On March 24, in the last year of the most violent century in human history, a century that has seen "a war to end all wars," a war to "make the world safe for democracy," and a war to "see that aggression does not stand," President Bill Clinton informed the American people that NATO planes were bombing Serbian targets in Yugoslavia "to prevent a wider war."

Bombs for peace? Other American presidents would have questioned his logic. In 1950, on the eve of the Korean War, Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme allied commander in Europe during the Second World War, said, "No one has yet explained how war prevents war." President Truman said, "You don't prevent anything by war except peace."

But national leaders, wanting peace, have repeatedly made war. Since the United Nations was founded there have been more than 160 wars. Eighty-six percent of the arms trade is conducted by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The United States, in its global crusade for democracy and human rights, has bombed 23 countries since World War II, six in the last six years alone. In exactly none of these nations did either democracy or human rights rise from the wreckage.

Now, however, we have an opportunity to end this hypocrisy and put the history of war behind us. The deadly illogic of weaponry and war as the chief instruments of foreign policy can now be replaced, permanently, by a much more intelligent strategy that is both life-supporting and a scientifically proven promoter of peace.

Technologies of consciousness, including the Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying programs, enliven the infinite, evolutionary power of Natural law, which is all nourishing to all life. With Yogic Flying, nations can finally resolve differences without bombs. For the cost of one B-2 bomber run between Missouri and Serbia ($1.6 million), a thousand Yogic Flyers could be stationed in the Balkans for three months.

Since the war in Serbia began, about 250 Yogic Flyers have assembled in Dubrovnik, 80 kilometers from Kosovo. Efforts are now underway to train at least 1000 new practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique in Belgrade. Such groups are needed all over the world. For example, armies with Yogic Flying units would be more than peace-keepers, they'd be peace-makers creating the social coherence that fosters progress and prosperity.

Maharishi’s global plan calls for five groups of 7,000 Vedic Pandit Yogic Flyers in India—one in the center, or Brahmasthan; one in the north at Maharishi Nagar outside New Delhi; and one each in the south, east, and west-and at least one group of 1,000 Vedic Pandit Yogic Flyers at each of the twelve Time Zone Capitals of Maharishi's Global Administration through Natural Law. With 47,000 Yogic Flyers in large groups around the globe, the long, terrible history of war will be over.

When bombs began to fall on Serbia last March, well-wishers of life everywhere mobilized to offer the solution of Yogic Flying. Dr. John Hagelin sent a letter to President Clinton on behalf of leaders of Maharishi’s Movement in 70 countries. He noted "over 40 documented studies that demonstrate the efficacy of this approach" and said these leaders were "standing by, ready to help deploy the Group of 7000 experts within 48 hours."

Dr. Hagelin received word back through aides from Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, who said, "I've seen the letter and deeply appreciate your offer, but we are not in a position to accept it at this point in time." Aides to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright simply said she was not interested.

Hoping that public pressure might prevail where political leadership had failed, on April 7 Dr. Hagelin published his letter on page four of The Washington Post. On April 9, he held a news conference and Yogic Flying demonstration at Washington's National Press Club. In the following weeks in most world capitals, Movement leaders held similar briefings.

Reuters, the Associated Press, CNN, and AP-TV sent the news around the globe. From Brussels, home to the headquarters of NATO, Reuters reported, "Natural Law Party leaders from eight European Union states addressed a letter to NATO and the EU Thursday offering training in Transcendental Meditation for 10,000 troops in the Balkans, explaining that meditation and Yogic Flying would 'create an atmosphere in which a stable solution will naturally emerge' for the Balkans conflict."

In London and Paris, Berlin and Rome, in Ottawa, Tokyo, Manila, and New Delhi—in a hundred cities the press reported "the Yogic Flying solution." Time magazine wrote that "the Natural Law Party has volunteered to deploy 7,000 Transcendental Meditation experts to ‘reduce stress and tension in the Kosovo region.’" The Times of London said that "the Natural Law Party is sending its Yogic Flyers to Dubrovnik …to send ‘waves of bliss’ across the troubled region." The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Federal Times, newspapers that circulate throughout the U.S. military and government, reported, "This 'Yogic Flying’ form of meditation rids a person of stress and creates feelings of happiness and bliss that can be transmitted to others."

From Sydney to Stuttgart, from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Red Deer, Alberta, newspaper articles and letters to the editor hailed the "new solution", the "third alternative—not talk, not bombs, but Yogic Flyers."

"The Iowa Capitol was literally hopping with activity Thursday," wrote the Des Moines Register, "when Maharishi students demonstrated a mental technique that they claim has the power to reduce tensions in the Balkans."

Frankfurt's Mainpost wrote, "For decades, scientists have known that the Vedic technology of Yogic Flying creates coherence in collective consciousness in a quiet way. The founder of this technology, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, recommends that every government organize a group of such Yogic Flyers, which is very inexpensive compared to the enormous costs of military confrontation."

Leaders of Maharishi's movement called on the NATO countries and Yugoslavia to close their embassies, re-opening them "only when they are cured of the disease of violence." In the warring nations, leaders of opposition parties were urged to approach their governments and demand that they stop the fighting.

Most significant, Yogic Flyers everywhere began practicing together in larger groups. The Boston Globe began its front-page story with a description appropriate for a thousand towns around the world: "On the bedroom floor of their Watertown home, on the living room couch, on chairs in the den, on mattresses strewn on the sun porch, on foam pads and pillows and blanket piles wherever there's a comfortable corner, Carla and Duncan Brown and about two dozen of their friends sit cross-legged and casual, eyes closed, for their peace offensive. These friends have come together almost every evening since the beginning of April in response to the devastation In Kosovo. They think they know how to stop the bombings and ease ethnic tensions there: they meditate. And they are linked by the Internet with a group of about 90 Serbians in Belgrade trying the same approach."

But all these efforts brought little response from government. Once committed to war, governments are deaf to better alternatives. And once the fighting is over, governments remain gripped by a stressed national consciousness that blinds them to effective prevention.

If governments will not or cannot create peace, perhaps wealthy private citizens can. On April 12, in the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times, and in the American, European, and Asian editions of the Wall Street Journal, Maharishi called on "the wealthy of the world to save their own wealth and the life of all the people in their nation" by endowing a fund for perpetual world peace. (The details of Maharishi’s call are brilliantly summarized by Dr. Bevan Morris on page 50.)

Maharishi urged donors either to create a family endowment fund in their own name or to donate to the Maharishi Global Development fund, which has established its own Endowment Fund for Perpetual World Peace. The income from all such funds, he said, would "be used by the donors for one purpose alone—the training and maintenance of a permanent force of experts in creating World Peace."

This is what needs to be done now. An Endowment Fund for Perpetual World Peace must be raised. For several time zones, millions of dollars to train and maintain the groups of Vedic Pandit Yogic Flyers have already been collected. When all twelve time zones have established their groups, world consciousness will be purified and the behavior of governments will change dramatically for the better. Then we will all breathe more easily and will celebrate, at long last, the end of the history of war.