Social change - for a forest to be green
Creating world peace is not the reason that most people give for why they want to learn to meditate. Yet this was Maharishi's goal when he first introduced Transcendental Meditation in 1958, emphasising that individual peace is the basic unit of world peace. He used the analogy that just as there cannot be a green forest without green trees, there cannot be a peaceful world without peaceful individuals. Even though there are many sincere individuals dedicated to the cause of peace, establishing peace requires more than simply adopting a psychological belief in peace. It can only be achieved through a transformation at the very deepest level of the human mind and through a corresponding change in the physiology. Maharishi explained that when the mind and body are deeply at peace, then thought, speech and action will spontaneously radiate an influence of harmony into the environment.