World Peace News: Top Stories

The Institute of Noetic Sciences interviews Dr John Hagelin - Part II
by Byron Belitsos

Institute of Noetic Sciences - Shift in Action Translate This Article
28 August 2007

[Full transcript of the interview continues:]

BB:
John, if you could summarize that, let's kind of go back to the top, if the conventional notion of the power of intention is that if we focus on a particular image, or idea, of something that one wants or something that one is praying for or visualizing to come into being is not going to be all that powerful because it's at a superficial level of consciousness, right, I think you'd say....

JH:
It is right, it's a question of skill and desiring. There's a technique in desiring, to desire at a very deep level. In the sense of prayer, you can go to a church where, you know, basically everyone is jumping around in the aisles, screaming out the name of God, that will provide a very excited level of mind, that'll provide some emotional upliftment for sure, or you can settle quietly and feel God's presence, and that will provide a practically more pervasive, subtle, but more powerful influence within the whole body, a healing influence in the whole body. Or you can identify with God, on the level of Being, on the level of cosmic awareness, His awareness or Her awareness, if you wish, where the separation is zero, and where thoughts are cosmically powerful, so intention can accomplish, it's just a skill in desiring, that's all, and the meditative training that we're involved with here is learning how to desire at a deep enough level such that the fulfillment of desire comes quickly, and where relatively few people can produce a really global effect.

BB:
So what you're adding to this huge centuries long inquiry into consciousness is now the data showing measurable results from the techniques of meditation, in the current time, right now, your assembly's actually engaging in, can you say more, John, about the measurability of the results of the collective effects.

JH:
Yes, it's a very good question. First let me just say the thing I think we're adding to the centuries old discussion of the power of intention is that on the one hand something that is thousands of years old, at least, and that is this very very fine, very refined techniques of desiring, from the Vedic tradition of knowledge of consciousness, but then as you say we're also adding something that is ultra-modern, and that is the scientific method. Can we make predictions and test those predictions as to what the changes are that we can achieve through collective meditation, and they really involve anything within the realm of possibility becomes not only possible, but probable, even likely, if there are enough people entertaining an intention at a particularly deep level of mind.

Some of the things are very obvious, things like the markets, amazingly, the stock markets in particular, bond market secondarily, are remarkably sensitive to the public mood, they're really sensitive psychological barometers. If people are feeling buoyant, confident, optimistic about the future, the future of the economy, they'll put money into the markets, take it out of cash, take it out of gold, they'll put it into the markets and drive the stocks higher, and what's so sensitive about that is once the stocks start to go higher, everyone starts feeling more bullish and they go higher still.

It's called a positive feedback loop, you can say, it's a hyper-sensitive situation, similarly, if people are feeling a bit gloomy, pessimistic about the future, they tend to pull money from the volatile markets and put it into gold or cash, that drives the markets lower and that scares people to death, so that's why you tend to get a boom and bust cycle in the economy. It's an inherently unstable system, but it's perfect for doing this sort of research, because even a relatively small boost in the optimism, positivity of the country really amplifies itself in the markets, where you have a very sensitive gauge.

You can almost trace the number of people meditating on a given day by what's happening in the markets, and since we started this thing, July 23rd of last year, there has been an enormous, of course there are ups and downs, but an enormous overall increase in the markets against everyone's predictions, we predicted it in advance because we've seen it every time. There are over 50, almost 60 studies that have been published on this phenomenon of group practice in meditation so far, that I'm aware of.

So we know pretty much what's going to happen each time, it makes it easy to predict, that's an easy thing. But then take something like the weather, we predicted in advance, and this was bold, this certainly raised a few eyebrows, I must say, that last year we would have no hurricanes, whereas the previous season had been the worst hurricane season on record and last year was predicted to be even worse. We said nope, there won't be any and that's exactly what happened to everybody's astonishment.

BB:
I remember that, an incredible job.

JH:
Thank you very much, and that saved the country, well, hundreds of billions of dollars compared to the previous year, and how does that work? Well basically on a simple level it works on increasing the deservability, increasing the merit, increasing the karma, improving the karma of the country by producing very life supporting, life nourishing, and cosmically positive thoughts, you can say, in the deep meditations and the tremendous bliss that pours in from the meditations is all from the very very positive nature quality of thought involved.

But from the stand point of a physicist, let me simply say that with the discovery that the laws of the weather obey what is called chaos theory, it satisfies the constraints of non-linear dynamical systems theory, that means the butterfly effect is in force, and we probably mostly know what that means, but it means that even the most minute change in the behavior of even one person, can literally either precipitate a hurricane or prevent one from coming. So here we have thousands of people who are in turn affecting the behavior of millions of people, and the slightest shift in human behavior can be enough to either deflect or even prevent the emergence of a hurricane, and we didn't expect any, we predicted there would be none, everybody said that was impossible, it was also, as you can imagine, a very statistically significant effect.

