Knowledge of Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture
Most fundamentally, Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture is a holistic, Natural Law based approach to agriculture. It takes into account all of the complex factors involved in an agricultural system and seeks to balance, support, nourish and correlate them to be most beneficial, both to the individual farmer or individual component of the ecosystem and to the system as a whole.
Vedic Agriculture is a systems approach to agriculture; it is an approach from the fundamental level of Nature itself, where all the different components of an ecosystem have their source, and where it is possible to correlate and balance them for the mutual benefit of all.
Maharishi Vedic Agriculture will enhance the functioning of any other practice of agriculture, by ensuring that that practice is in accord with the functioning of Nature itself, and not in conflict with the Laws of Nature. Nature becomes the true farmer in a Vedic agriculture system because all of the Laws of Nature functioning in an eco-system are upheld and sustained.
“Maharishi Vedic Agriculture will enhance the functioning of any other practice of agriculture, by ensuring that that practice is in accord with the functioning of Nature itself, and not in conflict with the Laws of Nature. Nature becomes the true farmer in a Vedic agriculture system because all of the Laws of Nature functioning in an eco-system are upheld and sustained.”
Maharishi Vedic Agriculture does not conflict with any existing system of agriculture but only supports all systems of agriculture, as they are practiced locally in accord with the local conditions of climate and geography.
Farmers following the principles and practices of Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture and Environmental Relationships enjoy an intimate relationship with the soil, the seed, the crop, the environment, and even the weather, to produce healthy food through much less effort and hard work than is necessary through contemporary agricultural practices. This intimate relationship between the farmer and the environment is the ideal of farming, where human life and Nature nourish each other to bring life to fullness.
Through Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture, farmers play a parental role for the whole nation. They bring everyone food that is pure, fresh, fully ripened, and lively with Total Natural Law. This quality of food supports the development of a perfectly balanced and healthy physiology, capable of living full human potential in higher states of Consciousness, or enlightenment. Maharishi calls it Vedic food for Vedic consciousness.
Knowledge has Organizing Power
Since agriculture in perfect harmony with Veda, or Natural Law, is the goal of the Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture program, therefore, to understand Vedic Organic Agriculture, we need to understand the full significance of the terms Veda and Natural Law.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi calls Veda the “Constitution of the Universe.” This is because the reverberations of the sounds of the Veda are the same as the Laws of Nature themselves. The intelligence and organizing power of the Vedic sounds is the same intelligence and organizing power of the Laws of Nature that govern our environment.
This pure knowledge, or pure creative potential of Natural Law, embodied in the Veda is further elaborated in the entire Vedic Literature, which has been preserved generation after generation, from parents to children, in the Vedic Families of India. Veda is like the seed, and the Vedic Literature is like the fully blossomed tree. Veda contains all knowledge in seed form; the Vedic Literature expresses this same knowledge in more elaborated and detailed form.
Maharishi has organized the 40 branches of Veda and the Vedic Literature as a perfect science of the totality of Natural Law, and its application to every field of life. These 40 branches taken together and applied holistically contain the comprehensive knowledge to bring any discipline or profession in full accord with Natural Law, and to bring fulfillment to individual and collective life.
This principle that Veda is the fundamental intelligence of Natural Law is expressed in the Vedic text known as the Manu Smriti, which is one of the Law giving books of the Vedic Literature. The Laws of Nature which modern science has discovered are known from the Manu Smriti to be the reverberations of Veda.
It is for this reason that Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture adds the word Vedic to organic because Veda means Total Knowledge–so by adding Vedic, the organizing power of Total Knowledge is added to the field of agriculture. ‘Vedic Organic’ means organic agriculture enriched by the nourishing influence of Veda–the nourishing influence of Natural Law.
Maharishi identifies two aspects of Veda: Mantra and Brahmana. Mantras are the structures of pure knowledge, the sounds of the Veda; Brahmanas are the internal dynamics of the structure of pure knowledge, the organizing power of the mantras, the intelligence that structures the mantras–the structuring dynamics of the mantras.
This principle is important in agriculture because both of these components, intelligence and its dynamic organizing power, are essential for growth. These two, Mantra and Brahmana, represent knowledge and organizing power, silence and activity, DNA and RNA, the seed and the process of its transformation and expression into the fully blossomed plant. Vedic Agriculture is ultimately the intelligence of Nature put into action.
These mechanics of orderly growth and expression on the basis of an underlying self-referral field of intelligence are further expressed in a verse from the Bhagavad-Gita, the central chapter of another of the Vedic texts–the Mahabharata. Nature in this verse represents the organizing power of Natural Law, while Lord Krishna, the speaker, represents the silent value of pure intelligence at its basis.
Vedic Agriculture as Total Knowledge -Brahma Vidya
Maharishi’s Vedic Science, and its practical application as Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture, present the totality of life, founded on the ancient wisdom of the Veda and the Vedic Literature, and now expressed in the most recent Unified Field theories from modern physics. Because of this, Maharishi has said that Vedic Agriculture is Brahma Vidya, or complete knowledge, the knowledge of totality, the knowledge of the wholeness of life.
The central theme of Brahma Vidya is that life is not fragmented; it is holistic. The diversity of life that we see around us is the expression of an underlying unity. What seems to be separate, is unified at its source. What seems to be elaborate is an expression of underlying simplicity. Life is wholeness on the move, the waves of an underlying unified field. This understanding is precisely expressed both in the Superstring Theory of Unified Quantum Field Theories and in Vedanta, the branch of the Vedic Literature dealing with the unity of life.
If we look at the process whereby Nature brings forth the plant and animal kingdoms, we see these mechanics of unity and diversity expressed over and over again. From one single seed comes a multitude of flowers and fruits, which then again create seeds. From the foundation of the soil, the entire forest has its expression, and finally again dissolves back into soil. These principles are expressed in this quote from the Vedanta branch of the Vedic Literature that deals with the expression of unity as diversity without ever losing its nature as unity: