One of the nice things about Transcendental Meditation, says its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is that it transcends geography.
And that is important to the Indian guru whose name became a household word in the 1960s when the Beatles sought his spiritual guidance.
After 30 years of trying to convert Washington, D.C., into a kinder, gentler city from the inside, the Maharishi says he`s given up. The nation`s capital is geographically undesirable, he complains.
Instead, the maestro of meditation`s New Year`s resolution is to achieve world peace in 1992 by reaching the U.S. capital`s consciousness from afar.
He says he will organize in poor countries ”one, two or three” groups of advanced meditators whom he calls ”yogic fliers.” He feels the less affluent locations offer greater hope of building up to the needed 7,000 fliers at any one site.
Once the requisite 7,000 are assembled, he expects them to synchronize and beam their good thoughts to Washington, D.C.
Why Washington?
The Maharishi feels that filling America`s political leadership with good, positive and peaceful thoughts is essential to world peace because
”America is the most creative country and the most powerful government in the world.
”The United States influences government and life everywhere else.”
And, he said in a recent phone interview from Vlodrop in the Netherlands, where he is now based, Washington is ”a pool of mud” that his best efforts have been unable to cleanse. He believes its polluted and crime-rife atmosphere poisons its politicians and renders them unable to lead the world to a better life.
Why 7,000 meditators?
Using a formula he contends to have tested successfully in dozens of smaller towns, the Maharishi says that whenever the square root of 1 percent of the population practices TM (Transcendental Meditation) together in one place, they exude ”a unified field of consciousness” that can change people around them.
If you`re dealing with a small town, a small number will do.
If you`re talking about the 7.3 million people of the Chicago metropolitan area, you`d need 270 meditators.
But if you`re talking about changing the world`s 4.9 billion people, he says, you need 7,000 fliers.
And if you`re going to change the world, the Maharishi says, you`ve got to hit the U.S. capital with the force field of 7,000 meditators in concert-transcending geography to impose their good vibration on Washington and its world-shakers.
Chicago doesn`t have to wait for his world peace plan. ”I tell people in Chicago to take care of themselves,” he says.
If the requisite 270 people meditate or, as he puts it, ”are flying together in one place, for 20 minutes at a time in the morning and evening,” their collective consciousness ”could eliminate crime in a month,” he says. ”It`s like turning on a light switch, instantaneous.”
There is a big catch, however. Meditation must be repeated daily. ”We have 300 followers in the Chicago area, but we`d have huge logistical problems getting 270 together every day,” says Park Hensley, co-chairman of the Chicago TM Center.
He says, of course, this could be solved by the city employing 270 TM fliers full-time. Cost? ”Maybe a $40,000 annual salary,” Hensley says, or $10.8 million a year for 270 fliers.
”But if governments saw this as a practical solution, you would have no crime,” he adds. ”You wouldn`t need to pay for jails and rehabilitation, and you`d save a lot on hospital and law enforcement costs.”
Washington was where the Maharishi wanted most to succeed and where he focused his organizing energy for three decades. But after a promising start, he says, ”no new people came in.”
And his followers weren`t able to win political support or government financing for the ethereal effort and its multimillion-dollar price tag.
After a final flop, rejection of an offer to recruit 7,000 fliers to create a cosmic wave against war in the Persian Gulf, the TM movement left Washington for Fairfield, Iowa.
That is where in 1971 they had founded Maharishi International University at the site of the former Parsons College.
The Maharishi says the ”poisonous effect that the U.S. is spreading on the world is returning to the U.S. . . . banks are failing, economy is failing, health is failing. . . . because you shall reap what you sow.”
Although he says he has given up trying to reform the U.S. from within, the Maharishi has convinced magician Doug Henning that Americans need another theme park in central Florida.
With a ”levitating” temple that appears to float above a lake as its centerpiece, Maharishi Veda Land is proposed by Henning for 1993, next door to Disney World.
Peace in `92 and a new playground in `93? Are they promises or prestidigitation from the yogi? Can Maharishi win back a society that seems to have opted for yogurt rather than yoga? Or should auld acquaintance be forgot?
