(AUGUST 10) To nations averse to supporting the U.S. war against Iraq, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will offer a choice: The technologies of destruction promoted by President Bush or the peace-promoting Vedic technologies of defense offered by Maharishi.

“And once they make their choice,” Maharishi will say, “they will live with the effects.”

Maharishi will present his peaceful solution to conflict and war during a global news conference this Wednesday, August 14, at 11:00 a.m. (EDT); 17:00 hours (Central Europe Time), to be broadcast live via satellite, Internet webcast, and teleconference call from Meru, Holland.

Outdated military strategy

Maharishi says that today’s militaries have outlived their usefulness: “The times have changed. The military is incompetent to protect the nation against an enemy who does not show his face and against a missile that can come and turn the whole society to ashes. ‘Defend the nation by killing your enemy’ is an outdated military strategy. It is obsolete. You kill your enemy today and another enemy will kill you tomorrow—and then what is left?”

Prevention is the key to defense

“Prevention is the only way for defense,” Maharishi says. “Intelligent military thinking dictates that you prevent the birth of an enemy—that you make your enemy into your friend. It will be much easier to make your enemy your friend than it will be to defend yourself against an unseen enemy.”

Peace-keeping force

For these reasons, Maharishi says, “I would like to see every country adopt prevention for defense—and I would like to see every country without a military.”

In place of the military, Maharishi advises that every country establish a national peace-keeping force suitable to the security demands of a “stressful world”— a world where acute religious and ethnic stresses fuel terrorism and war, and weapons of destruction are easily accessible to any nation or rogue state.

Maharishi’s Vedic Technologies of Consciousness

“Stress is at the basis of all problems of the individual and the world,” Maharishi says. “Nearly 50 years of experience around the world and 30 years of scientific research show that individual and social stress can be eliminated through the Vedic technologies of consciousness—Transcendental Meditation, its advanced techniques, and the TM-Sidhi program, including Yogic Flying. And the stress-reducing influence of these Vedic technologies is greatest when practiced in groups.”

Maharishi says the peaceful impact of groups of Yogic Flyers on the environment is as concrete as turning on a bright light in a dark room: “Through their performances, these groups will enliven the deepest level of Nature’s functioning, the Unified Field of Natural Law—the field of perpetual peace—and radiate indomitable coherence in world consciousness. This rise of coherence will eliminate stress and promote peace and happiness in the family of nations. Problems will simply disappear as darkness disappears with the onset of light.”

Global effort for peace

Maharishi’s plan to create permanent world peace calls for establishing a national coherence-creating group in every country, and smaller groups of 100-200 people in the world’s largest 3,000 cities. However, Maharishi emphasizes, the effort must be global—every country must have groups. “Even one single country without a group will shake the whole of world peace, in the same way that a tiny thorn in the foot can throw off the balance of the whole body.”

“Suffering has gone on too long”

Maharishi says that “just as America, Britain, and the other warmonger nations feel free to announce, ‘I will destroy the world,’ we feel free to whisper quietly, ‘We will create a happy, peaceful world.’We will establish these groups of Yogic Flyers here, there, and everywhere—and they will generate a coherent, harmonious influence throughout the world. We must do this. Suffering in the world has gone on too long.”