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ABC News/Nightline: Transcendental Meditation in Vedic City, Iowa

July 6, 2010

Transcendental Meditation Thrives in Iowa

Adherents of Transcendental Meditation Have Called Hawkeye State Home Since ’70s

By JOHN BERMAN and MAGGIE BURBANK

July 5, 2010 —

Travel to an Iowa cornfield to find an entire town that meditates en masse. More Photos

When you think of Iowa, you think of cornfields, you think of caucuses, you think of old-fashioned country-living.

Chances are, you don’t think of meditation and communal living.

Welcome to Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa — the only city in the country built on the tenets of transcendental meditation, for meditators, by meditators.

Meg and Erik Vigmostad moved here from St. Louis in 1982.

“We wanted to come to a meditating community,” said Meg Vigmostad. “We had two children at the time, one of them was an infant, and we felt like it was the best place to bring up our children.”

Watch the full story tonight on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET

Vigmostad acknowledged that the couple’s families thought they were “crazy” for making the move. Crazy, because those words, “transcendental meditation,” sound, well, different. Many people first heard of transcendental meditation, or TM, in the 1960s, when the Beatles started following Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the official founder of TM.

“Transcendental meditation is a simple technique practiced for about 15-20 minutes sitting comfortably in a chair with the eyes closed,” said Bob Roth, national director of the TM program. “It allows the body to get a profound state of rest while the mind just settles down and experiences a state of inner wakefulness, inner calm, inner coherence.”

The followers of Mahesh Yogi — mostly from East and West Coast universities — moved to Iowa en masse in 1974 to set up their own college, the Maharishi University of Management. The group chose Iowa because that is where they could find the land.

Now the settlement features two huge domes, one for men and one for women, with residents streaming in to meditate together twice a day.

But at the university and in the city, the commitment to Vedic principles of natural law and balance, derived from ancient Sanskrit texts, goes far beyond meditation. The community has banned the sale of nonorganic food within its boundaries. And that’s not all.

“The primary characteristics of Vedic architecture, the most obvious one, is that ideally, buildings face east, the direction of the rising sun,” said Jon Lipman, the country’s leading Vedic architect.

‘Greater Happiness’

Lipman says the buildings at the university and most new houses in town are constructed in line with ancient precepts.

“Just like the organs in the human body, there is a right place for different kinds of functions within a building,” Lipman said.

“And so, a kitchen is typically in one location. A living room in a house is typically in another location.”

Every Vedic building has a silent core known as a Bramastan, which is lit by a skylight and is never walked on. Lipman claims miraculous effects.

“The results are that, families find that their lives are improved, that there’s greater family harmony, that there is greater financial success, there’s greater happiness,” said Lipman. “There are many many cases where members of a family had disharmony between them, and it dissolved when they moved into a Vedic home. There are many cases where even such things as chronic diseases were abated by moving into a Vedic home.”

Lipman said “it’s a real challenge” to be poor, unhappy or unhealthy if you live in a Vedic building.

The Vigmostads live in a Vedic house, and seem like happy customers.

“It feels harmonious, it feels orderly, there’s a lot of silence here that was definitely not in our other house that we owned,” said Meg Vigmostad.

The talk of order and inner peace might sound unbelievable. But it is also the work of Vedic City to make it all … believable. Fred Travis, director of a university facility called the Center for Brain Consciousness and Cognition, demonstrated an EEG monitor of neurological electrical activity that he said shows that TM makes the brain more organized.

“What this is measuring is the electrical activity of the brain,” Travis explained as a member of the community hooked up to the machine sat and meditated.

“You see this one going up and down?” Travis said, pointed to a gauge. “Look at the one next to it. It goes up and down in a similar way. This is called coherence. When the similarity of two signatures are very close, it suggests those two parts of the brain are working together.

Neurologist Gary Kaplan, a proponent of TM, said such “coherence” will bring happiness, success — even world peace.

“What we notice is that this electrical activity becomes more harmonious or coherent between left and right hemispheres,” Kaplan said. “There have been studies that have documented that the TM technique, when practiced in large groups, seems to have some effect on society in general, whether it’s in war-torn areas where people are sitting to meditate together, or in high-crime areas that the trends reverse when you have larger groups meditating together.”

David Lynch and TM

It is a lot to digest — but then you don’t really have to. The TM followers insist they are not a cult. They all have normal jobs, for the middle of Iowa, and they are not out to recruit you. They just want you to know the option is there.

Famed filmmaker David Lynch spends a lot of time in Vedic City. He started the David Lynch Foundation, which, in the last four years, has provided scholarships for over 100,000 kids to learn to meditate for free in schools across the country.

