BONUS — The Greatest Frontier: From Harvard Divinity School to What the World Needs Now

Why the Inner Journey Is the Greatest Frontier in an Age of Division, Precarity, and Emerging AI

In 2017, I was invited to Harvard Divinity School for a panel that brought together voices from across disciplines: professors from Harvard Medical and Divinity Schools, an engineer from the MIT Media Lab, and leaders of local religious communities. As part of the Consciousness Hacking Series at Harvard Divinity School, the evening was framed as less a series of lectures and more a conversation—a dialogue that asked us to reflect not just as specialists in our fields, but as human beings concerned with the future of our society. You may view the segment via YouTube by clicking here.

My contribution was rooted in something deeply personal. I recalled the torrential downpour on the April day in 2008 when I first learned Transcendental Meditation. (It was Friday the 25^th.) That first experience of transcending thought—of encountering the quiet field beneath the mind—left an indelible impression on me. It was not merely a new practice; it was a new way of being.

At HDS, I drew on Rumi’s reminder, translated by Coleman Barks using American Free Verse: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas. Languages. Even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.” I spoke of the mind as a canvas beneath the brushstrokes of thought, always present even when covered with layers of activity. And I ended with Albert Pike’s words: “What we do for ourselves alone dies with us; what we do for others and the world outlives us and is immortal.”

My message was simple: the greatest frontier we face is not the far reaches of space, nor the next technological advance, but the journey within.

The Present Context: 2025

Eight years have passed since that evening, and the world has changed in ways both expected and unimaginable. America, like much of the globe, is living through turbulence. Economic precarity has become the lived reality for millions, as housing insecurity, inflation, and growing inequality erode stability. Political divisions have hardened into fault lines, leaving communities fractured and institutions strained.

And overlaying all of this is the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the specter of artificial general intelligence (AGI). For some, AI represents progress and possibility; for others, it evokes fear and the threat of displacement. The landscape of work is shifting rapidly, with many uncertain about where they will fit into a future shaped by algorithms and automation.

This uncertainty has bred a collective unease. There is a palpable angst—a sense that the world is moving faster than our ability to adapt, and that the ground beneath us is less steady than before. Social trust is fraying, while loneliness, anxiety, and burnout climb ever higher.

Yet for all the novelty of these challenges, they point to something timeless: our difficulty in facing change, our fear of the unknown, and our tendency to search outward for solutions when the deeper work must begin within.

The Inner Frontier

This is why the words I spoke in 2017 still ring true today: the greatest frontier is not technological, but human. It is mind and Pure Consciousness.

Science has mapped the atom, the genome, and the galaxies. We can peer into black holes and split subatomic particles. Yet for all our mastery of the external world, we often struggle to understand the internal landscape—our own thoughts, our own emotions, our own pinch of consciousness. But, there is a way out of this malaise—Meditate.

The practice of Transcendental Meditation is deceptively simple: sitting quietly for twenty minutes, twice a day, allowing the mind to settle into stillness. But its impact is meaningful and lasting. It reveals that beneath the endless activity of thought lies a field of Being—silent, whole, and unchanging. To touch that field is to remember who and what we are at our core.

This is not escapism. It is preparation. Or, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was wont to say, it is “weatherproofing.” For when we return to activity, we carry with us the calm, clarity, and compassion that arise from silent depth. We walk into tense rooms as centers of calm. We engage in difficult conversations with a steadier heart. We meet uncertainty not with panic, but with perspective.

That perspective is born of the pause—cultivated through regular meditation and carried into action. Within that pause lies space, and within that space, answers. The question is whether we choose both to listen to and act on what arises. In so doing, we prepare the ground for outcomes that are more beneficial for all concerned.

My doctoral research, the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress, and the subsequent framework I call the Seven Layers of Manifestation all point to this same truth: inner development is not separate from outer transformation. They are inseparable. Societies rise and fall on the quality of their collective consciousness, just as individuals flourish or falter depending on the clarity of their inner life.

In a time of political fracture, economic instability, and technological upheaval, the journey inward is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity.

Bridging to What the World Needs Now

This is why I believe so deeply in What the World Needs Now: International Meditation Hour. It is more than an event. It is a convening at a moment of global turning.

Just as the Harvard Divinity School panel in 2017 was not simply a collection of talks but a cross-disciplinary conversation, WTWNN is not merely a gathering of meditators but a global dialogue of humanity. It is an opportunity to come together, across differences—whatever they may be—to affirm that the real foundation of change is consciousness itself.

At a time when headlines highlight fear, division, and precarity, WTWNN is an experiment in collective renewal. By learning and sitting together in silence—across time zones, nations, and cultures—we send a simple but powerful message: unity is not theoretical, it is experiential. Beneath our roles, our titles, and our social locations—and yes, even our divisions—we share the same field of Being.

This is not naïve idealism. It is pragmatic hope. To create societies capable of withstanding economic shocks, political storms, and technological revolutions, we must begin with the resilience of human beings. Silence is not withdrawal; it is the seed of renewal. It is a reminder that we cannot solve problems from the same level that created them. We must try another way. Enter this experiment.

WTWNN is a reminder that change begins not in the corridors of power, nor in the latest algorithm, but in the quiet decision of individuals to cultivate peace within themselves and radiate it outward.

Closing Benediction: Choosing the Immortal Work

When I reflect on 2017, I hear Albert Pike’s words, flawed though he was, once more: “What we do for ourselves alone dies with us; what we do for others and the world outlives us and is immortal.”

In a world where so much feels fragile, it is tempting to retreat into self-preservation. Yet the invitation of our time is different. It is to invest in what endures.

To sit in meditation each day is to participate in this immortal work. It is to choose stillness over reactivity, clarity over confusion, compassion over division. And when we choose this together—in synchrony, across the world—we amplify not just our own growth, but the collective capacity of humanity to meet the challenges ahead.

On Wednesday, 1 October 2025 at 1:00 PM ET, What the World Needs Now: International Meditation Hour offers us such a moment. A moment to learn. A moment to sit. A moment to breathe. A moment to remember that the greatest frontier is not “out there,” but within—and that in exploring it, we shape not only our own lives, but the future we leave behind to “the beautiful ones not yet born.”

I invite you to join me, and thousands of others, in this experiment of consciousness. For the journey within is also the journey forward. And what we do together now may indeed outlive us—as a gift to the generations to come.

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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 framework—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society. Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program, where they have taught thousands the art and science of meditation.

Extending this mission globally, he is the Host/Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly worldwide gathering dedicated to experiencing the unifying power of silence in a time of division, precarity, and technological upheaval. An author of several forthcoming works on the future of consciousness in an age shaped by technology, he writes and teaches from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. They are the proud parents of four children. To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.