The Resilient Mind - What Consciousness Really Is & How to Change Yours - Dr. Tony Nader

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Tony Nader, a Harvard and MIT-trained neuroscientist, medical doctor, and the successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as the head of the Transcendental Meditation movement. Dr. Nader takes us on a journey into the nature of consciousness, explaining how it shapes our reality and how we can expand it to live a more fulfilling life. He shares his personal story of how he transitioned from a career in medicine and neuroscience to dedicating his life to the practice and teaching of Transcendental Meditation.Connect with Dr. Nader:Website: https://www.tm.org/Resources: https://linktr.ee/DrtonynaderFollow: https://www.youtube.com/@DrTonyNaderSubscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@meditationchannelTake action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalExplore tools from past guests of the podcast. Some links below are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you:💓 HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient🧠 Muse: https://choosemuse.com/resilientmind🌿 Brain Ritual: https://www.brainritual.com/THERESILIENTMIND🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So how would you define consciousness? Consciousness from a simple definition is the ability to be aware, to be conscious. And there are many, many definitions, and people look at it from different perspectives. And that is why sometimes there is an misunderstanding and confusion and sometimes conflict and understanding what consciousness is. There is consciousness like a human consciousness where you say I am aware, so when I am, I'm asleep, maybe you think I'm not a conscious being anymore. I'm not conscious because when I'm asleep, there are things I'm not conscious of.

When I am dreaming, I am in a state where I am conscious of things that are illusions, that are not real. But as if my brain, my mind creates some imaginary phenomena, and I believe that they are real. Even when I am conscious and awake, there are different levels of consciousness. So I can be drowsy, I can be alert, or I can be hallucinating. You know, I've seen this in psychiatric patients, but also when people take drugs, some kinds of drugs, they see things and they experience things, which actually physically don't seem to exist.

And therefore, the brain, the chemistry of the brain, the activity of the brain creates a situation where what appears to be real is different in different states of consciousness. And that is a big question about then, again, re-questioning what is consciousness. So I have a different definition of consciousness. I see consciousness as anything that feels, detects, senses, reacts to anything else. And the level of feeling, sensing, and detecting and responding is on a huge range from a simple response that can be a reflex response or can be automatic response to a very clear, defined, well-thought ideas and decision-making that are well-organized,

which take into consideration, present, past, and future, the individual and society. and the broader, the broader is consciousness, the vaster it is, the more you take into consideration more and more factors from the environment, from the world, from your future, present, past, you expand your awareness to think long term, to think wider. And so consciousness, therefore, can be simple as, for example, a stone falling. the stone is responding to gravity.

It has no choice, it has no sense of cells, it has no thinking, it has no feeling, it has nothing of that. Yet its response to gravity is a meager, minor, tiny aspect of consciousness. So consciousness is on a range from almost nothing like in a stone to plants, for example,

that respond to the sunlight or to the humidity and the earth, and they send their roots, and they adjust to their situation, and they even collaborate with each others, which is, there is a very interesting research about that. To animals who have a life, who have, you know, desires, who have, you know, who think, who run, who enjoy certain things and respond to certain things, and sometimes who are self-aware, they can recognize themselves, for example, in the mirror,

as being myself. We know this because if you put something on their forehead, for example, they'll wipe it. Whereas some animals, you put something on their head, they think it's in the mirror. They don't have an idea that's on themselves. So there are studies about how much consciousness can be developed, whether we have self-consciousness. And then you have humans who have higher consciousness. And their higher consciousness allows them to think of the future, of the power. to create tools, to be self-aware, to act as a community, as a country, to react as a world,

to be responsible, and to have broader and broader understanding. So this consciousness, therefore, this definition of consciousness extends from minor detection, sensing, responding to a broader understanding capacity to make, you know, solve problems. to create tools, etc., etc. And one of the things that just popped up in my head is for human beings, is it the level of consciousness that differs between us that might impact our general well-being? Are more humans more conscious than other humans, and that connects us or affects how much peace, clarity, purpose we are able to find?

