This article appeared in Defence India, June 24, 2002

OPERATION: WORLD PEACE

By Maj. Gen. G. H. Israni, VSM and Dr. David R. Leffler

Introduction

Today we are living in a strife-torn world. Terrorism, wars and conflict are prevalent in many parts of the world. Lives are being lost every day. There appears to be no end to rivalries and conflicts between communities, religious groups and nations--big and small. Have people lost the art of living happy, fulfilled lives?

Living in peace and perpetual happiness is not only an intrinsic desire, but fervent collective wish of humankind. Will there ever be an end to terrorism, war and conflict? Is there a way to reduce collective stress and create peace?

Perhaps. Invincible Defence Technology, drawn from India's Vedic heritage, is awakening, creating new possibilities. Modern science has validated its effectiveness. It is just a matter of time before all militaries worldwide will deploy Invincible Defense Technology as their first line of defence.

The Twentieth Century and Elusive Peace

The twentieth century was characterized by tremendous strides in scientific and technological advancements and explorations, including moon landings and space shuttles. Never before in any of the earlier centuries had advancements in technology been so rapid and with such far-reaching effects. It was also the century of the rise and fall of great empires, the end of colonialism, ideological rivalries, and the creation of international organisations like The League of Nations and The United Nations Organisation. Two centers of power, the United States of America (USA) and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), emerged, overshadowing the European powers who had held sway until the middle of the century. During this century, we engaged in two world wars, resulting in the mass destruction of cities and great loss of human lives.

A glimmer of hope for peace emerged at the end of the last century when the two super powers, the USA (the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and the USSR (heading the Warsaw Pact Treaty Organisation) appeared to be coming closer, in a mood of reconciliation and resolution. However, the hope of bringing about stability and world peace lasted for only a brief period.

During the arms race after World War II, the Western economies thrived on production of ever more lethal and sophisticated weapons, and their counter measures. The conventional weapons and equipment produced by Western nations found their way to the peoples of the Third World countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The armaments and defence-related industries of the West continued to flood the markets of the Third World with their sophisticated ware. In return, they received raw materials and petroleum. Petroleum became so valuable that is was informally called "black gold." The Arab world used petroleum as an economic weapon and wars were fought over it.

The eruption of conflicts in Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and Israel, as well as the nations of the Mediterranean became grim reminders of earlier wars between the Cross and the Crescent. Despite the various accords, treaties, negotiations and talks, with US Presidents playing mediator, these rivalries continue with ferocity. Collective stress is the root cause of all these problems.

The Champion of World Peace

In World War II, amidst the destruction in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, came an enlightened spiritual teacher or Rishi. In the Himalayas in India, this sage began to groom a protégé who would reawaken the world. The Rishi was His Divinity Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the respected Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math.

His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, having received inspiration and blessings from His Divinity Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, started a worldwide movement to teach the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique. He brought out the knowledge in a non-religious manner. The ultimate aim of this movement was to bring enlightenment to individuals and peace and invincibility to every nation.

Maharishi's goals are attainable because the TM programme reduces individual stress. This helps bring about enlightenment. He knew that when large groups practice the TM programme together, the result was less collective stress in society. Hence, less tension, fewer conflicts, less strife, and less war.

Over almost 50 years, the Transcendental Meditation movement grew into a global community. It encompassed people from many religions and cultures, and many walks of life, including prominent scientists, doctors, lawyers, politicians, actors, musicians, and other celebrities. Inspired by the personal and spiritual benefits gained from the regular practice of the TM programme, they began to propagate Maharishi's revival of this human resource-based technology of peace.

Before Maharishi systematically revived ancient Vedic knowledge, it was mostly confined to a select few in India. Maharishi revealed that it was possible for every individual to be happy and enlightened. In his simple, lucid and jovial style, he explained that beyond the familiar states of consciousness of waking, dreaming and sleeping, there are four advanced stages of human development. These higher states of consciousness are Transcendental Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, God Consciousness and Unity Consciousness. Each higher state brings a new dimension of experience, knowledge and fulfillment.

Maharishis Invincible Defence Technology for World Peace

The point of Invincible Defense Technology is to prevent an enemy from arising. Without enemies, everyone wins. This is why the technology is invincible.

The modern inquisitive mind, particularly in the West, abhors blind faith and seeks scientific explanation for every phenomena. For this reason, advocates of the TM technique and related programmes undertook scientific enquiry. Today, there hundreds of scientific studies validating these programmes as a viable solution to the difficult problems faced by today's leaders in the areas of defence, government, health, business, and education. (For more information on this research, see Authors' Note.)

