A Well-Loved Meditator Explains How the World Can Enjoy Peace In 18 Words
There’s a bunch of scientific evidence that supports his claim too
I don’t think I’ve written anything more urgent.
Sweden, Australia, and the UK are considering conscription for the first time since WWII, tensions continue to rise between the US, China, Russia, Iran, and all of their affiliated countries, and the terrifying use of nuclear weapons gets thrown around in political circles as if it’s a feature on a child’s playstation game.
It’s scary, and in my opinion, completely unnecessary.
Luckily, the solution is simple, and it’s thanks to an Indian sage called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
In the 1960’s, he initiated a movement that turned out to be one of the most iconic social experiments of all time.
After years of meditating at his ashram, he predicted that if just one percent of a population practised group meditation, they could produce measurable improvements to the quality of life for the people in their surrounding area. He then boldly suggested that the ripple effects of this could be felt as far as the city’s edge and beyond.
Being a man that was true to his word, he put his theory to the test by bringing his community together and trailing its effectiveness. People in the surrounding area didn’t exactly know what was going on around them but that night their city’s crime rates dropped by 16%!
As you can imagine, the small group of meditators who participated in the experiment were thrilled after hearing the news. So, they continued to meditate like this in the months that followed. As time went on, they repeatedly provedMaharishi Mahesh Yogi’s theory correct which confirmed it wasn’t a one-off or a fluke and that was key for its credibility.
Ever since then, it’s been named the Maharishi Effect to honour the great man’s work.
“If world peace is to be established, peace in the individual must be established first.” — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
That’s because, first, each meditator must regulate their own nervous system, come into a state of coherence, and connect to a higher vibrational energy within themselves before radiating it out. Once it’s strong enough inside it naturally wants to overflow.
If this all sounds a little too far-fetched or hippyfied, over the last 50 years, there has been a number of scientific papers that prove it’s legitimacy.
The Most Recent Is Perhaps the Most Important
The Maharishi Effect affects the brain in very specific ways and recently a public demonstration was performed to show it happening in real time.
It was led by Fred Travis, the Director of the MIU Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition and it was held on January 11 in Hyderabad, India.
The assembly was held at the Kanha Shanti Bhavan complex — the world’s largest meditation hall and the headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute — where 10,000 people gathered from 139 countries.
The demonstration began with a TM (Transcendental Meditation) meditator sitting on stage in front of 10,000 participants. Attached to her head was a cluster of electrodes connected to a computer that was monitoring her brainwave activity. Her brainwave activity in turn was displayed on two big screens in the meditation hall for everyone to see.
As she looked out at the audience, Dr. Travis pointed to the lines of brainwaves seen on the displays — mostly fast beta (20 cycle/sec) brain waves that are common in every day life.
Then he asked her to begin practicing Transcendental Meditation.
Because she was so experienced, almost immediately, her brainwaves changed to more rhythmical alpha brain waves (8–10 cycles/sec).
He then told the audience:
“In the ancient Yogic texts this is called samadhi. You see a quick onset of activity in the alpha frequency band, about 8–10 cycles per second, indicating a state of deeply restful alertness — the body is rested while the mind is fully alert.”
High brainwave coherence is correlated with high levels of intelligence, creativity, self-esteem, emotional stability, self-awareness, moral maturity, ideal social behaviour, and learning ability, along with faster reaction time, reversal of ageing, and more frequent experiences of transcending.
Next, Dr. Travis asked her to close her eyes again before silently gesturing for the thousands of other meditators in the audience to also begin TM.
Over the next two minutes, group coherence massively improved, meaning that everyone felt more connected to everyone else.
Once the meditation came to a close, he explained why:
“Both the subject and the audience were contacting the same underlying, inner field of pure consciousness, enlivening it for each other and leading to deeper experiences.
This is how it works. We do not live in isolation. We are embedded in the world around us and we affect our world with every action. Action from pure consciousness has the largest effect. A large group of TM experts meditating together in one place radiate a powerful influence of coherence into their environment. This might change how the brain functions in people throughout the surrounding society.”
As I mentioned before, evidence for the Maharishi Effect has been piling up for the past 50 years.
In the Lebanon peace project, for example, a group of meditators gathered in Jerusalem in August and September of 1983 to demonstrate the power of “radiating peace.”
The results from that two-month study show that on days when there was a high participation of meditators, a 76% reduction rate occurred in war deaths in both Israel and Lebanon. Crime rates and fires also dropped, as did traffic accidents and terrorist attacks. As a result, their economy grew.
