and secondly, because it was believed that a diet without meat was healthier. Einstein’s famous quote: “Nothing will benefit health or increase chances of survival on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” It is this motivation that can drive people to become vegetarian, and to thereby not inflict suffering on creatures that do not hurt you.
  1. I am also providing my pioneering journal paper on the physiologic effects of meditation: Physiological characterization of the ‘meditative state’ during Intuitional practice (the Ananda Marga system of meditation) and its Therapeutic value, by Dhanjoo Ghista et al, Medical and Biological Engineering March 1976; Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_qqAmxi7sZJOUBr5PsFKDJBBInc_YLPk/view?usp=sharing. This article shows how Ananda Marga Meditation relieves stress and promotes creativity and intuition, based on the benefitting alteration in EEG Brain waves from Beta wavs (above 12 Hz, regarded as normal rhythm, and the dominant rhythm in those who are alert or anxious) to Alpha waves (8-12 Hz, associated with relaxation and calmness, mental work and creativity) to Theta waves (3.5-7.5 Hz, associated with creativity and intuition, meditation and spiritual awareness). This paper will provide inspiration to people to learn to do

Item 2: How can Ananda Marga grow by (i) caringly addressing common people’s needs and sufferings, and (ii) developing progressive reforms:

Ananda Marga needs to be caring for the common people, and mitigating their sufferings by means of progressive reforms.

Human sufferings in today’s world: Today, there is extensive and intensive sufferings in US, India and worldwide, due to (i) poverty and homelessness, (ii) chronic ailments and coronavirus,

(iii) racism and subjugation. So, let us promote Samgacchadvam into communities, which is a very big need today. So herein, we are presenting to you all (i) the causes of sufferings of people in America, and (ii) some progressive reforms to alleviate people’s sufferings.

I.      Today because of COVID 19 and inadequate public policies, there is a lot of poverty and suffering among the people in America:

  1. So many people are jobless and homeless, begging and sleeping on the
  2. Many people with serious ailments cannot afford the costly healthcare because of the privatized healthcare system in US (while Canada and all other European countries have free governmental healthcare), and so many become bankrupt and can hardly survive. Personal sufferings makes one care for
  3. Many people cannot afford university education, because half the number of universities (like Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Cornell and many others) are private universities (charging $ 60,000 annual tuition fees plus $15,000 dorm residential fees = $75,000 annual expenses). Canada and all European countries have affordable education, because all their universities are state universities.
  4. There is ongoing fighting between the political parties, which has unnecessarily divided the people.
  5. African Americans cannot have safe living, nor have affordable access to university
  6. Indigenous people live in reservations with poor facilities, education, and
  7. Half of the working age population are unemployed, are in danger of becoming homeless, and are running out of hope for living.

In Ananda Marga, we need to be aware of all these happenings, and seriously consider how to address these issues. This is verily the purport of Ananda Marga. In this regard, I have been developing reforms to mitigate these sufferings of the people, which I am presenting below.

II.   Some Progressive Reforms and Policies for America:

  1. Set up a new system of Democratic Governance (independent of political parties), based on my book “Socio-Economic Democracy and the World Government: Depovertization, Human Rights, Template for Sustainable Peace” (World Scientific, 2004):Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzOPlHbjWLYtUl93UTNRLTZIUkE .
  2. Set up a Cooperative Economic system of cooperatively managed corporations and business enterprises, independent of the Stock Market, whereby only the company staff are involved in decision making and profit sharing. This will lead to economic
  3. Provide a ‘Healthcare for all’ system, based on healthcare being a fundamental human right, that can take care of all the
  4. Provide ‘Affordable University Education to all’, without students having to incur student loans and life-long
  5. Develop ‘Governance and Public Administration Program’ at Universities, to (i) educate competent, learned, and people-caring public politicians, and (ii) making it mandatory for all public service politicians (mayors, governors, representatives, senators, and presidents) to get master’s and PhD in it.
  1. Environmental Protection based on Renewable Energy system, with UN aid to Developing countries for its installation, in order to promote renewable energy and reduce dependency on fossil fuels, and mitigate greenhouse
  2. End Police brutality, by having mandatory Bachelor’s Degree in ‘Policing and Community Service’ to be offered by universities, requiring all police officers to have this degree. Studying and living in the university community will impart both learning and living values. In this way, we can have a new generation of community-caring police
  3. Abolish the immoral Private Prison Industry, and transforming Prisons’ role from debilitating the inmates to rehabilitating the inmates, so as to give them opportunity to reform and have a new
  4. Abolish corporate funding of election campaigns, and have Federal funding of presidential election campaigns, and State funding for governor and congress election campaigns: This will make it even for all parties to contest