This research backed up Maharishi's specific formulas for creating peace. Maharishi predicted that if 1% of a population (for instance, a city) practiced the TM programme, peace and harmony would increase throughout the city. Additionally, he anticipated the same result if the square root of 1% of a population (such as a country) practiced the more advanced TM-Sidhi programme in a group. Many of these scientific studies found that social indicators, such as acts of terrorism, war deaths, war injuries, conflict levels and crime rates, showed improvement when enough people meditated.

Scientists have discovered that the level of super-unification described in quantum unified field theory was explained thousands of years ago in the part of the Vedic literature that describes the Laws of Nature. In Vedic language, this Unified Field is expressed as Parame Vyoman--pure transcendental consciousness, fully awake within itself. It is transcendental to space and time. This is why it is invincible, everywhere, and exists for all time. This is where Maharishis Vedic Technology of Invincible Defence performs. The results appear in our physical world.

Maharishi Alerts the World

Even after the USA-USSR reconciliation in the nineteen-nineties, Maharishi warned that unless the strong nations of the world deployed Invincible Defence Technology, the beginning of the twenty-first century would spell doom for the world, which may result in fierce conflicts without any resolution. An announcement was made to the world press that a global war was hanging over our heads. The world's leaders were requested to create an Endowment Fund to support a permanent group of peace creators. Their duty would be to practice Invincible Defence Technology to ward off the large danger that was looming. A few extracts from the announcement that appeared on April 12, 1999 in the Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune and The Financial Times of London are below:

Today the UN has become a laughing stock, failing everywhere and is ignored. So NATO has attempted to control the Yugoslavian situation with violence. But its bombardment has intensified the disaster and created a new bloody history of the world. World Peace is now in the hands of those with a power to destroy...It has set an example to every nation in the world--if you dont like another country and they wont obey you, then bomb them and destroy them&Now bombardment can happen to any country any time&Therefore, can we wait even a single moment to establish world peace?

What is happening in Yugoslavia can happen to any nation any time. Can you imagine if bombs began to fall on Washington DC and to destroy the high rises of the money markets of New York? Will NATO be able to prevent this? When this happens it will be beyond the power of the wealthy to save the situation.

Peace can only be created by taking recourse to Natural Law--to create a powerful influence of coherence inside and outside of any country with a group of experts in the Technology of Natural Law (such as Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying).

This approach will create such an integrated and harmonious world consciousness that violent thoughts will simply not arise, and there will be permanent world peace.

September 11, and December 13, 2001

Unfortunately, the powerful nations of the world did not heed the appeal. Despite the lukewarm response to his appeals, Maharishi kept up the tempo and sent emissaries to world leaders, urging them to act on his proposal. One such emissary was Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Kulwant Singh--a highly decorated, educated and honoured retired Indian Army terrorism expert. He was sent to the USA, the most powerful nation of the world, to warn leaders that no Missile Defence Shield could totally protect its citizens. Dr. Singh once again offered Maharishi's scientifically-validated Invincible Defence Technology as a means avert the danger that had not yet come.

It is interesting to note that on 10th September, after a press release of 5th September, the General appealed to USA leaders to deploy Invincible Defence Technology. On September 11, just minutes before General Singh was to address a press conference in Washington, DC, the terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, DC, were unleashed.

Maharishi was also concerned for the country of his birth. India's collective stress was also rising to a dangerous level. He dispatched a high-powered delegation comprised of senior political leader, a respected Canadian citizen, senior retired generals and prominent businessmen to approach governmental leaders. In October 2001, this delegation met with senior Indian ministers to advocate immediately organizing 40,000 pundits to perform a Yagya. The goal of deploying this powerful Vedic technology was reduce quickly reduce India's dangerous level collective stress. Reducing this stress would not only to ward off trouble brewing in India, but also to ensure the safety of people everywhere in the world. Due to previous successes using Vedic technologies in other places in the world, philanthropists in Western countries promised to help financially with this endeavor.

Privately, the concerned ministers saw the rationale and were convinced of the efficacy of the prevention strategy. Unfortunately, due to political considerations, they declined the generous offer. Soon the biggest democracy in the world suffered an attack on their parliament house. This was followed by violence in Gujrat in December of 2001. The internal situation in both India and Pakistan deteriorated. Havoc reigned even in the normally peaceful state of Nepal.

The World Situation Today

Although the USA was the world's most powerful nation as the twentieth century ended, it was humbled at the start of the twenty-first century. The situation throughout the world is far from being peaceful. At the time of this writing:

• Osama bin Laden is still at large, while the country where he is thought to be hiding struggles to recover from the after-effects of bombing by the nation whose pride had been hurt.

