MEDITATE, DON’T MEDIATE

Barry Davis

Supporters of transcendental meditation believe that peace is achievable just by a change of consciousness. Not everybody agrees.

Reuven Zelinkofsky says he has the answer to the conflict in the Middle East. It doesn't involve long and painful negotiations; it doesn't involve fighting; and it doesn't even cost much money. His solution is transcendental meditation, or TM.

Mention the idea of meditating as a means of ending international violence and, at best, you generally elicit a resounding guffaw or a blank stare. Zelinkofsky, who lives in the TM-oriented Galilee village of Hararit and is a founder member of the International Meditation Society of Israel, has experienced just about every response in the book, none of which, it seems, has diluted his enthusiasm or faith in TM as a means of bringing national, regional and even global peace. Recently, he gave a presentation on the subject at Tel Aviv's Sheraton Hotel in front of an audience of about 100 people - a performance enhanced by a demonstration of yogic flying, an advanced state of TM in which practitioners leap into the air from a half-lotus sitting position.

Zelinkofsky opened his account by declaring simply: "We want peace in Israel and the whole of the Middle East." Fair enough. He went on to quote statistics, such as the $400 billion the US spends on its annual defense budget (in Zelinkofsky words: "to no avail"); and added that from his perspective, peace is attainable "for the cost of half a tail of an F-16 fighter jet."

He backed his claims up by saying that when several hundred TM practitioners meditated in Jerusalem over a two- month period in 1983, the incidence of war-related death in Lebanon dropped by 76%, and that there were reductions in crime, traffic accidents, fires and "other indicators of social stress in Israel." The findings were published in the respected New York-based Journal of Conflict Resolution bimonthly magazine in 1988.

According to Zelinkofsky, a former IDF lieutenant colonel, all that is needed to put a stop to violence in Israel is to arrange for 500 TM experts to practice transcendental meditation here on a daily basis.

He claims there are now around 50,000 TM practitioners around the country. …

"There are a number of differences [between TM and other forms of meditation-relaxation techniques]. First of all, this technique is very simple and natural and does not require any effort. You practice it twice a day, in a comfortable sitting position with your eyes closed. You can do TM in the middle of a bus station or a shopping mall. When you are in a shopping mall, despite the noise around you your thought processes continue. You compare prices and talk to friends. If your thought processes continue you can do TM too. You don't control your thoughts when you do transcendental meditation.

"I've been doing TM for 27 years, including when I was in the army. You don't get a lot of free time when you're a senior officer but I meditated whenever I found 20 minutes and a place to sit - even in planes."

Since he was a high-ranking officer one might have expected Zelinkofsky's peers to have raised an eyebrow or two at his alternative antics. "Yes, there were some who looked on me as a bit weird. But I got other responses too. When I was a major I practiced TM with a whole team of top combat soldiers. They were very pleased with the results."

Zelinkofsky says the second advantage TM has over other forms of meditation is the empirical evidence of its benefits. "Over 600 research papers have been published [on TM] - thousands have been conducted - in over 100 leading journals, put out by 220 universities and research institutes in 33 countries. The late Dr. Michael Cooper from Beilinson Hospital [in Petah Tikva] found that TM helps to reduce cholesterol."

Zelinkofsky's presentation at the Sheraton Hotel also cited Mozambique President Joaquim Alberto Chissano, who claimed TM helped to put an end to 16 years of guerrilla warfare in his country. "First I started the practice of transcendental meditation myself, and then introduced the practice to my close family, my cabinet of ministers, my government officers and my military," Chissano was quoted in an article that appeared in the London-based Guardian newspaper in September 2001 - although the newspaper was careful to say that it was taking the quotes from Maharishi literature rather than from the president himself. "The result has been political peace and balance in nature in my country," Chissano continued in the interview.

One of the major supporters of the Maharishi and TM in the American scientific community is physicist John Hagelin, who conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). … In 1992, Hagelin became politically active when he accepted the presidential nomination of the newly formed Natural Law Party, a party associated, at least informally, with TM. As a scientist and political activist, what does Hagelin say to those who scoff at the idea of a form of relaxation solving such pressing global issues as violence in the Middle East and safeguarding American cities from Osama bin Laden's terrorist scheming?

"First I would ask them if they have an alternate solution that is similarly scientifically well documented, whether they have a similar program that is as cost effective or as humane. Leaders across the world are looking for viable alternatives. The United States government is desperate for a viable alternative and has put a call to the public admitting that they don't have the answers to prevent violence and terrorism, and are asking the public for their ideas. Here's an idea that has a track record of scientific research to back it. We are talking here about a scientific fact that has been more extensively documented, more rigorously tested than any other phenomenon in the history of conflict resolution, indeed in the history of social science." …

While Hagelin is obviously enthused with the idea of TM being used to reduce global tension, at the end of the day it is the men and women holding onto the purse strings who will enable TM practitioners to conduct a large-scale exercise. Although Hagelin has been waiting for funding from the US administration for many years, he sees much hope for the future. "Progress is clearly being made," he declares. "For example, recently, there was discussion about an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill, the defense- funding bill for this year. An amendment was offered by some Republican and Democrat congressmen that would have funded a group for at least for the first year. The amendment did not pass because at the end of the year all discussion of amendments was halted in order to quickly pass a defense bill in time to feed the war against terrorism."

Meanwhile, back in our own small wartorn country, Zelinkofsky and Alex Kodai, chairman of the International Meditation Society of Israel, have been lobbying for support for the TM approach to conflict resolution in the highest echelons of the political and military hierarchies, also for years, with little success. They sent a letter to then prime minister Menachem Begin in the early Eighties as well as to all the prime ministers since. Letters were also sent to the Finance, Internal Security, Communications, Defense and Religious Affairs ministries. The responses, if any, were always brief and diplomatically dismissive.

One of the few political figures willing to offer Zelinkofsky and Kodai any of his time was Labor MK Yossi Katz, who is among other things a member of the Knesset Joint Committee for the Defense Budget. … While not willing to personally endorse or encourage the TM approach, Katz still believes Zelinkofsky, Kodai and their fellow meditators should be given some support by the government authorities.

But, for now, it appears that supporters of the TM approach to putting an end to violence over here will have to wait a while longer to see whether the political and military chiefs eventually make any headway.

Does anyone have half a tail of an F-16 to spare?

Copyright 2002 The Jerusalem Post