Exactly. That's the main difference between. ourselves and others, but also within ourselves. So one individual sometimes can be sleepy or drowsy, and they can make mistakes, and the same individual can be more awake, more alert, and they make less mistakes. Sometimes we are stressed, so when we are under stress, we react in ways that make us narrow in our understanding. We can create harm for ourselves and others.

And sometimes when we are rested and confident and clear, you know, think of the day when you wake up and you are well rested and feeling good. It's a different day. Everything works differently. Even a small problem happens, you can overcome it. Even a big problem happens, you can find a solution. Whereas if one wakes up and is tired, has not slept well, then any small problem can become a big thing. And what happens is you enter into conflict with other. you interpret things in the wrong way because your vision is clouded. And so even within one individual, there are all these different states and conditions

and levels of awareness and consciousness. Of course, the same applies between different individuals. So different individuals sometimes may have a baseline of higher consciousness and a baseline where they are more grand in their thinking, more broad in their understanding, more engaging, more inclusive, more balanced. And others who are maybe under stress or strain, they can feel more complicated in their situations. What's good is that there is a solution for that. It's not that you are stuck with a state of consciousness. We can improve our consciousness. That is the beauty of the system.

That's fascinating. And I'm reminded about this quote that it's not what happens, it's how we respond about what happened. And it's almost like that part about how we respond is connected to the level of consciousness that we are at in that moment. Exactly. And so if we can master how to maybe become more conscious about being conscious and use the tools that we'll talk about to do that, then our response to the challenges of life. and I think today we can pick different ones, our response to those challenges of life

can be more adaptive than maladaptive. Beautiful. Every situation has these three components. One is the observer, the subject, then two is the object, and three is the relationship that connect the subject to the object. And this is what makes knowledge and experience.

It is not just the object. So when two people look at the same object, their experience of that object, or instead of object, we can say situation, is different based on their state of consciousness. For a simple level of understanding, even on the sensory level, suppose one is wearing yellow glasses and the other is wearing blue glasses or green glasses or red glasses, whatever. And they both looking at the same white page. One would say this page is yellow, and one will say this page is, whatever, red or something, if their glasses are red. Now, if they don't know that they are wearing glasses,

they will be fighting, because one will say it is red and one will say it is yellow. Now, who is wrong, who is right? Both are right and both are wrong. Both are right because they are sincere, they are innocent. they are just seeing yellow and red. And they argue about it, and they can fight each other. And if they are fanatics, they can kill each other

because they believe that the other is not right and he's going to make this paper yellow, and it's red, it should be red, and this is the reality, and this is the ultimate truth about what this paper is. They don't know they are wearing glasses. And so we all have this kind of glasses in our vision.

even though it's not real glasses, but it's even more than real. It is our filter within our awareness, within our brain, with our prejudice, with our background, et cetera, with our stresses and strains, but also sometimes with our clarity, our, you know, thinking and all that, that make us see things differently. And therefore, the way we react to things might be from the feeling, level, very sincere and very innocent, but we are ignoring that we are acting with colored glasses, with filters, and therefore we have to be careful about our reactions. And what we have to do most importantly is clean our glasses, remove the filters, and then we would see that we can

all see the same ultimate reality. And how do we, quote, and quote, clean our glasses or remove those filters? It's by going beyond them, beyond those filters and settling down. And then the system, the nervous system has the ability, the physiology, has the ability to adjust itself. See, when you are tired, you take time to rest. And the rest naturally removes the tiredness. Because the body has a system to reset itself. It's like your computer when it's overworking. and the software is going round and round, if you don't reboot from time to time, the computer becomes slow and you have bugs and you have issues.

So you have to reboot. And to reboot, you literally stop the computer, and then there is a system within it that allows it to readjust itself. We as humans, we have a similar kind of similar system, of course, more sophisticated, where the tiredness and the stresses and the strains can be naturally removed from the body when we give it a chance to rest. So rest is very important for healing and for readjusting and for being clear in our thinking.