“It’s not a religion. It’s not against any religion, it’s not mumbo-jumbo. It truly does transform life,” Lynch told ABC News. “Kids come to school and they meditate together for 15 minutes in the morning. And before they go home they meditate for 15 minutes. A lot of them come from, you know, bad situations, and so this gives them this thing you know, at the beginning and the end of the day, the rest of the time you just watch the violence stop. Watch relationships improve. Watch happiness in the hallways, in the classroom, watch creativity flow more and more, watch that heavy weight that we are living under gently lift away.”

“Nightline” was told there wasn’t enough time to properly learn transcendental meditation on a short trip to Vedic City. But to get a feeling of the Vedic way of life, we did visit the Ayurveda Health Spa in Vedic City — the leading spa of its kind in the country. Ayurveda is a system of health and healing involving food and behavior that originated in India thousands of years ago.

“We take your pulse, we put three fingers on the right hand,” explained Mark Toomey, an Ayurvedic health expert at the spa. “And it’s what I would say is like plugging into the inner intelligence of the body.”

Toomey said he can learn a lot from feeling a person’s pulse. He demonstrated on our correspondent.

“It’s a strong pulse,” Toomey said. “That means that, good expression of intelligence. It’s clear. Your pulse has a little bit of tension there, so maybe you’re working a little too hard, too many deadlines.”

Next up was the Shirodhara treatment.

“So what we’re going to be doing is pouring this oil for about 20 minutes on your forehead, in a continuous stream,” said Toomey. “Your job is just to relax and enjoy.”

And what’s so wrong with that? In Vedic City, they have made that their way of life … in the middle of Iowa.

“We really have all we need here,” said Meg Vigmostad. “You can go to a city anytime. But this is sort of a haven, you know? And it’s a place of comfort, and community.”

Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

This edited version finally aired: http://bit.ly/cDxWqj and was posted earlier this year: http://wp.me/pD0BA-Gp

Posted in Architecture, David Lynch Foundation, Education, Health, Peace, Videos | 1 Comment »

The Connexion, France’s English-Language Newspaper, interviews David Lynch

June 27, 2010

David Lynch’s French connections

Connexion edition: May 2010

FRANCE has been kind to David Lynch; he’s an officier of the Légion d’honneur (a rare thing for a foreigner); French production companies have supported his last three films and he has twice won best foreign director from the French-based César cinema awards. The feeling is mutual he tells Connexion.

You’re quite a frequent visitor to France

This is one of my favourite places in the world. I’ve had a lot of support in France for my films and I love Paris. I’m doing a lot of work here now. I’m here on average maybe twice a year.

Do you see much of the rest of the country at all?

Well, when I go to the Cannes Film festival I see the south of France but mainly I’m coming to Paris. I stay in a hotel here.

Would you like to live here?

For sure, if I have the money I’d like to get a place here. It would be in Paris. I’m doing a lot of lithographs here. I’m working in a place called Idem Print Studio. It’s incredible – a 150 year old printing shop. It’s the real thing. It’s got a mood you can’t believe.

You’ve had exhibitions here as well

Yes I had a big exhibition at the Fondation Cartier and a big exhibition of lithographs in the north of France.

When did you first visit France?

My first trip was 1965. I came here with my friend Jack Fisk. I was kind of lost and just travelling around.

What were your first impressions?

Paris is I think the most beautiful city in the world. It’s inspiring to me. It’s a place that’s just packed with all the arts. It’s a great, great celebration of all the arts. It’s just got the feel.

Has it ever inspired any scenes in your films?

(pauses) Let’s see. I don’t know. I don’t think so…but it’s still inspiring.

You made The Cowboy and the Frenchman in 1988 for a project with Le Figaro (The French as seen by…) Have your opinions changed much since then?

We live in a world of change. Everything is always changing but that film was kind of a cliché – both an American and French cliché film and there’s probably still truth to that.

What would you say about the French away from the clichés then?

Well as I said, they’re lovers of art. They champion the arts more than any other country in the world, they support the arts more than any other country I think, and this is very important to me. Plus they’ve got great food, great wine, incredible knowledge of materials and design. It’s a really high-end life.

Do you have any particular things that you like to do when you’re in France?

I like to work.

Is it always work or do you get to relax here?

I usually come to work and that’s the most enjoyable thing. I don’t really like vacations. I like to work here a lot.

Who are your influential French figures?

I like so many of the artists that work in France. When you come here and connect the place to the work, you see that it must have been so inspiring for them to be here. It sort of feeds the work this place. It’s a great country to live the artlife.

