Posts Tagged ‘Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’

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David Lynch addresses Israelis on Skype call after they see his film Meditation Creativity Peace

January 23, 2014

Here is an article in the Israeli paper Haaretz about a film on David Lynch’s 16-country tour made several years ago. One of the countries he had visited was Israel. The film was shown at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque Monday night, January 20, 2014, David’s 68th birthday. David also connected with the audience after the film via Skype to answer questions.

David Lynch’s remedy for Mideast peace: Transcendental Meditation

Real peace isn’t just the absence of war the legendary director tells Israeli filmgoers via Skype, and sets the record straight on the ‘Twin Peaks’ rumors.

Article and photo by Avshalom Halutz | Jan. 22, 2014 |12:54 PM

David Lynch speaks to Israeli moviegoers via Skype, on Monday

David Lynch speaks to Israeli moviegoers via Skype, on Monday

Moviegoers might associate director David Lynch with wailing babies, dead women in plastic bags and severed ears, but the audience at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque Monday night got nothing but peace and positivity from the man responsible for the perversity in films like “Blue Velvet,” “Eraserhead” and “Mullholland Drive.”

It was the Israeli premiere of the documentary “Meditation, Creativity, Peace,” which follows Lynch’s tour through 16 countries in Europe and the Middle East. The main topic: Transcendental Meditation.

Most of the documentary was shot by film students. The movie, which was edited by Noriko Miyakawa, was completed in 2012 and is in theaters across the United States now. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the creative process of one of history’s great filmmakers.

After the screening, Tel Avivians were treated to a Skype conversation with Lynch himself, who was celebrating his 68th birthday. He answered questions at length on meditation, cinema and creativity – and the Mideast conflict.

The documentary begins with Lynch’s visit to Israel in 2007, when he met with President Shimon Peres and thousands of enthusiastic film students. It opens with Lynch speaking to the camera while holding a jelly doughnut.

“This is a doughnut,” Lynch says. “It is very sweet, and very good. But if you’ve never tasted a doughnut, you wouldn’t really know how sweet and how good a doughnut is …. Transcendental Meditation is like that. Transcendental Meditation gives an experience much sweeter than the sweetness of this doughnut. It gives the experience of the sweetest nectar of life: pure bliss consciousness.”

The film then spends 70 minutes following Lynch on his tour. He explains how Transcendental Meditation, which he has been practicing morning and evening for 40 years, has changed the way he thinks and creates.

Lynch doesn’t lecture, he goes straight to the Q&A. So the film is mostly questions by film students and his take on topics like his love for Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” how to write a script, and living a more positive life.

During a session in Edinburgh, one questioner asks how he dares talk about meditation and world peace after visiting Israel, and how meditation can help Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Lynch answers that people are similar all over the world, and that he was happy to meet Israeli film students, Peres and the mayor of Haifa. He wasn’t at all ashamed to visit Israel.

But the trip to Israel had a special objective: to achieve regional peace by establishing “peace groups” that would practice meditation and effect change.

Take it from the Maharishi

When Lynch appeared on the cinematheque’s big screen live via his home computer, the audience sang “Happy Birthday” and followed with an ovation. It’s not every day Israelis interact with giants like Lynch, though the birthday boy remained humble throughout.

One questioner wanted to know if Lynch considered his visit to Israel a failure given that there was still no peace. Lynch mentioned the father of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

“I think the journey was to plant some seeds. And those seeds are still there, and they do need some watering, for sure. They say that Maharishi is the man who revived the science of consciousness and the technologies of consciousness,” Lynch said.

“One of the technologies of consciousness is Transcendental Meditation, a mental technique that any human being can take, and which allows any human being to transcend, to dive within and experience that unbounded eternal level of life. This unbounded eternal level of life is also a field of infinite unbounded peace.”

This peace has always been there, it just needs enlivening, Lynch said.

“Maharishi brought out the technologies of the peace-creating group – a group of human beings practicing the Transcendental Meditation that enliven the field of unity, this field of peace within, so powerfully that it can bring peace up in the field of diversity and raise collective consciousness,” he said. It can make people feel happier and more harmonious.

“And they say when real peace comes it is because this field within has been enlivened in the field of diversity. You can say it’s unity in the midst of diversity. I was telling all the people in Israel that I met: Start a peace-creating group for Israel, enliven that field of unity, get real peace.”

According to Lynch, “A peace treaty is a piece of paper on the surface of life. It does not address the hate, the anger, the torment inside the human beings. We want peace and here is a technology to truly bring real peace, and real peace is not just the absence of war – real peace is the absence of all negativity.”

Lynch was also asked about the situation in Israel compared to other conflicts around the world.

“The situation in Israel exists in lots of places: People just don’t get along. Surface cures will never work. Never work. If you want to get rid of that negativity that causes disputes you need to enliven that field of unity and peace that has always and forever been there,” he said.

