Victory Before War: Preventing Terrorism through the Vedic Peace Technologies of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Questions and Answers

Question:  What are the Vedic peace technologies?

Answer: The Vedic peace technologies come from the Vedic tradition of masters of India, which is the source of Yoga and the popular health system known as Ayurveda. This is the world’s most ancient knowledge of health, and it includes not just strategies for individual health but also for the health of society. This is the world’s most ancient and complete homeland defense.

Question: What is Maharishi’s role.

Answer: The peace technologies have been revived in this age by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced the Transcendental Meditation program to the Western world 50 years ago. He also popularized  Ayurveda. For the past 25 years, Maharishi has focused principally on these advanced peace technologies because of the threat of mass destruction. 

Question:  Before we get to the Vedic peace technologies, your book says that preemption or fighting “preventive” wars (fighting a small war to defeat an enemy before he is strong in order to avoid a larger war) is a mistake. Tell us what is wrong with the current approach of rooting out terrorism abroad, so we lessen the risk of attacks on U.S. soil. 

Answer:  The absence of an effective defense has led to our preemptive strategy, which is based on the football axiom that the best defense is a good offense.

Question:  Isn’t that true?

Answer: It’s true in football, where you are either on offense or defense, and the more you are on offense, the less you have to worry about your defense. However, with terrorism the opposite is true, the more you mount preemptive attacks, the more you have to be concerned about retaliation and the more important it is to have a complete defense.

Question: Doesn’t history suggest that preemptive attacks do not result in a massive retaliation.Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor didn’t result in a large scale Iraqi attack on Israel, for example.

Answer:  There are conventional arguments for and against preemption.  The conventional argument is that it provokes retaliation, but what everyone observes, as you point out, is that it doesn’t appear to always provoke retaliation. The Vedic knowledge, however, is the source of the concept of karma, which holds that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. Karma is actually considered an immutable law in the Vedic tradition, not just a philosophical expression.  It says that no one else is responsible for harm that comes to you and that any harm is a result of your own past misdeeds.

Question: But someone who is injured in a terrorist attack, maybe even a child, what has that person done other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Answer: Maharishi explains that like the expression, “As you sow, so shall you reap,” or “measure for measure” in Judaism’s Talmud, whatever wrong we do comes back to you either right away or in 10 years or 20 years or in another lifetime. Some time in the near or distant past we may have harmed that person and now it comes back to us in kind. The Vedic tradition considers killing to be a sin, especially when an effective means of peacefully neutralizing terrorism is available.

Question: Are you saying that 9/11 was just the result of the wrongdoing of the U.S? What was the wrongdoing?

Answer: We don’t know precisely, but this concept explains how bad things may happen for no apparent reason. In the wake of tragedy, many people question how a merciful God can allow senseless killing.  The book explains what causes terrorism, and how events such as Tsunamis and 9/11 can happen, allowing us to see order and purpose, where there would  appear to be nothing but random events and chaos.

Question: Explain how  the Vedic peace technologies can protect New York City against a terrorist with a dirty bomb in a minivan.

Answer:  This is the right question. What could be the nature of a complete defense against a terrorist martyr (1) who believes God is on his side, (2) who cannot be persuaded that killing is wrong, and (3) who hides from us so there is no opportunity to persuade him of anything or even to lock him up before he detonates his device. The answer is that the only possible defense against the terrorist hidden within a community is to neutralize the violent tendencies of everyone in the community all at once. This is Maharishi’s Vedic defense.

Question: How can violent tendencies of everyone in a community be neutralized.

Answer: The Vedic tradition has a Sanskrit saying,Tat sannidau vaira tyagah, which translates to “In the vicinity of Yoga, hostile tendencies are eliminated.” Yoga here means not just some person doing stretching exercises, but the perfectly peaceful and coherent state of consciousness that is the goal of Yoga. A central broadcasting station radiates an influence through the electromagnetic field, which is received by everyone who has a receiver.  Maharishi’ experts in the Vedic peace technologies are like the central broadcasting station. Because the human brain is both the transmitter and the receiver, they radiate a powerful  influence of peace and coherence to everyone in the vicinity.

Question: Is this something like a group praying for peace?

Answer: No. The Vedic peace technologies include the Transcendental Meditation technique, and the advanced Yogic Flying program, and what are known as Yagya performances. The key to these techniques is that they produce a state of perfect coherence in the experts.  Profound changes in all physical systems result from  perfectly coherent states in nature. With coherent light waves, we get a laser beam, which is vastly more powerful than an ordinary light bulb, just because the light waves in the laser device are perfectly coherent. Perfect coherence also produces superconductors and superfluids. 

Also, the way a laser works is that when the electromagnetic field in the laser device is enlivened to a critical level, a transition occurs and all the atoms in the laser stop banging into one another and become coherent in their functioning. Again, once there is a critical threshold of individuals performing the Vedic peace technologies, they enliven the field of consciousness connecting everyone in the vicinity of the peace experts, and everyone in the locale receives a powerful influence of peacefulness and coherence that neutralizes violence.

Question: You claim the power of these groups of Vedic experts to influence others results from having large groups performing the Yogic Flying program at the same time from the same place. Can you explain that?