Would you ever make a film here?

For sure, if the ideas came. You don’t just arbitrarily say ‘I’m going to make a film in Paris.’ The ideas have to come and then if the ideas came and Paris was the setting, then absolutely, it would be a joy.

There’s some bits of French that makes their way into your films. Do you have any affinity for the French language?

No I don’t speak French. I just murder the language.

Why choose to use French?

Things appear from ideas. You don’t just say I want some French here. Ideas come along and who knows exactly how that happens but they come along and then there it is.

So it’s like there’s a little bit of France swimming around out there?

There’s everything swimming around and sometimes that will conjure an idea, that’s how it all goes. Ideas, ideas, ideas.

Do you have any particular favourite foods in France?

Oh yes, I like the foie gras. I like vin rouge Bordeaux. I like all the French pastries and I like the galettes. It’s hard to get a bad meal in France.

What’s brought you and your meditation project to France?

The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace has helped start well over 100,000 students to meditate. It’s in several schools in US, both private and public. Some of these were the worst schools in their state and in one year the schools had been completely changed. It’s not just France it’s in so many countries now. There’s a project in the West Bank in Palestine, in Africa, many countries in Europe, Iceland, Canada.

What’s the connection that’s brought you to Lille?

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came over to Lille, 50 years ago this month. It’s a celebration of him coming to France.

How do you feel Transcendental Meditation (TM) is received in France as opposed to the US?

France and Germany will probably be among the last countries where the penny drops and they say ‘wait a minute this is a great thing’. I base that on many, many misunderstandings. The misunderstanding of this world ‘cult’ or ‘sect’ which is very unfortunate. This is absolutely not true. It’s not a religion or against any religion. It’s a technique, an ancient form of meditation for the human being that opens the door to the treasury within; unbounded, infinite eternal consciousness. Life improves almost over night when people experience ‘the big self’ – the unified field within. The lack of knowledge and misunderstandings are ridiculously huge here.

But little by little they’re saying there’s got to be something to this. In other places the misunderstandings have almost disappeared and it’s a normal thing for people to meditate in schools, in homes, wherever. It’s as normal as breathing and life improves rapidly. The world is full of stress and this is a stress buster beyond the beyond. All these stress related illnesses that people suffer, so much of the behaviour is dictated by stress – you practise this thing and it frees you from stress.

Grades go up, relationships improve, health improves. Everything gets better.

The main sticking point for France is not the meditation aspect but the money aspect – how would you respond to critics?

That’s another crazy thing. People will spend money on almost anything but when it comes to meditation they say it’s a scam. It’s because they haven’t yet had the experience or they don’t see the change in one of their friends who’s had this experience. Once they start seeing this transformation in other people they realise that this is nothing to spend for this life transforming thing. The money they save from the doctors is going to be huge. You want a legitimate teacher of Transcendental Meditation and it’s about 90 mins a day over four days to learn the technique. The teachers, they need to live and have a place to stay and a car to drive. It’s so well worth the money there’s nothing to talk about.

You’ve met President Sarkozy – how do you find him?

I love him. I think he’s filled with energy. He’s got a great energy and a great caring for France.

You’ve spoken with him about TM as well. Has he helped you with this project up in Lille?

No, because I think people are not quite ready to go out on a limb and say let’s do this thing because of these strange misunderstandings or lack of knowledge but the times are changing. To experience this is life transforming.

You put it in a school that’s in trouble, you put it into a school that’s in great shape it will just get better. It’s a human being thing.

Awards, art and films

Won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Wild at Heart in 1990. In 2002 he presided over the festival jury.

Won two Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of Baftas) for Elephant Man in 1982 and for Mulholland Drive in 2002.

He was made a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 2002 and then made an officier by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

Sarkozy says he is a fan, declaring that Lynch’s Elephant Man convinced him that “cinema was a highly important matter”

An exhibition of 25 years of Lynch’s work as a painter, sculpture, photographer and musician entitled The Air Is On Fire went on show in Paris in 2007 at the Fondation Cartier.

From his 2006 book Catching the Big Fish: “I love the French. They’re the biggest film bugs and protectors of cinema in the world. They really look out for the filmmaker and the rights of the filmmaker, and they believe in final cut. I’ve been very luck that I’ve been in with some French companies that have backed me.”

When American TV channel ABC dropped Mulholland Drive (originally conceived as a series) after seeing the pilot episode it was French production company StudioCanal that provided the funding to turn it into the award-winning film.

StudioCanal also provided funding for Lynch’s Inland Empire and The Straight Story.

