Tracking the Rise in Global Consciousness

Since 1981, the United Nations has sponsored an annual International Day of Peace each September 21. The UN asks for a cessation of hostilities globally for 24 hours on that day and for citizens around the world to take at least one minute of silence at noon to pray for peace. Several million people participate each year. The UN’s view is this:

“Since its inception, Peace Day has marked our personal and planetary progress toward peace. Peace building is different from “peacemaking” and “peacekeeping” in that it focuses on creating a long-term culture of peace, rather than solving existing conflicts or preventing old ones from re-occurring. We need to build not only geographical but spiritual bridges between people and strengthen the intellectual, cultural and communication linkages between our societies. (Let us) stand ready to participate in the effort to promote social integration and create a culture of peace.”

In the last decade we have witnessed a rising understanding that perhaps the most critical concern for mankind is environmental sustainability. A degraded environment will hurt all of us. Thus, we are adding to this day a focus on healing the Earth.

Do silence, prayer, or other such activities have a real impact? The Global Consciousness Project at Princeton University scientifically “…examine[s] subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We have learned that when millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network shows correlations [with physical changes in the earth]. We can interpret this as evidence for a growing global consciousness. It suggests we are capable of conscious evolution. We make the world we live in, and if we work to do no harm, we can create a planetary smile.”

The Global Consciousness Project will record the physical effects of these events and these effects will be broadcasted.

In addition to silent prayer, sound healer Jonathan Goldman notes in The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing, that “sound, frequencies, tones, and vocalizations are all able to boost the power and enhance the effect of our meditations and prayers. Together, these two elements of sound and the consciousness encoded in the sound combine in a synergistic manner to create a truly unstoppable force. … It is no accident that most prayer on this planet is chanted aloud. … Studies on Transcendental Meditation (TM) have also shown the positive effects of meditation … on global events. … There is data to indicate that during peace meditations, violent behavior in areas where these meditations had occurred declined considerably. The power of our consciousness is astonishing.”

We also know that many spiritual traditions use drumming, dancing, and intentional movement (e.g., yoga, tai chi) in addition to silence, prayer, meditation, chanting, and sound in order to create the products of our intentions.

Further, the evidence from the Princeton Global Consciousness Project and from the Transcendental Meditation experiments demonstrate that the larger and more coherent the group, the larger the effect. Larger means more people at the same time. Coherence means that the people are holding the same or similar intention or deep practice–that they, in some way, create a group or global consciousness together.

The New Effort
In 2008 we are beginning to add to the UN’s effort for world peace in several ways:
1. We will add the intent to include a focus on healing the earth in addition to praying for world peace.
2. We encourage groups not only to do silent prayer, and not only for one minute, but meditation, chanting, sounding, dancing, drumming, etc.–any spiritual practice along with an intention aimed at world peace and/or healing the earth, and for as long as people can do it on they day. (Tibetan monks around the world will be chanting the entire day.)
3. We will add numbers to those already participating. We are trying to organize a number of groups, including the UN’s current participants, to hold such an event four times a year–on each equinox and solstice, instead of once annually.

As you can see, we are trying to create the largest single group of people who regularly gather to bring their consciousness into harmony for the good of mankind.

Len Tischler, Ph.D.
HealingtheEarth.org