The results were then replicated in seven consecutive experiments over the next two years at the peak of the Lebanon war and they all produced similarly impressive results.
“All of this was achieved simply by combining people’s intention for peace and coherence with the elevated emotions of love and compassion.” — Dr. Joe Dispenza
Back in India, another three-year study ran from 1987–1990. This time 7,000 people got together and focused on world peace. During that time, either by coincidence or with a loving nudge from a few kind hearts, the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall came down, the Iran-Iraq war came to an end, South Africa began to move toward abolishing apartheid, and terrorist attacks subsided.
When the United States got on board in 2007–2010, a group of meditators in Fairfield, Iowa recorded a 21.2% reduction rate in national homicide, with a larger group of 206 US urban areas finding an even greater decrease of 28.4% in murder rates. The total number of participants taking part in those trials represented the square root of 1% of the entire U.S. population at the time which further added more weight to Maharishi’s theory.
“In view of the recent increases in murder rates in large US cities, the results of this prospective social experiment should be of particular interest to government policy-makers seeking an effective method of reducing urban violence.” — Dr. Kenneth Cavanaugh
Dr. Michael Dillbeck stressed another important point: “This study suggests that one’s individual consciousness is directly connected to an underlying, universal field of consciousness, and that by collectively enlivening that universal field through meditation, such a group can have a positive effect on the quality of life in society.”
As Much As It’s Mystical, It’s Also Scientific
A big question may still remain: What, exactly, changes in the brains of people in surrounding areas, who are not meditating, that causes them to behave more positively?
MIU researchers Ken Cavanaugh, Ken Walton, and Nirmal Pugh attempted to find out the answers to that question and it might be more scientific than you think.
To get an accurate read on what was going on, they measured serotonin and cortisol levels in residents in Fairfield, Iowa who were not meditating over 77 consecutive days. These included clerical and factory workers, among others.
Serotonin is known as the “rest and repair” hormone, and high levels of serotonin are associated with satisfaction and well-being. Cortisol, on the other hand, is better known as the “stress hormone,” and high levels of cortisol are associated with inflammation and stress.
The test results showed an unusual pattern. To put it simply, when more people came together to meditate on peace, the serotonin levels of people in Fairfield increased and their cortisol levels decreased — suggesting that the subjects’ sense of well-being went up and stress went down. When the group size decreased, these same people’s serotonin levels decreased and their cortisol levels increased — suggesting their well-being went down and stress went up.
So, this isn’t about preventing crimes per se, it’s about creating a better living environment that makes them less likely to occur. If enough people practice this around the world, the world experiences more peace and harmony as a result.
Not everyone in society needs to meditate to create a society-wide effect.
Dr. Travis’s demonstration is the latest in a long line of case studies that build upon Maharishi’s and each one shows that in the presence of a large meditation group, a subject’s brain functioning becomes more coherent.
But not everyone in society needs to meditate to create a big impact. It has now been proven that just 1% of a population is enough.
Studies also show that this correlates with lower anxiety levels, greater emotional stability, greater self-esteem, increased creativity, increased intelligence, increased moral maturity, more ideal social behaviour, and so much more.
So, don’t underestimate your input or deny yourself the benefits here.
“This is not just talk about peace. It’s not just diplomacy or some collective desire for peace. This is directly creating peace from the deepest level of life to reduce collective stress throughout a city, a state, a country, and even the entire world.” — Dr. Travis
Closing Thoughts
There’s a famous saying that goes, “You can’t change the world by changing the world, you can only change it by changing yourself.”
At times, I wish I could speak to world leaders and guide them through a breathwork journey, or give them some psychedelic mushrooms. If that didn’t work, I’d like to take them to India to partake in one of these transcendental meditation techniques so they can feel more connected to humanity and the planet.
However, unless I become as successful as J.K. Rowling, this is probably unrealistic.
The only thing I can do is create more peace and love in my heart and trust that love will take care of the rest.
Are you willing to join me?
“If there is to be peace in the world,
there must be peace in the nations.If there is to be peace in the nations,
there must be peace in the cities.If there is to be peace in the cities,
there must be peace between neighbours.If there is to be peace between neighbours,
there must be peace in the home.If there is to be peace in the home,
there must be peace in the heart.”— Lao Tzu
Inspiration for article came from Maharishi International University and the Global Peace Initiative Project.
If you want to learn more about either, click on the links above.
Dear Andy Murphy, tho I have not the time to thank you properly, I shall send my best wishes to you as positive vibrations.
Please know that your work is appreciated & important.