In my opinion, No 5 can be the most important Policy, as it will result in the election of educated and people-caring governors, senators and presidents. In fact, throughout human history, there has been a big need for such ‘learned’ political leaders in countries, to provide progressive living for the common people.

Now the big question is how to bring about these progressive reforms, which we will stepwise discuss in the following Items.

Item 3: How Ananda Marga can become integrated into communities through Master Units: teaching meditation, school education, shelter for homeless, farming and food production.

Herein we are presenting how the master units can become involved with their communities. All MUs can become sustainable by integrating into their town/city communities, by reaching out to their Town Halls. So the primary step is for the heads of Master Units to meet with the City Hall councilors, and present to them how the MUs can contribute to their Communities in many ways, by (i) Teaching Meditation, (ii) Food Production, (iii) Providing Healthcare, (iv) Contributing to School Education, and (v) Providing Shelter for Homeless.

  1. A master unit is meant to be a self-reliant unit, that can be an integral component of the community around it. For that purpose, the in-charge didi/dada can make a connection with the city or town hall, meet with the councilors and discuss how the MU can contribute to the community, by teaching yoga and meditation to start with, and then even developing farming, and contributing to healthcare and education. So to start with, the didi/dada can teach meditation twice a week, on how to develop higher consciousness, to reduce stress and cure ailments (such as hypertension and diabetes). The town hall can advertise this event in the community.
  2. A meditation session can consist of three parts: explanation of philosophy & science of meditation, actual guided meditation, and answering questions. The participants can be explained and taught meditation (i) as a therapy for stress and ailments, and (ii) for liberation and enlightenment. The participants can also be shown around the MU, and be informed of its purpose. This will get the participants interested in the MU.
  3. Then after a couple of weeks of getting to know the meditation participants, they can be informed of the health benefits of vegetarianism. My article in Prout Journal: Addressing Corona Virus Crisis: Animal-caring and Meditation, Progressive Thinking and Living: Prout August 2020 (Pages 13-16) [Link: August 2020] deals with the Root Cause of Pandemics being people’s seemingly insatiable desire to eat meat. The conditions in which animals are farmed serve as “amplifiers” for viral pandemics. They can also be informed (as discussed in my article) that luminaries like Carl Sagan, Pythagoras, Leonardo de Vinci, and Albert Einstein were vegetarians. Especially, in these coronavirus times, the combination of meditation and vegetarianism can protect people from getting
  4. As the participants become interested, they can be informed about farming in the MU, and be invited to contribute to farming and even earning from it. In these difficult times of unemployment, it is difficult for many families to even pay rent. So, it is possible that some meditation participants may even like to live on the MU.
  5. One of the roles of the town hall is to provide shelter to those who are in threat of becoming homeless. So then the in-charge didi/dada can inform the town hall of the interest of some participants to live on the MU, and even offer to accommodate some homeless families. For that, the town hall can be requested to arrange for some living complexes to be built on the MU. Then those people could contribute to farming, and form a farming cooperative. In this way, the MU could become sustainable.
  6. Now let us talk about School Education, which is very important for a MU to impart. This is how Ananda Marga can become very integrated into the community. Of course, the MU schools would have to be supported by the town hall council, and set up as charter schools with a combined STEM and Yoga theme. We just cannot have private schools, it is just not appropriate for parents to even pay for the schooling of their children. All this could have been done some years back. However, in these times this would not be possible; hence the MU can offer to introduce and teach Yoga and Meditation courses in the town schools, along with prescribing a textbook (Cure yourself by Yoga, by Hiranmayananda) for it. Then as we are able to get relief from COVID 19 with vaccines and medications, let us consider setting up schools in master units with the support of town hall
  7. Let us now talk about Healthcare based on Meditation. Today, there is a very big nationwide interest in the medical benefits of mindfulness meditation, and AM has lagged behind in this endeavor. For that, it is also important for us to develop the science of meditation lessons, which will make it attractive for people. My article: Physiological characterization of the ‘meditative state’ during Intuitional practice (the Ananda Marga system of meditation) and its Therapeutic value, Medical and Biological Engineering, March 1976, Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_qqAmxi7sZJOUBr5PsFKDJBBInc_YLPk/view?usp=sharing, presents how meditation can relieve stress and even cure epilepsy. Now it is high time for Ananda Marga to work with hospitals and carry out more extensive research on the medical benefits of AM meditation. This will enhance AM’s image in the medical community. For that purpose, didis/dadas could contact the neighboring healthcare clinics and hospitals, and arrange to teach meditation to the patients, for which they can even get paid, as the patients are covered by medical insurance. The involved clinicians could also learn meditation, and then analyze the medical benefits of meditation, by monitoring their BP, ECG, EEG, blood cholesterol and glucose. Then the clinicians could even publish journal papers on the medical benefits of the AM system of meditation. I would be glad to work with the clinicians in this endeavor.
  8. All this will be an ongoing process to make sustainable MUs, for which we can set up a ‘Master Unit in Community (MUIC) Committee’ to guide the heads of master units in making all these

