Consciousness and Flow for Leadership Development

Abstract

AbstractThe flow experience, first studied by Mihaly (Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper Perennial, 1991), represents a glimpse into peak experiences, and suggests an expanded state of consciousness often accompanied by superior creativity and accomplishment. The experience of transcendence through Transcendental Meditation® (TM®), brought to the world by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, leads to development of consciousness and is associated with heightened creativity and fluid thinking. This chapter will compare flow experience with the development of consciousness toward higher states. Flow experiences have prerequisites in terms of mastery of craft, unambiguous clear task requirements, and a basic equivalence between the individual’s level of skill and the presented challenge. Flow experiences E "experience" are often fleeting and hard to predict. Regular practice of TM can systematically support more frequent experiences of creativity and the establishment of higher states of consciousness, known as enlightenment and create more frequent experiences of creativity and effortlessness. The goal of practice of the TM technique is enlightenment, living the experience of pure consciousness in all situations throughout the day, along with the other three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, and sleeping), during external turbulence or not, and autotelic or not. Autotelic simply means that the activity is inspiring in and of itself enough, without an end-purpose. That is one of the findings in the flow experience but is not necessary in higher states of consciousness. There is overlap; however higher states of consciousness are based on refinement of the nervous system to support silence and dynamism.