A Brilliant Philosopher Explains How the World Can Heal

There’s a bunch of scientific evidence that supports his claim too

We seemed to be living in a strange dichotomy.

One where people are living longer yet 1 in 6 of us are infertile.

One where there’s an abundance of food yet our top soils are dying.

One where modern medicine with all of its prescribed antibiotics are causing many people to suffer long-term illness.

And one where there has never been more people on Earth yet many of us are experiencing loneliness.

It’s a strange time and I’m not sure how it’s going to end.

Whenever I’m faced with such internal conflict like this, I turn to people who are much smarter and more eloquent than me to better understand how to move through the world.

One of them is Jiddu Krishnamurti. He once said, “The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”

This instantly sparks two questions in my mind: Are we perpetuating the very systems we wish to change? And are we promoting their outcomes while asserting their dominance because we secretly fear the unknown?

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

As scary as this known reality is, the thought of it ending is equally scary because what lies on the other side?

What if it’s worse?

With all that being said, there is a burning desire in me for things to drastically change.

However, I have to remind myself that “To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves” as Krishnamurti so wonderfully said.

In the end, that’s all I can control.

“When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The division among people, the mass extinction of wildfire, and the authority we impose on the natural world are all signs of this confusion today. But to stand up and go against this narrative is risky because it threatens one of our core needs — belonging — even if that means belonging to a sick society.

So we continue to grow food in dead soils, take medication that lowers our immune system, and feel alone among 8 billion people.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

So, what can be done?

As Krishnamurti said above, “Love is the missing factor” and that starts within. So, “To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves.”

Coming next is a bunch of scientific studies that prove what can happen when people come together with the intention to heal. And this is where I begin to feel hopeful.

An Uncanny Social Experiment That Changed the World

In the 1960’s, an Indian sage called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi initiated a movement that turned out to be one of the most iconic social experiments of all time.

After years of meditating at his ashram, he predicted that if just one percent of a population practised group meditation, they could produce measurable improvements to the quality of life for the people in their surrounding area. He then boldly suggested that the ripple effects of this could be felt as far as the city’s edge and beyond.

Being a man that was true to his word, he put his theory to the test by bringing his community together and trailing its effectiveness. People in the surrounding area didn’t exactly know what was going on around them but that night their city’s crime rates dropped by 16%!

As you can imagine, the small group of meditators who participated in the experiment were thrilled after hearing the news. So, buoyed by their efforts, they continued to gather and meditate like this in the months that followed. As time went on, they repeatedly proved Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s theory correct which confirmed it wasn’t a one-off or a fluke and that was key for its credibility.

There are lots of other examples too. In the Lebanon peace project, for example, a group of meditators gathered in Jerusalem in August and September of 1983 to demonstrate the power of “radiating peace.” The results from that two-month study show that on days when there was a high participation of meditators, a 76% reduction rate occurred in war deaths in both Israel and Lebanon. Crime rates and fires also dropped, as did traffic accidents and terrorist attacks. As a result, their economy grew.

The results were then replicated in seven consecutive experiments over the next two years at the peak of the Lebanon war and they all produced similarly impressive results.

“All of this was achieved simply by combining people’s intention for peace and coherence with the elevated emotions of love and compassion.” — Dr. Joe Dispenza

Back in India, another three-year study ran from 1987–1990. This time 7,000 people got together and focused on world peace. During that time, either by coincidence or with a loving nudge from a few kind hearts, the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall came down, the Iran-Iraq war came to an end, South Africa began to move toward abolishing apartheid, and terrorist attacks subsided.

When the United States got on board in 2007–2010, a group of meditators in Fairfield, Iowa recorded a 21.2% reduction rate in national homicide, with a larger group of 206 US urban areas finding an even greater decrease of 28.4% in murder rates. The total number of participants taking part in those trials represented the square root of 1% of the entire U.S. population at the time which further added more weight to Maharishi’s theory.

“In view of the recent increases in murder rates in large US cities, the results of this prospective social experiment should be of particular interest to government policy-makers seeking an effective method of reducing urban violence.” — Dr. Kenneth Cavanaugh

Dr. Michael Dillbeck stressed another important point: “This study suggests that one’s individual consciousness is directly connected to an underlying, universal field of consciousness, and that by collectively enlivening that universal field through meditation, such a group can have a positive effect on the quality of life in society.”

Since 2010, other smaller yet equally important studies have been carried out. One of the more significant ones brought four people together around a dining table to see what would happen if three out of the four of them were in heart coherence. The goal was to see whether the fourth would naturally synchronise with the strongest energy and become coherent which, of course, it did.

I know it’s not as blockbuster-esque as dropping crime rates across major cities or ending wars around the world but what this small-scale study shows us is that it doesn’t seem to matter how big or small these trials go because there’s always a collective field that’s bigger than each individual, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Unfortunately, it works the other way around too. People can do unthinkably cruel things in a group, for example, that they would never do on their own because the surrounding field governing their heart space influences them in unusual ways. Or as Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “We escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery.”

There have been countless examples of this throughout history in things like sporting events, mass lootings, and political rallies, let alone war and genocide regimes.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, people have performed miracles by healing loved ones from afar and dropping crime rates across major cities by channelling the same group energy with collective prayer and meditation.

This all leads me to say that although we are living very personal, independent lives and making very personal, independent decisions we are also influenced by something bigger. And as much as our nervous system, heart, and brain have an intelligence of their own, there’s a collective nervous system, heart, and brain that has a bigger intelligence because it’s created by all of us all of the time.

I know it might seem insignificant in the moment but what our hearts broadcast from breath to breath shapes the world around us because it sets off an energetic exchange that acts a bit like a pinball machine. As each message ‘pings’ from heart to heart and nervous system to nervous system, energetic information passes from one person to the next. So in a very short space of time, homes, villages, towns, cities, countries, and even continents can hear the message of one heart through their own. This can then shape and direct people’s movements in subtle and gross ways often without anyone knowing how or why.

We can’t control what other people broadcast but we can control our own. And more importantly, we can elevate the collective field around us if our own heart space radiates strongly enough. That’s the invitation here. It’s to change the world from the inside out, for ourselves, and for the greater good of humanity. That was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s vision after all, and it proved to be possible. The only decision we face now is whether we want to participate in it further or not.

I know what I’m gonna choose. Do you?

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti