Peace Process
Chronicle and Echo, Northampton
11 September 2002
Having showed The Beatles and Madonna the path to enlightenment Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is now hoping to bring an end to conflict across the world. With one of his peace palaces planned for the town, we meet the Northamptonshire man who hopes the guru's teachings will bring peace to the world
With direct military action, sanctions and treaties all failing to bring a permanent end to the world's wars it now seems the key to global peace may be all in the mind.
From his home in India, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the spiritual guru with whom the Fab Four famously sought solace, has unveiled his most ambitious plan to date, a network of peace palaces dedicated to eradicating crime and poverty through meditation.
The blueprint for world peace relies on the power of Yogic Flyers who reach a higher level of consciousness while bouncing up and down on a mat. And with Northampton named as one of the 51 palace sites in the UK, Russell France will be the man responsible for putting his words into action.
For much of the last two decades the Brackley school teacher has been a solitary Yogic Flyer, but the latest plans will see him reach out to Northamptonshire's uninitiated.
"There are two levels to Transcendental Meditation," he explained. "The first and the most basic can be learned very quickly. However, it is the more advanced technique, Yogic Flying, which will be practised in the peace palace.
"It is a deeper form of meditation and the positive energy produced from a large group can effect communities as a whole."
While the power of Yogic Flying has been routinely dismissed as pie in the sky, or simply laughed at, the Maharishi's meditation equation is nothing if not exact.
According to his teachings, if the square root of one per cent of a population practises Yogic Flying in one location, the whole country benefits.
"It is not a religion," insisted Russell. "It is simply about tapping into natural law.
"Through meditation you go beyond the everyday and can change how people behave. The community wouldn't feel any physical difference, they would continue to act spontaneously, but rather than choosing the wrong paths they would begin to choose the right ones.
"Crime would plummet, hospital admissions would fall, there would be a general atmosphere of positivity."
The idea for Northampton's own peace palace is very much in the early stages.
But although a site has not yet been decided on, Russell has a very clear idea of how it would work.
"Ideally we would employ 100 people, who would be trained in Yogic Flying," said Russell. "It's not a charity and the aim is that it would be self-funding. As well as the main focus on meditation, the idea is to run an organic farm on the site and perhaps let part of the building as offices."
It all sounds very simple, but the building of the peace palace will not be as easy as it sounds.
"Ensuring the architecture is in tune with Maharishi's teaching is a very intricate science," explained Russell. "For example, the building has to be so far from water, it has to face exactly on the east axis."
The group is now looking to secure funding and although previous attempts to get Government ministers and local authorities interested have failed, they insist their claims are backed up by scientific research.
"A year-long experiment took place in Senegal in 1987," said Russell. "TM was taught to all the prison population and wardens and at the end of the year the number of repeat offenders had plummeted from around 95 per cent to just six per cent.
"It was so successful that some jails closed because there were not the criminals to support them and the weather also changed for the better.
"However, at the end of the project the Senegalese government was approached to see if they would take over the funding, but they said no. Unsurprisingly the prison population grew."
How long the peace palace project will take depends on how people respond, says Russell.
He said: "If we manage to secure funding we could probably start looking for a site in the next few months and the community could be up and running within a couple of years, if not sooner.
"The universal benefits of TM are incredible and when people begin to realise that then world peace will be an achievable aim."
For information about the plans call Russell France on 01280 703978 or e-mail russellfrance@lineone.net.
Maharishi Teachings
"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 world and that can be easily accomplished by creating groups of people practising peace-promoting Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying in cities around the globe."
"Through the power of your words you guide people in their thinking. The press has a big role to play in the transformation of time - a very great responsibility."
"A stressed individual is the unit of a stressed world. On the other hand, a healthy fulfilled individual is the unit of a peaceful, healthy, affluent world."
"Education today does not provide students with the experience of Transcendental consciousness and therefore does not develop the total brain functioning in the student."
"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."
"When the gardener see the leaves withering, he pours a bucket of water at the root. He handles the root because it is not possible to handle all the thousands of leaves. All problems can be solved by handling one's own consciousness and one's own mind."
Copyright: Chronicle and Echo, 2002