Over the years, Cambridge has remained at the forefront of the world peace movement, creating a "nuclear free" zone, appointing a public peace commissioner, setting up sister cities with urban centers in other nations and most recently banning research on nerve gas. Despite the city's best efforts, however multi-national brotherhood remains a dream.

But last night, the Cambridge City Council heard a proposal for a new step which advocates said would make the area a "center of world peace"--a city-wide program of collective transcendental meditation or TM.

Followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the TM movement's founder, told the council that if a group comprising the square root of 1 percent of a city's population mediate together, the rate of crime, accidents and sickness will decrease, and "an ideal quality of city, state and national life" will be created.

The group proposed that the council offer TM training to all city employees and that it make facilities available in the morning and in the evening for "the collective practice of the Maharishi Technology by city employees and Cambridge residents."

Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci agreed that some kind of technique was necessary, especially in light of the non-peaceful atmosphere created at tax-filing time, and the council said it would consider the proposal.