Excerpts from Victory Before War

The Source of Maharishi’s Homeland Defense

The Vedic peace technologies constitute the world’s most ancient and complete homeland defense. In this age, these technologies been revived by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who has devoted his life to applying the Vedic wisdom to solve the problems of modern times. These peace technologies, including Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation® and Yogic Flying programs, and what are known as Yagya performances, are derived from the Vedic literature of India, the oldest records of human knowledge and human development.

To those with some familiarity with the Vedic knowledge, the Vedic tradition is itself an important validation of Maharishi’s peace technologies. In the East, a sage’s tradition is of great importance, much more so than in the West, where we may speak of the college or university that someone attended, or, for lawyers, the judge for whom someone clerked. In the community of yogis and enlightened sages in India, a man is known by his particular tradition of knowledge, and in this community, Vedic knowledge is recognized as the supreme knowledge of life. 

Maharishi’s Vedic tradition is the world’s most ancient tradition, which means that the knowledge of this tradition has credibility because it has stood the test of time. This tradition is represented by an unbroken line of India’s most respected masters of techniques for human development, including Shankara, Vyasa, and Vashishta, names that are well known by Indian scholars. These great sages discovered the means to fully develop human consciousness for the benefit of the individual and the society.

In this age, the current revival of Vedic wisdom began with Maharishi’s teacher, His Divinity Brahmananda Saraswati, regarded as one of India’s greatest teachers in the Vedic tradition. Maharishi absorbed the complete experience and understanding of Vedic wisdom under his teacher’s guidance, and then began its formal restoration. 

Preemptive Attacks: A Good Offense is the Best Defense May Apply to Football, but Does it Apply to Terrorism?

In his address to the National Defense University in February 2002, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, stated:

It is not possible to defend against every conceivable kind of attack in every conceivable location at every minute of the day or night. Defending against terrorism and other emerging 21st century threats may well require that we take the war to the enemy. The best, and in some cases, the only defense, is a good offense.

In 2002, at the time of the passage of the law creating a Homeland Security Department, Tom Ridge, the head of U.S. homeland security, made the same point—that the best defense is a good offense, and this is certainly President Bush’s philosophy.  Everyone acknowledges, however, that there will be more successful attacks on U.S. soil (the 9/11 Commission Report says, “we are not safe”).  This is because terrorists and motivated criminals are largely unseen, and have the advantage of waiting for their opportunities. Sooner or later there will be cracks in our security.

The prevailing wisdom in the fight against terrorism derives from the football axiom that the best defense is a good offense. Due to the difficulty of defending ourselves, Washington is compelled to favor an aggressive military offense, which allows the President to choose his targets. However, unlike football where you are either on offense or defense, and the more you are on offense, the less important the defense, with terrorism the opposite is true. With terrorism the more we take the offensive, the more we invite retaliation.  Therefore, it is crucial to be able to defend ourselves from those with access to both crude weapons and modern technologies of space, chemical, biological, and genetic warfare.

Preemptive and “preventive” wars also carry risks not typically considered in the Western world. Maharishi explains that according to the Vedic perspective, there are inevitable, harmful consequences from killing other human beings. The Vedic tradition is the origin of the concept of karma, which states that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. We see this same principle echoed in many great traditions in expressions like “As you sow, so shall you reap,” or “measure for measure” (from Judaism’s Talmud), meaning that if you rob or kill, you will be robbed or killed in return. For most people such expressions are simply based on theory or hypothesis, and “As you sow, so shall you reap” is not held to be an immutable law of nature, which is the Vedic perspective.

            For most of us, however, there is nothing inevitable about karma, based on everyday experience. We know that those who commit violent acts often go unpunished, and young people can become victims of tragic events or die from some terrible disease. We observe many injustices in life, leading some to question the existence of God, or to accept the notion that bad acts occur without reason, that life is a matter of chance, and that justice comes only in Heaven or Hell, or not at all.

