Mariam Daudi came to the US at the age of five with her family as a refugee of war from Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war. After living in Pakistan for two years they received asylum in the US and moved to Kansas City, Kansas. Two years later they settled down in Upland, a suburb of Los Angeles, where Mariam’s father worked as a small business owner.
At the 2008 MIU graduation
Mariam studied anthropology at Scripps College in Claremont, California. She attended a Transcendental Meditation introductory lecture while in college — but didn’t begin practicing it until later, when she needed help coping with the stress of the business world.
A few months after learning the TM technique she attended a Visitors Weekend at MIU and decided to enroll. “My undergraduate school was very stressful, so I wanted something different, and I also wanted a graduate degree.”
Mariam chose MIU’s MBA program and graduated in 2008. After working for MIU’s Admissions Department and a couple of Fairfield businesses, she became project manager at the Maharishi Foundation. Eighteen months later she attended the Transcendental Mediation Teacher Training Course and, since February 2014, has been teaching the TM program at the Madison Avenue Transcendental Meditation Center in Manhattan.
“Of all the jobs I have had in the past, after about six months I felt I more or less mastered them,” said Mariam. “I find teaching the TM technique rewarding because it’s challenging. There are so many layers to it.”
At the 2006 TM-Sidhi program graduation ceremony at MIU
Mariam found that her MBA degree helps her run a Transcendental Meditation Center. She enjoys making business reports that help her and her colleagues see the big picture, and she tracks lecture attendance and learning rates on an ongoing basis.
“One important thing I learned in the MBA program is that the way a business becomes self-referral is through statistics, through numbers,” said Mariam. “That’s what I brought to the Center. We need to track the numbers and see how our actions influence the outcomes. When you put your attention on numbers, they grow.”
As the only Afghan teacher in the world, Mariam hopes to teach the Transcendental Mediation program in Afghanistan some day and inspire others in the country to become teachers as well.
