Close Your Eyes And Create World Peace
BY LINDA EGENES & CRAIG PEARSON, PHD. Executive Vice-President, Maharishi University of Management, Author of The Complete Book of Yogic Flying and The Supreme Awakening April 14, 2014
Today, the Transcendental Meditation technique is widely accepted as an exceptionally effective way to reduce stress and anxiety, gain inner calm and clarity, and improve health and brain function. Remarkable as these benefits are, there is another benefit that comes as a spontaneous by-product of Transcendental Meditation practice—a healthier, happier, safer, and more peaceful world.
How is this possible?
You might first think that, sure, if we can get everyone in the world to meditate, then we’d begin to see a world like this—but getting everyone in the world to meditate could take generations. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut.
The 1% Formula
In the early 1960s, Maharishi predicted that if just 1% of the world’s population practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique, this would be sufficient to create increasing peace for everyone. Maharishi’s prediction was confirmed in the early 1970s.
By 1973, the number of people who had learned the Transcendental Meditation technique had reached 1% of the population in a number of US cities. Studies found that as soon as these cities reached the 1% threshold, crime trends decreased significantly—while in matched control cities, crime continued climbing. The decline could not be attributed to other factors known to influence crime rate. Another study found drops in automobile accidents and suicides.
rime, accidents, and suicides are all expressions of social disorder. So when all of these variables drop simultaneously, we are seeing an underlying effect of increased orderliness in society. Indices of economic health and growth also improved.
These were astonishing findings. In cities around the United States, a few hundred people meditating twice daily in their homes were reducing crime and improving quality of life city-wide, without even knowing it. Scientists named this phenomenon the Maharishi Effect.
Coherence Is More Powerful Than Incoherence
When we practice the Transcendental Meditation technique, our brain functioning becomes markedly more orderly, more integrated and coherent. This increased coherence in brain functioning radiates into the environment around us. The result: People around us behave in more orderly, life-nourishing ways.
The principle at work here is that coherence is stronger than incoherence. We see this phenomenon in nature. In your heart, a small number of cells, called pacemaker cells, induce the whole heart to function in an orderly way. In an iron bar, when the spins of a small percentage of the electrons become aligned, all other electrons come into alignment, creating a magnet. In ordinary light, if just a small number of the photons, approximately the square root of the total, are stimulated to move in phase with one another, then a new type of collective behavior emerges—laser light, with all its extraordinary properties.
In other words, when just a small percentage of the elements in a physical system begin to function coherently, the whole system undergoes a dramatic shift toward more coherent functioning. And now we see this same phenomenon at work in human society.
Suppose you live in a city of 100,000 people—like South Bend, Indiana, or Erie, Pennsylvania. According to the 1% formula, all these cities need is 1% of their populations—just 1,000 people—to be practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique for the city to experience reduced crime, accident, and suicide rates. These cities could achieve this number if all the students in a few schools or all the employees in a few businesses would learn the Transcendental Meditation technique. The schools and businesses would be transformed, and they would lift up the whole city as a spontaneous byproduct.
But even with this, there’s another shortcut.
The Square Root of 1% Formula
In the late 1970s, Maharishi brought out an advanced meditation program that he said would accelerate the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique. He called it the TM-Sidhi program. This program consists of a set of procedures that are every bit as simple, natural, and effortless as the Transcendental Meditation program.
How does this powerful advanced program work?
The Transcendental Meditation technique enables the mind to settle inward, beyond thoughts and perceptions. This process culminates in the experience of pure consciousness—the field of pure awareness at the source of thought, an infinite reservoir of creativity and intelligence. The TM-Sidhi program trains the mind to think and act from this powerful level. This gives us the ability to fulfill our desires with greater ease.
One of the procedures of the TM-Sidhi program is called Yogic Flying. Studies of brain functioning have found that during practice of this technique, there is a dramatic upsurge of coherence in brain functioning. The effect of this increased coherence is so powerful that Maharishi predicted even a small number of people—the square root of 1% practicing together in one place—could create a measurable effect in the surrounding society.
This means that South Bend and Erie no longer need to find 1,000 students or employees to practice the Transcendental Meditation technique. Now they just need the square root of 1,000—about 33 people—practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi programs, including Yogic Flying, together in one place twice each day. This is a very manageable number.
No Approach to Peace Is More Effective
Over the past 35 years, this approach to peace has been tested all over the world, at every scale of society. “Yogic Flying groups” have been assembled that have been large enough to measurably improve the quality of life for cities, states, whole countries, regional groups of countries, and for the whole world. These groups have assembled in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and the Far East. In many cases, the predicted results were announced publicly in advance of the gathering. And the predicted results have been demonstrated in every case.
Some 50 studies on the Maharishi Effect have been conducted to date. In each of these studies, the evidence consists of open, publicly gathered statistics that anyone can verify. The Maharishi Effect has been confirmed to a degree of certainty unprecedented in the social sciences, and even the physical sciences.
Social science research has shown that war has its origin in rising social tension and stress. If you can reduce collective tension, you can neutralize the possibility of war. This is what the Maharishi Effect does. Assembling a sufficiently large group of Yogic Flyers is like switching on a light for the whole society—the quality of life improves almost immediately.
You Are A Peace Creator
No other approach to peace has ever succeeded in creating permanent peace—not peace treaties, political negotiations, military interventions. This is because we have not addressed the root of the problem. The key to solving social problems is to create coherence in collective consciousness, and this is easily accomplished. We now have a technology not only of enlightenment, but of peace.
Every time you close your eyes to practice Transcendental Meditation, you are helping create coherence and peace in the population around you. If you learn the TM-Sidhi program, including Yogic Flying, you will create an even more powerful effect. If you practice these programs in a large group, the effect becomes incredibly powerful.
Since the late 1970s, there has been a large group of Yogic Flyers in Fairfield, Iowa, at the campus of Maharishi University of Management. This group aims to create coherence for all of North America. The square root of 1% of the population of North America is around 2,000. We have achieved that number on a few occasions, but we need to make it permanent—2,000 people practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs twice a day in the Golden Domes in Fairfield.
We warmly invite you to come and join us. As the scientific research studies abundantly demonstrate, the best thing you can do for yourself is also the best thing you can do for the world.
Just close your eyes—and create world peace.
