In the 19th Century, Baha’u’llah—a prisoner in an obscure outpost of the Ottoman Empire—audaciously wrote to the world’s foremost political and religious leaders, offering them what he called “The Most Great Peace.” He wrote:

O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and grossly unjust. – Tablet to Queen Victoria, Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 93.

Long before the United Nations, or even the League of Nations, Baha’u’llah summoned the leaders to meet, settle their differences, and reduce their armaments.

They ignored him and the wars continued.

Then in the 20th Century, Baha’u’llah’s son, Abdu’l-Baha, predicted that by the end of that century, what his father called the “Lesser Peace” would come about. This preliminary political peace would stop major wars, but still lack a deep moral and spiritual foundation.

This prediction may initially seem to have been utterly amiss, but appearances can be deceiving.

In my book ELEVEN, I make the case that peace has, to a large extent, been achieved–and this achievement makes disarmament a realistic option. The trillions now spent every year on the military can now be rededicated to rehabilitating the fortunes of humankind and restoring the ecosphere.

I know–with the actions of ISIS and Boko Haram, the continuous interventions of the West in the Muslim world, and the rise of terrorism, the world looks anything but peaceful at this point. So why the optimism? I back it up from several perspectives, but one of the most convincing comes from a remarkable study by the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.

 

In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Pinker traces a steady historical decrease in violence and the emergence, in the early 21st century, of the most peaceful period in human history.

Pinker discusses several vast processes that resulted in reductions of violence. The first is the pacification process, which has seen a steady reduction of violent deaths. Forensic archeology has been used to estimate the percentage of deaths due to violent trauma in prehistoric societies. By examining skeletal remains, scientists estimate that violent deaths ranged as high as 60 percent of all deaths, with the average over many studies a little over 15 percent. For the 20th century, wrongly considered the most violent ever, the violent death rate was 3 percent. In the first decade of the 21st century, it declined to 0.03 percent.

Pinker attributes the decline in violent deaths to the rise and expansion of state power. Think pax Romana, pax Hispanica, pax Islamica: a state or empire imposes hegemony over a territory and tries to stamp out tribal raiding and feuding, a nuisance to imperial overlords because it undermines their tax base and disrupts commerce. Hardly altruistic, but it worked.

Pinker next describes a civilizing process that helped reduce violence. Official homicide statistics date back to 1200 CE in some parts of Europe. The average homicide rate for Europe was close to 100/100,000 per year in 1000 CE. It is now 1/100,000.

Why the reduction? Again, it results in large part from the consolidation of centralized state power throughout Europe, including judicial systems. The rule of law and the King’s justice replaced warlording, feuding, and brigandage.

Simultaneously, a growing infrastructure of commerce, the development of the institutions of money and finance, and of transportation technologies all emerged simultaneously. That shifted the incentive structure from zero-sum plunder to positive-sum trade. In other words, commerce and exchange trumped fighting.

Steady downward trends in violence and upward trends in human respect have yielded what Pinker calls The Long Peace, the period since the end of the Second World War. The idea that the 20th Century was the most violent ever is simply wrong, says Pinker. While the first half was violent, the second was progressively less so, resulting in an overall historical low in violence.

The 20th century’s population explosion played a role: war deaths may have been high, but as a percentage of total deaths they actually dropped in the 20th Century compared to previous periods.

Before 1945, an average of two new European wars occurred per year for 600 years. The percentage of time that the great powers were at war with each other after 1945 declined, eventually to zero. In fact, colonial wars have disappeared altogether and, as I report in my book, interstate wars have also dwindled to zero. Civil wars and “internationalized intrastate wars”, the most common types of wars today, increased until 1990, but have since decreased.

If the world has indeed become as peaceful as Pinker suggests, it begs the question: Why do we have a sense that war and violent crime are on the increase? There are several likely reasons.

First, violence of any kind seems much more abhorrent, especially as it becomes more rare inside our circle of experience. Second, we have much more exposure to incidences of violence due to media coverage. As actual incidence of violence goes down, our alarm about the incidents that still occur goes up.
To put it another way, the brighter the light, the deeper the shadows.

On top of that, as peace takes hold a powerful military-industrial complex has a vested interest in fostering a sense of insecurity. Limited threats are amplified, as new pseudo-enemies are created and old ones reemerge.

Despite the impression we get from media, we now live in the most peaceful era in human history.

As this new reality dawns on us—and as we confront monumental problems such as climate change and resource scarcity—creating a “peace dividend” will become a necessity. We will have little choice but to rededicate the trillions now spent needlessly on armaments to addressing the key social and ecological issues of an 11 billion world.

By Paul Hanley

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Numerous studies have indicated the many physiological benefits of meditation, and the latest one comes from Harvard University.