On the Larry King television show in May 2002, Maharishi was asked about tragic deaths in the context of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Maharishi: In the process of evolution, the body lasts for some time and then one takes another body and takes another body and takes another body.  Everyone has to go… sometime or the other. And the basic principle about going or surviving is that no one — now listen to me — no one is responsible for giving any difficulty or any pleasure to anyone. Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One’s own karma, one’s own actions, are responsible to bring either happiness or success or whatever.

King: If someone treats me harshly, if someone shoots me or kills you, or harms a baby . . . how was the victim a participant in that other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Maharishi: He [the wrongdoer] is the carrier of my own influence. “As you sow, so shall you reap” is a very old proverb of mankind. “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Sometime you may have killed that man; and then sometime, now, it comes on to you.

 King: Ah.

Maharishi: What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever it comes: either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives later, . . . . whatever, whatever. It’s our own karma. That is why that philosophy is in every religion, Killing is sin. Killing is sin in every religion. Whosoever sins, whosoever kills, it doesn’t matter. It’s a sin.

King: Right.

Maharishi: And sin in the will of God is a punishable offense. Because when you kill some man, what you are killing? You are killing the cosmic potential within the individual. Individual is cosmic. Individual potential of life is cosmic potential. Individual is divine, deep inside; transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man. And when you kill a man, you deprive him of that birthright of his.

King: What a wonderful way to look at it.

Maharishi: The human right to live divinity.

Maharishi has also explained how the accumulated wrong actions of individuals can produce reactions that affect entire areas or regions. For example, war in a particular region results from a build up of extreme levels of wrongdoing, violence, and stress in that region. The collective stress in a particular area erupts into mass violence. Mass destruction from a terrorist attack occurs in a particular area as a result of the collective past wrongdoing in that region, and everyone in the area is affected.

The Principles Involved in a Complete Defense against Terrorism

If true defensive strategies are crucial to each nation’s safety, what then could be the nature of a complete defense against terrorism taking into account that terrorists, for the most part, cannot be discovered before they inflict damage?

An act of terrorism begins in the human mind, and it is there that it must be stopped. If, however, we can’t readily locate the terrorist in an effort to change his thinking, the only effective approach will be to neutralize intense negativity in the thinking of everyone in a particular area, including the extreme negativity of the would-be terrorist. How is this possible? Western approaches to changing a person’s thinking through conventional education or persuasion, or through punishment or fear-based approaches, will not change terrorist thinking. Terrorists are martyrs. They believe that God is on their side, and no amount of persuasion, intellectual debate, or saber rattling will change their desire to strike a blow for their cause.

Maharishi’s Vedic defense, on the other hand, does not depend on these conventional approaches. This defense uses highly specific Vedic procedures that prevent violent thoughts, and therefore violent acts, from arising in the consciousness of everyone in the vicinity of those participating in Maharishi’s defense program without the necessity of any direct intellectual or physical contact with the terrorist.

Unfortunately, in today’s society, doubts and disinterest begin to surface once reference is made to “consciousness” and especially a program intended to change the level of consciousness of others without any direct contact with the terrorist. Most people have difficulty defining consciousness or pinpointing how they can change their own consciousness, let alone change the consciousness of someone at a distance who is completely uninterested in change. The knowledge of consciousness, however, is the principal domain of Maharishi’s Vedic tradition.

The Key to the Vedic Defense

Here is the key to Maharishi’s Vedic defense: If the terrorist’s consciousness can be influenced at this fundamental level, the level of the transcendental field from where all thoughts and feelings emerge, his thinking and behavior will automatically change in a way that no amount of debate or persuasion could ever accomplish. Of course, the terrorist does not make himself available to us in our effort to change his state of mind. But, fortunately, the terrorist’s lack of availability and lack of interest in any change is irrelevant to Maharishi’s Vedic peace technologies because of one other crucial understanding about the nature of consciousness.

