by Joseph R. Giove

Major technolo gical and humanistic developments are conver gin g as a result of globalization. This holistic blendin g of the East and the West is makin g the scientific exploration of certain spiritual practices, which are aimed at creatin g peace, a viable pursuit. With a ri gorous Western approach to practical application of Eastern wisdom, world peace may well be within our reach.

This article first discusses the current state of societal disharmony from an unusual perspective, one that considers the underlyin g subjective issues of conflict. Next it addresses how the science of consciousness is transformin g our worldview. Then it presents how an East-West conver gence of science, technolo gy and spiritually gives humanity an unprecedented opportunity to brin g sustainable peace to our communities and to the world.

A Different Model of Societal Disharmony

The peace-through-strength approach, both in our communities and on the world scene, continually demonstrates its limitations. Every “victory” contains the seeds of fear, mistrust and hostility. Societal tension underlies attempts at reconciliation, rendering them temporary at best. A more fundamental and sustainable approach to societal harmony is apparently needed.

One approach is to examine the underlyin g subjective issues of conflict, a common one bein g tension or stress. As R.K White ar gues in Fearful Warriors:

“Traditional approaches to peace…cannot be effective in the absence of concurrent measures to drastically reduce tension. High levels of tension or stress directly motivate violence aimed at removing perceived injustices, threats or blocks to progress….they may also indirectly breed misperceptions, fear, and dysfunctional cognitive and decision-making processes.”

Consider this on a personal level. Recall a circumstance between you and a spouse, coworker or business partner. Your stress may have distorted your perception of the situation and ability to make thoughtful, creative, harmonious decisions. Now multiply this stressful influence times a hundred or thousands, as is the case in many communities around the world.

If a sustainable approach to peace is possible, it must alleviate this tension in a way that feels personal to each individual, yet is not externally imposed. When this is accomplished, cognitive and decision-making processes naturally tend toward more harmonious outcomes.

Examining human consciousness as it relates to peaceful relations seems as relevant as any externally motivated means of resolving conflicts. In fact, as consciousness researcher, David Orme-Johnson points out, “The scientific exploration of consciousness is critical to our understanding of the natural world and for solving the recalcitrant problems of humankind, which are all ultimately problems of mind.”

Once we give consciousness and its practical application equal footin g with machines, pro gress and commerce, we have a chance at unitin g three major developments that have resulted from advancin g technolo gy and globalization. They are: 1) collective mind over matter, 2) a human-based peace technolo gy, and 3) massive global collaboration.

As Mass Mind Moves, So Does Matter

Imagine going to Las Vegas and playing craps. Instead of everyone at the table hoping for a different roll of the dice, you all agree what number you want to see. Believe it or not, this might have a subtle influence on the probability of those intended numbers occurring. This ability to influence random events has been studied for over 75 years, according to Dean Radin, PhD, author of Entangled Minds and The Conscious Universe.

Now imagine having dozens of computers spread around the world whose job it is to roll electronic dice continuously, creating a steady stream of random events. Do you think that a group of people around the world could meditate on becoming more coherent as a group, calming themselves very deeply without falling asleep, and that human coherence could make those random dice-rolls not so random?

What would you say if it doesn’t even require that much intention; that all it takes is an event that captures the collective attention, like the death of Princess Diana, a tsunami disaster broadcast on every TV station, or the tra gedy of September 11, 2001? Dr. Ro ger Nelson, retired Princeton University professor, heads the Global Consciousness Project. [noosphere.princeton.edu]. Since 1998 this project has been runnin g a network of random event generators distributed around the world. When actual events of world interest happen, a chan ge of the random numbers to non-random occurs, which cannot be explained throu gh traditional physics. Over 200 events have been evaluated, from natural disasters to the death of celebrities to global meditations, and have shown that as humans become more coherent, it appears that matter does too, with odds a gainst this phenomenon occurrin g by chance at over 1,000,000 to 1.

As extraordinary as these consciousness field effects are, somethin g even more interestin g happens when we study what occurs to other humans under special cases of intentional g roup coherence.