Lynch is by no means guaranteed hits among audiences in France. At the Cannes festival in 1992 his film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was booed following its screening.

Transcendental Meditation – a way for peace that rarely passes quietly

Transcendental Meditation is never far from criticism, principally for its direct approach of charging money for courses instructing people how to carry out the technique. It was founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1950s and spread around the world as famous faces such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda and Mia Farrow took it up.

In 2005 David Lynch announced that he had been practising the technique for 32 years.

That year he founded the David Lynch foundation to promote meditation in schools. The foundation’s latest project aims to reduce stress and violence at 10 schools in Lille by funding meditation courses for students and teachers.

Milvudes (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires) which monitors religions and possible cults in France says their main concern with TM is a “lack of transparency” within the group. Milvudes spokeswoman Claire Barbereau said: “It is presented as a technique for meditation but there is a strong spiritual movement in the background.” She said people could find themselves pushed to adhere to the movements beliefs which were not necessarily linked to meditation.

Ms Barbereau said they had received no complaints about the group for many years. Milvudes does not keep a list of ‘cults’ “because we are concerned with what they do, not what they are.” It was up to the Ministry of Education to see whether the David Lynch Foundation’s plan was an effective way of helping children improve performance at school, she added.

Posted in Art, Articles, David Lynch Foundation, Education | 2 Comments »

Stephen Collins to give Commencement Address at Maharishi University of Management

June 23, 2010

“7th Heaven” star, Iowa native, returns from L.A. to give commencement address

by Matt Kelley on June 23, 2010
in Education, Human Interest

An Iowa native and Hollywood actor, best known for his role on the long-running TV show “7th Heaven,” will be back in his home state this weekend to give a commencement address. Stephen Collins says he wants to speak to the graduates in southeast Iowa about what he calls counter-culturalism, specifically, how it’s considered not normal to eat healthy.

“It’s difficult, if you’re watching television, to find an advertisement for a food product that’s really good for you,” Collins says. “It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult. Various companies would take me to task on that but to me it’s counter-cultural to be really careful about what you eat.”

The 62-year-old Collins will speak at the graduation ceremony on Saturday in Fairfield at Maharishi University of Management. Collins practices transcendental meditation and says many people consider it counter-cultural to take care of their bodies and not to over-medicate themselves.

Collins starred as Reverend Eric Camden in all 241 episodes of “7th Heaven,” the longest-running TV series on the WB network. It ran from 1996 to 2007. “I loved doing 7th Heaven and I’m proud of it and I’m proud of our wonderful long run,” Collins says. “Whenever I kick off, it’ll probably be in the first sentence, if not the first paragraph of any obituary anybody writes about me, but that’s okay. I have done a lot of other things, but when you do something that runs 11 years, it changes people’s idea about who you are.”

Over three-and-a-half decades, Collins has appeared in more than 60 movies and TV shows, and is now starring in the new ABC series, “No Ordinary Family.” Collins was born in Des Moines, grew up in New York and now lives in Los Angeles — but still considers himself an Iowan.

“I love saying that I’m from Iowa because my mother’s family goes back in Iowa for many, many generations and is kind of a venerable Iowan family,” Collins says. “My great-great-grandfather was a fellow named James B. Weaver who was a Civil War general and a member of Congress and ran for president twice as a third-party candidate.”

Collins considers himself an actor first, but has also written two novels and is a musician. This will be his first college commencement address. Saturday’s graduation at Maharishi University will feature 235 students earning degrees, representing 41 countries.

Hear the full interview: 7th Heaven 6:20 MP3

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Ending Tensions with North Korea: What South Korea Could Learn from Latin America

June 22, 2010

Social tensions between South and North Korea have escalated once again due to the sinking of the Cheonan. The two Koreas have remained technically at war with each other ever since the 1953 ceasefire ended the Korean War. If one considers the premise that their long-term struggle is a cold civil war with periodic hot flashes, then it could be argued that the protracted civil wars in Latin American countries like Colombia, Bolivia, etc. have followed similar patterns. However, the latter situation is now changing, and perhaps both Koreas could learn something from new developments regarding the implementation of Invincible Defense Technology IDT in Latin America.

The Latin American Military Prevention Wing

Read the whole article here, or click on any of the publications below.

Published in China Today, The Seoul Times, Pattaya Dailynews (Thailand), Kashmir Watch, ReviewNepal, The Seoul Times, Cyprus News, Business Ghana, OpEd News, and Australia.to

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A Tribute to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

June 16, 2010

A Tribute To The TM Guru

By: newagephilosopher

Mahesh Yogi was a genius, who formulated the Seven States of Consciousness. He founded the rationale and methodology for generating higher states of Consciousness.

