Timely solution for peace in the Middle East?
Based on an article in Positive News - a hard-facts environmental publication, looking at stories of increasing harmony and environmental awareness in the world.
Issue 67, Spring 2011
All his life, Einstein searched for proof of one underlying field of creation - a "unified field," more basic and many hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than the nuclear level. Today, scientists around the globe are beginning to believe that such a field indeed exists; and there's growing evidence that a simple technique, Transcendental Meditation, may access this field and harness its power to create peace in the world.
What's more, some military authorities are quietly taking the idea seriously, and have begun applying it for themselves.
Transcendental Meditation might seem a long way from quantum physics. Yet over the past 40 years, physicists have noticed that at quantum levels, the distinction between consciousness and matter seems curiously blurred. Indeed, the architect of quantum theory, Max Planck, declared: "I regard matter as derivative from consciousness."
Wars cost money and lives. Even in the first few days, following the UK’s intervention in Libya, there have been loss of lives - including civilian casualties - and the Government estimates the cost to the defence budget will be £3 million per day for the air campaign.
If the role of the military could be changed to that of a peace keeping force that would be able to avert danger before it arises, there would no longer be the need for costly military action. Paradigm shift though it may be, two countries have already adopted the creation of "prevention wings" in their military, teaching their troops the technique of Transcendental Meditation to calm both domestic and international tensions and render their nation free from enemies.
In the early 1990s President Chissano of Mozambique was keen to end a devastating 16 year civil war. Having found the practice of Transcendental Meditation useful in his own life, he then introduced it to his close family, his cabinet of ministers, his government and then his military. "The result," he claims, "has been political peace".
Also in the 1990's, in Ecuador, Lieutenant General Jose Marti Villamil de la Cadena, Vice-Minister of Defence, instigated "The Coherence Project" in which three thousand officers, cadets and troops were taught Transcendental Meditation, which, he says, prevented the escalation of a conflict, which had broken out with neighbouring Peru.
The principle behind this effect? During Transcendental Meditation one experiences inner peace at the most refined level of awareness, where it radiates to others through the field of collective consciousness – like waves spreading out on a pond. As few as 1% of a population practising Transcendental Meditation, evidence suggests, produces measurable improvements for society. Now 23 studies have found significant drops in crime, terrorist attacks and war-related deaths when large groups practised Transcendental Meditation and its advanced techniques.
In response to research on this "field effect" of consciousness, Raymond Russ PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine, and editor of The Journal of Mind and Behaviour, said the hypothesis raised eyebrows among reviewers, but the statistical work was sound. "This evidence indicates that we now have a new technology to create peace in the world," he concludes.
"Wars begin in the minds of men," declares the United Nations charter. Einstein would surely have been delighted to know that, in the not-too distant future, through a technology of his sought-after unified field, that is also where they may end.
