Press release summarising Maharishi's message during his global press conference on Wednesday 7 August 2002
8 August 2002
GLOBAL COUNTRY OF WORLD PEACE
Station 24, 6063 NP Meru, The Netherlands
European press office, tel: +31-475-539-569
Email: PressOffice@Maharishi.Net
UK press office, tel: 01622 815380
- Report on Maharishi's global press conference, 7 August 2002 -
MAHARISHI OFFERS POTENT SOLUTION TO GLOBAL VIOLENCE:
GROUPS OF COHERENCE-CREATING YOGIC FLYERS IN 3,000 CITIES,
INCLUDING 51 IN THE UK
Says that 10% of his target to create world peace has been achieved
Declares that education should teach students about the
unbounded potential of life and develop total brain functioning
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has delivered a forceful, compelling
message to the world press that the crisis of violence - which could engulf
the globe at any moment - will never be resolved through police or military
might, or through peace talks. The only solution is to eliminate the cause
of violence, which is the acute stress gripping individuals and the whole
world. And that, Maharishi said, can be easily accomplished by creating
groups of people practising his peace-promoting Transcendental Meditation
and Yogic Flying in cities around the globe.
Maharishi addressed an attentive audience. He was speaking to press who
regularly cover violence in their own countries, including reporters from
Israel, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and India.
Maharishi's message came during his eighth consecutive weekly global news
conference. Scores of reporters participated via satellite, Internet
webcast, and teleconference call. A network of local news conferences was
also held simultaneously in 41 cities worldwide.
During the 100-minute question-and-answer session, which ranged from
politics and religion to science and education, Maharishi assessed the
impact of his worldwide Transcendental Meditation organisation over the past
50 years in creating a more peaceful world. Citing the end of the Cold War
and the fall of the Berlin Wall as indications of growing global harmony,
Maharishi said that he is now 10% of the way towards achieving his goal. How
quickly the world progresses towards peace will depend upon how quickly
people respond to his message.
Press has a great responsibility
Maharishi clearly enjoyed the news conference and acknowledged the
seriousness of the many questions posed by the press. He also charged the
press with the responsibility of accurately reporting the changing times in
the world - the shift from widespread negativity to signs of rising positivity,
from destruction to dawning peace. "Through the power of your words you
guide the people in their thinking. The press has a big role to play in the
transformation of time-a very great responsibility," Maharishi said.
Individual is the unit of world peace
In his opening remarks, Maharishi pointed to the individual as the key to
creating world peace - and said that all efforts to create peace must start
there. "A stressed individual is the unit of a stressed world," Maharishi said.
"On the other hand, a healthy, fulfilled individual is the unit of a peaceful,
healthy, affluent world. Our programme - Transcendental Meditation, its
advanced techniques, and Yogic Flying - naturally unfolds an individual's
unbounded inner potential and eliminates stress from daily life. This is the
basis for creating a peaceful family of nations."
Two strategies of Maharishi's peace plan
Maharishi then outlined the two strategies of his global efforts to create
world peace: (1) teaching his Transcendental Meditation to students in
schools to develop their total brain functioning, and
(2) establishing groups of people in every country and every major city to
collectively practice his Vedic technologies of consciousness.
"Our objective is to create in each of the world's largest 3,000 cities a
group of 100-200 Yogic Flyers - and to establish one large group of 40,000
experts in India, which will serve as a powerful torchlight of positivity
for the whole world consciousness," Maharishi said. "Creating coherence is
the only way to remedy the world's problems."
Deepest level of Nature's functioning
Maharishi explained how the groups will generate peace. "They will enliven
the deepest level of Nature's functioning, the Unified Field of Natural
Law - the Will of God - which administers the ever-expanding universe without a
problem. Through their daily performances, these groups will create
indomitable coherence in world consciousness, eliminating acute social
stress - which fuels violence and conflict - and promoting peace and harmony in
the family of nations."
Maharishi said that not everyone in the world has to participate to create
world peace. "Research shows that just a few people are needed to create
peace. They will dive deep within themselves and explore their own unbounded
'Atma', the Self. As a by-product of this blissful experience, they will
create a stress-free, problem-free nation. Their influence on the
environment will be as concrete as turning on a bright light in a dark
room," Maharishi said. "Problems in the country will simply disappear, just
as darkness disappears with the onset of light."
