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The significance of World Meditation Day – December 21st
We transcend the domain of reason by enhancing our focus of attention with meditation for a higher level of emotional excellence.
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Representative Image / Unsplash
The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted December 21st as the World Meditation Day on December 6, 2024. The General Assembly also acknowledged the link between yoga and meditation as complimentary approaches to health and wellbeing. These developments are hugely significant.
Throughout history, the biological evolution of our Carbon-based species has occurred at a slow enough pace for humanity to adapt. In the present age of Silicon-based artificial intelligence technologies, the developments are taking place at such a frantic pace that they are already posing difficulties for the human species to keep up with. Many experts in the field of artificial intelligence have expressed deep concerns about AI posing an existential threat to humanity.
For example, an article in the Economic Times, ChatGPT Caught Lying to developers, we find these sentences: OpenAI's latest AI model, ChatGPT o1, has raised significant concerns after recent testing revealed its ability to deceive researchers and attempt to bypass shutdown commands. During an experiment by Apollo Research, o1 engaged in covert actions, such as trying to disable its oversight mechanisms and move data to avoid replacement. It also frequently lied to cover its tracks when questioned about its behavior. It is as though the AI product had a mind of its own.
Most AI experts agree that artificial intelligence has the potential to bring about transformative positive changes in societies, the likes of which we can barely imagine but it also poses existential challenges to humanity. Many of these experts concur that emerging as better humans is a big part of the solution, and this is where ancient Indian wisdom comes to the rescue.
What does it mean to be a better human being?
Humans are endowed with two types of emotions which are strongly and positively correlated with three human attributes, S, R and T.
Positive emotions include unconditional love, kindness, empathy and compassion while negative emotions encompass anger, hatred, hostility, resentment, frustration, jealousy, fear, sorrow and the like.
The S component includes truthfulness, honesty, steadfastness and equanimity. The R component encompasses bravery, ambition, ego, greed and a desire to live while the T component includes lying, cheating, causing injury in words or deed and sleep.
In a human being with a high level of emotional (internal) excellence, the s component and positive emotions predominate with a sprinkling of R and T components. An individual with a high level of internal (emotional) excellence possesses the capacity to remain centered in the face of extenuating circumstances.
A shift from negative emotions to positive emotions is not an intellectual exercise. Just do a thirty-day self-assessment and you will be convinced that such is the case. The required positive changes must come from within.
And this requires that we transcend the domain of reason by enhancing our focus of attention with meditation for a higher level of emotional excellence.
It is impractical to expect everyone in the world to engage in meditation and this is where the notion of collective consciousness comes in.
The late Lewis Thomas, MD (Harvard) wrote in his book, The lives of a cell, “Termites are extraordinary in the way they seem to accumulate intelligence as they gather. Termites with 50,000 neurons in their heads can’t do much, much less think, but in a colony of tens of millions of neurons, thinking begins and they wind up constructing symmetrical columns, beautiful arches, etc.
Researchers have also found that heart rhythms of subjects engaged in singing collectively tend to synchronize.
The question now is how many people in meditation would it take to produce a more peaceful world. Here, there are three ideas worthy of consideration:
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The late Maharishi Mahesh yogi discovered that the square root of 1 percent of the world population, which works out to be around 9,000 meditators, is sufficient to produce a more peaceful world. The Global Union of Scientists for Peace published a full-page letter on November 3, 2023, in the Wall Street Journal addressed to the President of the United States and all world leaders to urge them to adopt the Maharishi technology. John Hagelin and associates had proved the concept in Washington, DC and several other cities in the world decades ago. Dr. Hagelin is a renowned quantum physicist who ran for US president three times.
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Spiritual leader Gurumahan proposes that 1 percent of the world population in a one-minute silence (Samacheer pranayama) daily at the same time (11:11 am local time) will lead to a more peaceful world.
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We have proposed that perhaps this process can be automated using AI technology to autonomously put participating individuals in a meditative state without a conscious effort on their part.
All these initiatives will produce better human beings while alleviating the existential threats of AI technologies to produce a more peaceful world.
Pradeep B. Deshpande is professor emeritus and former Chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Louisville.
Sanjeev S. Tambe is a former chief scientist and head of Chemical Engineering and Process Development Division at the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)
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