“Increased mental potential and the relieving of stress are just some of the benefits of practicing transcendental meditation,” TM instructor Jim Dallas said.

The practice of transcendental meditation will be discussed in an introductory lecture by Dallas Monday and Tuesday in the Holmes Student Center.

“The transcendental meditation technique is a simple process that allows the mind to experience subtler and subtler levels of the thinking process until thinking is transcended, and the mind comes into direct contact with the source of thought,” Dallas said.

“We think TM is a particularly beneficial practice for students as they are often under a great deal of stress and need to develop their powers of concentration and mental potential to the fullest extent possible,” said John Tobias, president of the TM club at NIU.

“Psychologists estimate that human beings use only 5 to 15 percent of their mental potential. During the TM technique, they come into direct contact with the other 85 to 95 percent of the mind,” Tobias said.

World peace is another issue meditators today are working with, Dallas said. This is possible because transcendental meditation has an influence not only on those meditating but also on the rest of society.

“In a recent experiment involving 7,000 meditators (the square root of the world’s population) concentrating on this problem, there was a huge decrease in both the crime rates and the number of hospital admissions in a number of major cities in this country,” Dallas said.

“We think that if we had that same number of people working full-time on the issue of world peace, it could eventually be achieved,” Tobias said.

The lectures will take place Monday at noon and 8 p.m. and Tuesday at noon in the Illinois Room at HSC.