David Lynch: Transcendental Meditation | Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain

good evening everyone and welcome to this very special exciting evening that we have in store for us I'm Kathleen Karlin of the film studies area of the English department and I'd like to welcome all of you to this evening with David Lynch and his associates from the David Lynch foundation I have known David Lynch's work for many years but I truly fell under its spell in 1990 when I was a recent transplant to the Pacific Northwest Twin Peaks showed me this beautiful corner of the world in a strange but beguiling new light as a place of quirky humor unending eccentricity and mysteries slow to reveal themselves Twin Peaks made the Northwest very cool is if it weren't already it did a lot of other things as well it helped change the landscape of television my next serious encounter with mr. Lynch came only a few weeks ago when I learned that he might conclude his national tour of college campuses with a visit to the University of Oregon this possibility galvanized our campus and community the U of O film and Media Group sprang into action to rally support for the event help was easy to find people are passionate about David Lynch let's consider why without question mr. Lynch is one of the most compelling artists of our time in part this is because of a deeply felt resonance between his vision surreal often violent and darkly comic and the world in which we live it is also because he has chosen to convey that vision through the media or art forms most rooted in the technologies and institutions of our times Lynch is gifted in many of the traditional arts painting music sculpture but he has embraced television film and now digital video as the means by which to express his artistic vision by working in these powerful and wide-ranging media mr. Lynch has reached vast audiences despite his refusal to simplify prettify or avert his eyes from the dreadful and horrific for his he has showed us we must be willing to look at the face of the Elephant Man before we can begin to know him or ourselves and by holding fast to his unique and deeply personal vision mr. Lynch has pushed the aesthetic possibilities of these new forms to new limits from Eraserhead to Mulholland Drive he has created a legacy of sensual and intellectual imprints that simply don't go away narratives that tease us images at once familiar and strange melodies and chords that evoke his universe in an instant we are here tonight to learn more from David Lynch about how he has kept his vision and his bearings in Hollywood an environment notoriously destructive of both and the Lynch foundation is here to talk about ways of achieving greater clarity and peace in ourselves and in our world a quest I believe that could not be more timely please join me in welcoming our guest this evening David Lynch and thank you very much and thank you very much for that beautiful introduction on the way into town I passed a Dairy Queen steel chain saw facility fast lane coffee bar and heard freight trains blowing their horns this is my kind of town I'm really I'm really happy to be here and normally Bobbie Roth lets you know that I don't have a prepared speech so if you want to get things rolling there's two microphones here and you can ask me questions on I'll try to answer them on film or consciousness or meditation thanks for coming mr. Lynch I was wondering if you would consider re-release in some of your movies with the director's commentary the question is what I consider re-releasing my films for the director's commentary and I wouldn't do them the reason is I know that people like extras and things like that but it's to me the film you you work so hard to get a film a certain way and it should stand alone and shouldn't be fiddled with and a director's commentary just opens a door to changing people's take on the number one thing of the film so I I do believe in in stories surrounding a film and and some some parts of it but to comment as the thing is rolling I think is a sacrilege yes mr. Lynch I'm not going to ask you about film I'm a 30-plus year Transcendental Meditation practice sir and so I share your desire to see more people begin meditating and as a result it's been very sad over the years to watch the TM movement do a few things in particular raise the price that one pays to learn Transcendental Meditation first to $1,000 and then a short time to $2,500 thus effectively eliminating people from learning Transcendental Meditation so in addition to doing your foundation which I applaud would you consider using your influence to pressure the Transcendental Meditation movement to make TM more affordable and also I would say there are thousands of TM teachers out there that would be happy to teach TM and make a living at it if they could be given a small percentage of what they take in so would you please respond to these questions certainly money is a funny thing in it sometimes and it's pretty sad when we don't have it but the price of something to me illumines the strength of the desire for it and I've seen people raised that 2500 with hardly any money they had hardly any money and they want that thing and they go and get it and then they stick with it my friend Charlie at least used to say about a price of meditation whatever it was he said at least they'll meditate up that amount of money you know and it's