Philip F. Tomlinson Jr.

I’m a seeker, a meditator, a teacher, a scientist and a survivor. A boomer born in 1947, I grew up in West Haven, Connecticut. I attended Notre Dame High School and received a BS from Fairfield University. For a couple of years I worked as a lab and field technician at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1974 I received an MS in plant physiology with a minor in toxicology from North Carolina State University. In 1985 and 1994 I received an MBA and a PhD in physiology and molecular and cell biology from Maharishi University of Management.

​

My dad’s Tomlinson family has roots in Derbyshire, England, with a pilgrim lineage and Congregational beliefs and practices. Dad shared with me a great love of nature. My mom’s Catholic grandparents immigrated from Italy. Her father was a free thinking, self-made dentist who lost a small fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. When they got married, dad promised mom that the kids would grow up Catholic. Mom instilled in me a deep love of prayer, the Blessed Mother, ritual, biology, and discipline for which I am grateful.

​

My college years at Fairfield University in the late sixties were tumultuous. No longer an A- student, I was struggling in pre-med, determined to lessen human suffering. I studied philosophy and theology with the Jesuit professors while surrounded by fellow students who questioned everything. We marched and held ‘sit ins’ and ‘be ins,’ managing to escape the violence that ravaged other campuses by affirming our values of non-violence, love and brotherhood. I wasn’t recommended for medical school and took a summer job that was extended to become two productive years as a technician in the Department of Ecology at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. The people I worked with were some of the finest in their fields. My immediate supervisor, Dr. Neil C. Turner, is a highly regarded scientist and a great man. His seamless integration of scientific pursuit, social ethics, religious beliefs, and core values taught me many lessons. Every person at the experiment station encouraged me, whether I was in the field or in the office. My social life and religious activities changed as well. I developed close friendships with students at Southern Connecticut State College (now Southern Connecticut State University), Maryknoll seminarians and novices in Ossining, New York, and Catholic leaders in the Diocese of Hartford. Church liturgies, changed by Vatican II, began to incorporate contemporary themes and popular music styles. Seeing God in others became the theme of our retreats and services.

​

After two years at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, I was accepted to graduate school in the Department of Botany at North Carolina State University. I entered the toxicology program. My advisor, Dr. Donald E. Moreland, was the chief scientist of the Agricultural Research Service in the Southeast. A world authority on the mechanisms of actions of herbicides, he was also a colonel in the US Army. I respected him but had a difficult time. I had strong emotional attachments to what I felt to be home in Connecticut and found studies challenging. I settled into another difficult, lonely time of academic pursuit, earning an MS in plant physiology with a minor in toxicology. I preserved my sanity by joining the Catholic Student Organization and became its president. Practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi helped me survive the rigors of study. I decided I didn’t want to study the mechanisms of actions of herbicides and to be groomed to develop pesticides at Dow, DuPont or Monsanto Corporations. After earning the masters degree, I returned to Connecticut. Meditation helped me struggle through a sad breakup with a woman in West Haven.

 

I heard of recently founded Maharishi International University, applied for a faculty position and was accepted as an Instructor of Biology. I dove in, developing curricula, running lab classes, tutoring and thriving. After nine years I chose to become a member of a group of men who devote their lives to the development of consciousness and creation of a better world through the knowledge and programs brought from India to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I traveled with the “Maharishi Purusha Program” (Purusha.org) in the United States and Europe and spent about 6 months in both India and the Philippines. In time I became an exponent of Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture. Maharishi once told me, “You have that voice.” He asked me if I’d ever done any public speaking and recommended that I record all of the titles and introductions to his videotapes.

 

Throughout my life, health challenges prompted me to have a number of surgical operations. An automobile accident in 1976 flattened me under a car until I managed to lift the car just enough to breathe. In 1997 my polycystic kidneys failed. I moved to Greenfield, Massachusetts to receive dialysis and received a cadaveric kidney transplant in June 2000. I’m still looking after my health and continuing the process of integrating academic and non-academic worlds. I enjoy Transcendental Meditation, reading, writing, walking, volunteering, friendships, and my Native American flute and hand drum.