Answer: Again, this is another aspect of coherent states or nature. Due to certain well understood  principles in physics (constructive interference) when substances exhibiting wave functions, such as light waves, brain waves, sound waves, etc. are perfectly coherent, the effect is squared. So five loudspeakers next to one another playing the same song in perfect synchrony will have the volume of 25 loudspeakers that were not in synchrony. The effect is squared (5 times 5 equals 25). Similarly, when 8000 of Maharishi’s experts perform Yogic Flying together at the same time at Maharishi’s university in Iowa, which is the plan, they will have the effect of 64 million Yogic flyers separately placed. This is the power of coherence.  This coherence only comes from the mind being perfectly settled during the practice of the Vedic peace technologies. Prayer is something different.  The mind is active in praying, not perfectly silent and, therefore, not perfectly coherent. 

Question: Tell me more about Yogic Flying. What is it and who can do it?

Answer: This is an advanced  technique, whereby the body lifts up in the air in a series of short hops based on a mental performance not a gymnastic effort. [Video footage available].  The technique is valued not just for the outer result, but it is a crucial aspect of Maharishi’s Vedic defense because this technique generates maximum brain coherence. As shown in the book’s  illustration (page 14 of Victory Before War), the maximum coherence occurs during the lift off period. 

Question: Tell us about the research on these peace technologies.

Answer: Almost 50 studies have shown significant reductions in violence as a result of the programs. This research in many instances has been published in top scientific journals after a process of intensive review of the research, what is known as peer review. And as you know from the endorsements to our book, many independent scientists strongly supporting this program were previously doubters, until reviewing the research. In a number of studies, the predictions of reductions in violent crimes or deaths in war torn areas were lodged in advance. In Washington D.C., for example, a prominent physicist, Dr. John Hagelin, organized a 20-person group of advisers consisting of professors and government officials who advised on the research design before the study, oversaw the program while it was occurring, and then reviewed the research. The predictions were made publicly and the results showed that crime decreased as the number of Yogic Flyers increased, producing a 23% decline in crime and what was shown would have been a 40% decline if the program had continued for 100 days. This is because violence decreases and continues to decrease over time.

Question: Your research doesn’t show that terrorism can be completely eliminated though, does it?

Answer:  The Vedic tradition clearly holds that nations can be protected from war and terrorist acts using these strategies, and almost 50 studies show that violence can be significantly reduced. What remains is to implement the Vedic defense on a large enough scale, with large permanent groups of the Vedic peace experts, to tip the scale toward a complete eradication of the problem.  The studies consistently show that violence decreases as the size of the peace-creating group increases. This is why Maharishi is seeking to assemble 40,000 of his Vedic peace experts in India and 8000 student experts at his university in the U.S. 40,000 Vedic experts together has the effect of 1.6 billion Vedic experts dispersed throughout the world (40,000 times 40,000).

Question: Your book also describes a system known as Maharishi Jyotish, which is different from ordinary astrology, and which you maintain enables the astrologer to be able to predict times for each nation that are especially dangerous, when a heightened alert is necessary. Isn’t astrology just hocus pocus? 

Answer: The lack of seriousness with which many people treat this subject is primarily due to the many improperly trained, so-called “experts,” and from defects in the systems of astrology being used.  However, modern research is beginning to change our perspective, at least about Maharishi Jyotish. As we said before, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (karma).  Maharishi compares it to throwing a stone into a pond from the shore. The action produces a wave that travels throughout the pond, and once the wave reaches the far shore, it is reflected back to the point of origin. The question is whether there is some way we can see what is coming toward us.

Our past actions are reflected  back on us by what are known as the Grahas in the Vedic tradition, which is roughly translated as the planets. New discoveries by Dr. Tony Nader, a physician working with Maharishi, show that the body has a precise one to one correspondence with the planets and other heavenly bodies. The sun, for example, corresponds to the thalamus, both occupying a central position in the system, and the moon to the hypothalamus, each controlling the emotions. The correspondence is so précised that if there is some affliction in our astrological chart it will be reflected in some corresponding weakness in that part of the body. You can see this correspondence in several charts in the book.

What this suggests is that we are born at a time when the planets and other heavenly bodies are optimally situated to deliver to us the karma of our past actions. If  we have done something wrong to  hurt someone emotionally for example, then when it is time for that karma to be delivered the moon will be seen to be in an inauspicious place in our chart, and the hypothalamus (the moon’s counterpart in the body) may be afflicted, resulting in this being a time when we are more prone to have serious emotional disturbances.  While Western medicine may not be able to see the problem in our hypothalamus, the trained Vedic astrologer can see from the position of the moon the potential that exists for good or bad fortune.

Question: If the program is so good, why isn’t government using this program to protect us?

Answer:  In one word, verisimilitude. A friend in advertising says that to be persuasive you have to make claims that are both true and have the quality of being apparently true. This is verisimilitude. While the research is solid, most people can’t figure out how a group of Yogic Flyers in one location can influence those who may be miles away, even hundreds or thousands of miles away, depending on the size of the group of Vedic peace experts. This is a new paradigm in our appreciation of how we can affect others and how terrorist acts can be prevented. Also, it is acceptable to be open to new ideas from DuPont or Harvard, but this is not the case with programs called “Yogic Flying” or “Transcendental Meditation” to people who are unfamiliar with Maharishi.

Because of the difficulty, especially in government, of accepting new ideas, Maharishi has a citizen-based approach to employing the Vedic peace technologies. His university is seeking a larger enrollment of students who will be trained in Yogic Flying and he is seeking private support for his programs. While the programs are new, because of their effectiveness, it should be just a matter of time before they are implemented widely. The question is can we do it in time, because as we know there is no conventional defense against a terrorist with a nuclear device in a minivan.