“This is the big, big, big secret: Get to work, help form a peace-creating group for Israel and watch what happens, it will be so beautiful. It’s the real thing. Get to work and make this thing happen.”

When asked if he liked any new Israeli movies, Lynch said he didn’t have time to watch films lately. He said he didn’t understand how Martin Scorsese had the time to watch every movie that exists and still have the time to make more films than him.

Many questioners tried to pry information from Lynch about his next projects; they were eager to see more of his work. One brought up the rumor about a new version of “Twin Peaks,” the cult TV series from the early 1990s.

“Rumors are just rumors. There have always been rumors about things. So there is no real truth to it,” said Lynch.

“I don’t know where these rumors come from, but I think they were based on some misunderstanding of what’s going on. It’s true that there will be a new Blu-ray [disc] of ‘Twin Peaks,’ including the pilot, first season and second season. And there will be some special things that haven’t been seen before. That’s about all I can say.”

Below is a Teaser: “Meditation, Creativity, Peace” – David Lynch 16 Country Tour Documentary posted on the DavidLynchFoundation YouTube channel.

See The David Lynch mystery, a related article in Haaretz by Uri Klein, Oct. 17, 2007.

Related videos worth watching:

Russell Brand and David Lynch at LA Premiere of ‘Meditation, Creativity, Peace’ Documentary

David Lynch, Russell Brand, Bob Roth Q&A after screening Meditation, Creativity, Peace documentary at Hammer Museum

David Lynch speaks with Alan Colmes about his 16-country tour film Meditation Creativity Peace

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Health India’s Editorial Team says Transcendental Meditation (TM) is taking the world by storm

January 14, 2014

Health India

Transcendental Meditation — a meditation technique that is taking the world by storm

Editorial Team January 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm

Meditation, a simple yet deep-rooted technique that helps you think better, control your emotions with finesse and even makes you a better person. First practiced in India, meditation is a method carried down through the ages. It was first mentioned in the Vedas and is well-known in India as a doorway to nirvana. But now the Americans have woken up to its benefits.

According to study carried out by Fred Travis, director of the centre for brain, consciousness, and cognition at Maharishi University of Management in the US, physiological measures and first-person descriptions of transcendental experiences and higher states have only been investigated during practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique.

After analysing descriptions of transcendental consciousness from 52 people practicing TM, Travis found that they experienced ‘a state where thinking, feeling, and individual intention were missing, but self-awareness remained’. A systematic analysis of their experiences revealed three themes – absence of time, space and body sense.

‘This research focuses on the larger purpose of meditation practices – to develop higher states of consciousness,’ explained Travis. With regular meditation, experiences of transcendental consciousness begin to co-exist with sleeping, dreaming and even while one is awake.

This state is called cosmic consciousness in the Vedic tradition, said the paper published in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Whereas people practicing TM describe themselves in relation to concrete cognitive and behavioural processes, those experiencing cosmic consciousness describe themselves in terms of a continuum of inner self-awareness that underlies their thoughts, feelings and actions, added the paper.

‘The practical benefit of higher states is that you become more anchored to your inner self, and, therefore, less likely to be overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of daily life,’ said Travis. TM is an effortless technique for automatic self-transcending, different from the other categories of meditation – focused attention or open monitoring.

It allows the mind to settle inward beyond thought to experience the source of thought – pure awareness or transcendental consciousness. This is the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness – one’s innermost self, said the study.

Wondering what it is? Here is all you need to know about the TM technique

Transcendental Meditation?

Also called the TM technique, Transcendental Meditation is a simple practice one does for 20 minutes twice in a day. All you need to do is sit comfortably and close your eyes. This meditation technique is not a religion, philosophy or lifestyle, it is simply a way to reach self-development.

This technique allows your mind to settle and gives you a chance to experience pure awareness, also known as transcendental consciousness. It allows you to experience the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness – your innermost self. It also allows your brain to attain deep rest helping you be more efficient and betters your cognitive functions.

Where did this technique originate?

About 50 years ago, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is considered the representative of Vedic tradition in our day and age. This form of meditation helped in restoring knowledge and helps people experience a higher state of consciousness. The most important aspect of this technique is that it is still practiced with the same technique and principles as it was when the Vedas were first written, giving it maximum effectiveness.

How do I learn?

The TM technique has local teachers who will guide you through the process. It consists of seven steps after which one can practice the TM technique on their own.

Benefits of the TM technique

The TM technique is known to calm your mind, directly affecting the stress that your brain experiences on a daily basis. According to the experts, practicing the TM technique regularly helps in developing total brain control, thereby making you more equipped to deal with every day stress. It indirectly reduces the production on hormones that are commonly produced when one is stressed and thereby stops the damage that is normally produced.

Apart from all this, a calm mind and body is the best way to protect your body from cardiovascular stress. The TM technique also has great benefits for students, it helps improve their memory, IQ and helps them fight stress.