We still need to provide the mechanisms for developing the progressive reforms presented in Item 2, which brings us to the next Item below.

Item 4. The most significant contribution of Ananda Marga in this Sector and worldwide: setting up universities to cultivate a more advanced civilization:

1.       Universities have been the cradles of human civilizations.

So for Ananda Marga to help advance human civilization, there is a big need for us to have our universities, by which we can incorporate all of Baba’s teachings and AM ideologies into programs and courses at the university.

Throughout history, universities have (i) contributed to knowledge and discoveries, (ii) been the driving engines for scientific, medical, and technological advancements, (iii) promoted human evolution, and advanced human civilizations.

2.    In India, there has long been a big need for the establishment of Gurukula, to provide the gateway of Ananda Marga into the public domain.

In India, Ananda Marga can become known in the public domain through Gurukula. However, today, after 30 years, Ananda Marga has only two colleges operating in Ananda Nagar: (i) Ananda Marga College (offering undergraduate courses in humanities and arts), and (ii) Ananda Marga Gurukula Teacher’s Training College(offering a 2 year Bachelor of Education course).

Both these colleges are affiliated with Sidho Kanho Birsha University (SKBU),

I have been dedicated to the development of Gurukula, based on my working at universities in many countries including India, and developing new colleges and programs at universities.

In this context, we can refer to my book: Ananda Marga Gurukula and Ananda Nagar Holistic Development, published by AM Tiljala Publication Department: Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JAL4j0g2y73n3jmm2bqXilYlaRs99lwy/view?usp=sharing .

As can be seen from this book, Gurukula will be a comprehensive university of colleges across academic disciplines, in order to adequately address the needs of the region around Ananda Nagar. The mission of the Gurukula Colleges will be to (i) serve as repositories and generators of knowledge in academic disciplines, (ii) develop the whole, thinking person of the student, (iii) cultivate creativity, and awareness of social and cultural sensibilities, (iv) promote civic engagement, and multi-faceted development of communities. These Colleges can contribute to the transformation of Ananda Nagar into a sustainable community, and bring sunshine into the lives of its poor people. There is another important unmet need for Gurukula, and that is to provide education to girls in all academic disciplines, and primarily in political science, medicine and law. As can be seen, the Gurukula education system will be a comprehensive education system, with a big commitment to knowledge and discovery, and sustainable community development. It is hence far beyond being just represented as a neohumanist education system.

