A new light is dawning worldwide. Old enemies are abandoning animosity for friendship and cooperation. India and Pakistan have vowed to settle their dispute over Kashmir. Taiwan is talking of eventual reunification with China. Turkey is making peace with Syria and Iraq. Iran is warming up to its former enemy, the US.

Today’s tensions between Iran and Afghanistan in past years would have brought on war, but today peace prevails. A thirty-year border dispute between Peru and Ecuador is over. Russia and Japan, North and South Korea, Vietnam and the US—all are drawing closer together—and the recent peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians has ignited hope everywhere.

Tolerance, flexibility, cooperation—a more enlightened style of political leadership is emerging. Dissident groups surely must feel this, for they are renouncing armed struggle and adopting political means to fulfill their desires. This is happening in Northern Ireland, in Colombia and Cambodia, in Mexico and Algeria, and in the Basque region of Spain.

Are these improvements just random, unconnected events? If there were only a few, they might be coincidences. But so many events, all pointing in one positive direction, indicate an underlying cause. A unifying quality is emerging in the complex diversity of our world. It is the government of Nature, Natural Law, that unifies and harmonizes the infinite diversity of creation with perfect order and without a problem. If man-made governments are now more closely resembling the government of Nature, then Natural Law must be getting more lively in the consciousness of the individuals they represent.

There are many signs that this is happening. Look at some recent US trends. Deaths from heart disease, the most mortal of American ills, are less. Violent crime, which only five years ago seemed the incurable scourge of America’s cities, is in sharp decline. Americans are more prosperous: average household income has been rising for the last three years, and poverty is less than at any time in the last decade.

What lies at the basis of our health, our behavior, our economy? What is the source of our thoughts, speech, actions, and world? It is our consciousness. Clearly, our consciousness, individually and collectively, must be getting purer and more coherent. We must be enlivening the unbounded inner field of absolute pure consciousness, the Unified Field of Natural Law.

When we bring our awareness to the Unified Field of Natural Law, we awaken self-referral consciousness, the field of Heaven within each of us. This profoundly nourishes our entire personality and the whole world around us. By these mechanics, we create Heaven on Earth.

For four decades, millions of people have been using the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, especially the group practice of Yogic Flying, to wake up Natural Law. In recent years, Maharishi has introduced the Maharishi Jyotish program and Maharishi Yagya program to improve our relationships with our near and far environment, and Maharishi Sthapatya-Veda design for building our homes and offices according to Natural Law. Applying all these technologies, we do the maximum to create Heaven on Earth.

In 1975, when the world was shrouded in the darkness of the Cold War, scientists made a very hopeful discovery. They found that as little as one percent of a population practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique was sufficient to dramatically reduce crime and other negative tendencies in the whole population. This remarkable finding was the window through which Maharishi saw the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. When the world press asked him how we would know that the Age of Enlightenment had fully dawned, Maharishi replied, "You will tell us."

Since then, the world has been transformed, and now we're hearing much more good news. This news is being gathered in six categories—social stability, health, economic well-being, agriculture, government, and world harmony—to make the Heaven on Earth Index. From each day’s Index, which is broadcast daily on the Maharishi Channel, we can see the rising sunshine of the Age of Enlightenment. We could, of course, choose to dwell only on the shadows still moving in the valleys, but how much more inspiring and productive it is to appreciate the brilliant rays of the rising sun. So if people ask about political scandal or turmoil in global markets, we can tell them about Maharishi’s technologies and the light they have already brought to the world, and we can invite them to help us bring more quickly the radiance of the fully risen sun.