Maharishi explains that when an individual practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique experiences the transcendental field, he “stirs” the field, automatically radiating an influence to everyone in the vicinity through what physicists call the “field effect.” The Vedic knowledge holds that, first, it is possible to influence everyone through the Vedic peace technologies because everyone is connected through the transcendental field, and, second, the influence that is radiated to everyone in the vicinity of Maharishi’s experts is of the same character as that experienced by his groups—a peaceful and coherent influence that defuses religious and cultural stress and violent tendencies.

To explain the phenomenon of influencing others from the level of the transcendental field, Maharishi uses the analogy of dropping a pebble into a pond. The pebble creates a faint ripple in the pond, which is experienced by those close enough to where the pebble has been dropped. However, when many individuals perform the Vedic peace technologies together, at the same time, from the same location, the ripple in the transcendental field becomes a powerful wave resulting in a measurable, peaceful influence on those in the vicinity.

The Interconnectedness of Everything at Fundamental Levels

Modern science has actually come to the same conclusions concerning the interconnectedness of everything at fundamental levels, as explained more fully in Chapter Four. While matter appears as discreet and separate on some levels of nature, quantum physics describes everything as fundamentally interconnected through underlying, continuous fields which pervade the universe. This is why a central broadcasting station can send electronic waves through the electromagnetic field, permitting everyone with a television to receive the signals.

electro-magnetic field radiation
field effect of Transcendental Meditation

Similarly, Maharishi’s experts in the Vedic peace technologies are like the central broadcasting system. They influence those in their vicinity by radiating a peaceful and harmonious influence from the transcendental field (which can be thought of as the home of consciousness in the body). In this analogy, the human brain is the receiver and therefore everyone within range of those “broadcasting” the influence is instantaneously affected.

Yogic Flying (one of the Vedic peace technologies)

The approach of Maharishi’s Vedic defense is summarized by the ancient Sanskrit phrase, Tat sannidau vaira tyagah: “In the vicinity of Yoga, hostile tendencies are eliminated.” Yoga, here, refers not to stretching exercises, but to the perfectly peaceful and coherent state of consciousness that is the ultimate goal of Yoga. Maharishi’s programs utilize advanced Vedic procedures, known today as the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi® programs, including the Yogic Flying technique. Maharishi’s programs involve groups of individuals, who participate in these Vedic peace technologies. The group practice has been found to be crucial. A measurable peaceful and coherence influence is radiated to everyone in the vicinity when a sufficient number of people practice the Vedic peace technologies together. 

3 Yogic Flyers
2 Yogic Flyers

For those practicing Maharishi’s Yogic Flying program, the coherence they experience during the practice of that program is even greater than during the practice of the TM program. Maharishi’s Yogic Flying is the most successful of the Vedic defense techniques for increasing coherence and thereby eliminating hostile tendencies, not just in the individuals practicing the technique, but in other individuals in the “vicinity.” As previously stated, the vicinity here means the city, nation, or even the world, depending on the size of the Yogic Flying group.

Maharishi derived his Yogic Flying technique from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a great Vedic sage. To the observer, the initial stages of the Yogic Flying practice results in the body lifting or hopping off the ground in a series of short hops. Though not apparent to the observer, this lifting of the body is based solely on a simple mental performance rather than a gymnastic effort. In the first stage of Yogic Flying, the body rises into the air in a series of short hops. In the second stage, the body is said to rise up and float or levitate in the air. In the third stage, Patanjali predicts passage through the air or actual flying (see Appendix A). While only the first of these three stages has been achieved to date by Maharishi’s Yogic Flyers, what is important in the Vedic defense is not the outer results, but the coherent state of consciousness of the Yogic Flyers. The Yogic Flyers radiate coherence in the collective consciousness of those in the “vicinity,” defusing violent tendencies.9

Maximum Coherence during Yogic Flying

Maximum Coherence during Yogic Flying

Are We Safer Since 9/11?