With inputs from: IANS

Reference: Transcendental Meditation

Related: Transcendental experiences during meditation practice – paper published in @AcademyAnnals.

Health India also posts: Practice Transcendental Meditation to lower BP, heart and mortality risks.

See more news coverage: Transcendental Meditation and lifestyle changes both stimulate genes that reduce blood pressure and extend lifespan.

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Posted in Articles, Education, Health, Maharishi University, Peace | 3 Comments »

Transcendental Meditation @TMmeditation article in @THR on @DAVID_LYNCH

January 11, 2014

Here is an excellent article about Transcendental Meditation published in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter, part of a Health series on how stress effects celebrities and what they do to relieve it. This one is on David Lynch. Click on the title to see the original article with photos.

How David Lynch and His Hollywood Friends Are Bringing Back Transcendental Meditation

One of film’s darkest directors, with help from Jerry Seinfeld and Hugh Jackman, is shining a light by bringing meditation to everyone from PTSD sufferers to inner-city kids.

January 10, 2014 | by Seth Abramovitch

Call it the ultimate comeback. Transcendental meditation — which involves speaking a silent mantra to oneself for 20 minutes, twice daily — is an ancient practice that is now attracting some of Hollywood’s biggest names, who insist that its stress-relief benefits are nothing short of miraculous: Among its most powerful practitioners are Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman and Russell Brand — who all have become supporters of David Lynch and his plans to bring meditation to people in dire need of stress relief. A directing genius whose dark dreamscapes are littered with severed ears and plastic-wrapped homecoming queens, Lynch, 67, has morphed into one of the world’s most enthusiastic if unlikely TM cheerleaders.

Lynch first encountered TM in 1974, as he searched for ways to combat mounting anger and depression relating to his epic struggle to get his first feature, the mind-bending Eraserhead, to the big screen. “I had a weakness inside,” says Lynch from his Hollywood Hills studio, a splash of sunlight illuminating his famous white pompadour. “That kind of thing, in this business, you’re a sitting duck. You could get slaughtered.” It was then that he decided to try his hand at TM, an ancient practice revived by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an expat from India who rocketed to stardom during the 1960s as The Beatles‘ spiritual adviser. Lynch feared TM might dull his artistic edge, but he says the opposite happened — it helped him to access untapped fonts of creativity. He even goes so far as to credit the practice with potentially having saved his life: “I was even thinking at the time, ‘If I didn’t have this meditation, I might have seen that a way out was suicide.’ ”

The Twin Peaks mastermind hasn’t missed a single day of meditation in the 40 years since. In 2005, that devotion led him to found The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, a nonprofit that brings TM to inner-city students, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and victims of domestic violence. The foundation has taught the fundamentals to more than 500,000 at-risk candidates, and Lynch says the effects have been astonishing: “Before too long, they’re saying, ‘Thank you very much. I got my life back again.’ ” In celebration of Lynch’s birthday on Jan. 20, DLF Live, the foundation’s live-performance arm, is mounting a benefit at the El Rey Theatre, where Ringo Starr is set to receive the Lifetime of Peace & Love Award. Ben Harper and Ben Folds are slated to perform. And on Feb. 27, Dixie Chicks will headline a night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel honoring record producer (and longtime TM practitioner) Rick Rubin. For the admittedly shy director, Hollywood’s ongoing love affair with TM offers a highly effective method of spreading the gospel. “Life gets better and better and better,” says Lynch of his 40-year journey. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

This Pret-a-Reporter story first appeared in the Jan. 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

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@MaharishiU Dean of Faculty, Dr. Cathy Gorini, interviews author Steven Verney on MUM’s KHOE

January 2, 2014
Steve Verney Cathy Gorini

Steve Verney  Cathy Gorini

Author Steven Verney is interviewed by Dr. Cathy Gorini, Dean of Faculty at M.U.M. on the KHOE radio program “A Chat with the Dean.” Titled “The Best of all Possible Worlds” Steven Verney’s novel is based on his experiences as a teacher of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi‘s Transcendental Meditation.

Steven sprinkles gems of Maharishi’s knowledge before the reader along with threads of life-changing experiences many teachers of TM will relate to while going about the business of bringing enlightenment to the individual and the world and balancing life in the “real world.” Readers have found it difficult to put down this well-written book.

Click to listen: Steven Verney and Cathy Gorini – mp3 58 min, 16.8MB

A generous percentage of book sales will benefit the David Lynch Foundation teaching Transcendental Meditation to at-risk populations.

To find out more about Steven and his book, read this post and listen to an earlier interview on KRUU FM: Writers’ Voices interviews B. Steven Verney, author of “The Best of All Possible Worlds”.

Visit Steve’s new website one of his son’s designed for him http://steveverney.com and blog. Read the overview of the book and see the Xlibris Book Trailer: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

Steven is at work on his second book, about a lama that got away. The main protagonist is also a philosophy professor. I’ve read an excerpt and can’t wait to see the book when it comes out. If it’s anything like his first one, which I thoroughly enjoyed, then we’re in for another treat!

