“In the 1980s, during the peak of the Lebanon War, an incredible study was conducted. It was hypothesized, based on many previous smaller experiments, that if enough people were connected in meditation, stimulating a “powerful field of peace” within – that there would be a radiated influence of peace *without*, ie. one that affected the behaviour of people in the outer world. Directed toward an area of conflict, in the words of John Hagelin, people would wake up and think “Hey, I’m not going to kill anyone today.”
About a thousand people came together for this experiment in Jerusalem; meditating together with an aim of peace in neighbouring Lebanon. Scientists charted, at the same time, “progress towards peace”. This translated to reduced war deaths, reduced injuries and numbers of bombs dropped, in the location where the meditation focused.
The data from this experiment was astounding. The correlation of “progress toward peace” was near “lock step” in alignment with the periods of meditation. Radiating this influence of inner peace, into outer peace in a conflict zone nearby.
When put through mathematical analysis, the likelihood that theses results were due to some fluke or chance were less than *one part in ten thousand*. To be able to assert something like this with such certainty, that group meditation prevented war, was an *incredible* finding.
When the results of this study were published in the Yale University Journal of Conflict Resolution, it ignited a firestorm in the scientific community. First of all, it took two years to publish the paper; the editors reviewed it and reviewed it, over and over, unable to believe the accuracy of these findings. Finally however, they came to the conclusion that the paper was “unassailable”. The study was performed at a standard of scientific rigour far beyond that required for publication, in any journal. But, when they did publish it, they did so with a letter – the letter saying the results of this experiment were so unexpected, ie. that a thousand people could influence the behaviour of *a million*, that they urged other scientists to go out and repeat the study.
And that is exactly what happened. Over the next two and a quarter years, seven other scientific collaborations went out and repeated the study, training and assembling groups of meditators, to see its effect on war. And in every one of these experiments during this two and a quarter year period, there was a marked reduction in war and violence. ie. An *eighty percent* drop in war deaths and war related injuries in comparison to all the other days during this period where there were no mediating groups. In *every single experiment* there was a highly statistical significance toward “progress toward peace” connected to focused intent toward it.
When put together, the results were amazing. The likelihood that this result of reduction of war was simply due to chance, was less than one part in ten million, million, million (ie. 0.0000001). There was far more evidence that group meditation can turn off war like a light-switch, than there was that aspirin reduces headache pain. It is a scientific fact.
— summarized from the words of Dr John Hagelin.
When we do the work of individuation, we burn through those things obscuring us to the Self, and can regain our connection to the whole. Things like egoic wants, fears, beliefs burn away in this work, toward our inner diamond – the lighthouse that can shine through the darkness to create a better world. This is not some utopian ideal. As the above study shows, it is a scientific *fact*. While this incredible study shows the power of unifying together to bring higher states into the collective, it also hints at the incredible power that lies within each of us, to raise consciousness here. *Now*. We are not powerless, just the contrary, we each have *great power*.
Together it is an “unassailable fact” that we can create the world our souls know, deeply, should exist here, but has instead lost its way. To bring in peace, love, unity and wisdom, purely through our true and deepest state of Being. An Indra net of souls, of diamonds, who meditate and do the inner work, to save our world. We can choose to engage in the old, eternal battles that serve a few and create untold suffering – of difference and separation, of divide and conquer, of fear and violence, or we can reach our eternal Self and connect with our brothers and sisters across the planet, and lift our world – one stuck in so much ignorance – up. Into *consciousness*.
There is great hope, and it is in us. Each of us. You and me and the eternal Self within, uniting us like lanterns across the world through the dark. The greatest work just may be in silence. The meek may truly inherit the earth – an earth that teeters now on a knife’s edge. Perhaps we truly were born to be midwives at this epoch between the Ages. To help birth true Light, peace, love, wisdom here – wholeness; standing strong in the storm together through its birth pangs past ignorance, fear and suffering. Holding hands together toward a greater state of being.
-Rachel Alana
