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How Can Meditation Contribute To World Peace?
The Maharishi Effect: on individual consciousness affecting the collective one.
It is now widely accepted that practising meditation can change the physical structure of the brain. Even if you are not familiar with the nuances of neuroscience, this phenomenon is fairly easy to grasp.
When you enter the meditative state, your brain switches to a specific mode of operating. This mode is different from the one guiding the typical reactivity of daily life. If you put your brain in the meditative state on a regular basis, this ignites particular neural connections — and those connections get strengthened over time.
As a result, your brain changes its physical structure.
This is the basics of how neuroplasticity works. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change over the course of its entire lifetime. When you become intentional about how you want to shape your brain, you engage in self-directed neuroplasticity.
It is fairly easy to accept that we can intentionally shape our own experience through the above-described mechanics. But there are also studies suggesting that when individuals engage in group meditation, they do not only affect themselves.