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Style.com: David Lynch and Italo Zucchelli on their creativity and Transcendental Meditation

December 25, 2013

Style.com: The Transcendentalists: David Lynch and Calvin Klein Collection’s Italo Zucchelli on their shared passions: creativity and Transcendental Meditation

By Matthew Schneier. Photographs by Olivia Malone
Published December 24, 2013

On a winding road high in the Hollywood Hills, not far from Mulholland Drive, is a Brutalist-looking concrete structure that’s equal parts manse and bunker. It’s the studio of David Lynch, and appropriately for his many pursuits—he is an auteur across media, from film and television to painting, music, self-help books, and coffee roasting—it has a variety of different spaces: a screening room, a recording studio, storage for his photographs and artwork, a kitchen with an industrial-grade espresso machine. (Lynch die-hards may recognize it as the house from Lost Highway.)

I’ve come here from New York, along with fashion designer Italo Zucchelli, to discuss one of Lynch’s abiding passions, Transcendental Meditation. The director established his own nonprofit, the David Lynch Center for Transcendental Meditation and World Peace, in 2005. He credits the practice with much of his success, and he’s devoted as much time to raising awareness of it as he has to virtually any of his other endeavors. His 2006 book, Catching the Big Fish, is dedicated to the subject.

Transcendental Meditation is an ancient practice, but its profile was raised in our era when the Beatles took it up in 1968, under the guidance of its twentieth-century guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It comes with, and rules out, no religion, faith, or creed, but because of its new-wave aura, it has largely bubbled away at the fringes of culture. Lately, however, it is experiencing a new boom. “In the last year, something tipped,” says Bob Roth, the affable executive director of The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. “If one [particular] thing happened, I haven’t seen it—and I’ve been on the front lines. But something happened, [because] I don’t have enough teachers to teach all the people in New York City who want to learn.”

TM has a very healthy celebrity fan base, which no doubt helps its public profile, and the foundation, which exists to provide scholarships to at-risk populations so they can learn the practice, including schoolchildren, survivors of domestic abuse, and military personnel, has taken advantage of that fact. Paul McCartney, a practitioner, performed at the foundation’s first benefit concert. Hugh Jackman and Jerry Seinfeld, Transcendental Meditators both, were honored at its most recent benefit gala, in December. Mario Batali and Martin Scorsese will both speak at its upcoming conference in February. The list of adherents is even longer. Ellen DeGeneres does it. Oprah does it. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, does it. And in the realm of fashion, so does Zucchelli, who is celebrating his tenth year as creative director of menswear for Calvin Klein Collection.

“It” is a relatively simple practice. It consists of devoting twenty minutes twice a day to meditating, which in the Transcendental iteration means silently chanting a Sanskrit mantra. (The mantra must be given by a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, as part of an instruction that can cost upwards of $1,000.) Devotees say that it combats stress, improves mood, and staves off illness and disease. Remarkably, science confirms much of this. The American Heart Association found in a study that Transcendental Meditation, alone among meditation practices it tested, reduces high blood pressure; other studies indicate it can improve functional capacity in patients with congestive heart failure. Over the past forty years, more than 300 studies have been published about the effects of the practice in peer-reviewed medical journals, and the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense have both given millions for further testing. While a quick Google search does turn up skeptics and critics—more of charlatan practitioners than of the practice itself—the tide seems to be now firmly in TM’s favor.

“In 1968, meditation was a fad,” says Roth. “In 2013, because of the research, Transcendental Meditation is being incorporated into the actual fabric of our culture.”

There’s something undeniably intriguing about the beatific bliss that Lynch and Zucchelli radiate—in the filmmaker’s case, in stark contrast to his dark, often violent work. I wanted to find out more about the connection they both draw between the practice and their creative lives. Below, condensed and edited, is a transcript of that free-flowing discussion.

Visit Style.com to read this intriguing interview and see the photos.

See David Lynch on Esquire Network, How I Rock It, talking about Transcendental Meditation.

(more…)

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David Lynch on meditation in the NewStatesman: Heaven is a place on earth

November 1, 2013

This week Russell Brand was guest editor of the UK’s NewStatesman, which came out October 24, 2013. He invited David Lynch to contribute an article on meditation. The diagram looks like it may be the same one David drew during an interview with a French journalist in Paris as he was explaining Transcendental Meditation to her. A large part of the article reads like a transcription of that brilliant explanation, which was woven throughout a documentary film made of David’s 16-country tour, Meditation Creativity Peace.

David Lynch on meditation: Heaven is a place on earth

Transcending is the only experience in life that gives total brain coherence. Any other thing we do utilises different small parts of the brain, this small part for painting, another small part for mathematics, that small part for playing the piano.

