The Fairfield Ledger
Nov 8, 2001

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Letters to the Editor

A peaceful way to eliminate terrorism

Imagine you are a medical research scientist and 20 years ago you discovered a cure for cancer - safe, natural, low-cost, with no harmful side-effects. You test it all over the world, with consistent success on cancer victims of every nationality, every age, suffering from every form of cancer. Your patients see results immediately. Your approach corrects the underlying imbalance that gives rise to cancer - so the cancer disappears naturally. Other researchers test your approach, with the same
results, and publish their findings in leading medical journals. Respected scientists endorse your method.

You present your cancer cure to governments around the world. Every government, you think, will immediately support this approach for its people.

To your amazement, government and medical leaders ignore your cure, because it is not conventional. They continue supporting such conventional "treatments" as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. These aggressive treatments, attacking the symptom but not curing the disease, can produce favorable results but can also be debilitating and fatal. You watch as cancer continues to create enormous suffering and claim tens of thousands of lives around the world, knowing this terrible disease could have been ended years ago.

More than 20 years ago, Maharishi [Mahesh Yogi] put forward an approach to end a human affliction more terrible than cancer - crime, terrorism, conflict, and war. This approach is peaceful, non-invasive, and low cost. It has been tested all over the globe, consistently reducing conflict, violence, even open warfare - usually overnight. This approach has been verified in 50 scientific studies published in such leading scientific journals as the
Journal of Conflict Resolution, Social Indicators Research,
Social Science Perspectives Journal, the Journal of Mind and
Behaviour, the Journal of Crime and Justice, and Psychology,
Crime, and Law. It has won the support of respected
international scientists, scholars, and military leaders.

This approach to creating peace has been presented to
governments world-wide. With its amazing track record and
overwhelming scientific support, you'd think that governments would immediately adopt it.

In fact, government leaders have ignored this approach. Instead, they continue with the traditional political and military "solutions." These costly, aggressive measures may overturn a government, topple a despot, capture terrorists. But like the side-effects of radiation or chemotherapy, this approach creates enormous destruction and kills innocent people at the same time.

President Bush's stated goal is not simply to capture of Osama bin Laden - he wants to eliminate terrorism. Yet we hear experts say that if bin Laden is captured and killed, more bin Ladens will spring up - like a tumour growing back after being surgically removed. Why? Because the basis of terrorism has not been defused. Terrorism is not a group of people you can capture and kill. It's a mindset, a hatred, and it's widespread. To eliminate terrorism, we need to defuse the hatred at its basis.

The current military approach, moreover, places the U.S. at
enormous risk. Our own leaders warned us that our attacks on Afghanistan would bring counterattacks on our country. We're seeing it now: anthrax being delivered by mail, warnings of smallpox attacks, alerts from the FBI to expect more bombings at any moment - but no information as to when or where or who. We face the impossible challenge of having to defend everything everywhere all the time. Asked last week how long the nation would have to remain on high alert, Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge replied: "Indefinitely."

And the stakes are higher than ever. We're told that if bin
Laden had nuclear weapons, he'd use them.

We're told how easy it is to make such weapons, to bring into the country. We're told about the catastrophe that would result if any of our country's 80 nuclear reactors were sabotaged.

This is no way to live. Maharishi offers a practical, proven, low cost way out of this endless vicious cycle of attack and retaliation and counter-retaliation. His aim is only to spare the United States the escalating suffering that inevitably comes from this vicious cycle.

Our government merely needs to add this strategy to what it is already doing - and quickly the need for military action will fall away. The cost of implementing this approach, of ensuring peace for all time to come, is exceedingly small - it's less than the cost of a single B2 bomber, or approximately what the U.S. military spends in a single day. A wealthy person or family
could also accomplish this, and such people are being
approached. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Maharishi has offered us a tremendous opportunity. He has also made the reasonable observation that if our current leadership (a) persists down a path with potentially disastrous consequences for our country, and (b) ignores the proven, peaceful approach that has been offered, then (c) new leadership is needed.

If there were a simple and effective cure for cancer, we'd like to believe that our government would immediately make it available to cancer patients nationwide. There is a cure for crime and conflict, terrorism and war. We hope that either our government or the wealthy of this country will act wisely, and sooner rather than later.

Craig Pearson
Executive Vice-President
Maharishi University of Management

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"How to effectively eliminate the root cause of terrorism and war", a new video featuring Major General Singh, a 35-year career army veteran, and John Hagelin PhD, award-winning quantum physicist, speaking recently on APTV throughout the USA:
See:  http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/videos/solution010918.ram
[Streaming video - requires media player such as RealPlayer]

See also:  http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/
[Includes peer reviewed research published in respected publications such as Journal of Conflict Resolution]

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)


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