Dr Keith Wallace, ex President of MIU, defined Enlightenment as the full development of Consciousness, depending on the harmonious functions of every part of the human body. He said that India is the home of the most profound knowledge and procedures for the development of Physiology.

What the ancients meant by Supreme Knowledge, Jnana, was that state of perfect order, zero entropy, he says in his article The Neurophysiology of Enlightenment. In his PhD Thesis The Physiological Effects of Transcendental Meditation, he conclusively proved the existence of a Fourth Major State of Consciousness.

Here is an abstract of a study posted in the sessions at the Lucidity Associations Conference on Higher States of Consciousness in Chicago in 1990.

Vedic psychology, as presented by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, delineates seven major states of consciousness (Maharishi, 1972). The daily cycle of waking, dreaming, and sleeping constitute the three ordinary changing states of consciousness. In addition, Maharishi’s Vedic psychology describes an invariant sequence of higher stages of consciousness. The fourth state of consciousness, termed transcendental consciousness (TC), is characterized as a content-free state of restful alertness, the ultimate ground state of the mind, pure consciousness (Maharishi, 1969). In this state, awareness becomes completely self-referral consciousness, has nothing other than itself in its structure (Maharishi, 1986, p. 27). Maharishi describes TC as follows:

This is a state of inner wakefulness with no object of thought or perception, just pure consciousness [TC], aware of its own unbounded nature. It is wholeness, aware of itself, [Self-awareness] devoid of differences, beyond the division of subject and object, transcendental consciousness (Maharishi, 1977, p. 123).

TC is held to be as distinct from the ordinary waking state as waking is from dreaming or sleeping. Recent research reviews have identified over twenty physiological correlates distinguishing TC from simple relaxation, sleeping, dreaming and waking (See Alexander and Boyer, 1989; Alexander, Cranson, Boyer and Orme-Johnson, 1986; Wallace, 1986; for a complete review).

He had given millions the experience of Transcendental Consciousness and his contribution to humanity was immense.

He took Indian Philosophy far and wide and made Geetha one of the most popular books ever! May his soul rest in Peace!

He defined the Geetha as the Lamp lit by the Lord at the altar of humanity, redeeming Man from Ignorance! He travelled far and wide with the message of Vedic Wisdom and was adored by Nobel Laureates and intellectuals. He was one of the greatest sons of India!

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

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Radical Peace: People Refusing War, by William T. Hathaway

June 10, 2010

Radical Peace: People Refusing War

World peace depends on our collective consciousness. – William T. Hathaway

William T. Hathaway’s latest literary work, is a return to journalism. Radical Peace: People Refusing War, presents the first-person experiences of war resisters, deserters, and peace activists in the USA, Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Just released by Trine Day, it’s a journey along diverse paths of nonviolence, the true stories of people working for peace in unconventional ways. The first, Chapter 1: The Real War Heroes, and last, Chapter 15: Conscious Peace, are both posted on OpEdNews.com.

William T. Hathaway is a political journalist and a former Special Forces soldier turned peace activist whose articles have appeared in more than 40 publications, including Humanist, the Los Angeles Times, Midstream Magazine, and Synthesis/Regeneration. He won a Fullbright grant to teach at universities in Germany, where he continues to reside. He is an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg. William and his wife also run a small TM center there.

Hathaway is the author of A World of Hurt (Rinehart Foundation Award), CD-Ring, and Summer Snow. He is currently working on WELLSPRINGS: A Fable of Consciousness, which focuses on applying Vedic knowledge to ecology. A selection of his writing is available at www.peacewriter.org.

William also spent 7 years, from 1987-1993, as an assistant professor in the Master’s in Professional Writing at MIU, now MUM. The last chapter of Radical Peace, Conscious Peace, discusses his TM practice, and the vision of possibilities it holds for world peace. You can click on the Chapter 15 link above or read it here:

I was sitting in full lotus, body wrapped in a blanket, mind rapt in deep stillness, breathing lightly, wisps of air curling into the infinite space behind my closed eyes. My mantra had gone beyond sound to become a pulse of light in an emptiness that contained everything.

An electric shock flashed down my spine and through my body. My head snapped back, limbs jerked, a cry burst from my throat. Every muscle in my body contracted — neck rigid, jaws clenched, forehead tight. Bolts of pain shot through me in all directions, then drew together in my chest. Heart attack! I thought. I managed to lie down, then noticed I wasn’t breathing — maybe I was already dead. I groaned and gulped a huge breath, which stirred a whirl of thoughts and images.

