World Peace News: Top Stories

'One small filament becoming lighted is enough to light the whole room' - Maharishi, 12 January 1975
by Global Good News staff writer

Global Good News Translate This Article
12 January 2014

On 12 January 2014, the Global Country of World Peace* held its annual celebration of the new year—celebrating the progress and achievements of the worldwide programmes and initiatives founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to bring enlightenment to every individual and invincibility to every nation.

From the earliest days of his teaching around the world in 1959, Maharishi spoke often of the positive, peaceful global transformations that would naturally result when as little as 1% of the world's population practised his Transcendental Meditation technique.

Then in late 1974, the results of the first scientific research were announced, which found a statistically significant reduction in crime rates in 12 American cities when the threshold of 1% of each city's population practising the Transcendental Meditation technique was reached.

The news confirmed Maharishi's prediction, and launched a new phase of his work to bring enlightenment to the world through his peace-creating Transcendental Meditation.

In this scientific discovery, named by scientists the Maharishi Effect—reduced crime and violence, and rising coherence and positivity in society resulting from many people practising Transcendental Meditation—Maharishi recognized the dawn of a new era of peace and harmony that would come to full blossoming through widespread application of his technologies of consciousness.

On 12 January 1975, Maharishi formally inaugurated this new era as the 'Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment'. In his inaugural address aboard the Flagship Gotthard on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, Maharishi said,

'Today we are declaring in all confidence, on the basis of the subjective experience of about one million people* in the world, and on the basis of objective verification from the different sciences, from all the hundreds of experiments performed in the fields of physiology, psychology, sociology, and ecology, that all the various aspects of life are enriched and developed through the practice of Transcendental Meditation.

'When the body becomes better, the mind becomes better, the behaviour becomes better. With this orderly brain, a few people—one per cent, half a per cent—moving around in the city can improve the trends of life. It requires only a few people, just a few people! What do those few people have to do? Fifteen minutes morning and evening less gossip and close the eyes; fathom the depth of unboundedness deep within one's own consciousness. Realize that fullness of life, that wholeness of life, that level of enlightenment which is kindled within, deep within everyone's heart. Unfold that, experience that, and that is enough to make the whole day more orderly—life in orderliness; life in accordance with all the laws of nature. . . .

'We are inaugurating the Age of Enlightenment today on the basis of the inevitability that the world will become better, because of one beautiful thing that we have found: the nature of life is to grow. Ninety-nine people can violate their own nature to grow and maybe weave around non-growth. One man, having a desire to evolve, having a desire to progress, having a desire to grow, by nature, he'll take up Transcendental Meditation. On that basis, he will start producing a harmonious influence around him. Without knowing how he does it, without knowing the mechanics of how the radiations go from a more orderly mind to influence the less orderly minds around him, without knowing it, invariably he'll be producing a harmonious influence in the whole society. Then the whole society will find a trend in the direction of evolution.

'What is necessary is just a small area in the whole room to become lighted and the whole room becomes lighted. What is a bulb? It is a very small filament. How much is that in relation to the whole volume of the room? It's a very insignificant area. Yet it becomes lighted and the whole room becomes lighted. One simple, single individual brain becoming a little bit more orderly—how much more orderly could one become in fifteen minutes, with all the chaos and disorderliness of the whole day?—but that little orderliness increasing in the mind of an individual is good enough to radiate its influence. One small filament becoming lighted is enough to light the whole room.

'Like that, one person, one slightly enlightened person, is good enough for the whole society. It's a blessing for the whole society. And it's this strength that makes us today inaugurate this Age of Enlightenment.'

On 12 January 1975, Maharishi also said, 'My joy today is the joy of the gardener who has been watering the root of the tree day by day and day by day and day by day. The tree has been growing, and the growth of the tree was his joy. The leaves came, and the branches came more and more—longer and wider and fresher. The flowers blossomed, and then the fruit came. And now the season of spring comes, when the fruits are becoming ripe.

'Then the gardener says, ''Ah! Now the fruits are coming.'' Every day there is greater joy, a greater wave of joy, when he sees that now he can say, ''Oh, the fruits are there, the tree has grown enough to start giving fruits.'' The sight of the fruits, the possibility of finding the fulfilment of all his labour day after day, year after year, watering the root—now there is the fruit, which is to grow and become ripe and sweet. And this will be the fruit of knowledge eaten by the whole population on earth.'

In 1976 Maharishi brought to light the Transcendental Meditation Sidhi Programme, an advanced programme of the Transcendental Meditation technique. In the intervening years, scientific research found that the practice of Transcendental Meditation and the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi Programme created maximum brain wave coherence and increased the power of the positive influence on the meditators' surroundings that resulted from their experience of transcendence. Research also found that when these programmes were practised in groups, the positive effect on the surroundings was so greatly increased that it was predicted that as little as the square root of one per cent of the population would be needed to create a powerful influence of coherence for the population.

Over the years Maharishi inspired the establishment of such large 'coherence-creating' groups of advanced meditation experts. An example is the large group practice of Transcendental Meditation and the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi Programme that takes place each day at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, USA.

Global Good News will continue to report on Maharishi's historic inaugural address on 12 January 1975, as well as news of achievements and resolutions for the new year presented in today's 12 January celebration.

* The Global Country of World Peace was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as a consortium of educational organizations in more than 100 countries working to create a new era of peace, progress, and prosperity in our world family. It is a 'nation without borders', a home for peace-loving people everywhere.

** The number of people who had learned Transcendental Meditation in the world up to that time. Now about 5 million people worldwide have learned the practice.

Parts of this article were adapted from Transcendental Meditation Blog (TM.org/blog).

Copyright © 2014 Global Good News Service

Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)