Gurukula also cannot be set up as a private university, continually dependent on endowments, especially in these coronavirus times. In India, all private universities are now in financial stress. So my proposal is that Gurukula be set up with Government funding from the Ministry of Education, by looking into the recently launched “National Education Policy 2020”. For preparing this proposal to the Ministry of Education, it is necessary to provide a detail description of Gurukula Colleges and the total budget. In this regard, we can refer to my comprehensive book: Ananda Marga Gurukula and Ananda Nagar Development (A Partnership in Education): A kaleidoscope into the Future, to build a new era spiritual civilization, by Ac.

Dhanjoo N. Ghista, published by Ananda Marga Gurukula, Ananda Nagar Development Society, Email: ckdada@mac.com.

3. Vision of a 21st Century University for this Sector:

Let us now talk about setting up university in this sector. So to start with, I am presenting my comprehensive article in Prout Journal September 2020 Issue: Vision of 21st Century University: Cosmic Thinking & Knowledge, Smart Governance & Prout, Global Citizenship & Global Harmony, in Prout Journal September 2020 issue (Pages 13-18) : Link: September 2020.

Throughout human history and even until now, countries and communities have been beset with poverty and sufferings, turmoil and stressful living, because of (i) totalitarian regimes and discriminations, and (ii) pseudo democracies by political parties operating as profiteering corporations. There is hence a big need today to alter this primitive community structure, thinking and living, by developing progressive societies, involving (i) Neohumanism and Universalism, (ii) Cosmic Thinking and Knowledge, (iii) Smart Governance and Prout, (iv) Global Citizenship and Global Harmony. This can help to bring about a new era of a more evolved civilization, in which we all can work together to make happy life and living for all the residents of this world.

So, let us up such a 21st century university in a master unit, as a public university, with the support of the Mayor of the town or city in which the master unit is located.

Today, there is a growing awareness on the part of Towns and Cities to take the initiative for setting up higher education institutions for socio-economic and industrial development of their communities. As can be seen from the article “America’s Promise: Connecting Communities with Colleges & Universities”, higher education has a public mission that encompasses both serving today’s local communities and creating the civic leaders of tomorrow. Across the nation, there is a growing recognition that colleges and universities care about and can be an important resource for their neighboring communities. The America’s Promise membership of college and university presidents are dedicated to this ideal, for benefitting both the communities and the nation’s youth.

This is why and how our initiative to plan and build our university in this region will provide mutually serving benefit to (i) Students, to get high quality affordable education for knowledge and discovery making, (ii) Working people, to acquire new knowledge in their fields and to thereby enhance their work operations, and (iii) surrounding Communities, to become more resourceful in all the public sector domains, to provide a better quality of life for all the residents.

Role of Universities in Communities: Universities are socio-economic growth engines of communities.  This is why today communities are actively seeking to build their own universities, to serve their local needs as well as to enhance socio-economic development. So then based on my experience in developing universities in many countries, as represented by my Academic Website Link: www.dhanjooghista.com, we can approach the City Hall Mayor, and propose to set up the City’s University on the MU. We will request the City Mayor to allocate land for the university. After we get her/his approval, we can work coordinately in (i) planning how the university will serve the neighboring towns, (ii) developing the budget for the university, and then (iii) approaching Education Foundations (such as Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation) for the cost of building and operating the university for the first five years. With the funding obtained from the Education Foundations, we can make faculty and staff appointments, and develop the teaching and research facilities of the university, to get it ready to admit the first batch of students.

Providing Quality and Affordable Education, and promoting inventive America: We intend to provide quality and affordable education to the students in our communities, with affordable undergraduate and graduate tuition fees. We will also provide affordable education to attract foreign students, for our campus to become a vibrant global community of scholars. The University will also cater to the continuing graduate education of people working in the industries, farms, hospitals, schools. As a doctoral university, it will promote high intensity research and development, and also help to incubate new companies. In four years’ time, we can develop our university to have a global outreach with a universal outlook, towards promoting ‘Inventive America and the Greater Good for all’. It would be such a fulfilling role for us to work on this exciting community benefittingproject.