BB:
Well, John, what I find amazing also is that there wasn't a specific intention to change the weather and prevent hurricanes, was there? It wasn't specifically stated as such...

JH:
That's a very good point, no there was no specific intention to do that, but the field of Being at the source of thought, field of consciousness at the base of localized thought or perception, in the field of pure positivity, purely life supporting influence, it is in physics terms the unified field, the source of all the laws of nature, unified fountainhead of all the laws of nature governing the universe. It's these laws of nature that gave birth to life on earth, billions of species, sustained these species in earth's intricate ecosystems and sustains life throughout the trillions of galaxies across the enormous ever expanding universe, so that field of life, field of Being, source of natural law is really the field of pure life, pure positivity, pure light. It's the nourisher of all life, so simply by becoming that, by expanding human comprehension to experience and identify with that, huge positivity flows through the minds, thoughts, actions, speech, behavior.

So it's really an upsurge of positivity more than anything that we see as the result of this particular meditation practice, of this particular tradition, Vedic Tradition, of Transcendental Meditation and so forth, advanced meditation techniques of TM. And it is therefore, you'd say, a non-intentional practice, but on the other hand, because you're really contacting the field of pure positivity, so to speak, purely evolutionary field of natural law, then the effects you see from it are purely life supporting.

Now we could take this same group, having developed their minds to this degree and focus on, for example, decreasing or increasing the counts on a number generator or on anything else and we could probably see an inordinately large effect because these minds have been tuned, really, and they're very powerful, it's a very powerful group.

BB:
On looking at it, say, from the other side, as it were, John, can you say, you've almost said that the field has its own intention?

JH:
That's a very good point. It's a subtle point; we could almost say that, the field you could almost say has some specificity about it because it's always good, good, good, good. And even at the dawning of peace, increasing peace in the world surrounding these meditating groups, lack of crime in society, reduction of violence, war deaths, terrorism, all that you could say is the influence of pure positivity, reduced negativity, reduced stress, reduced hostility, but in some respects there is some quality to this field, just like, even though this field is the source of everything, source of good and source of evil, its nature is more good. It's like light, light, a candle is a source of light.

It's also the source of darkness because without light there are no shadows, but the shadows don't have much substance. They're just the lack of light. Evil doesn't have much substance, it's just the lack of good. So if you want to describe a candle you can say it's the source of darkness, but probably better to say it's the source of light, in that way the field of Being is the source of good, pure life, not the source of death, even though it is, because without life there is no death. But what we're enlivening is the life, the light, and that's the sort of thing we see, goodness everywhere.

BB:
Beautifully well said, John, we're almost at the end, let me just ask you if you have anything else to say in closing to our listeners about the things we've been talking about, collective intention and the power of consciousness?

JH:
First, a general congratulations for those who are attuned to this show and this program in general, because these are the people who are, I would say, seekers of truth. They're awake, and in search of the deepest knowledge, and those are the people who are going to change the world, those people, everyone of our listeners, everyone of our viewers, absolutely precious.

Secondly, I would say, if anyone in their program for self development isn't very efficiently experiencing this field of pure unbounded awareness, bliss consciousness, you might consider doing something that is more effective in at least one respect. There are lots of ways to develop the mind. There are lots of ways to develop the body, you can do muscle training to develop your upper body, you can do aerobics to develop your cardio-vascular health, and they're all good, but if there was one thing that I'd like to see people do is to turn up the rheostat of consciousness, turn up the dimmer switch that determines how much life we've got, how much intelligence, how much creativity, how much good fortune, how much support of nature, how powerful is our intention, and for that, I think, you have to really contact, and enliven the field of Being, so something that will take the mind to the transcendental level beyond thought, to experience Being. That will strengthen anything you do, and whatever techniques you also do, do something that gives the experience of transcendental pure universal consciousness.

BB:
On that note, thank you, Dr. John Hagelin, and thank you to our listeners. Take care now, bye bye.

[End of Part II of the transcript from the interview on 28 August 2007. Part I was featured in Global Good News on 10 November 2007.]

This interview with Dr John Hagelin is one of 25 audio interviews with pioneering scientists and spiritual leaders, all available for $1 in a trial month of Shift in Action, a membership program of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Copyright © Shift in Action, Intention Download Transcripts • August 2007

Global Good News comment:

For information about Maharishi's seven-point programme to create a healthy, happy, prosperous society, and a peaceful world, please visit: Global Financial Capital of New York.

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

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)