As October rolls in, it's getting cooler here in the northern hemisphere where I live, and the hours of daylight are noticeably shrinking. As is typical of me around this time of year, I find myself ready to dive in to some good, deep cleaning.
I lean towards organization and minimalism, so you’d think by now everything would already be in perfect order. But nope. There's always that one area - well, maybe right now it’s more like three or four areas - that threatens to overthrow my zen. 🧘🏻♀️
I set my sights on first culprit - the growing mountain of papers, books, binders, and journals infiltrating deeper and deeper into my office space.
Armed with my go-to iced coffee concoction—unsweetened almond milk, Stevia, and a big scoop of vegan chocolate peanut butter protein powder—I marched in, ready to slay the beast. 🪄
Now I’d love to say that I went veraciously at my pile, tossing out what I didn’t need while filing and putting away the rest. Buuuuttt… not quite.
Instead, I found myself sifting through the pile, opening books to random pages to see what nuggets of wisdom I’d uncovered. As I picked up a book I vaguely remembered pulling from the shelf months ago, an old magazine article peeked out from behind the hard front cover. Intrigued, I slipped it out and there it was - The Maharishi Effect.
I remember being utterly fascinated by the results of this well-known study, a phenomenon named after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM). According to this theory, when a critical mass of individuals practice meditation—specifically TM—it has a measurable influence on the collective consciousness of a population, leading to reductions in negative behaviors like crime and violence.
In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers conducted multiple experiments to test this effect. One of the most famous studies took place in 1993 in Washington, D.C. A large group of meditators (about 4,000 people) gathered with the aim of reducing crime in the city through focused, collective meditation. The study was designed by a group of scientists and overseen by independent researchers, including a former criminologist. They measured the city’s crime statistics before, during, and after the meditation event.
The results, published later, showed a significant reduction in violent crime—by up to 23%—during the meditation period, while other variables like weather, police activity, and seasonal trends were accounted for.
Reading the article again after so many years (at this point having settled in to my comfy floor cushion with my lemon water - so much for deep cleaning day 🙄) it got me thinking about what’s behind the results of the study.
Which led me to: The Law of Oneness.
Have you ever been thinking strongly about someone, only to have them call moments later? Or been in a meeting or at a social gathering and experienced one person’s mood impacting the entire group?
That’s the Law of Oneness in action - which states that everything in the Universe is interconnected, and at a deep level, we are all part of the same whole.
It means that our thoughts, actions, and energy affect not only ourselves but everyone and everything around us. Essentially, we're all connected, like pieces of one big puzzle, and what we do to others, we ultimately do to ourselves.
Here’s the beautiful thing about living in alignment with the Law of Oneness: your actions have a ripple effect. When you act from a place of connection, your energy influences those around you in positive ways. A single kind gesture, a moment of empathy, even a simple smile, can spread far beyond what you might imagine.
And that ripple comes back to you. When you live in harmony with Oneness, you're no longer working against the current. Instead, you're flowing with the Universe, and thereby inviting more love, peace, and abundance into your life. 🌟
Five Minute Fix Guided Meditation #31: The Power of Connection - Aligning with the Law of Oneness for more Peace, Abundance and Love.
Comments