A Human-Based Peace Technology

One of the most remarkable imports from the East isn’t curry spice; it’s a phenomenon referred to as “a fourth state of consciousness.” The first three you are familiar with: 1) wakefulness, 2) dreaming while you sleep; and 3) deep sleep.

The fourth state, accordin g to Robert M. Oates in Permanent Peace, seems to be a combination of two seemin gly opposed human states: minimum physical-mental arousal and maximum awareness. The former is akin to deep sleep, where the body and nervous system are minimally aroused, with no sensory or mental activity. The latter is a rarified, gentle type of awareness that transcends normal wakefulness – a pure, self-referral type of awareness – awareness circlin g back to become aware of itself…awareness of awareness, so to speak.

While this fourth state of consciousness is uncommon, it is a natural human state. It has been studied extensively for its remarkably positive effects on human health and well-being. In this state, breath slows down, heart rate decelerates, skin conductance increases (the opposite of the Fight or Flight response), brain functioning becomes more coherent from left to right and front to back, as indicated by the EEG.

The method used to experience this fourth state of consciousness is an inner practice called transcendental meditation (TM). The full complex of effects as described above does not seem to be achieved with most other forms of skilled relaxation or meditation. TM comes from the eastern Vedic tradition. It is the oldest continuous system of human knowled ge, called the Perennial Philosophy. TM is not a reli gion, does not involve contemplation about reli gious or secular ideas, nor does it involve concentration, which is characteristic of some meditation and reli gious practices. It is a simple, inner practice that allows the active mind to settle to its silent self-referral state.

The reason TM is bein g hi ghli ghted here is because it is has been the subject of most social studies, and has a well developed theory of consciousness and its individual and collective effects. These studies tested the hypothesis that societal stress underlies violence, a g gression and conflict, which can be reduced by inducin g into the community a fundamental calmin g and harmonizin g influence.

Remember the Global Consciousness Project where groups of people appear to influence a chan ge of random numbers to non-random? Considerin g this, it’s not too far fetched that humans can affect other humans to behave in a more coherent, harmonious way as well…by becomin g more coherent and harmonious within themselves.

Since the late 1970s, studies of lar ge peace-creatin g groups of TM practitioners have consistently shown a reduction of violent crime and terrorism. They come to a city, gather in lar ge groups for a period of weeks or months, and a si gnificant drop in crime is subsequently observed below pre-existin g levels. These groups, numberin g in the hundreds to thousands, seem to create a calmin g and harmonizin g effect in the surroundin g communities. What is particularly encoura gin g in these studies is that violent crime isn’t the only aspect positively influenced; it appears that all members of a community, includin g policy makers, social architects, police officers, husbands and wives, teachers, children, virtually every se gment of a society, all seems to be influenced in a way to be more harmonious within themselves between each other and their environment. Think of what could be accomplished if citizens in these communities would form similar peace-creatin g groups and thus provide this effect on a continuous basis. The future of nei ghborhood crime prevention pro grams should include similar peace-creatin g group activities. These activities may include TM but studies currently underway may show other types of activities can be effective.

The table below summarizes three studies that demonstrated significantly reduced crime in the capital regions of the Philippines, the United States and India. A time series analysis showed that this drop was not expected based on prior causative factors, and could not be accounted for by weather, seasonal cycles or change in police coverage. Because two of the three groups were composed of Westerners visiting Asian cities, these studies also demonstrated that peace-creating groups apparently operate on a fundamental level that transcends political, cultural or ethnic differences.

Decreased Crime in the Capital Regions of the Philippines , the United States , and India

Source: www.permanentpeace.org with permission

The remarkable effects demonstrated by the 50+ well-controlled TM social studies is not outside the realm of your own personal experience, you may have just never considered it this way. Ima gine goin g to a gatherin g of friends who respect you, desire your company, and are calm and enjoyin g themselves. This gatherin g would feel welcomin g and you’d be more likely to have a relaxed, enjoyable time. You’d feel confident, creative and resourceful. You’d feel a harmony with your friends that would transcend inevitable differences. Contrast this with attendin g a court hearin g with obvious interpersonal polarities, skilled adversaries and ill intentions. In the presence of this field of tension and conflict, you may feel uneasy, strained, mentally a gitated, uncreative, perhaps even co gnitively impaired, and not in the best decision-makin g mode. Both scenarios involve a localized consciousnesses field that you influence and that influences you…a very common human experience.