Academic Structure of our proposed 21st Century University: In order to cater to the comprehensive community needs, our University can have a comprehensive academic structure of Schools as follows:

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2. School of Yoga, Spirituality & Wellness, 3. School of Sciences, 4. School of Engineering, 5. School of Education, 6. School of Management and Business Administration, 7. School of Law and Governance, 8. School Agriculture and Farming; 9. School of Medicine: Yogapathy, Naturopathy, and Health Sciences, 10. School of Sports Science.

 

  1. In the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, we can offer Courses on
  • Prout, based on my book: “Socio-Economic Democracy and the World Government: Depovertization, Human Rights, Template for Sustainable Peace” (World Scientific, 2004):Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzOPlHbjWLYtUl93UTNRLTZIUkE. This book provides a people empowered and benefitting ‘political governance and economic system’, based on (i) People’s Participatory Democratic system of governance, whereby the most qualified representatives of all the functional sectors of the community can get elected to the local legislatures, and (ii) Cooperative Economic system of cooperatively managed corporations and and business
  • Neohumanism, based on the textbook compiled be me: Neo-Humanism Principles and Cardinal Values, Sentimentality to Spirituality, Human Society, by Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wfu_rQVVJs8SATv9d8A-EYvKHKIk7GH/view?usp=sharing. This book has 27 chapter/articles of Baba, with each chapter followed by a relavant Prabhat Samgiit.
  1. In the School of Engineering, we can offer courses in all fields of engineering. Today the most in-demand field is Biomedical Engineering, in which we can offer a novelty Program in Biomedical Engineering in Translational Medicine (BETRAM), which would provide new insights in (i) Anatomy, in how anatomical structures are intrinsically optimally designed for their function, (ii) Physiology, in quantifying physiological systems and developing indices for their function and dysfunction, (iii) Medicine, by developing precision medical diagnostic and assessment methods, and (iv) Surgery, involving customized biomedical engineering analysis of surgical procedures (such as of coronary bypass surgery). This program can be based on my chapter: Biomedical Engineering Professional Trail from Anatomy and Physiology to Medicine and Into Hospital Administration: Towards Higher-Order of Translational Medicine and Patient Care, by Dhanjoo N. Ghista, in my textbook: Biomedical Science, Engineering and Technology (InTech Publishers, 2012); Link:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzOPlHbjWLYtZ08zX0Ywa0lNX1k
  2. In the School of Law and Governance, we can offer a novel “Governance and Public Administration Program” to educate competent and learned public politicians. This Program can be formulated for (i) evaluating the effectiveness of Governance programs of states and federal governments, (ii) developing rigorous approaches to policy making and implementation, and (iii) considering how legislations and bills affect human living and values. This Program could then also be considered as a qualification for public political offices, as city mayors, state governors, House representatives and Senators of US
  3. In the School of Management and Business Administration, we can offer the Hospital and Healthcare Management (PhD and MD-MBA) Program, designed to educate hospital administrators with the competency to enhance the overall quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery, by providing them multidisciplinary knowledge-base in business administration and financial management combined with clinical and hospital engineering, related to cost-effective operation of hospitals and healthcare
  4. In the School of Education, we can offer a popular program in “IASIAM Education, for Integrated Approach to Science, Engineering and Medicine”, Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JMg6F_6rvqqJ07nW09nRVqOf4EYgKmWa/view?usp=sharing. This Program can address the big demand to educate school and college teachers in an integrated approach to the study of STEM disciplines and their applications in diverse fields, such as physiology, medicine and sports science
  5. In the School of Medicine, we can even offer a Program in Yogapathy and Naturopathy Medicine (YONAM), which would be the novel feature of our university. It would be the first such program at a university in this sector. It will provide its own healthcare insurance for patients, to enable them to get
  6. In the School of Sports Science, we can a novel Program on the engineering science of sports and athletic events, to educate scientific sports coaches. This Program can hence qualify and address the function of sports coaches and managers, and can have a big impact on the performance of university and national sports and athletics teams

From the time we start to plan the university and build its campus, it will take about two years to be ready to admit the first batch of both undergraduate and graduate students. It would be very fulfilling for us to together plan to set up and build the university, to fulfill the concept of the Latin word ‘Universitas’, meaning “the whole, total, the universe, the world”.

