A unified field chart of urban sustainability

A unified field chart of urban sustainability

This research paper, the third in a three-part series of papers on the Unified Field Chart as conceived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, presents an integrated approach to organising the discipline of Urban Sustainability. The Unified Field Chart is an educational tool conceived and introduced by
Maharishi to systematically connect the parts of knowledge to the wholeness of knowledge and the wholeness of knowledge to the Self, to the consciousness of everyone.

As discussed in the first and second papers of this series, a Unified Field Chart is a diagrammatic representation of the main elements or themes of a discipline or field of human endeavor (in this case, the elements of the discipline of urban sustainability), the relationships
between the various elements of the discipline, and the relationship between the total discipline and its source in the unified field of Natural Law. The Unified Field Chart of Urban Sustainability therefore displays the systems, principles and processes of conceiving, designing, building and living in a sustainable, healthy urban environment, the goal of which is the fulfillment of human development and the sustainable progress and wellbeing of society with its source of sustainability in the unified field.

The Unified Field Chart of Urban Sustainability is organized into eight vertical levels from the most universal or fundamental level at the bottom of the chart to the most applied level at the top, starting with Level 1,
referred to as the unified field of all the laws of nature. This is the level of nature’s intelligence, the field of non-change from which the infinite variety of nature is continuously emerging, expanding and returning, a level Maharishi refers to as the ‘first law’ of nature or Natural Law.

Level 2: Sustainability Systems is the first emergence of the discipline of urban sustainability from the unified field, where urban sustainability begins to ascribe and define its internal structure and organisation. Level
2 adopts a ‘systems view’ of sustainability, describing the self-generative, autopoietic processes of sustainable systems. The structure of urban sustainability can be understood as a trilogy of: a) human systems (which
include individual and social interactions); b) processing systems (i.e., governance, economic and regulating systems); and c) environmental systems (composed of both the built and natural environments), which we associate with the three-in-one structure of the unified field.

The next level, Level 3: Sustainability Principles, is composed of various operational principles, considerations that help set priorities and define society-wide distributions and capabilities. Level 3 considers such
principles as interconnectedness, diversity, efficiency and equity.

The next three horizontal levels of the Unified Field Chart of Urban Sustainability—Level 4: Planning for Sustainability, Level 5: Designing for Sustainability, and Level 6: Building for Sustainability—are structured to
reflect the conventional plan-design-build process. However, in this context, we have given greater focus to the ‘who’ makes sustainability decisions and the ‘when’ they should be carried out.

Level 7: Fulfilment of Human Development contains the goal of urban sustainability for the individual, which we discuss in terms of capability theory. Finally, the fulfilment of human development on the collective level
forms the basis for sustainable progress and well-being at the level of society, as shown on Level 8: Sustainable Progress and Well-being of Society.

The following discussion aims to systematically describe these eight vertical levels of the Unified Field Chart of Urban Sustainability and explore their relation to the subjective aspect of Maharishi Vedic Science, the
Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program.

© 2018 Maharishi Vedic Research Institute.