By David Lynch Published 31 October 2013 14:45

Mind and matter: Lynch’s diagram of Transcendental Meditation. Image: copyright David Lynch

Mind and matter: Lynch’s diagram of Transcendental Meditation.
Image: copyright David Lynch

What is Transcendental Meditation? What is transcending? Where do you go when you transcend? And what good is it to transcend? To help answer these questions, I’ve done a little drawing and you can refer to it from time to time. You will notice a line at the top of the drawing representing the surface of life. We live on the surface and see surfaces everywhere. This right side represents matter and the left side will represent mind. Mind and matter.

About 300 years ago, scientists started wondering: what was matter, what was wood, what was air, what was water, what was flesh, etc? And they started looking into matter and they began to find things – things that we now learn about in school. They found cells and molecules. They went deeper and found atoms; they went deeper and deeper, all the way down to the tiniest particles – the elementary particles.

They found four forces that act upon the particles. And on a deeper level, they found that the four forces became three. Some unification started. And, on a deeper level, the three forces became two. About 35 years ago, modern science, quantum physics, discovered the Unified Field at the base of all matter. This field is the unity of all the particles and all the forces of creation. This is a field of nothing, but the scientists say that out of this nothing emerges everything that is a thing. This Unified Field is unmanifest yet all manifestation comes from this field.

Ancient Vedic science, the science of consciousness, has always known of this field. Believers say that it is an eternal unbounded ocean of consciousness. And this consciousness has qualities. So this Unified Field, this ocean of consciousness, is a field of unbounded intelligence, unbounded creativity, unbounded happiness, unbounded love, energy and peace.

Transcendental Meditation is a mental technique, an ancient form of meditation brought back for this time by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It is a technique that allows any human being to dive within, through subtler levels of mind and intellect, and then transcend – that is experience, that ocean of pure consciousness at the base of all mind and matter – to experience this Unified Field within with those all-positive qualities.

In Transcendental Meditation you’re given a mantra. A mantra is a very specific sound vibration – thought. The mantra that Maharishi gives is like a law of nature designed for a specific purpose and that purpose is to turn the awareness 180 degrees from out, out, out to within, within, within. Once pointed within, one will dive easily and effortlessly. It is easy and effortless because the nature of the human mind is always to want to go to fields of greater happiness.

Each deeper level of mind and each deeper level of intellect has more and more happiness – charm, as they say. So the happiness growing is like a magnet that gently pulls us within. And at the border of intellect, one then transcends and experiences the transcendent, the Unified Field, the ocean of pure consciousness, the kingdom of heaven that lies within – the Tao, the home of total knowledge, being or divine being; Atma, meaning the Self, the Self with a capital “S”.

There’s a line we’ve all heard: “Know thyself.” This is the Self they’re talking about. This field is also known as Brahm, meaning totality. First seek the kingdom of heaven that lies within and all else will be added unto you. All else is totality.

Every time a human being transcends, they infuse some of this all-positive consciousness and they truly begin to expand whatever consciousness they had to begin with. There is a side effect to expanding consciousness, and that side effect is that negativity begins to recede. Things like stress, traumatic stress, anxieties, tension, sadness, depression, hate, anger, rage and fear start to lift away very naturally.

The analogy is: negativity is just like darkness. When this light of consciousness begins to truly expand, it is like being in a dark room with a light on a dimmer. As the light gets brighter, the darkness starts to go. And when the light is full on, there is no darkness. Likewise with the light of unity – consciousness – growing, negativity very naturally starts to recede, automatically and without you having to worry about it. This heavy weight of negativity lifting gives such a joyful feeling of freedom to a human being. So you could say the person practising Transcendental Meditation each day is infusing gold and getting rid of garbage.

Transcending is the key word!!! Transcending is truly experiencing that deepest eternal level of life. It is this experience that does everything good for a human being. Every human being has consciousness but not every human being has the same amount. The good news is, every human being has the potential for infinite consciousness. Every time you experience this ocean of consciousness within, you expand more and more consciousness and you are unfolding your full potential as a human being. The full potential of the human being is called enlightenment – infinite consciousness, infinite happiness, total fulfilment. Totality.

Transcending is a holistic experience, meaning that all avenues of life will start improving. The things that used to stress you will still be out there in the world but they will not be able to hit you so hard. You’ll still be able to feel sadness but the sadness won’t last so long. It will lift away more quickly. The same with anger; the anger will leave more quickly. It won’t stay with you and poison you and the environment. Fears begin to lift – you work in more and more freedom. This is a field of infinite creativity. You will see creativity and problem-solving start to expand. Through research, scientists know that IQ can go up because of transcending each day.

Happiness comes more and more and you feel good in your body and enjoy the doing of things more and more. The field within is a field of universal love. This universal love feeds personal love and relationships improve. This field within is a field of infinite energy. People today are so fatigued and here within each of us is an infinite amount of energy to fuel our work and play. There is infinite peace within and that is deep, deep contentment, harmony, coming up inside the human being. It is so beautiful.