In the face of growing anti-American sentiment, have we become a safer nation due to the expenditure of billions of dollars for defense and attacks on al-Queda and Iraq? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in his October 16, 2003, memorandum on the global war on terror, stated that we have no way of telling whether we are winning or losing the war on terror. He said:

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the global war on terror? . . . Today, we lack the metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Rumsfeld’s criteria for determining if we are winning or losing the war is based on the number of radicals being recruited and trained, a process made far easier today as a result of the unprecedented growth of anti-American sentiment around the globe, and especially in Muslim countries.

A September 13, 2004 report in Time magazine (“Islam Around the World”) states:

Though precise figures are impossible to pinpoint, the number of Muslims espousing radical beliefs is growing, according to Western analysts and intelligence agencies. Many Muslims say the global war on terrorism and the U.S. presence in Iraq have fueled perceptions that Islam is under attack.

The 9/11 Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States acknowledges that “support for the United States has plummeted,” and that by 2003 polls showed “that the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world.”2 Immediately after 9/11, polls in Islamic countries showed that approximately half the people of those countries had a favorable opinion of the United States. Now, however, the situation has worsened dramatically. Egypt, for example, the 9/11 Report states, has been a long time ally of the United States and has received more U.S. aid in the past 20 years than any other country. However, today only 15% of Egypt’s population have a favorable view of the United States. In Saudi Arabia, the figure is 12%. In Indonesia the figure is 15%. Negative views of the U.S. among Muslims, which was previously limited to countries in the Middle East, has now spread to Muslim nations everywhere. According to the 9/11 Report, a climate of fear has been created where two-thirds of Muslims are either fearful or somewhat fearful that the U.S. may attack them. In this environment, does anyone really believe there are not more terrorists today than before 9/11?

In assessing the nation’s safety, in addition to the number of radicals, what must concern us most is the potential for a nuclear attack or large scale chemical or biological attack. It is estimated that a nuclear device of a size that could fit in a mini-van would destroy everything within a mile of the blast. Dropped in New York City where the Twin Towers stood, it would have resulted in the complete annihilation of the southern tip of Manhattan, with buildings for several miles reduced to rubble, and the deaths of several hundred thousand individuals. Is such an attack really possible?

Some of the Research on the Vedic Defense

In the initial studies in 1977, researchers found that in 24 cities where just 1% of the population had been instructed in the Transcendental Meditation technique, there was an average 16.5% decrease in the crime rate as compared to 24 control cities having the same characteristics, but without significant TM meditators.2 Then in 1978, it was found that similar results could be achieved with even a smaller percentage of individuals participating in Maharishi’s advanced Yogic Flying program.  Maharishi, therefore, began sending groups of his Yogic Flyers to the world’s trouble spots and testing the results in numerous studies as described in Chapter 6.

The first study on the effect of a large group of Yogic Flyers was in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1979. The goal was to assemble enough Yogic Flying practitioners in order to affect negative trends in a more populous state and in the nation as a whole. Over a 40-day experimental period, a group that ranged from 1,570 to 2,770 participants gathered at the University of Massachusetts. This was a number of participants in excess of the 1,530 participants that was necessary to constitute the square root of 1% of the approximately 234 million population of the United States at that time. There were two general hypotheses to be tested. First, that crime and other fatalities could be reduced in Massachusetts as well as in the nation, and that greater effects would be found in Massachusetts, as compared with other populous states in the nation, because of the proximity of the Yogic Flying group to that area.

Researchers measured the effects of the assembly on motor traffic fatalities, violent crimes, and eleven categories of fatal accidents, as well as on deaths from suicides, homicides, and undetermined causes. These categories were selected because public data on a monthly basis could be obtained for specific states as well as nationally. The study design compared the actual crimes and/or fatalities during the 40-day period of the assembly with the predicted level of crimes and fatalities for that period, both in Massachusetts and in the nation. The predicted levels in this experiment were based on the mean level of fatalities and violent crimes for the same six-week period of the year over all other years for which data was available. This included the prior years from 1973 to 1978, and the years following the experimental period from 1980 to 1981.