An eight week study conducted by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) determined that meditation literally rebuilds the brains grey matter in just eight weeks. It’s the very first study to document that meditation produces changes over time in the brain’s grey matter. (1)

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day. This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.” – (1) Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School Instructor in Psychology

The study involved taking magnetic resonance images (MRI) of the brain’s of 16 study participants two weeks prior to participating in the study. MRI images of the participants were also taken after the study was completed.

“The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection.” (1)

For the study, participants engaged in meditation practices every day for approximately 30 minutes. These practices included focusing on audio recordings for guided meditation, non-judgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind.

“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life. Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.” – (1) Britta Holzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany

How To Meditate

A common misconception about meditation is that you have to sit a certain way or do something in particular to achieve the various benefits that it can provide. All you have to do is place yourself in a position that is most comfortable to you. It could be sitting cross legged, lying down in a bed, sitting on a couch etc, it’s your choice.

Another common misconception about meditation is that you have to “try” to empty your mind. One important factor I enjoyed reading from the study mentioned above is that participants were engaged in “non-judgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind.”  When meditating, you shouldn’t try to “empty” your mind. Instead, try to let your thoughts, feelings and whatever emotions you are feeling at the time flow. Don’t judge them, just let them come and go and be at peace with it.

I also believe that meditation is a state of being/mind more than anything else. I feel that one does not have to sit down for half an hour and “meditate” so to speak in order to reap the benefits of it, or to be engaged in the practice itself.  One can be engaged in meditation while they are on a walk, for example, or the time they have right before they sleep. Throughout the day, one can resist judging their thoughts, letting them flow until they are no more, or just be in a constant state of peace and self awareness. Contrary to popular belief, there is more than one way to meditate.

“You will have to understand one of the most fundamental things about meditation: that no technique leads to meditation. The old so-called techniques and the new scientific biofeedback techniques are the same as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a byproduct of any technique. Meditation happens beyond mind. No technique can go beyond mind.” – Osho

For more articles from Collective Evolution on meditation you can click HERE.

(1)  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/

All that is created, however, is preceded by a cause. This fact, in itself, establisheth, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the unity of the Creator. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 162.

Know of a certainty that every visible thing has a cause. – Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 107.

“To me, God just isn’t sensible,” a very rational friend told me once.

“I agree,” I said.

“But I thought you believed in God?” she asked.

“I do,” I told her. “But I don’t believe God is sensible—using the old definition of the word. We can’t see or touch or hear our Creator—which means we can’t use our senses to know God.”

“How can you be sure that God exists, then?”

“The same way we know lots of things exist that our senses can’t perceive–logic and reason,” I said.

“Okay, prove it,” my rationalist friend said. “Convince me.”

So here, in these next few essays, I’ll try to reproduce the main elements of the longer conversation my friend and I had, which continued for some time and ultimately resulted in my friend finding a way to believe in that Supreme Being she couldn’t sense.

I doubt our discussion was unique, because people have talked intensely about this subject for thousands of years. Ultimately, those conversations led most of history’s great thinkers to the conclusion that they could only address the existence of a Creator through philosophical proofs—and not by relying solely on scripture. After a few centuries of discourse on the subject, we wound up with some very persuasive and penetrating philosophical arguments for God’s existence—generally called cosmological, moral, ontological and teleological–not to mention several creative new philosophical proofs (which we’ll address in a later series). Let’s take a look, one by one, at these philosophical explanations for the existence of God, and see what the Baha’i teachings have to say about them.

To truly understand the cosmological argument, you need to know three major “A’s” of philosophy: Aristotle, Avicenna and Aquinas. They all had reasoned, logical rationales for the existence of what Aristotle called “the unmoved mover”—the First Cause or prime mover of all creation. Both Thomas Aquinas and the Islamic philosopher Avicenna generally agreed with Aristotle when he said that something must explain the existence of the Universe. Aristotle basically argued—and I’m oversimplifying his very powerful rationale here—that everything which exists must have a cause.

Essentially, Aristotle’s argument preceded and predicted the scientific law of causality—each effect is preceded by a cause—which forms the basis for the scientific method. Here’s how that logic path works:

• If something exists, it had a cause

• The cosmos and everything in it exists

• Therefore it had a First Cause—an “Unmoved Mover,” a Supreme Being.

The cosmological argument, you’ve got to admit, has a pretty air-tight rationale behind it. Einstein’s version is famous: “When I see a piece of toast, I know that somewhere there’s a toaster.” The universal law of cause and effect must have a First Cause, in other words. Philosophers and theologians have grappled with this argument for centuries, and it continues to fascinate and challenge them today.

