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‘Money in the bank for a human being to do anything’ As he introduced the evening’s event, the President of the Associated Students of the University of California expressed, ‘It is our mission to educate the student body by providing them with amazing opportunities to question the world around them and to engage in new and innovative ways of thinking about the world. With this mission in mind, we are proud to bring David Lynch here today.’ As the UC Berkeley audience applauded loudly, Dr David Lynch stepped forward to discuss the evening’s threefold topic, Consciousness, Creativity, and the Brain. He immediately told his listeners that he had no prepared speech and opened the floor to questions. Meditation: A waste of time or a way to true happiness? A student asked Dr Lynch to ‘describe your first introduction to Transcendental Meditation and your first experiences with that.’ The filmmaker began his response by saying that he hadn’t always been seeking for something more in life. ‘There was a time when, if I ever did hear about meditation, I wasn’t even curious about it,’ Dr Lynch reflected. ‘I had nothing against it nor was I for it. I just didn’t think about it. And if I did think about it, I’d think it was a waste of time. ‘And then I remembered this phrase—true happiness in not out there,’ he said, motioning outward with his hand. ‘True happiness lies within. And this phrase had a ring of truth to it, to me. But they didn’t tell you in the phrase where the “within” was or how to get there,’ the filmmaker pointed out. ‘So it seemed like a very kind of mean phrase.’ The audience laughed. Dr Lynch continued, ‘And then I started thinking—maybe meditation is this way to go within. And so I started getting fired up. And they say at a certain point—we don’t know when it hits us—but we become seekers, we start asking questions, we start getting curious. Who knows why this happens, but I started reading about things, asking questions.’ Then the filmmaker told of an interesting ‘coincidence’. ‘And it was about that time my sister called and said she had started Transcendental Meditation and she told me about it,’ Dr Lynch said and then revealed what spurred him to action. ‘But, as looking back, it was a change in her voice that I just said, “I want that.”’ Negativity starts to go away Dr Lynch said that he went and learned to meditate although ‘I didn’t have a clue what it would be,’ and then reiterated, ‘I just knew I wanted it.’ He continued by describing his first meditation. ‘I sat down, closed my eyes, started the mantra and [he made a noise like Boom!]—it was like I was in an elevator and they cut the cables and I dove into bliss. Beautiful, beautiful, deep bliss. And that experience was so powerful and so unique—I say that word unique should be saved for this experience. And I never missed a meditation in my 32 years. ‘I love that experience and I love the feeling after the experience and what it does,’ Dr Lynch went on. ‘And there’s a side effect to experiencing pure consciousness. Negativity starts to recede. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s like ramping up a light and negativity, like darkness, starts to go.’ The filmmaker then shared that, before learning Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Technique, he was disturbed by fears, anxieties, anger. But, he told the student audience, ‘fear, anxiety, tension, stress, depression—these things start lifting.’ Positive qualities blossom ‘Again, money in the bank for a human being to do anything. It’s so beautiful how the enjoyment of doing just blossoms. Huge, huge enjoyment of doing when this—I call the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity—begins to dissolve.’ Dr Lynch explained the benefits of his practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique further in response to a student’s suggestion that he probably gets a lot of his ideas through meditation. ‘You just dive in,’ he explained. ‘And you don’t go in there necessarily to get ideas. You go in there to expand that container of bliss, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, harmony, coherence, love, energy, power—all this starts expanding and it’s so beautiful. And then when you come out all energized, refreshed, blissful, then those ideas are easier to catch. It’s like the net goes deeper and deeper and deeper and you can catch those fish.’
Editor’s notes: Additional questions and answers from the UC Berkeley discussion will be in an upcoming Excellence in Action article, The value of the Transcendental Meditation Programme—in dollars and beyond. The whole event can be heard at
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