Item 5. Inspiring the young generation Margis in university education, to become community leaders, and contribute to progressive legislations:

1. 21st century Education

In today’s rapidly changing world, a 21st century education is all about giving students the skills they need to succeed in this new world, and helping them grow the confidence to practice these skills. We want our young generation to be well educated across academic fields, and become smart community leaders, as city and state legislators, cosmologists and gene therapists, STEM professionals, scientific physicians and technological surgeons, school teachers and university professors, yoga teachers and therapists. This is how Ananda Marga will become interwoven with communities. We are moving into the era of international education and global citizenship. Today, students would like to study abroad and mix with students from other countries. University faculty members would like to collaborate with peers across the globe, to develop new knowledge and inventions. Learning to be global citizens is important in today’s world, where technology is erasing borders, for the new generation of global community leaders to promote a more integrated human society, which is what Ananda Marga is all about.

2.   Developing Enhanced Learning:

For a student, meditation enables increased concentration, better understanding, enhanced memory, and better math skills–leading to better grades.

Scientists agree that your brain is a trainable ‘muscle’ that needs daily exercise. More and more neuroscientific research points to meditation as being the very best brain exercise for learning. By flexing your cerebral cortex every day in meditation, your ability to absorb and understand new information, adapt to any situation, and personally grow in all directions becomes limitless.

If you are a student, meditation for learning is essential for better grades — from paying focused attention during lecture, to having an overall anxiety-free student experience, to increased concentration for amplified study skills. There really are a number of reasons why meditation helps learning, as indicated below.

  1. Meditation puts you in the best brainwave state for “super learning ”. It is important to understand that, during your daily activities, your brain has a variety of precisely measurable states, from sleep, to working, to exercising, to studying — neuroscience understands this well. As indicated on Page 4, meditation boosts Alpha brainwaves, the predominant state for learning, studying, memorizing, and recollecting large sums of information. You can summon this highly creative, super enhanced learning state with meditation.
  2. Meditation makes your left and right brain hemispheres work together. Did you know that one side of your brain is more mathematical and scientific (left), while the other half is more creative and intuitive (right)? Most people use one half of their brains more than the other, creating an imbalance. Scientists have found that highly successful people use both brain hemispheres in harmony. The good news? You, too, can achieve “whole brain synchronization”. Scientifically proven to enable this dual activated, well- balanced, highly active brain state, meditation has allowed many people to transform all aspects of their lives, especially their ability to learn.
  3. Meditation stimulates learning associated brain regions. Two parts of the brain that are highly active during memory storage and recall, the Hippocampus and frontal lobe, are particularly stimulated during meditation. By stimulating this part of the brain (by energizing the ajna and sahasrara cakras), meditation multiplies your ability to memorize, store, and recollect large sums of information. Many scientists agree that the implications of this are huge, with meditation being the very best brain exercise, multiplying study skills across the board.

3. Contributions of Young Generation Margis in University Education and Legislative Processes.

When the young generation margis (namely the young children of margi families) grow up, they will want to be concerned about and be greatly involved in what is going on in their communities and country. So for this community role of young margis, this is verily the era of PhD, MD and JD as terminal degrees.

  1. If some of them decide to be academics, they can consider doing (i) PhD in some of these domains: Prout, Cosmology, Microvita, and (ii) MD in Mind-Body Medicine. Then, as faculty members of universities, they can develop programs in these
  2. As faculty members, some of them can even set up the above mentioned Program in “Governance and Public Administration”, by which students will need to qualify to be public service politicians: mayors, governors, representatives, senators, and
  3. They can then get elected to the Congress, and be involved in making legislations for progressive living of the American

Item 6. Presenting access to some of my books and articles, to provide extensive information on many aspects of Ananda Marga:

It is a pleasure for me to provide access to some of my books and articles, to provide information and learning on many aspects of Ananda Marga.

