An Intriguing Question Asked by People Who Study the Heart
"Do We Have An Energetic Responsibility?" Let's look into what they have found
As the planet intensifies, there seems to be more incoherence and chaos while old systems break down. Emotional reactivity and separation are amplified through disinformation campaigns, political maneuvering, and authoritarianism trying to hold onto old paradigms.
This is causing enormous pain and grief but similarly, it’s helping people to look into their hearts and see what’s true.
More and more people, including myself, are looking toward themselves for direction because nothing else seems to be working. I’m yearning for leaders who have integrity and compassion but I know that starts from within.
“Don’t underestimate the power of compassion just because you can’t see its nonlinear effects and benefits. There are many ways that compassion is beneficial, which will become more apparent through the awakening of our individual and collective heart intelligence. The planet, at this point, needs more heart intelligence to shift from the old paradigms of separation to cooperation. Increasing our love, kindness and compassion for each other is the straightest line to activating the power of our heart intelligence to bring humanity into cooperation and peaceful interactions. This will unfold the formula for fulfillment.” - The Heart Math Institute
So, do we have an energetic responsibility to bring more love and compassion into the world?
In short, the answer is: only if you want to.
One man who took this further than most was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In the 1960s, he initiated an experiment that turned out to be one of the most uncanny 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 of his word, he put his theory to the test and brought his community together to trial its effectiveness. People in the surrounding area didn’t exactly know that people were meditating on bringing peace to the land 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, buoyed by their efforts, they continued to gather and meditate like this in the months that followed. As time went on, they repeatedly proved Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s theory correct which showed the world that it wasn’t a one-off or a fluke and that was key for its credibility.
As word began to spread around the world, their achievements were well received and even revered by all those who heard them. However, it took another 56 years for groups outside of India to start trialling similar experiments in their own home countries. When they did, however, equally impressive results started to mount up, noticeably those found in the US.
One study from 2007–2010 stands out, in particular. During that four-year period, the size of the group meditating in Fairfield, Iowa where the experiments took place, recorded that a 21.2% reduction rate occurred in the 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 was 1,725 people which represented the square root of 1% of the entire US population at the time. This further added more weight to Maharishi’s theory.
“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” — Dr. Michael Dillbeck
To contextualise this in destinations around the world, 1% of Tokyo’s 13.96 million population is 139,600, 1% of Sao Paolo’s 12.33 million population is 123,300, 1% of Bangkok’s 10.7 million population is 107,000, 1% of Nairobi’s 4.4 million population is 44,000, and 1% of New York City’s 8.8 million population is 88,000.
That’s 12,000 people less than what squeeze in to watch the super bowl final every year!
Can you imagine if each city had its own equivalently sized stadium of people all vying for the same unified goal of peace or joy? What might our world look like if this was the case? It’s an intoxicating thought!
On A Smaller Scale
Since 2010, other smaller yet equally important studies have been carried out. One, in particular, brought four people together around a dining table with the goal of seeing if three out of the four were in harmony with one another whether the fourth would naturally synchronise with them. Now, I wouldn’t be writing this unless it happened so that’s exactly what did.
Although it’s not as blockbuster-esque as dropping crime rates across major cities, what this small scale study shows us is that it doesn’t seem to matter how big or small these trials go because there’s always a collective field that’s bigger than each individual, whether we’re aware of it or not.
The power of mob mentality and group prayer are great examples of this. They are at the opposite ends of the spectrum, of course, but they do show how a collective consciousness often overrides that of an individual.
People can do unthinkably cruel things in a group, for example, that they would never do on their own because the surrounding field governing their heart space is strong enough to influence them in unusual ways. History provides countless examples of this in things like sporting events, mass lootings, and political rallies, let alone war and genocide regimes.
On the other end, however, people have performed miracles by healing loved ones from afar and dropping crime rates across major cities by channelling the same group energy but through collective prayer and meditation.