Transcendental Meditation is, as I said, easy and effortless. Many people might think that because it is easy it is not as good as other meditation techniques. This is wrong thinking. Concentration forms of meditation, contemplation forms of meditation, will keep a human being hovering on the surface. There will be no transcending. And it is hard work and it is boring and the reward is not there.

Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a technique that has been here many times before and it is a blessing. It is the real thing. It works. Brain research scientists have found a wondrous thing. When a human being truly transcends, hooked up to an EEG machine, then the full brain gets engaged in concert. They call this “total brain coherence”.

Transcending is the only experience in life that gives this total brain coherence. Any other thing we do utilises different small parts of the brain, this small part for painting, another small part for mathematics, that small part for playing the piano, and so on. Scientists have always told us before that we use only 5 per cent or 10 per cent of our brain but transcending is an experience that utilises the full brain.

This shows us something of the relationship of the human being to this glorious Unified Field within. The more we transcend, the more this coherence stays with us and this eventually gives rise to higher states of consciousness, culminating with supreme enlightenment. On the EEG machine, Transcendental Meditation meditators are seen to transcend many times in each 20-minute meditation. Those meditators who practise concentration or contemplation forms of meditation do not transcend. They do not get the experience of that ocean of bliss consciousness, the Unified Field.

A ten-year-old child can practise this technique of Transcendental Meditation; a 110-year-old can do it, easily and effortlessly, and they will each get the experience they are yearning for. It is a sublime experience to transcend and feel that rejuvenation and that happiness and all those other all-positive qualities growing.

Transcendental Meditation is not a religion. People from all religions practise this technique and they see there is no conflict with their religion. On the contrary, they say they understand and appreciate their religion more because understanding and appreciation for all things grow by transcending each day. It is a technique for human beings, no matter what walk of life, what religion or where you are from. People who have experienced great suffering have gotten this technique and happily said, “Now I have my life back again.” The real story is: THE NATURE OF LIFE IS BLISS and THE INDIVIDUAL IS COSMIC.

Russell Brand’s article in this paper is about revolution. Revolutions are usually associated with violence or force. Transcendental Meditation leads to a beautiful, peaceful revolution. A change from suffering and negativity to happiness and a life more and more free of any problems. The secret has always been within. We just need a technique that works to get us there to unfold a most beautiful future.

Find out even more about Transcendental Meditation at: davidlynchfoundation.org.uk.

For American readers, visit www.tm.org and davidlynchfoundation.org.

See Russell Brand and David Lynch at LA Premiere of ‘Meditation, Creativity, Peace’ Documentary and related links to other videos and articles. Visit http://meditationcreativitypeace.com to see a preview of the film and where it may be playing.

This is an excellent interview: David Lynch speaks with Alan Colmes about his 16-country tour film Meditation Creativity Peace.

The NewStatesman article reads like a transcription from this film, which you can now see: “Meditation Creativity Peace”—A documentary of David Lynch’s 16-country tour during 2007–2009.

See an earlier article written by David Lynch published in Jane Magazine: Celeb Spiritual Report: One significant day in my life by David Lynch for Jane Magazine (May 2004).

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Watch the 1968 film of Maharishi at Lake Louise

September 24, 2013

See my earlier post on a segment from this film: Maharishi describes the nature of inner life: bondage and liberation, and gaining bliss consciousness through Transcendental Meditation. Maharishi is seen walking and talking about the nature of life, with the beautiful scene of Lake Louise and the Rocky Mountains behind him. He describes the lake, its surface and depth, and the reflections on it, as a metaphor to explain the spiritual content of life and how it gets lost and overshadowed when we identify with only the surface material objects of life, a state of bondage, at the expense of our own inner unbounded nature, bliss consciousness, which gets unfolded and integrated through the practice of his Transcendental Meditation technique, into a state of liberation. I transcribe Maharishi’s words there, the film’s essential spiritual message.

maharishi signs gita for ken

In the opening scenes of this complete video of the CBC documentary, we were all walking up to Maharishi to give him a flower. At 2:07-2:10, I’m seen coming up to Maharishi asking him to sign a copy of his translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapters 1-6. The film closes with more of the same footage, which was all actually shot towards the end of the course. That wonderful week was the first time a lot of us got to meet Maharishi. It was an unforgettable divine experience in a most sublime natural setting!

Four years later, my mother, two sisters and I would meet privately with Maharishi at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, where a Symposium on the Science of Creative Intelligence with many of Canada’s intellectual luminaries was taking place. But that’s another amazing story!

