Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

absolute principles of societyMaharishi (1967) extends the analysis of the particular historical situationportrayed in the Bhagavad-Gītā to a general principle applicableto all wars, whenever and wherever they have occurred:Wars in history have resulted from the cumulative effect of aggressionon the innocent; individuals continue to oppress others, not knowingthat aggression is growing in the atmosphere eventually to break uponthem as their own disaster. One reaps the consequences of one’s ownactions. (p. 36)Maharishi seems to single out of various conceivable “evil deeds,” oractions in violation of natural law, those which “oppress others,” whichhave the quality of aggression, as creating the influence that eventuallybreaks out as war.Maharishi (1967) also describes the limit of individual action in asociety unbalanced by the negative thoughts and actions of its members:When the collective karma (action) threatens national destruction, it isbeyond the power of the individual to check it; this is even more truewhen it has reached the ultimate limit and is about to break into catastrophe.(p. 44)This growing inability to contain the results of collective negativeaction relates to Maharishi’s description of nature’s flexibility, as citedabove. Maharishi indicates that at a certain point it is beyond the powerof any one individual to neutralize the negative influence in the environmentdue to the collective violation of natural law by the greatersociety. Once the breaking point of negativity in collective consciousnessis reached, the only possible outcome is the outbreak of somecatastrophe, such as war.Although at this extreme point it may be beyond the power of any oneindividual, no matter how well motivated, to neutralize the collectivenegativity of society, it is important to place this principle in the contextof another great theme in the theory and practice of Maharishi’s VedicScience and Technology. In the past two decades research has repeatedlydemonstrated that extreme negativity in collective consciousnesscan be reversed by groups of individuals creating a strong enough countervailinginfluence (Orme-Johnson, Dillbeck, Bousquet, & Alexander,1989; Orme-Johnson, Alexander, Davies, Chandler, & Larimore,1988). This positive influence is created by individuals who, through125