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Devoted followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi want to lower crime rates, improve the economy and enrich everyone's quality of life in communities around the Bay Area.
All it will take, they say, is the construction of "Peace Palaces" from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz -- part of the latest campaign by the octogenarian Maharishi, once guru to the Beatles, to spread transcendental meditation around the globe.
The Maharishi is pushing followers to build 200 Peace Palaces across the United States and 3,000 worldwide. Last month, the first U.S. center opened -- a $4 million Peace Palace at the University of Kentucky in Lexington paid for by a local businessman. Earlier this month, another center was inaugurated in Bethesda, Md.
In the Bay Area, TM leaders are trying to find spots for the palaces, each with about 12,000 square feet of space that will include meeting rooms, day spas and small stores, in Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Marin counties, and in San Francisco and Santa Rosa.
"Doing TM in a group is more profound, and it also has profound effects on the environment," said Valerie Janlois, who has taught TM in her Danville home for years and is trying to find a location for a Peace Palace in Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill or Danville. "The people who are practicing in groups will be purifying the collective consciousness ... so the quality of life for everyone will improve."
But TM followers have reached a common hurdle in the Bay Area -- finding available, affordable land.
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