With Special Guest Dr. Mike Tompkins, hosted by John Cowhig.

All of us practicing Transcendental Meditation know directly what it means to cross a threshold of consciousness: when our awareness settles into that silent, unbounded field — we cross a threshold in awareness.

Dr. Mike Tompkins will show us how humanity has always sought out “crossing places” — both inner and outer: thresholds where the boundary between our daily world and a deeper reality becomes thin. From the ancient cave paintings of France to the sacred “tīrthas” (places of pilgrimage) of India and Ireland, our ancestors used myth and ritual to map a territory they knew was real.

They recognized that the “ford in the river” was more than geography; it was a metaphor for a transition in consciousness that we experience today as the “Gap”—the silent, unbounded field encountered in our meditation. The Gap is the interval between two thoughts…between two sounds…where one has ended in silence and the next has not yet emerged from silence.

This presentation will explore the remarkable continuum between these ancient maps and our practice of TM. We’ll look at how the epic heroes of myth, like Cú Chulainn and Achilles, provide us with “compressed models” of the same physiological coherence we measure in the brain today. What was once seen as a mysterious “warp-spasm” of the hero is revealed to be a systematic reorganization of the human nervous system toward its most efficient and powerful state, and often where the true nature of the hero is revealed for the first time.

Then he will discuss our role in what is becoming a “Second Axial Age.” By understanding the mechanics of the Gap, we see that we are not just meditating for personal peace but are acting as modern-day heroes. By creating coherence within ourselves, we contribute to a global “Phase Transition,” enlivening the fundamental field of Natural Law that supports and stabilizes our entire society.

Born into a lineage of writers and speakers, Mike was a National Merit Scholar and Presidential Scholar and graduated with honours from Harvard. His ancestors, John and John Quincy Adams, served as American presidents, and Daniel Tompkins was the sixth American vice president. In keeping with family tradition, Mike ran as the vice-presidential candidate of the US Natural Law Party in 1992 and 1996.

Mike stands out as one of our most talented and prolific writers and speakers. For decades he worked closely with Maharishi, who deeply appreciated how Mike could put his ideas into accessible language.

More recently, he led the editorial team for Dr. Tony Nader’s New York Times bestselling book, Consciousness is All There Is, and was both the writer and host of the videos in the Consciousness Advisor training course.

Please join us as we trace this 40,000-year legacy from the caves to the world stage.

Begins with a 20-minute group TM.

Join Session

Password required to join this session. Access these sessions with the Zoom password provided to you by email from tmevents@tm.org.