• Al Qaeda is still a force to reckon with. America is still militarily involved with Afghanistan and Al Qaeda terrorist cells apparently operate in many other countries.

• There is no peace in South Asia. Tensions between India and Pakistan still rise and fall. Turmoil continues in Nepal. The shadow of terrorism spreads beyond the northern states of India.

• Palestinian-Arab-Israel reconciliation is but a distant dream.

• The war against terrorism started by the powerful Western nations shows little results as terrorists continue to strike at will, whenever and wherever they wish.

• Poverty and sickness are rampant in the Balkans.

• Nuclear, chemical and biological terrorism may soon rear their ugly heads.

Time to Take Action

It is now time for the nations of the world to immediately create permanent world peace. Terrorist continue to multiply. Defence experts predict that it is just a matter of time before they attack with powerful weapons of mass destruction. For this reason, it is too dangerous to continue to live in a strife torn world with conflicts continuing in South Asia, the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Africa.

Terrorism cannot be eliminated by destroying the terrorists. Any step in the direction of destruction only helps to create more terrorists. More terrorists only results in more waves of destruction. There is no wisdom in initiating a continuous theme of destruction in the name of protection. Prudence dictates eliminating the underlying cause of terrorism, war and all types of violencecollective social stress.

Relentless Efforts Continue

There is enough proof that the persistent problems faced by governments could have been prevented had the governments deployed Invincible Defense Technology. Unfortunately, history shows that, generally, leaders are slow to adopt new promising military technologies. For this reason, and also due to the precarious situations outlined above, Maharishi created a Global Country of World Peace. (GCWP). The GCWP mobilized wealthy philanthropists worldwide to pledge $100 million to quickly deploy Invincible Defence Technology in India. Hopefully, this coherence creating group will be fully operational soon.

However, while the authors salute the noble efforts of these wise and charitable individuals, they feel that India should not depend on the charity of others in the future. India is a strong and respected nation. The citizens of India are already taxed in order to pay their military to protect them. Since ancient times, it has been the duty of the kshatriyas to defend the nation. To accomplish their noble duty, India's warriors should have the best technology available. Extensive scientific research and previous experience show that Invincible Defence Technology is the best way to reduce war and terrorism by preventing enemies from arising.

Maharishi proposes that every country in the world employ members of their militaries to practice his programs for peace. A Prevention Wing of the Military would use only about 2% to 3% of the armed forces of India, leaving the remaining military personnel to carry on their regular duties.

Conclusion

The USA has the largest defence budget in the world. Despite this, it could not prevent the attacks of 11 Sept 01. The humbling of the USA is a grim indicator that continuing to use only conventional, weapons-based approaches will not end negativity and create world peace. The time is ripe to adopt a new approach. As Maharishi says: Only a new seed will yield a new crop. Only a new philosophy and new efforts based on new knowledge will fulfill the age old dream of the wise for prevention of crime, terrorism and wars and maintenance of world peace on a permanent basis.

Let us not waste any more time. Let us not forget that the USA and India could have prevented what happened on 11th September and 13th December, had they acted on the fervent appeals to deploy Invincible Defence Technology. India must act quickly.

Authors' Note: There are many published studies about the principle component of Invincible Defence Technology. For military readers, the authors recommend two academic papers that summarize much of this research. These papers are available on-line at the Security and Political Risk Analysis Bulletin (SAPRA India) and Indian Defence Consultants websites. Other articles appeared in Defense Review, Indian Defence Review, and Indian Strategic Review. Links to these articles are available at: http://www.davidleffler.com.

Major General G.H. Israni received his MBA from Poona University and his M.Sc. in Defense Studies from Madras University. A forty-year member of the Indian military, he was awarded the Vishist Seva Medal for distinguished service. Major General Israni has served as a General Officer commanding the Mountain Division, and as the Provost Marshal of Army Headquarters in New Delhi. Currently, he is the Commandant of one of India's premier military training institutions, the Officers' Training Academy. He also edits Combat Journal, the professional magazine of the Indian Army. Major General Israni lives in Pune, India.

Dr. David Leffler received his Ph.D. on the topic of Invincible Defence Technology from Union Institute & University. His other academic degrees include: a B.A. in Education, an M.A. in the Science of Creative Intelligence from Maharishi University of Management and an M.M. in Education from New Mexico State University. He was a member of the U.S. Air Force for eight years. Dr. Leffler serves as a Peer Member at The Union Institute and is a member of the U.S. Naval Institute. He has given presentations on Invincible Defence Technology at the Russian Air Force Academy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and defense-related institutions in the United States. Dr. Leffler lives in Wappingers Falls, New York, USA.