Of course, we have to avoid certain things to eat the wrong things or have good routine and good rest, et cetera. But what we have found is there is a technique called transcendental meditation, which allows the mind to settle down deeper than even the same. settling down of sleep, it goes very, very deep. And it's called transcendental meditation because transcending means to go beyond. So you go beyond the surface level of the mind and dive deep into the deep self. And you get such a deep rest physiologically and mentally that all the stresses get removed and cleared. And then this is how the filters are kind of cleared up and the glasses are cleaned because the body does it naturally based on its system to readjust itself.

And talking about transcendental meditation, how does it differ from regular meditation? The term meditation means a technique of the mind, something that you do in the mind. So if you sit and contemplate, you know, you're sitting and thinking about some project you have or about some philosophical point about love. about wisdom, about something, you can call this a meditation. In the past, the meditations used to be in contemplation also, I mean, in some Western cultures and all of that. And it can include, you know, prayer, it can include all kinds of things.

And recently there has been introduced something called mindfulness, which is like open monitoring, which means you sit there and you monitor what is happening. Let's say you're breathing. You take your mind to your breathing, breathing coming in, breathing coming out, or you take your mind to some thoughts, whatever thoughts happen. You look at them without judgment. You learn how to allow the mind to think without being over-involved in the process of what is happening, just observing.

Transcendental meditation is to transcend, which means to go beyond the surface level of the mind, beyond the thought of something specific and to go to the deep level of inner being. We say that the mind is like an ocean. On the surface there are waves, and as you go deeper and deeper in the ocean, it becomes quieter and quieter and quieter,

and you transcend even the finest level of thinking. And you come to a state which we call pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is a state where you are awake, That's why it's consciousness. You are alert, but you're not awake on anything specific. No memories, no thoughts, no nothing, no fears, no anything. That is transcending. Transcending means to go beyond.

And so you go beyond all of that, and therefore the state of rest is very, very profound. At the same time, you have great alertness. This is why it's a state that physiologically and mentally, completely different from waking, dreaming, or sleeping. That's why we call it a fourth major state of consciousness. That is really how different it is, because you could be floating on the surface of the ocean of the mind. You could concentrate, for example,

concentration is also some kind of part of meditation where you focus on things specific, but these are not transcendental meditation. Transcendental is to go beyond and let the mind naturally settle down towards the inner self. And there is a technique how to do it where you learn a sound,

which we call a mantra. The sound has no meaning, but it helps as the mind is diving towards the inner self, it helps keep the mind awake in a non-directed way. And there is a technique of how to use the mantra. There is a procedure, how to get the mantra, get the proper mantra for yourself, and how to use it in a proper way.

And in three, four days, you learn the technique. It's not like you take a long time. And then it's a do-it-yourself technique. It's a very simple technique. And I have more questions about, like, how to get that mantra, how to get started. But before I jump into that, what are some of the, I guess, research or benefits that have been found for individuals that did transcendental meditation? Like what physiological changes or neuronal changes have been observed? There are more than 700 scientific research studies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of transcendental meditation on mind, health, the body, behavior, and even on the surrounding of people who practice meditation.

Because we create an effect that is beyond our just limited body. when a small group of people practice transcendental meditation, it changes the environment, the surrounding, and people around, they feel good. It's like when you come to a place where there is softness, that people have been happy and they are nice and quiet, you feel that serenity, that feeling of peace. And that is for real, and it can be created with people meditating and transcending.

On the physiological level, the first research shows, that when you meditate, your breathing rate decreases, heart rate decreases, blood pressure gets normalized, the cortisol level, which is an indication of the level of stress is reduced, skin resistance changes in the direction to show that there is much less stress, much more quietness on the physiology. And then the results have been done on a more elaborate way to show, for example, things as survival rate. For example, those who practice transcendental meditation, even if they had heart disease, over five years, those who do twice a day, they survive 66% more survival than those who don't practice transcendental meditation and who yet are given

advice for diet and daily routine and encouraged to exercise and all of that. So the difference is really dramatic. And, you know, there has been research on insulin resistance for diabetes. There have been research on asthma, research on allergies, research on hospital admissions, in all categories showing that those who practice TM have less disease, less problems. And for students, it's very powerful in terms of improving their grades, improving their behavior. They do better at school. They enjoy more the schooling and they get better grades. And this way, many, many performance in business people, in companies that have tried it.