Vietnam again: Rotor wind from a hovering helicopter flails the water of a rice paddy while farmers run frantically for cover. Points of fire spark out from a bamboo grove to become dopplered whines past my ears. A plane dives on the grove to release a bomb which tumbles end over end and bursts into an orange globe of napalm. A man in my arms shakes in spasms as his chest gushes blood.

I held my head and tried to force the images out, but the montage of scenes flowed on, needing release. I could only lie there under a torrent of grief, regret, terror, and guilt. My chest felt like it was caving in under the pressure. I clung to my mantra like a lifeline to sanity. I was breathing in short, shallow gasps, but gradually my breath slowed and deepened, the feelings became less gripping, and I reoriented back into the here and now: my small room in Spain on a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course.

I lay on my narrow bed stunned by this flashback from four years ago when I’d been a Green Beret in Vietnam. I had thought I’d left all that behind, but here it was again.

I sat up and was able to do some yoga exercises but couldn’t meditate. Instead I took a walk on the beach. For the rest of that day and the next I was confused and irritable and could hardly meditate or sleep. But the following day I felt lightened and relieved, purged of a load of trauma, and my meditations were clear. My anxiety about the war was much less; the violence was in the past, not raging right now in my head.

Gradually I became aware of a delicate joy permeating not just me but also my surroundings. I knew somehow it had always been there, inhering deep in everything, but my stress had been blocking my perception of it. I felt closer to the other people on the course, connected by a shared consciousness. Then I started feeling closer to everything around me; birds and grass, even rocks and water were basically the same as me. Our surface separations were an illusion; essentially we were all one consciousness expressing itself in different forms. Rather than being just an isolated individual, I knew I was united with the universe, joined in a field of felicity. This perception faded after a few days, but it gave me a glimpse of what enlightenment must be like.

The whole experience was a dramatic example of what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi called “unstressing,” the nervous system’s purging itself of blockages caused by our past actions. Since my past actions had been extreme, the healing process was also extreme.

I had begun meditating in 1968, several months after returning from the war. I’d come back laden with fear and anger, but I had denied those emotions, burying them under an “I’m all right, Jack,” attitude. I was tough, I could take it, I was a survivor. Within certain parameters I could function well, but when my superficial control broke down, I would fall into self-destructive depressions. I finally had to admit I was carrying a huge burden of stress, and I knew I had to get rid of that before I could live at peace with myself or anyone else.

(more…)

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The Bat Segundo Show #100: David Lynch

May 31, 2010

The Bat Segundo Show #100 with special guest David Lynch discussing TM
BSS #100: David Lynch
CLICK TO LISTEN: 33:43
Author: David Lynch

Condition of Mr. Segundo: In absentia, terrified of meditation.

Subjects Discussed: Transcendental Meditation, true happiness, contending with stress, fear and anxiety, anger, the relationship between filmmaking and TM, inner happiness, walking vs. TM, Knut Hamsun, Einstein’s Theory of Everything, Dostoevsky’s 1866 publishing deal, on coming up with ideas, the art life vs. the business life, Frank Silva’s unexpected casting as Bob in Twin Peaks, and whether Lynch understands his own films.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Lynch: Let’s talk about suffering. Like in movies, people die. Well, you say, you don’t have to die to show a death. And there’s all kind of suffering and torment and all these things in a story. And, for me, those things come from ideas. Now when you catch an idea, you see the thing. You hear the thing. You feel and see and hear the mood of it. And you see the character. You almost see what the character wears. And you see what the character says and how they say it. That it’s an idea that comes all at once. And you know that idea.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Samadhi is the beginning, not the end of Yoga

May 24, 2010


JUNE 2010 Issue

Samadhi is the beginning, not the end of Yoga

By Neil Dickie

Yoga or union of the mind with divine intelligence, begins when the mind gains Transcendental Consciousness. The process of diving within is the way to become established in yoga. —Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

This article is for the many people who suspect they could take their yoga practice to a higher level by practicing meditation, but who delay starting, thinking meditation to be either too difficult or too advanced for them.

One reason many assume meditation to be difficult is a common misunderstanding of the eight-limbed or Ashtanga system of yoga laid out in the revered Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. In the text of the Yoga Sutras, the eight limbs of yoga are laid out in the following order: the five yamas or personal virtues, such as ahimsa or non-violence, and satya, truthfulness. Then the five niyamas or rules of life, including shaucha, purification, and swadhyaya, study. Then pranayama, the breathing practices; then asanas, the poses of yoga; then three stages of mental practice. And finally, comes the eighth limb, samadhi, the union of the busy thinking mind with its deepest most silent level, the unified field of consciousness. Think of an individual wave settling down and experiencing the unbounded ocean.

