MA student at MUM, Gregor Kresal, had a terrifying climbing experience; he says that after learning Transcendental Meditation he felt great relief and was able to sleep better.

Mountain climbing filmmaker learns Transcendental Meditation
by Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA, Achievements
22 May 2015

Gregor Kresal spent 30 years of his life climbing mountains until a tragic accident in 2008 in Pakistan led to the death of a teammate and the arduous rescue of another one. Even though he has given up climbing, his expeditions provide a rich source of dramatic material for his movies. “All my movies are real stories, but I like them to be told in my own unusual way,” he said.

Gregor Kresal, filmmaker and former architect from Slovenia, is currently pursuing the David Lynch MA in Film program at Maharishi University of Management (MUM). His film career began with documentaries of his own climbing expeditions to some of the most dangerous places on the planet.

His first professional assignment came in 2007 from Slovenian National Television: a documentary about the beautiful arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway.

Gregor completed his first feature film in 2011 called Sphinx, the story of his most outstanding climbing achievement. In 1995, Gregor and his friend were the first to free climb (using gear only for safety but not to assist the climb) the Sphinx, an extremely difficult wall in the Slovenian Alps. Gregor’s screenplay interweaves his ascent to the top with the story of two other climbers who made the first successful aided climb of the same wall 30 years earlier. Gregor acted as producer and played himself in the film. Since then, he has made several successful promotional videos about Slovenia.

Gregor and his wife Katka have known about the Transcendental Meditation program for many years. When they received an email about the David Lynch MA in Film program at MUM, they felt it was time they learned TM. “After the 2008 expedition I had a terrible time trying to sleep,” Gregor said. “I was getting thinner and more and more stressed. After I learned TM, I was able to sleep. It was a big relief.”

Gregor is now working on his thesis movie titled Eight 1/2 Circles, which chronicles his mountain climbing expedition to Pakistan and the accompanying “terrifying journey into the human mind and consciousness.”

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