Total brain functioning
Maharishi identified the source of the acute stress rising in the world to
be inadequate education in every country. "Education today does not provide
students with the experience of Transcendental Consciousness - the fourth
major state of human consciousness - and therefore does not develop total
brain functioning in the student." And a partially functioning brain,
Maharishi added, leads to narrow thinking, an unfulfilling life, and
stressed, violent behaviour.
"Study of the physical sciences - physics, chemistry, biology - does not touch
the field of consciousness," Maharishi said. "Education must be updated to
become Consciousness-Based Education, which provides both the experience and
the knowledge of consciousness. This will create ideal citizens who will
spontaneously think and act according to the evolutionary power of Natural
Law. They won't make mistakes - they won't create problems for themselves and
for society."
Maharishi said that when students in schools collectively practise these
Vedic technologies of consciousness, "they will generate such a thick
influence of coherence in national consciousness that the government will
only administer rightly. Nothing will go wrong - there will be no crime, so
the government will not be forced to punish anyone," Maharishi said.
Government of Natural Law
Maharishi emphasised that the success of his programme does not depend upon
the participation of any government. "Coherence can be generated
irrespective of the government - this is a great finding. Each group will
bring support of Natural Law to their nation. In this way we will create a
second, prevention-oriented Government of Natural Law that will complement
the current national government. This will raise the country's man-made
constitution, with its inherent human weaknesses and failings, to the level
of the God-made constitution that administers the infinite diversity of the
universe with perfect order," Maharishi said. "This is our formula to create
Heaven on Earth."
ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAHARISHI'S NEWS CONFERENCE
On the military:
"I would like to see every country without a military. Period.
This is because the military is not competent to defend the country
against an enemy that cannot be seen, or against a missile that can come and
put the whole society to ashes. The military is only competent to die and
kill. And both are a sin: getting oneself killed is a sin, and killing
another is a sin. It's a very ignorant approach to defenso. Prevention is
the only way to defend the nation, and the only effective prevention is
Vedic defence, which prevents the birth of an enemy."
On selling arms:
"The goal of warmonger nations like the US, Britain, and
Germany is to create and maintain fear in the world and sell their arms.
This is what is happening in Israel, in Northern Ireland, everywhere. Unless
world consciousness rises in coherence, all this destruction will just
continue. Selling arms is a shameful profession. Arms dealers tell defence
ministers: 'Your neighbour has this new fighter plane and that new missile,
so you must have them, too, or your security will be jeopardised.' Even poor
countries go deeply in debt purchasing these weapons. It's shameful for
arms-sellers to live on the killing of others."
On peaceful coexistence:
"What matters to the world is the peaceful coexistence of all nations,
and we are going to create that through our friendship with Natural Law,
the Will of God. There is a God for America; there is a God for the
Middle East; there is a God for China; there is a God for every country -
and fortunately it came out to be the same one God for all
of them. That is our strength."
On why there is violence in the schools:
"It depends on how a child is educated. Conflict and cruelty are the result
of an undeveloped intelligence and mind. If the children are not properly
educated, if they have not developed their full brain potential, then their wild
growth will eat up the nation and themselves. That has been the situation in
America for a long time."
On what students should know:
"That life is bliss. That they are born to rule the world, to have the light
of God awake within them, and to be capable of fulfilling their desires.
Let this education - this Vedic education - be given to the children, and
the whole population will rise in the supreme dignity of life, which is
urgently needed to ensure the safety and growth of the individual and of
the nation."
On the wisdom of the gardener:
"When the gardener sees the leaves withering,
he pours a bucket of water at the root. He handles the root, because it's
not possible to handle all the thousands of leaves. All problems can be
solved by handling one's own consciousness, one's own mind. Transcendental
Meditation handles the mind very beautifully. The world will be a better
world when the individual-the unit of world peace-is properly educated. We
are going to create world peace. We will produce peace through these
coherence-creating groups-not by talking about it."
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Maharishi's next global news conference
Wednesday, 14 August 2002
4.00 p.m. BST (British Summer Time)
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