Breathing in a group can produce similar results. Here is what Niraj Naik - founder of Soma Breath - had to say about it: “When you breathe in a rhythm as a group you actually create this constructive interference. So, if you imagine (if you know a little bit about physics), when two waveforms collide, they create a positive interference and make a big waveform. The same thing happens when you breathe in a rhythm. You create this collective coherence because all the waveforms produce electromagnetic waves that combine to create a bigger frequency of energy which amplifies the energy. And that, then, vibrationally has a butterfly effect.”
This is more broadly known as heart coherence and it affects the collective as much as it does each individual.
To get a visual on this, take a moment to view the chart below. As you do, notice the different shapes and sizes of HRV (heart rate variability) as well as the number of seconds it takes to move between them.
As you can see there are some visible differences. Firstly, incoherent heart rhythms are spiky and inconsistent whereas coherent ones are smooth and regular. The importance of this is that spiky, incoherent heartbeats create more erratic, incoherent thoughts which then trigger more incoherent emotions such as anger, sadness, jealousy, and fear. Fortunately, the opposite is true and it’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was able to demonstrate. A coherent heart creates coherent thoughts which create coherent emotions such as joy, gratitude, compassion, peace, and love. The saying ‘we’re just on different wavelengths’ has perhaps never been more accurate here.
The good news is that it really doesn’t take long to get into a state of coherence. Sometimes only a few breaths are all it takes. This can then begin to change not only our own body’s biology and chemistry but the field around it. And the longer we can stay in a state of coherence, the quicker our cells, heart, brain, and organs can communicate as one unified organism. As one unified organism, a deeper sense of peace, health, healing, connection, and love can be felt as a result. Beautiful ripples (or waves) then start to radiate out from the heart as it signals to every cell in the body to also become coherent.
These waves move both vertically (up and down the body) and horizontally (out from the body), meaning that not only are heart coherent waves healing for the person who is experiencing them but they are also healing for anyone within that energetic heart space.
The Heart Math Institute has measured this to be as far as 10ft outside of the body! That explains how energy amplifies when people come together with a common vision, whether for better or worse.
Other benefits of heart coherence include:
Decreases stress
Boosts energy levels
Creates balance and clarity
Boosts productivity
Enhances creativity
Builds emotional resilience
Creates less emotional reactivity
Builds compassion, empathy, and understanding
Improves physical health
Creates better circulation & blood flow
Improves overall heart health
Soothes anxiety and depression
Aids digestion
Boosts the immune system
Closing thoughts
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his community were able to prove that by meditating together we grow stronger in numbers. And many more studies have proved it since. So, even though we are living very personal, independent lives and making very personal, independent decisions we are also influenced by something bigger. And as much as our nervous system, heart, and brain have an intelligence of their own, there’s a collective nervous system, heart, and brain that has a bigger intelligence because it’s created by all of us all of the time.
I know it might seem insignificant, but what our hearts broadcast from moment to moment shapes the world around us because it sets off an energetic exchange that acts a bit like a pinball machine. So, as each message pings from heart to heart, energetic information passes from one person to the next. So much so that in a very short space of time, homes, villages, towns, cities, countries, and even continents can hear the message of one heart through their own. This can then shape and direct people’s movements in subtle and gross ways often without anyone knowing how or why.
We can’t control what other people broadcast but we can control our own. And more importantly, we can elevate the collective field around us if our own heart space radiates strongly enough. That’s the invitation here. It’s to change the world from the inside out, for ourselves, and for the greater good of humanity.
That was Maharishi Yogi’s vision after all, and it proved to be possible. The only decision we face now is whether we want to participate in it further or not?
“If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito” – Dalai Lama
Breathing Exercise
Let’s bring it all together by breathing a few coherent breaths.
Breathe in through your nose (smoothly and without force) for 4 seconds
Breathe out through your nose or mouth (smoothly and without force) for 4 seconds
Leave no pause at the top of the inhale or at the bottom of the exhale
Continue up to 5 minutes or 40 breaths - this is enough to get into a state of heart coherence
Finish by holding your breath in for as long as comfortable
Return to normal breathing
Photo credit: Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels