Eradicate poverty through organic gardening. End war with meditation troops. Create world peace. These are the lofty ideas that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Trancedental Meditation and famous guru to the Beatles, recently addressed in a live video press conference (Real Media, Windows Media, Webcast archives). He asserts that these are not merely ideals; these are practical goals, achievable here and now. “Don’t fight darkness. Bring the light, and darkness will disappear.”

Eliminate poverty

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has outlined an expensive, $10 trillion plan that he insists will eradicate poverty from the Earth. His idea is to buy 5 billion acres in 100 developing countries for labor-intensive farming, providing employment and income for the world’s poorest people by feeding the First-World market for organic food. The plans are already under way. Since mid-December, his task forces have already placed prominent advertisements in the International Herald Tribune seeking investors of a minimum $60,000 for a World Peace Bond, promising a 10 to 15 percent annual return. The ads so far have failed to produce any takers. “We don’t expect anything so soon. Because the project is big, people have to examine it from their different angles,” said project director Benny Feldman, a Mexican economist.

End war

Specially trained, highly skilled meditator task forces, will be deployed to world hot spots as psychic shock troops whose combined positive energy will dispel negativity, reduce crime, ease conflict and promote world peace. A few hundred meditators on either side of a conflict is all that’s needed to create an aura of peace. “We create world consciousness and coherence. Therefore, fighting will stop all over,” he says.

Create peace

The largest task that he calls for, which begins to sound a little bit more like a traditional revolution—“Tear down major structures,” he insists, the White House and the United Nations among them. Then rebuild our governing institutions according to “Vedic architectural plans that harmonize construction with natural law”.

Hmmm… Well, two out of three ain’t bad.