The results confirmed the hypotheses. In Massachusetts motor vehicle traffic fatalities were reduced 18.9% from the predicted level. For the nation as a whole, motor vehicle traffic fatalities were reduced 6.5% from the predicted level. Comparing Massachusetts during the 40-day assembly to all other states with populations over four million, the researchers found that in the other states, the mean reduction in traffic fatalities was 7.6%, predictably less than what occurred in Massachusetts where the participants were located. For violent crime, there were similar results. In Massachusetts the reduction was 10.1%. In the nation as a whole, the reduction during this period was 3.4% from the predicted level. The mean reduction for the other populous states was 2.6%, supporting the finding that something unique was happening in Massachusetts. The researchers also discovered that for each of the eleven categories of fatal accidents, and for the three categories of deaths from suicides, homicides, or undetermined causes, there was again a reduction from the predicted level, which ranged up to 26%.4

During periods when groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs exceeded the square root of one percent of the population, crime decreased in Metro Manila, Philippines (mid-August 1984 to late January 1985); Washington, D.C. (October 1981 to October 1983); and the Union Territory of Delhi, India (November 1980 to March 1981). Time series analysis verified that these decreases in crime could not have been due to trends or cycles of crime, or to changes in police policies and procedures.

References:
1. The Journal of Mind and Behavior 8 (1987): 67–104.
2. The Journal of Mind and Behavior 9 (1988): 457–486.

This study indicates that group practice of the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs improved the quality of life in Israel as measured by improvement on an index consisting of reduced crime rate, reduced traffic accidents, reduced fires, the reduced number of war deaths in Lebanon, increases in the national stock market, and improvements in national mood. The chart above shows the strong correspondence between the number of Transcendental Meditation-SidhiSM program participants in the group in Jerusalem and a composite index of all the above variables.

References:
1. Journal of Conflict Resolution 32 (1988): 776–812.
2. Dissertation Abstracts International 4 (1988): 2381A.

In the winter of 1983–84, a group of 7,000 TM-Sidhi program Yogic Flyers assembled at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa to create world peace (the Taste of Utopia Assembly). During the assembly a content analysis of articles reporting international conflict showed a significant shift towards greater positivity and reduced conflict compared to before the assembly. After the assembly, international events reverted to their prior level of conflict.

Reference:
1. Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Program: Collected Papers, Volume 4 (1989).

Numerous other experiments with similar results have been conducted in the last two decades, including a major evaluation of the program in 1993. Dr. John Hagelin, a distinguished physicist, researcher, and a principal exponent of Maharishi’s programs, assembled an independent panel of more than 20 sociologists, criminologists, and members of the Washington, D.C. government and police department. At the outset of the study, and as it was being conducted, the independent panel advised on the study design, which aimed to reduce violence in the nation’s capital. At the conclusion of the experiment, the panel analyzed the findings. The research results were striking. About 5,000 Yogic Flyers participated in this assembly during the last two weeks of the two-month project. The research showed a decline in crime that ranged to up to 23%, with the greatest decline occurring when the group of Yogic Flyers was largest at the end of the assembly, as was predicted. The researchers determined that the results could not be explained by factors other than the Yogic Flying program.4

reduction in crime in Washington D.C.

Is it “Too Good to be True?”

Over the years Maharishi has not only taught the Vedic peace technologies, he has also encouraged a thorough scientific examination of his programs. In many instances the studies have been subjected to careful scrutiny by independent scientists through a process of peer review, and then were published in prominent journals. However, despite the scientific verification, not enough people in high places have seriously considered using this program to protect nations from terrorism.

