An extraordinary experiment has been going on for the last thirteen years in Princeton University. It is called Global Consciousness Project. It has placed 70 special devices (nodes) in computers across the world. The device is a small gadget which measures the vibrations of a single atom. In measuring its vibrations, it converts it into pulses. Random pulses are generated from the vibrations of single atom. Done across 70 countries in the world, the computers record these random pulses coming from single atom, gather them and send them over to Princeton where 65 streams of random pulses are combined and you get one gigantic, random fluctuation. Computers then measure their randomness. Is it more random or less random? It plots a graph which measures how random these pulses are. The graph fluctuates, less random, more random, and suddenly the graph goes up, because all the randomness in all these atoms is becoming less and less, and suddenly the atoms are synchronizing and connected with with each other.
Whenever an event in the world which connected human beings intensely occurred, the randomness of these atoms became less and the graphs arose. When the tsunami hit the Bay Bengal during 2004, thousands of people died. But the graph didnt change. Fifteen minutes later, when the news of the
tsunami spread, people began to think about it and feel in their hearts, the
pain, suffering, the graph started growing up. As the people connected, the graph measured the
connection. As the connection gradually spread out and dissipated, the graph also came down.
When millions are watching soccer, as the striker kicks towards the goal, all
the minds are suddenly concentrating on the possibility of the goal, and the graph shoots up. As the goal is hit, the minds of so many
people relax and the graph falls down.
When there is a live
broadcast of the Oscar awards, a billion people are watching the host pulls out the paper and says
“And the winner is..” and stares at the audience, just to build the tension. A billion
people are connected to the point of tension and the graph goes up.And when the name is spoken, the graph goes down. As human minds get connected, the vibrations of atoms are becoming less chaotic, less random.
The state of mind of all humanity connected, whether football or cinema awards or tsunami,
is affecting the atoms of the earth, materially in the electronic circuits
in the soil, and in the air. When we are chaotic, the atoms
become chaotic. When we are in harmony, the atoms vibrate in harmony. And this
is measured by hard physical science, with the most objective instrument. This
is the entry point where we can see the material part of science is looking beyond something else.
When the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the graph went up the highest ever in the history of the experiment and stayed northwards for the longest period ever. It arose not when the attack happened, but when the
news was broadcast and people began to connect in their minds and hearts. If you remember those horrific moments, we felt connected, for few moments, with the whole world, in anger and disgust towards the terrorist attacks.
The most interesting part of the graph was, it started
growing up not when the attack took place but four hours before the attack. How do you explain that? It is hard to explain this in
the domain of material reality. We can attempt to understand it in the domain of the
psychological shift already happening in humanity before we knew it in our circuit
minds.
Our circuit mind is a small fragment of the larger,
deeper, underlying mind which already knows things before they can happen
because it is the support for all things which happen, the cause of all things which
happen. In a sense, humanity was bracing
itself for the shock of that impact and somewhere inside we knew that it was
about to happen.
At the underlying layer, we are already connected.
It is possible as our own mind is the universal mind. Or rather, we are a part of it. Because of our
relationship with it, it is possible for us to consciously become aware of it
and sync ourselves. Global consciousness project offers us one way to conceive this underlying reality within the precincts of our cognitive mind using indirect measurements. If were to take this logically one step further, the
way we think and feel affects the whole of earth, not just the part of the
Earth. Can we say then, perhaps, the earthquake, which represents
disharmony, could be influenced by our state of our mind? Could we say perhaps,
the rains would be influenced by our state of mind? If the vibrations of
all the atoms are changed by the way we think, then surely the particular balance
of atomic interactions may also be changed. Is it then so surprising when
people claim that they can make rain happen ?
Ancient Indian scriptures often talk about the
indicators of a good king and his governance. One of the indicators is that the rains come on time. It’s only a measure. What does it mean? In
the collective consciousness, the energy which is disharmonious and chaotic causes disharmony in our minds and hearts. People are unhappy. All
of them invariably affect the normal rhythms of nature. When we are in harmony, nature around us also shares happiness
and grows in happiness.
Based on Sraddhalu Ranade's Address at Inner Dimensions of Climate Change conference.