The performance is really very much improved and the quality of life very improved. Recently, we have done research on hospital staff, medical doctors and nurses and staff of the hospitals. particularly during COVID, it was, you know, many, many hospitals took the program. And transcendental meditation reduced anxiety, removed depression, improved sleep at night. They were sleeping, all the medical stuff, sleeping better, feeling more resilient, able to face the situations and overcome the difficulties. And even actually, you know, doctors who are under strain, and nurses, there have been lots of suicide.

And even idea of suicide comes to some of them. And those who practice transcendental meditation have found amazing well-being, resilience, reduction in anxiety, and the ability to face the tough situations. You know, it's also used in PTSD and veterans who come from, you know, war situation and who are overstressed. It's one of the most powerful modalities to help them recover, even more powerful than other

and normally used techniques, including medicines and drugs that have been tried. It makes me want to get started on jumping right into it as well. Yes, don't delay. And I know like there are high-performing individuals like Ray Dalio, Oprah, that also swear by Transcendental Meditation. And so I know you spoke about the benefits already, but what do you think draws these high achievers, these high performers to also incorporate it into their life? Specifically because they are high performers, high achievers, they want to do even more and better. And so they know the power of being established strongly in a clear thinking,

clear mind, to have ability to make right decisions and clear behavior and take them to more creative endeavors and be resilient and all of that. And so that is why great world leaders, such as those you mentioned and others, practice transcendental meditation because it gives them that inner strengths, inner clarity and creativity. And many of those leaders, most of them actually, they face a lot of challenges and stresses and strain, even though they appear cool and calm because they have to be like that. They are the heroes and they have to appear very calm. But they go through a lot of demands on them, a lot of challenges, a lot of responsibility.

People ask their opinion. People are around them to do things with them. And so this is not, you know, it appears glamorous and all that, but it can be also straining and pressure. And so from both sides to increase creativity, to alleviate the pressure, to always be able to be supportive and inspiring to others, they have to be strong within themselves. And that's why they find transcendental meditation a powerful tool for that. And for people listening and they are thinking, okay, this sounds great, this sounds exciting, I want to get started. And whether I'm just a school teacher, I'm a parent, I work like in the trades, or maybe I'm a high performing exec, what will be the first step for them to start either learning more or starting to incorporate this into their life? They can go to a website called TM.org.

TM is for Transcendental Meditation, obviously. TM.org. And wherever they are, they can have a teacher, hopefully not far from them, who can actually guide them to learn Transcendental Meditation. Because Transcendental Meditation is taught personally by a teacher. You cannot learn it in the books because there are steps of learning and steps of responding in one way. Then you get a certain answer. You do this.

You get that. And those are very, very much personal. And you learn it. And again, as we said, four, five days, about one and a half hours a day. And then you are completely on your own, even though we encourage to have follow up and ask questions and check your experience. to know what's happening. So there is an introductory lecture, which gives you an idea about the benefits.

And those who listen to your podcast, this podcast, they can feel like they had an introductory lecture. So already they have done the first step. Maybe a little bit of summary about the benefits so they can see some of the scientific research, so they get convinced of the effects. And then a preparatory conference, which can be done sequentially in the same time.

that helps to see what are we going to do, how we're going to learn, when we're going to learn, where, etc. And then there is the day of instruction where you come and meet a teacher, and then you are taught the mantra and how to use it. And from that time, you're already practicing transcendental meditation. So it's very simple, except you don't know all the details about what to do in this case, what to do in that case. And that is why there are three following days where on each day you come and you get more knowledge, you get checked, verify your experience, verify the simplicity of the practice, the easiness of it to make sure you're doing correctly. And then that's it. You're on your own. And these actually these last three days, you can do it on an app. We have created an app so that if you cannot come to meet the teacher because the teacher is maybe a little far or something, or something. or you don't have time to travel every day,

you can do part of it on the app and part of it with the teacher or all of it on the app. But the instruction has to be done in person. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.