This is largely because the program introduces a new paradigm about how the world works and how terrorism can be prevented, and, therefore, lacks what is known as verisimilitude, the quality of being apparently true. A friend in advertising says that if you want advertising that reaches people, you have to make claims that are both true and that have the quality of appearing to be true. The research on the effectiveness of the Vedic peace technologies in preventing violence is solid. However, based on our everyday understandings, most people cannot imagine how a group of individuals participating in Maharishi’s programs in one location could possibly influence those who may be miles or even hundreds or thousands of miles away, which is how the programs work. The common view of the world is an obsolete billiard ball perspective of how things work: one ball has to bang into another to have an effect, and individuals must have direct contact with others in order to influence them.

Moreover, people who raise their eyebrows over Maharishi’s programs having a peaceful effect on people in distance places, will likely have a similar reaction to other aspects of this new knowledge. The Vedic tradition explains what causes terrorism, how the victims are determined, and even how oncoming danger can be predicted. History tells us that new paradigms are not merely slow to be accepted. They are often vigorously attacked because they contradict the thinking of those who have built their lives on an entirely different view of how the world works.

Stopping the Epidemic of Terrorism

Continuing the epidemic model, some researchers have explained how epidemics are resolved by analogy to the physical concept of a critical mass. For example, we know that an atomic bomb requires a certain critical mass of retroactive material to trigger the explosion. Similarly, in epidemics of disease we know that when the number of persons who are carriers of an infectious microbe reaches a certain critical mass or density in a given area, it produces an explosive increase in the incidence of an introduced infection. If, on the other hand, you apply preventive health strategies and hygienic measures that enhance the body’s defense mechanisms and strengthen the population’s resistance to disease, then the incidence of disease starts to decline and continues to decline until no one or nearly no one gets the disease.

The theories concerning epidemics hold that an epidemic is stopped when a critical percentage of persons is resistant to the contagious microbe, since individuals are assumed to remain infectious for only a given time period. If, during that time period, those who have become infected come in contact with only a limited number of people who are at risk, over time the threat of the epidemic is eliminated.

For example, if a person carrying a weeklong flu comes into contact with 100 people during the week, one of whom gets the flu (a 1% infection rate), the virus passes through the community without any increase in the number of individuals with the flu at any one time (i.e., the original person who was infected no longer has the flu at the end of the week, but he infected one of the 100 people with whom he came into contact during the week, so the number with the flu remains the same). The flu epidemic is then said to be in a relative state of equilibrium. If, however, there is an increased concentration of persons with the flu or the flu bug becomes more contagious, and each person with the flu infects two people during the week, the equilibrium point is exceeded and the epidemic grows geometrically (each person with the flu passes the virus to two others the first week, who pass it the next week to four people and so on). Pretty soon we have a full-scale epidemic on our hands.

Violence and terrorism are spreading in much the same way as epidemics of disease. Terrorist recruitment and access to weapons of mass destruction can grow geometrically and may already have exceeded the equilibrium point. When the infection rate doubles it results in every two terrorists spreading their agenda to four, who pass it on to eight others, and so on. The concern is that a critical mass of destruction-prone persons is being recruited, which could tip the equilibrium, causing an explosive increase in violent attacks. In any epidemic when the infection rate is rapidly growing, the consequences of not taking effective action are highly predictable.

George Tenet, former Director of the CIA, said the infection rate in terrorism is growing. Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 24, 2004, he said:

Al-Qaeda has become less centralized and therefore harder to trace, and it has begun to “infect” other individuals and groups with its radical and violent agenda. What we’ve learned continues to validate my deepest concern: that the enemy remains intent on obtaining and using catastrophic weapons.

The Vedic approach to defending against terrorism is to instruct enough people in the Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying programs in order to create a coherent core, a critical mass that provides protection to the society as a whole.  Like anyone infected with a weeklong flu, if the terrorist, during the period he is at risk to commit an offense, is neutralized by a peaceful and coherent influence, he does not infect the society with his misdeeds. If the Yogic Flying group is permanent, this approach says that equilibrium point for terrorism recedes, and ultimately reduces to virtually nothing.