Forty years after I started TM, and thirty-nine years after having met Maharishi, I was able to assist an ITN Factual commissioned producer in making the A&E biographical film, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, for the History International Channel (November 2007). Luckily I was able to procure vintage footage taken by Eileen Learoyd, a Victoria, BC journalist, and the first national leader of the Canadian TM Movement. Grania Litwin, her daughter and also a Victoria journalist, was kind enough to send us those home movies transferred to videos taken by her mother. We found one of Maharishi at Catalina Island from 1962 that was still in the original film canister! We had them all digitized and sent selections to the producer for use in the film. She was delighted to have received such historical footage. We also returned the videos with new DVDs to Grania.

I also put the producer in touch with Alan Waite, who had made the award-winning 1968 documentary, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – Sage for a New Generation, and she ended up using many segments from that film as well. Also lined up interviews for her when she came to MUM in Fairfield, Iowa, as well as Mike Love in LA and Donovan in London.

Eileen and Hubert with Maharishi

Eileen and Hubert with Maharishi at Emerald Lake, British Columbia

Eileen Learoyd and her brother Hubert Gray organized a seminar for meditators with Maharishi at Emerald Lake, British Columbia in 1964. Elieen would later organize the 1972 SCI Symposium. In June 1968 they arranged for the CBC to film Maharishi at the Lake Louise, Alberta course. Interestingly, after Maharishi signed my copy of the Gita, we both turned it toward the camera. That footage was edited out, but it seemed to be a symbolic gesture for what I would end up doing with a large part of my life in my own small way — helping to teach, promote and publicize Maharishi and his world-transforming Vedic knowledge and TM technique. And for that I am most thankful and fulfilled. Jai Guru Dev, Maharishi. Na Guror Adhikam.

And last year, (2012) a small crew from DLF.TV and I were fortunate to have assisted Oprah’s producers by providing them with more b-roll footage for the OWN program on the meditators of Fairfield, Iowa, referred to as “TM Town” by Oprah. They even gave us a credit! Here’s a post with Video segments of Oprah’s Next Chapter on OWN: Oprah Visits Fairfield, Iowa—”TM Town”—America’s Most Unusual Town.

I later found a photo of Hubert and Eileen on either side of Maharishi arriving in the lobby of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Five-Star Hotel. That’s when I saw him for the first time, from the other side of the lobby, and felt the thought, ‘Prince of Peace’. At the end of the course, we took a group photo with Maharishi outside in front of the lake to complete that sublime one-week residence course, June 9-14, 1968.

Enlightenment, the Transcendental Meditation Magazine, also published an article on Maharishi at Lake Louise discussing the blissful nature of the practice of the Transcendental Meditation® technique.

In the summer of 2014 I retired from my position at MUM. A year later I was featured on the TMhome website: PR to poetry – how things sometimes happen to Ken Chawkin. They followed up with The story behind the making of the International History documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (International History Channel documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi). A nice way to go out. I continue to write, blog, and freelance as a publicist for the movement as needed.

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, Colin Smith, 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! That’s the part I had transcribed and posted in the first link above.

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On August 2, 2020, Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, and Mario Orsatti, Executive Director of the Center for Health and Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation, discuss this historic documentary on TM Talks.

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Writers’ Voices interviews B. Steven Verney, author of “The Best of All Possible Worlds”

September 10, 2013

Writers’ Voices: Author in the house –
B. Steven Verney and “The Best of All Possible Worlds”

Writers' Voices Verney up close

Monica Hadley and Caroline Kilbourn are delighted to welcome first-time novelist and former MIU student B. Steven Verney to KRUU 100.1 FM and Writers’ Voices, as he returns to Fairfield from his home in Massachusetts to join in the festivities of the MUM Literature Reunion being held this weekend, August 30 – September 2. See the press release: MUM Celebrates Literature Reunion 2013.*

The Best of All Possible WorldsIn “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” published May 2012, Verney combines story-telling, philosophy, and the history of the TM movement into a unique and engaging novel. Anyone who attended TM teacher training courses in Switzerland or learned to meditate at Amherst in the early 70’s may just recognize pieces of their own personal history in this novel, while younger meditators, and even non-meditators with no connection to those events, will get a much deeper perspective of what all the fuss was about. This interview aired live, Fri Aug 30 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm and replayed, Mon Sep 02 8:00 am – 9:00 am. Here is an MP3 of it.

A newer interview recorded before Christmas 2013 was later posted in the new year: @MaharishiU Dean of Faculty, Dr. Cathy Gorini, interviews author Steven Verney on MUM’s KHOE.

If you went to MIU, Bruce Verney, as he was known back then, was student body president and won the Enlightened Leadership Award. He graduated in 1981 in Philosophy and married fellow student Kay Noble the following year. For the next 24 years, Steve and Kay started and operated three different businesses while raising their two sons. They’ve resided in New Salem, MA and currently live in Wellfleet, MA. This is his first novel.

I highly recommend the book. It won’t disappoint. The ending is mind-blowing! Steven said it took him 18 months to get the first draft down, and 3 years to revise and shape it, with some help from an editor, who curiously enough, turned out to be the person who had taught him Transcendental Meditation in Cambridge, MA decades earlier!

