The world has been a witness to one of the deadliest conflicts in recent memory this fall with the Isreali/Palestinian conflict, and so many of us are feeling an urgency to help with no clear direction as to how. 

 

In this episode, we interview our colleagues, David Lahav and Emily McCarthy, two Vedic Meditation teachers based in Colorado who have recently started an organization called Meditate For World Peace as a response to the current strife in Isreal and Gaza. Lahav, formerly an Isreali military officer, and McCarthy are looking to teach thousands of people in Isreal in the next couple of years Vedic Meditation as a way to cool the collective in the area. 

 

We are very grateful to David and Emily for discussing this very sensitive topic with us as we discuss everything from the political minefield of the situation to how collective peace is established on the individual level of consciousness to the ripple healing effect of meditation. 

 

If you are interested in supporting Meditate for World Peace, you learn more about their mission and donate to their cause via their website: https://www.meditateforworldpeace.org/


Show Notes:

Meditate for World Peace Notes 

 

1.24 Mission: What is it that we can do to actually help the current situation, apart from being on social media and talking to people about it and wanting to do something.
 
 

“There is a big need to bring Vedic Meditation and teach many people in Israel to help individuals with the stress and grief that is happening. And also, me teaching many many people to create a collective effect that happens in the community, a coherence effect that’s happening when a larger percent of the population begins meditating.” David 

 

3.00 How does a big change in a region happen?

4.00 Maharishi effect: 1% of the population meditating creates a change in a specific region. 
 5.30 Meditators feeling the effects of what is happening in the world
 
 “When something is happening on the other side of the ocean, all the waves feel it.” Kristen

7.00 Meditation deexcites and organizes.
8.30 The land of Israel as a focal point of conscious awareness.
10.30 The world as a body – all the cells feel it. We want to go to the axe wound.

“No one is going to be safe if a conflict of this level is left unchecked.” Kristen

14.20 Political minefield
17.00 Ripple effect: Meditating for world peace is starting in Israel but it is not just about Israel.

“The mission is not about us. We have a technique that we know how to teach, that we know creates change and the first project is beginning in Israel.” Emily
 
19.10 We want the bad guy meditating (it doesn´t matter who it is).

 

“No matter what you believe, even if you think of Israel as the aggressor, they´re the bad guy in this whole scenario, well you want the bad guy meditating. You want their consciousness pulled. Or if you think the Palestinian´s are the bad guys. First of all, there is no bad guy in the Vedic view. It doesn´t matter what your stance is, this is going to help.” Kristen

 

20.26 Mission is teaching 1% of the population of Israel. In 2024 teaching 10,000 people. 

21.23 Every $100 USD donated to the cause sponsors a meditation course for someone in Israel. 
 22.40

 

“Even for students in Israel who are not ready to talk about peace because there is so much emotion and feeling and trauma around this, then even for someone that´s not ready for that, it´s about healing on the individual layer. And all of the trauma that has occurred from the day-to-day life that is happening there and just healing yourself. We don’t even need to talk about peace and world peace if people aren’t ready for that right now. And that’s okay. Meditation is here to reduce anxiety and bring greater happiness.” Emily

 

23.30 Peace comes from the individual
 24.00 Leaders represent their people
 25.00 With meditation everyone becomes extended self
 26.00 David in the military experiencing unity with the other side
 
 

“Our practice has the power to enact that, that experience of what is it like to be you. It really can be challenging to have experiences from the same level of consciousness from which we are creating the problem to begin with. And so, we introduce meditation, we begin to shift our state of consciousness and then the experience of what it is like to be another unfolds naturally and effortlessly. And if all of us were asking that question, more often, day to day, `what is it like to be you? ´ I feel like there would be a really powerful change in how we treat and view and see one another.” Emily 
 
29.23 Masculine and Feminine energies
35.00 People living in flight or fight in Israel for decades
36.00 Life in Israel now
41.00 When we go off balance we crave things that take us further off balance

43.00 Meditation is a virtuous cycle

45.00 Stress and trauma
 50.00 Meditation and community