  1. Textbook on Prout: “Socio-Economic Democracy and the World Government: Depovertization, HumanRights, Template for Sustainable Peace” (World Scientific, 2004): Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzOPlHbjWLYtUl93UTNRLTZIUkE.
  2. Book on Gurukula: “Ananda Marga Gurukula and Ananda Nagar Holistic Development”, published by AM Tiljala Publication Department, 2018: Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JAL4j0g2y73n3jmm2bqXilYlaRs99lwy/view?usp=sharing
  3. Textbook on Neohumanism: “Neo-Humanism Principles and Cardinal Values, Sentimentality to Spirituality, Human Society”, by Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. This is 348 page textbook, comprising of three parts: Part 1. Human Society, Progress and Desideratum. Part From Sentimentality to Spirituality. Neo-Humanistic Values. Each chapter is followed by a related Prabhat Samgiit. Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wfu_rQVVJs8SATv9d8A-EEYvKHKIk7GH/view?usp=sharing

  1. Book: “Ananda Marga Gurukula and Ananda Nagar Development (A Partnership in Education): A kaleidoscope into the Future, to build a new era spiritual civilization”, by Ac. Dhanjoo N. Ghista, published by Ananda Marga Gurukula, Ananda Nagar Development Society, Email: ckdada@mac.com.
  2. Article: Cover Story: “Addressing Corona Virus Crisis: Animal-caring and Meditation, Progressive Thinking and Living”, in Prout Journal, August 2020 (Pages 13-16): Link: August 2020],
  3. Journal paper: “Physiological characterization of the ‘meditative state’ during Intuitional practice (the Ananda Marga system of meditation) and its Therapeutic value”, by Dhanjoo Ghista et al, Medical and Biological Engineering March 1976. Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_qqAmxi7sZJOUBr5PsFKDJBBInc_YLPk/view?usp=sharing.
  4. Article: Cover Story: “Ananda Marga Gurukula: Education for Liberation and Sustainable Community Development”, in Prout Journal, Vol. 29, Issue 10, Oct 2018 (Pages 26-30): Link: October 2018.
  5. Article: “IASIAM Education, for Integrated Approach to Science, Engineering and Medicine”, Link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JMg6F_6rvqqJ07nW09nRVqOf4EYgKmWa/view?usp=sharing
  6. Book chapter: “Biomedical Engineering Professional Trail from Anatomy and Physiology to Medicine and Into Hospital Administration: Towards Higher-Order of Translational Medicine and Patient Care”, by Dhanjoo N. Ghista, in my textbook: Biomedical Science, Engineering and Technology (InTech Publishers, 2012); Link:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzOPlHbjWLYtZ08zX0Ywa0lNX1k
  7. Article: “Vision of 21st Century University: Cosmic Thinking & Knowledge, Smart Governance & Prout, Global Citizenship & Global Harmony”, in Prout Journal, September 2020 (Pages 13-18). Link: September 2020
  8. Finally, I am providing my Academic Website: Link: dhanjooghista.com. It contains detail information of my recent textbooks, as well as scholarly ‘Domains’ in many fields:
    • Biomedical Engineering, STEM model of Medicine, Hospital & Healthcare Management, Biomedical & Healthcare Technology,
    • Yoga & Meditation, Sports & Fitness Science, STEM Education Program, Cognitive Science,
    • Socio-Economic Democracy, Sustainable Communities & Regional Development, Role of University in Society, International Relations, Peace &

Item 7. Building the Great Universe (Mahavishva), to develop a more heightened civilization on Earth:

  1. As Baba had said: “You must create the Great Universe (Mahavishva) as soon as possible. Then, there will be peace and happiness in the universe, and with one indivisible ideology, humanity will march ahead”.
  2. For that, we need to set up universities, like this 21st Century University, which will provide the gateway for Ananda Marga into the public domain, and to be involved with community development

This is how we can create Mahavishva, and illuminate the world by His light.

Acarya Dhanjoo Ghista