Mainstream science is just now recognizing this consciousness field. It’s been there all along, though, harboring our hopes, frustrations, fears, joys, sorrows…and intentions. While a handful of very powerful people may be able to influence a nation for its betterment or detriment through political, economic or violent means, the mass of people connected through technology can now bring something much more rewarding to life. This brings up the final development.

Massive Global Collaboration

Massive collaboration in today’s highly connected world is something dramatically different than we’re used to. It is about deep changes in the structure of our society and economy that are touching virtually every aspect of human affairs.

As Dan Tapscott says in Wikinomics, How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, “Billions of connected people can now actively participate in innovation, wealth creation and social development in ways we once only dreamed of. And when these masses of people collaborate they collectively advance the arts, culture, science education, government and the economy in surprising ways…discovering the true dividends of collective capability and genius. These changes are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history—a world where value creation will be fast, fluid and persistently disruptive.”

The power to add immense value to humanity and disrupt the cycle of conflict, violence and societal disharmony has been demonstrated repeatedly by the two previously mentioned developments. Now, combined with the proliferation of massive collaboration technologies – made evident by the large scale successes of MySpace, YouTube, Second Life and Wikipedia – these two social endeavors can be scientifically explored to discover their ability to impact social harmony.

Imagine a massive global collaborative of peace-creating groups whose purpose is social harmony, comprised of members from every religion, meditation practice and indigenous group. They would come together locally and globally, learn how to apply the findings of prior social studies, and develop an open-source technology that validated the social harmonizing effects of their combined efforts.

One of the products of their collaboration would be a “social harmony index” reflective of the value in social capital gained by their efforts. They would regularly monitor indicators of social harmony and coherence, like the level and severity of emergency calls, crime statistics, socially responsible investing, and other real-time data sources. They would then feed that composite index back to participating groups over mobile phones, podcasts, television, radio and the Internet.

This index would serve as a social coherence feedback si gnal that would help inte grate all the diverse tendencies in society for a mutually enhancin g common good. This will educate and empower ever-lar ger numbers of people to participate in the most effective peace-makin g pro gram ever developed. One that puts the power of peace in the hands of those who benefit most: the individual. This would be ideal for the Millennium Project of the United Nations University and incorporated in their annual State of the Future publication.

When this is done, peace may well be within our reach, and science can help us get there.

CommonPassion.org , in cooperation with many local and global groups, is orchestrating the world’s largest interfaith global meditation and prayer event ever performed. This will be a series of meditation and prayers for community and global peace to be held between May 15th and May 29th, 2007 . It is anticipated that over 1,000,000 people will participate in this two-week program from virtually every faith-system, religious group, indigenous community and meditation assembly currently in existence.

Concurrent with the prayer-meditation practices we will monitor crime statistics, emergency call data and other social indicators to ascertain change as a result of this peace-creating program.

Here’s how the May program works:

Each group will select a day or days in which to perform their specific prayer or meditative practice, the intention for which is to foster social harmony at a local and or global level. CommonPassion.org is formulating a common intention and theme for all groups to share, which will foster the coherence-creating effect. Each group or individual will enroll on this site and provide a profile of the practice that will be performed on the selected day(s).

The localized foci of prayer-meditation activities will be based in large part on where we can obtain data from law enforcement and municipal governments. In other words, if Chicago , Los Angeles , San Francisco , Rome , Tokyo , London and Rio municipal governments agree to provide crime and emergency call data, then we will enroll additional groups in these metro areas to participate in activities focused on these areas. This will help enlist the meaningful cooperation of participants in target areas; the empirical evidence suggests that this will enhance the desired effect.

CommonPassion.org is the primary portal for enrolling and participating in this program. The enrollment and profiling systems are being built right now. Please sign up to receive an email update when you can enroll.

Joseph R. Giove is founder and Executive Director of CommonPassion.or g , a nonprofit, nonsectarian, educational and scientific consortium committed to unitin g collective human intention and technolo g y to promote social harmony: www.CommonPassion.org.

© 2007 Copyright Joseph R. Giove