http://www.projo.com/yourlife/content/projo_20050930_lynch.1bc6171a.html
Director David Lynch at Brown
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, September 30, 2005
BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer
Director David Lynch has startled, shocked and kept moviegoers guessing for more
than a quarter century in films ranging from Eraserhead to Blue Velvet to
Mulholland
Drive, not to mention his quirky 1990s TV series Twin Peaks.
But now Lynch is on a cross-country mission to promote the merits of
Transcendental
Meditation to college students. His tour will bring him to Brown University
Sunday
in a question-and-answer session that will be open to students only.
Lynch interrupted filming Inland Empire, a movie he's shooting with Laura Dern
and
Jeremy Irons, to travel to such far-flung places as the University of
Pennsylvania,
American University in Washington, D.C., Yale, Emerson College in Boston and
Brown
as part of a weeklong East Coast tour.
Over the phone, while riding in a car to Philadelphia, Lynch is enthusiastic
about
TM, which he has been practicing every day for the past 32 years. "There are a
lot
of people waiting to hear some good news and learn about something they can do
to
make life better."
Lynch is a follower of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the octogenarian Hindu monk who
became
famous in the 1960s as "The Beatles' guru." On July 21, Lynch started the David
Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education, which he hopes will raise
enough
money to train any U.S. child who wants to learn how to practice TM.
"It's not just sitting in a room trying to be calm and thinking about life,"
says
Lynch who meditates twice a day for about 20 minutes each.
"It's more than prayer, which on the surface isn't so powerful, although on a
deeper
level prayer is answered instantaneously," he added, explaining that meditation
is
not a religion. In fact, it is practiced by members of all major faiths and even
non-believers, says Lynch, who affirms strongly that he believes in God while
describing himself as a "lapsed Presbyterian." But, he points out, "You've got
to be
trained to meditate properly. The key is the word 'transcend.' You've got to go
all
the way in."
He believes TM can be a key to "permanent world peace . . . not just an end to
warfare, but to amplify inner peace to affect the entire world. It's a holistic
experience, a feeling of totality that opens you up to all avenues of life."
He'd like to raise $7 billion to foster his foundation's goal, from big donors
and
small.
But for now, he's doing it one step at a time on college campuses, talking
about how
TM has helped rid him of his anger, anxiety and negativity. "Once you dive in,
the
negativity starts to recede and inner happiness starts to grow."
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