However, despite the fact that Ashtanga translates as eight LIMBS, and not eight STEPS or stages, many have thought Patanjali meant that his eight-fold approach should be practiced only in step-by-step, sequential order, starting with the personal virtues and observances, and that only advanced practitioners should attempt samadhi.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created a stir in the world yoga community some 40 years ago when he travelled the world teaching Transcendental Meditation, a simple, easily-learned technique to bring the direct experience of samadhi. Maharishi was teaching anyone interested, irrespective of their knowledge of the other limbs of yoga. As the popularity of TM spread, so did concern in the yoga community. In Germany, an upset delegation of yogis came to him and demanded an explanation. They knew that Maharishi had been for many years the closest disciple of the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, a highly respected spiritual leader and the elected custodian of the Vedic tradition in Northern India. But in spite of this traditional background, Maharishi was now teaching meditation to the masses. What could be the reason, they asked?

Maharishi welcomed the delegation and began by establishing common ground with them—his respect for the authority of Patanjali. He then, however, explained his view that Patanjali had, due to the long lapse of time, become badly misinterpreted. The order of Patanjali’s famous eightfold yoga had, he said, become the reverse of what Patanjali intended. “The practice of Yoga was understood to start with yama, niyama (the secular virtues), and so on,” Maharishi said, “whereas in reality it should begin with samadhi. Samadhi cannot be gained by the practice of yama, niyama, and so on. Proficiency in the virtues can only be gained by repeated experience of samadhi.”

For example, Maharishi said, one can only truly progress in ahimsa or non-violence as one grows in the realization that there is a common unity of all things. This unified reality of life is directly experienced in samadhi. Similarly, he said, asteya or non-covetousness can only be realized when one feels fully contented, and the only way to be truly happy inside is to realize the field of bliss-consciousness—again only possible through repeated experience of samadhi.

But there’s a second, perhaps even more common reason for the widespread belief that meditation is difficult—as it is generally taught, it is. Patanjali defines yoga as “the complete settling of the mind” (Yoga Sutras, 1:2). Our experience of teaching meditation during the past 20 years is that most other types of meditation today involve concentration, effort, and control. As such, they effectively prevent the mind from completely settling down. Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation, in contrast, involves no concentration, effort or trying of any kind, and allows the mind to quickly and easily dive within to its silent core.

But can an easy, effortless meditation be “real” meditation, leading to enlightenment? Yes. Some have misunderstood that the simplicity of Maharishi’s TM means that it is watered down, or “westernized.” But TM is actually the revival of meditation in its pure and original form. It is simple and easy not because it is watered down, but because it is natural, in full accord with the nature of mind and body. That is also why it is so efficient. Nature has tremendous efficiency. Activity in nature always follows the path of least action. In the same way, the TM practitioner effortlessly dives within the mind, gains samadhi, and enjoys, even outside of meditation, steadily increasing access to that field of pure intelligence and infinite joy.

See www.tm.org or www.doctorsontm.com for information on the many published scientific studies on the benefits for mind, body and behaviour resulting from this practice.

Neil Dickie is a certified Transcendental Meditation instructor who treasures his daily yoga asana practice (neil.c.dickie108@gmail.com). For more information, or to find out the dates of upcoming free introductory talks, call 613-565-2030. Email: Ottawa@maharishi.ca

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US Government National Health Center Highlights TM Study on Stressed College Students

May 14, 2010

Transcendental Meditation Helps Young Adults Cope With Stress

A recent study found that Transcendental Meditation (TM) helped college students decrease psychological distress and increase coping ability. For a group of students at high risk for developing hypertension, these changes also were associated with decreases in blood pressure. This could be good news for the many students experiencing academic, financial, and social pressures that can lead to psychological distress—especially in light of evidence that college-age people with even slightly elevated blood pressure are three times more likely to develop hypertension within 30 years.

Funded in part by NCCAM, researchers from Maharishi University of Management and American University studied 298 students from American University and other schools in the Washington, D.C., area. The researchers randomly assigned students to a TM group or a control (wait-list) group. They also created a high-risk subgroup, based on blood pressure readings, family history, and weight. The TM group received a seven-step course in TM techniques, with invitations to attend refresher meetings, and kept track of how often they practiced TM. At the beginning of the study and after 3 months, researchers tested all participants for blood pressure and psychological measures. The researchers noted that 30 percent of the participants dropped out before the end of the study.

