Creating Packets of Knowledge for the Prepared Mind
On Intellectual Formation, Systems, and the Ethics of Preparation
Author’s Note
This essay emerged quietly, and almost inadvertently.
After recently watching The Adjustment Bureau for what must be the umpteenth time, Mina and I found ourselves lingering in conversation long after the credits rolled—reflecting not on the film’s premise alone, but on the improbability of our own crossing. We began tracing, in no particular order, the countless events, decisions, missteps, refusals, and apparent detours that had to occur—often years apart and in entirely different contexts—for our paths to intersect at all.
What struck us was not a sense of inevitability, but of preparation.
Again and again, moments that once felt like interruptions or failures revealed themselves, in retrospect, as refinements—experiences that shaped the capacity to recognise one another when the moment finally arrived. The same pattern appeared when considering my broader intellectual and professional journey: institutions entered and exited, programmes begun and left behind, mentors encountered at precisely the right junctures, and ideas that only became legible once the mind had been tempered by experience.
This essay is not an argument for destiny, nor a claim that paths are pre-scripted. It is, instead, a reflection on formation—on how readiness is often cultivated long before its purpose becomes visible. Some knowledge, some relationships, some forms of service cannot be rushed. They require a mind—and a life—prepared through time, friction, and sustained attention.
What follows is offered in that spirit.
—Baruti KMT-Sisouvong, PhD
Life is funny.
There are moments when you plan carefully, execute faithfully, and watch the entire structure fall apart. And then there are other times when an initial plan is quietly reshaped by a single piece of information—a small but decisive inflection point—such that the path taken afterward, in hindsight, reveals itself as the best among many possible routes. This has happened more times than I can count along my journey.
After completing my first bachelor’s degree in History, I sought admission to a graduate programme in the discipline, only to receive what could best be described as a mild rejection. A rejection nonetheless. I regrouped and pursued a second bachelor’s degree, this time in Sociology. Through the university’s generous tuition remission programme, I completed said second degree and later matriculated into the graduate programme and had the privilege of studying there for roughly two and a half years.
That chapter ended abruptly.
After raising questions related to equitable treatment as an employee of the same university, I found myself unceremoniously exiting both the institution and the programme. In speaking with a mentor at the time—Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III—he offered a perspective that has stayed with me ever since: this has more to do with the system than with you. It was a welcome message then, and one that remains supported now by both anecdotal experience and peer-reviewed research. I was not imagining my experiences. I had been seeking a home where none was to be found.
At that point, I turned inward. I decided to focus less on locating the right institutional container and more on refining my own mind. That made all the difference.
The next inflection point arrived in the fall of 2006, shortly after I launched Radical Scholar, Inc. The call came from my long-time mentor, Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., Dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapel at Morehouse College. My phone buzzed. Seeing it was Dean, I answered, “Greetings, Dean!” His reply was immediate and emphatic: “You need to read this book!”
I met him in his office at the Chapel later that day—or perhaps the next—and left with a copy in hand. The book, authored by Dr. John Hagelin, was Manual for a Perfect Government: How to Harness the Laws of Nature to Bring Maximum Success to Governmental Administration (1998). It explored the Transcendental Meditation® technique and its demonstrated capacity to support clearer thinking and more coherent outcomes—for individuals and for society alike. A lofty proposition, to be sure.
As I worked through the text, something unexpected surfaced: irritation. At first, I could not place it. Later, I recognised it as a deep annoyance born of hindsight. I had spent years studying Sociology—first as an undergraduate, then in graduate school—only to realise that the discipline seemed largely preoccupied with analysing social structures, and far less committed to offering practical, scalable solutions for changing them.
Then a familiar line crystallised the feeling. Karl Marx’s oft-quoted observation: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” I have never read this as a wholesale dismissal of philosophy. Rather, I hear it as a challenge: to ensure that understanding does not become an end in itself. In this light, my frustration was not with Sociology alone, but with a broader academic tendency to study problems without committing to their transformation.
Encountering the peer-reviewed research on Transcendental Meditation—and the ancient lineage from which it emerged—reframed everything. I was intrigued. Although it would be another eighteen months before I would eventually learn the technique, it became clear almost immediately that I had found my vehicle of service in the study of Vedic Science. A vehicle that would lead me to the woman who would become my wife, and with whom I would build a family and share a life organised around service.
Now, approaching eighteen years of personal practice—and thirteen years teaching Transcendental Meditation in Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston—I know without hesitation that my decision to leave Atlanta and resume graduate study was the correct one. Perfect, even. For me.
In recent years, I have come to see the entirety of my journey through higher education—its fits, starts, and abrupt turns—as essential to my becoming. Traversing this varied terrain has afforded me both a diverse skill set and an expanded perspective, one shaped by challenge rather than comfort. It is this vantage point that allows me to speak to the experiences of everyday people with a degree of authenticity I could not otherwise claim.
I am here reminded of something my father taught me early on: no knowledge is ever unused. At the time, it sounded like reassurance. In retrospect, it reads as instruction. What once appeared extraneous, inefficient, or misapplied has revealed itself, over time, as precisely the preparation required for the work now before me.
Each early rejection, each obstacle, each detour now reads as a tributary feeding into the work I do today—as a non-profit founder, social entrepreneur, certified TM teacher, executive coach, author, and podcast host. Taken together, these phases have enabled me to create and offer what I think of as packets of knowledge: distilled insights designed not for mass persuasion, but for those prepared to receive them.
I do not proselytise. I prefer instead to make the work available—to place it within reach of the prepared mind and allow contemplation to do its quiet work. The rewards arrive in their own way: in emails, text messages, and notes from those Mina and I have taught over the years; in changed lives and in lives touched in ways we will never fully know. That is gratification enough.
And so, like Albert Camus’ Sisyphus, we return to the work of creation—not for the short term, but for the long.
See you out there.
Suggested Reflection
Preparing the Mind for What It Is Ready to Receive
(This reflection may be read silently or aloud. Allow 10–15 minutes.)
Begin by sitting comfortably, allowing the body to settle without adjustment.
Let the breath move naturally. No effort is required.
Bring to mind a moment in your life when something did not work as planned—an opportunity that closed, a path that ended, a structure that failed to hold you. Do not analyse it yet. Simply observe the memory as it appears, noticing any sensations or emotions that accompany it.
Now gently ask:
What capacity was being developed in me at that time, even if I could not yet see it?
What questions was I learning to ask more clearly?
What assumptions was I being quietly invited to release?
Allow responses to arise without forcing coherence.
Next, shift your attention forward.
Consider the forms of knowledge you are currently drawn toward—ideas, practices, or perspectives that feel newly resonant. Ask yourself, without judgment:
What preparation made this knowledge legible to me now?
What earlier experiences—especially those marked by friction or disappointment—may have refined my capacity to receive it?
Rest with this insight for a few breaths.
Finally, widen the frame.
Reflect on the possibility that not all knowledge is meant for immediate application or universal dissemination. Some insights are formed as offerings—packets prepared for those who will encounter them at the right moment, including future versions of yourself.
To close, consider quietly:
What am I currently preparing, even if no audience is yet visible?
What work am I willing to do for the long term, without guarantee of recognition?
When ready, return gently to the room, carrying with you whatever sense of clarity or patience has emerged.
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About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development. He also serves as Host of the On Transcendence Podcast.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.