Vedic Technology for World Peace

Beyond Boundaries:
Maharishi's Vedic Technology for World Peace
by Dr. John and Vicki. Peterson

Ordinary human experience is caught up in the pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, light and dark, good and evil. As long as there is duality there is fear. In pure consciousness the three parts of ordinary experience - the knower, the known and the process of knowing - are unified into one field of pure knowingness. In this state there is no fear, only bliss. This is the foundation of individual and world peace.

In 1974 sociologists discovered the "Maharishi Effect" through scientific studies which showed that when 1% of a city's population practiced the Transcendental Meditation® technique, the crime, hospitalization and accident rates of that city dropped. The best explanation for this effect is that consciousness is a field. A field is the way a physicist explains action at a distance (like turning on your cell phone and talking to someone in another state). Physicists describe four major force and matter fields: electromagnetic, strong and weak forces within the atom and gravity. As physicists probe deeply into nature, they see that these four forces are actually expressions of an underlying Unified Field. The founder of the TM® program, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, equates the Unified Field with Pure Consciousness, the simplest form of human awareness.

In 1975 Maharishi introduced the TM-Siddhi program, based on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. This program trains the practitioner to think and act from the level of the Unified Field, in accord with natural law, thereby enhancing the coordination between mind and body and the ability to fulfill his desires.

One of the best know of the Yoga Sutras is the "flying" sutra. When the body lifts off the ground during Yogic Flying there is an increase in brain wave coherence across the whole spectrum of EEG frequencies. This quantum leap of brain wave coherence is the explanation for Yogic Flying's more powerful coherence-creating effect on group consciousness.

In quantum physics the influence of a small group of coherent elements on the coherence of a larger group is related mathematically to the square root of the total elements of a group. Since the Maharishi effect was observed with just 1% of a city practicing the TM technique in their own homes, Maharishi predicted that the same effect on society could be produced by having merely the square root of 1% of the population practicing Yogic Flying together in the same place.

Scientific studies have verified that the square root of 1% of a particular population practicing Yogic Flying together reduces the violent crime rate, accident rate, hospitalization rate and other negative trends in that population, including dips in the stock market. This powerful phenomenon is called "superradiance" and is verified by more than 50 published research studies from different parts of the world. Here at last is an ancient technology of silence that can reduce societal stress and produce world peace. (For a review of published research on the group effects of consciousness, please see
www.mum.edu/m_effect.)

Throughout the ages positive thoughts, intentions, prayers, conflict resolution, "crisis management," verbal persuasion, negotiation and peace treaties have not ended the cycle of violence. These are all based on the surface level of life. The peaceful influence of superradiance comes from the Unified Field, which is infinitely more powerful than the atomic level of life.

Retaliation and violence do not eradicate terrorism and crime. Violent criminals do not seem to change their behavior based on fear of punishment. If innocent lives are lost while we attempt to hunt down and kill the terrorists, then we have committed "sin" by any religious definition. Pursuing the policy of "an eye for an eye" only leads to blindness.

The square root of 1% of the U.S. population is 1,700 people. During the 1980s and the early '90s Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, easily maintained that number of Yogic Flyers in the Golden Domes, built on its campus for that purpose. But demographics have shifted and the numbers have been down around 1,200 for the last few years.

Five days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Yogic Flyers from the United States and Canada quickly gathered in Fairfield to increase the numbers. The contrast between the mood in the world and the mood inside the Domes was startling. Outside, fear, anger and sorrow overlaid the shock. Inside the Dome, silence and peace reigned, rippling with gentle waves of bliss.

On September 23, Maharishi proposed the establishment of a $1 billion endowment fund from which the interest would be used to support a permanent group of 40,000 Vedic pundits who are also Yogic Flyers. For less than the cost of a single B2 bomber, the roots of war, terrorism and crime might be eradicated from the world forever.

The "Meisner effect" is a parallel of invincibility from the physical world. Some metals become superconductors at Absolute Zero when entropy ceases and their molecules become completely coherent. An outside influence, such as a magnetic field, cannot penetrate the coherence of the superconductor. Similarly, a nation becomes invincible only when the coherence of collective consciousness repels any negative influence from the outside, thus disallowing the birth of an enemy and "averting the danger that has not yet come: Heyam dhukam anagatam."

Dr. John is a board certified family practice physician who maintains a separate Maharishi Ayur-Veda practice two mornings a week in Muncie. For more information, call 765/286-5087. The Maharishi Ayur-Veda Self Pulse Diagnosis course is availabel periodically through Maharishi Vedic University in Indianapolis, 317/923-2873.

Branches November/December 2001, p.21