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A peace package

K. Ramesh

NOT MANY would have watched the TV channel, the Maharishi Veda Vision, that recently broadcast an interesting video conference involving 1,500 participants, including journalists from all over the world, to propagate its novel and enduring peace package. The channel is dedicated to propagating the preachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, especially what is called the Vedic technology - a life based on the core principles, procedures and performances of a Vedic way of life, that would guarantee peace and aff luence to the whole world.

To counter evildoers, the lasting remedy, according to its belief, lies in killing not the enemy, but the `enmity' in him. Killing or military action against criminals would only create further counter-killings and perpetrate wrongdoing. The growing enor mous `social stress' is the fundamental physiological cause of such terrorism. The specific techniques that will ensure peace and harmony in society are to practice transcendental meditation (TM) and yogic flying in groups to develop coherence and collec tive consciousness in the nation.

More specifically, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made a direct request to the US President, Mr George W. Bush, to create for it an endowment of $1 billion, which is less than the cost of US military operations per day. The interest on the said corpus would be us ed to fund 40,000 pundits in India reciting the Vedas and performing vedic rites, TM and yogic flying to create harmony in society and global peace.

Though some of the participants' questions were not comprehensively answered by the Maharishi, he repeatedly asserted that there were enough scientific studies to point to this effect. The channel went on to confirm that had such a technique been practic ed earlier, the recent attack on the US could have been avoided!

TM, particularly, is a scientific tool to enhance human brain potential and inner peace, in addition to preventing diseases. The National Institute of Health, Iowa, US, has granted $20 million for TM research on hypertension, considering that there are m ore than 600 scientific studies to prove the positive effects of the practice.

For TV viewers, given the more eventful day-to-day war on terrorism on BBC or CNN, the above ideas may seem primitive, theoretical and even dangerous. Also, the fact remains the theories propounded by the Maharishi have yet to be proved in any tangible f orm so as to attract funding. However, if the international community is today thinking of a comprehensive strategy to counter terror, why not adopt human development techniques that have the possibility of enhancing individual and collective peace? And if that would include consciously promoting the different techniques permissible under various religions, why not give it a try, especially, when terrorism has been centering around the wrong interpretation of religion itself?

As the crime rate rises, it is time all nations considered the practical aspects of all religions and considered them as a complementary, intelligent tool, rather than summarily rejecting them as dogmatic religious taboo.