Blood pressure decreased in the TM group and increased in the control group, but the differences were not significant overall (TM-control blood pressure differences were significant within the high-risk subgroup). However, compared with controls, the TM group had significant improvement in total psychological distress, anxiety, depression, anger/hostility, and coping ability. Changes in psychological distress and coping paralleled changes in blood pressure.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that young adults at risk of developing hypertension may be able to reduce that risk by practicing TM. The researchers recommend that future studies of TM in college students evaluate long-term effects on blood pressure and psychological distress.

Reference

URL: http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/051410.htm

This page last modified May 13, 2010.

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Maharishi describes the nature of inner life: bondage and liberation, and gaining bliss consciousness through Transcendental Meditation

May 9, 2010

Maharishi at Lake Louise

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced this beautiful documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation technique, during his visit to Canada’s premier hotel Chateau Lake Louise,  June 10-14, 1968, the course location for Canadian meditators. I was very lucky to have been on that course and met Maharishi for the first time. All of the course participants lined up to present Maharishi with flowers for the CBC to film. It was used to open and close that documentary profile, which was made for the CBC program series called Telescope.

This CBC documentary remains one of the best films ever made on Maharishi. Filmed inside the hotel’s main lecture hall and outside with the backdrop of the majestic Canadian Rocky Mountains, it respectfully portrays Maharishi as a great spiritual teacher. They filmed him walking in front of the glacier lake, the image of which he used to describe the nature of inner life, bondage and liberation, and contacting and integrating bliss consciousness into daily life through the regular practice of Transcendental Meditation.

Posted here is an edited version of that documentary, minus the opening introduction, segues, and commercials, which was aired on Canadian national television during the Fall of 1968. Here is a partial transcription of that segment of the video. To view the whole video click on the title, Maharishi at Lake Louise. It can also be viewed on the Maharishi Channel on You Tube: Transcendental Meditation – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Lake Louise, Canada, 1968. Also, the Transcendental Meditation blog has a well-written comprehensive, historical, contextual description about this video by Bob Roth: Maharishi: A rare glimpse into the message of meditation from 40 years ago. It’s also embed here for you to enjoy.

The depth of the lake, and the ripples, and the beautiful reflection of the glacier, reminds me of the story of inner life. The mind is deep like a lake. The ripples on the surface represent the conscious mind, the activity of the mind on the surface. And the whole depth of the lake is silent. And that is the subconscious mind, which is not used by the wave. But if, the wave could deepen, and incorporate more silent levels of the water, the waves could become the waves of the ocean, the mighty waves.

This is what happens in Transcendental Meditation. The surface activity of the conscious mind deepens and incorporates within its fold the depth of the subconscious. And with practice, nothing remains subconscious. The whole subconscious becomes conscious, and a man starts using full potential of the mind.

And the reflection of the glacier on the water is like the impression of the objects that the mind perceives. And as long as the mind is not capable of maintaining its essential nature, which is bliss consciousness, so long the mind gets imprinted by the perceptions of the objects. And this is called the bondage of the mind. The mind loses bliss consciousness and gains the joy of the reflections of the world, the joy of the relative order, losing the bliss of the absolute eternal Being.

When the mind is not capable of maintaining its essential nature, bliss consciousness, and is overshadowed by the reflections of the object of perception, then only the object remains, and the subject, as if, becomes annihilated. This annihilation of the subjective nature within is a great loss. It’s a loss of eternal bliss at the cost of temporary joys. Such a life where the value of the matter dominates is called material life, and the spirit gets annihilated.

But, when through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, the mind goes deep within to the source of thought, transcends the thought, and gains bliss consciousness, and is capable of maintaining that even when it comes out into the worldly experience of objective nature, then it is called spiritual life—that the spirit is not capable of being overshadowed anymore by the objective experience. And this is spiritual life. This is life in eternal liberation. And without this, life is in bondage. A great loss. As if loss of a billion pounds, and gain of a million. Loss of eternal bliss consciousness and gain of a worldly fleeting joy.

The vision, the vision of the lake, brings about a great teaching of spiritual life. …

New Post: Watch the 1968 film of Maharishi at Lake Louise.

On September 30, 2014 I had posted how I learned #TMmeditation 47 years ago today. In there I share more information about the making of the CBC Telescope film, The Guru, of Maharishi at Lake Louise. Richard Day shared a story he had heard many years later about the director of the film who told Maharishi that he wanted to film him saying something that would encapsulate all his teachings. Maharishi said, “I’ll walk by the lake, you walk with me, and I’ll tell you everything about spiritual development.” He did it in one take!

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