Although Steve is now writing his second novel, this first one is finally taking on a life of its own. David Lynch loved it and gave Steven a quote to help promote the book. “This book captures the thrill and magic of the spiritual path and how things make more and more sense the bigger the picture gets.” — David Lynch, Filmaker

The book will no doubt spread by word of mouth. George Ellis, author of A Symphony of Silence: An Enlightened Vision, said it should be turned into a screenplay. I agree. It’s destined to become a classic. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more of B. Steven Verney.

Visit Steve’s new website one of his son’s designed for him http://steveverney.com and blog. Read the overview of the book and see the Xlibris Book Trailer: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

*You may also enjoy The Flow of Consciousness: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on Literature and Language, 1971 to 1976, edited by Rhoda F. Orme-Johnson, Ph.D. and Susan K. Anderson, Ph.D., two former chairpersons of the MIU/MUM Literature department who attended the Literature Reunion 2013.

Another novel about a meditating philosophy professor worth reading is, “To Be Enlightened” by Alan J. Steinberg.

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The Beatles “Dear Prudence”: A Portrait of Prudence Farrow Bruns, Maharishi and TM

September 6, 2013

Dear Prudence: A Portrait of Prudence Farrow Bruns

Enjoy this video portrait of Prudence Farrow Bruns, the inspiration for the Beatles song “Dear Prudence”. Prudence discusses her personal journey, meditating with the Beatles in India, the transformation her generation tried to bring about in the world, and the change that can only come from within through Transcendental Meditation.

Directed, shot and edited by Kryshan Randel, music by Mike Pellarin, produced by David Shaw for iTranscend TM, a concept created by Ashley Cooper. For more information on Transcendental Meditation, visit these websites: http://maharishi.ca (Canada) and http://www.tm.org (USA).

Visit the newly launched Dear Prudence Foundation and click on About Prudence to read about her journey and why she set up a foundation: http://dearprudencefoundation.org.

See these other interviews with Prudence: 1) Amitava Sanyal, Allahabad, for BBC News India: Prudence Farrow — subject of the Beatles song Dear Prudence — visits India’s Kumbh Mela, and two videos: 2) Ted Henry interviews “Dear Prudence” Farrow Bruns about her life with TM and Maharishi, and 3) MicCameraAction: PRUDENCE FARROW BRUNS.

Other iTranscend TM Portraits

Another video portrait made by Canadian filmmaker Kryshan Randel is about Paralympian Daniel Westley. Westley had represented Canada in the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. As Paralympic Games grew, Daniel went on to participate in both the summer and winter games in a wide range of sports that included everything from wheelchair racing to skiing. Read this inspiring story: Meditation key to finding balance for Paralympian Daniel Westley — special to The Vancouver Sun, which contains the video, Physical Meditation: A Portrait Of Daniel Westley.

Both videos appear on the iTranscend TM YouTube channel series along with other heartfelt testimonials from new meditators, meditators dicussing meditation, and portraits of veteran meditators — people from all walks of life telling their stories — a physiotherapist, bakery story owner, musician, students, sharing how they are realizing their potential through the profound life-changing benefits of their Transcendental Meditation practice. And this video is an edited composite of some celebrities talking about the value of meditation, TM, in their lives: iTranscend Hollywood.

See: Who was Dear Prudence the Beatles sang to in India? What happened to her? Here is her story.

Prudence’s memoir is now out: Dear Prudence: The Story Behind the Song.

Read this excellent article in the Pensacola News Journal: Woman behind Beatles ‘Dear Prudence’ reads at Open Books.

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Posted in Music, Peace, Videos | 5 Comments »

David Lynch speaks with Alan Colmes about his 16-country tour film Meditation Creativity Peace

August 8, 2013

banner-colmesLegendary Filmmaker David Lynch

Award-winning filmmaker David Lynch speaks with Alan Colmes about his 16-country tour, teaching millions of struggling people how to achieve peace through Transcendental Meditation. Click on the title to go to the website and listen to this dynamic and inspiring interview: [Video] Alan’s FASCINATING interview with legendary filmmaker David Lynch! and here: David Lynch On The Value Of Transcendental Meditation.

Watch the trailer for a new documentary film on David Lynch titled “Meditation Creativity Peace” | Russell Brand and David Lynch at LA Premiere of ‘Meditation, Creativity, Peace’ Documentary | Russell Brand and David Lynch at LA Premiere of ‘Meditation, Creativity, Peace’ Documentary | Enlightenment, The TM Magazine: Meditation Creativity Peace: How the David Lynch Foundation Brings Change from Within.

Visit the new website, Meditation Creativity Peace, for a list of upcoming and previous screenings: http://meditationcreativitypeace.com.

You may also enjoy this earlier article David Lynch wrote for Jane Magazine’s celeb issue: Celeb Spiritual Report: One significant day in my life by David Lynch for Jane Magazine (May 2004).

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