Psychology Today, May, 2001 by Robert Epstein Interview with Mike Love Recently, PT editor-in-chief Robert Epstein, Ph.D., traveled to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and visited with Beach Boy Mike Love to talk above Love's long-time devotion to transcendental meditation. Wearing a flowered silk shirt and a Beach Boys baseball cap, Love spoke with a serenity that other members of this world-changing band were never able to achieve. Dennis Wilson, Love's first cousin and the band's drummer, had serious problems with alcohol and drugs and drowned at age 38 in an alcohol-related accident in 1983. Brian, Dennis' brother, had a nervous breakdown in 1965 and struggled with drugs and obesity for many years. Carl, the third Wilson brother, died of cancer in 1998. Love's life, in contrast, has been fairly serene, and he credits his good fortune to his 35-year practice of meditation, which he learned from the renowned Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When he's not at Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, Mike travels worldwide with a reconstituted version of the famous Beach Boys. RE: Why is meditation so important to you? ML: People ask me about the Beach Boys all the time. But the only thing worth talking about is peace--inner peace and collective peace, or what I call peace with a capital "P" There are different things one can do to establish and hasten the peace process. Meditation is one way. RE: What has meditation done for you personally? What would you be like today if you hadn't made this discovery? ML: Without meditation, I'd probably be dead. It has allowed me to transcend all the bothersome things that happen during the course of a day, a week, a month, a career or a lifetime. I go beyond a certain level of thought. Some of those types of thoughts come from a stressed physiology. They appear in your mind as, "I want to kill that person," "I want to kick the dog," "I want to hurt my wife," "I want to emotionally abuse people." In Paris, in December of 1967, my first meditation was taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi--the founder of the transcendental meditation program. The feeling I had, physiologically and emotionally, was one of tranquility and deep peace. I was more relaxed and tranquil than I'd ever been. During meditation your metabolism and your breath rate go down to a level of rest, twice that of deep sleep. But you're not asleep, you're aware. It was so profound I thought, "Wow, this is so easy and so powerful. I feel so relaxed. If everyone did this, the entire world would be a different place." It's still an inspiration to me, that first meditation. RE: But how can meditation lead to peace with a capital "P"? ML: The history of mankind is a history of war. Think about the Protestants and the Catholics, or the Shiites and the Sunnis, or the ongoing conflicts in Jerusalem, which is the focus of people of three different religions. They fight about everything. Mankind invents things to fight about. There have been thousands of wars in recorded history. But Maharishi has come up with a formula for world peace, which he believes can be achieved with large groups of meditators. When people meditate, they have a calming effect on others. Also, if you have large groups of people listening to gandharva-ved music, they will connect with each other whether they're meditating or not. Just by hearing, one can connect to the transcendental level and stabilize the environment. This will have a peaceful effect throughout creation. RE: World peace is a dream of humankind. What's stopping us from achieving it? ML: I think it's society and our problems, as well as a lack of information and a lack of priorities. People have jobs and houses and families. People are too busy to think about the big issues. We need to change that. COPYRIGHT 2001 Sussex Publishers, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
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