The Baha’i teachings explain the cosmological argument this way:

Science teaches us that all forms of creation are the result of composition; for example, certain single atoms are brought together through the inherent law of affinity and the result is the human being… If we declare that construction is accidental, this is logically a false theory, because then we have to believe in an effect without a cause; our reason refuses to think of an effect without a primal cause. …the constituent elements of life enter neither involuntarily nor  accidentally, but voluntarily into composition–and this means that the infinite forms of organisms are composed through the superior will, the eternal will, the will of the living and self-subsistent Lord.

This is a rational proof that the will of the Creator is effected through the process of composition. Ponder over this and strive to comprehend its significance, that you may be enabled to convey it to others; the more you think it over, the greater will be your degree of comprehension. Praise be to God that he has endowed you with a power through which you can penetrate mysteries. Verily, as you reflect deeply, ponder deliberately and think continually, the doors of knowledge will be opened unto you. – Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, pp. 103-106.

When my friend and I went over the cosmological argument and the Baha’i writings on the subject, she said “I’m going to have to reflect deeply and ponder deliberately over this one…”

By David Langness

Nobel Prize winning physicists have proven beyond doubt that the physical world is one large sea of energy that flashes into and out of being in milliseconds, over and over again.

Nothing is solid.

This is the world of Quantum Physics.

They have proven that thoughts are what put together and hold together this ever-changing energy field into the ‘objects’ that we see.

So why do we see a person instead of a flashing cluster of energy?

Think of a movie reel. A movie is a collection of about 24 frames a second. Each frame is separated by a gap. However, because of the speed at which one frame replaces another, our eyes get cheated into thinking that we see a continuous and moving picture.

Think of television. A TV tube is simply a tube with heaps of electrons hitting the screen in a certain way, creating the illusion of form and motion.

This is what all objects are anyway. You have 5 physical senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste).

Each of these senses has a specific spectrum (for example, a dog hears a different range of sound than you do; a snake sees a different spectrum of light than you do; and so on).

In other words, your set of senses perceives the sea of energy from a certain limited standpoint and makes up an image from that.

It is not complete, nor is it accurate. It is just an interpretation.

All of our interpretations are solely based on the ‘internal map’ of reality that we have, and not the real truth. Our ‘map’ is a result of our personal life’s collective experiences.

Our thoughts are linked to this invisible energy and they determine what the energy forms. Your thoughts literally shift the universe on a particle-by-particle basis to create your physical life.
Look around you.

Everything you see in our physical world started as an idea, an idea that grew as it was shared and expressed, until it grew enough into a physical object through a number of steps.

You literally become what you think about most.

Your life becomes what you have imagined and believed in most.

The world is literally your mirror, enabling you to experience in the physical plane what you hold as your truth … until you change it.

Quantum physics shows us that the world is not the hard and unchangeable thing it may appear to be. Instead, it is a very fluid place continuously built up using our individual and collective thoughts.

What we think is true is really an illusion, almost like a magic trick.

Fortunately we have begun to uncover the illusion and most importantly, how to change it.
What is your body made of?

Nine systems comprise the human body including Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Muscular, Nervous, Reproductive, Respiratory, Skeletal, and Urinary.

What are those made up of? Tissues and organs.

What are tissues and organs made of? Cells.

What are cells made of? Molecules.

What are molecules made of? Atoms.

What are atoms made of? Sub-atomic particles.

What are subatomic particles made of? Energy!

You and I are pure energy-light in its most beautiful and intelligent configuration. Energy that is constantly changingbeneath the surface and you control it all with your powerful mind.

You are one big stellar and powerful Human Being.

If you could see yourself under a powerful electron microscope and conduct other experiments on yourself, you would see that you are made up of a cluster of ever-changing energy in the form of electrons, neutrons, photons and so on.

So is everything else around you. Quantum physics tells us that it is the act of observing an object that causes it to be there where and how we observe it.

An object does not exist independently of its observer! So, as you can see, your observation, your attention to something, and your intention, literally creates that thing.

This is scientific and proven.

Your world is made of spirit, mind and body.

Each of those three, spirit, mind and body, has a function that is unique to it and not shared with the other. What you see with your eyes and experience with your body is the physical world, which we shall call Body. Body is an effect, created by a cause.

This cause is Thought.

Body cannot create. It can only experience and be experienced … that is its unique function.
Thought cannot experience … it can only make up, create and interpret. It needs a world of relativity (the physical world, Body) to experience itself.

Spirit is All That Is, that which gives Life to Thought and Body.

Body has no power to create, although it gives the illusion of power to do so. This illusion is the cause of much frustration. Body is purely an effect and has no power to cause or create.

The key with all of this information is how do you learn to see the universe differently than you do now so that you can manifest everything you truly desire.

Credit: John Assaraf