important also to for a teacher gets a good percentage of that money and maybe they'll work for free but still it as my friend Bobby Roth said the other day wouldn't it be a beautiful world if a teacher of meditation could make a living teaching meditation now the rest of the money goes to world peace and tonight you'll hear more about you we hear about world peace we thought here about peace peace peace and we haven't got it so I'm thinking that tonight you'll hear about a way to really get it really get real peace on earth and so the other part of the money when you learn goes toward that and but I don't remember the rest of the part of the question the foundation David Lynch foundation for consciousness based education and world peace it's going to try to raise the money to give scholarships to students who want to learn and yes every student anybody here that wants to learn and from h10 on up to 155 I'm wondering if you have any advice for young filmmakers how do you get started how do you keep going you've had a long run and we're all interested in knowing how you can continue to maintain such a sort of excellent product throughout your career thank you and it's a tricky business I started out wanting to be I studying painting I wanted to be a painter and one day I was sitting in a big large studio room at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and I would that room was divided into little cubicles when I was in my cubicle it was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I had a painting going which was of a garden at night and in the darkness I had painted these green things coming out of black plants and I suddenly saw the gardens start moving and I heard a wind and I wasn't taking drugs and I thought oh how fantastic this is and I wondered if film could be a way to do moving paintings and that's what got me going and you know the even 16 millimeter is pretty expensive but you all are you know entering a quite a beautiful world this digital world where things are less and less expensive and you can do things most of filmmaking is common sense so you can do things with less money and my advice is to do what you truly believe in don't do something to impress any studio or some money people it always seems to backfire as far as I've seen do what you really truly believe in and learn by the doing it's great to go to film school and you can learn a lot of intellectual knowledge but learn by doing and now the cost has come down you can really really go and then you can see how things go there's lots of film festivals you can enter into and see if you can catch some distribution or some financial help well I've been waiting 17 years to do this so it's a big honor what I want to ask you I want to ask him two questions I guess here first of all when you were young did you find that you'd second-guess yourself a lot more now that you're older do you find that you don't second-guess yourself as much and unartistic ideas like I totally understand when you do this and that there's an idea I'm kind of floating off there and I also want to ask I don't think there's a lot of people in Hollywood that understand what you do and this little lady over here helped me discover a guy named Sam Sheppard and I think he's the only other person right now that's able to do what you do in a form that is out in the open for people to discover on that level have you ever thought of working with him and are you a fan of him I met Sam Shepard respect him but I never have worked with him and and I there's a lot of people that I respect and would like to work with but you've got to get the person right for the that who's right for the part and that's part of the common sense of making films and and the other question was do we ever second-guess ourselves sort of all the time you know there's if this is one of the reasons that I'm out talking about this is to let you know about this business of consciousness and what it is and how it's affected my life and if I could just say just a hair about consciousness it's kind of easy to see if we didn't have consciousness we wouldn't know we existed we wouldn't know even if we existed we wouldn't know it's the i am-ness the self of us being and it's also our ability to understand it's our awareness it's our wakefulness and it's our inner happiness consciousness is a beautiful beautiful thing and we hardly ever hear about it we don't learn about it Transcendental Meditation is taught by my rishi Mahesh Yogi is a mental technique and this mental technique is easy to do it's effortless and it's so beautiful because it allows any human being to dive within experience subtler levels of mind and intellect and to transcend and experience an ocean of pure consciousness within at the source of fact and it's not transcendental meditate Transcendental Meditation is the vehicle that takes you to this pure field of consciousness bliss intelligence creativity love the whole enchilada and it's the experience of this the experience thing of it that does everything once you dive in touch it get wet with it experience it you start to unfold it and you grow in consciousness that means you grow in bliss so all this business of filmmaking and all the anxieties and fears and pressures and all this stuff the side effect of expanding consciousness expanding bliss expanding intelligence and creativity the side effect of that is negative things begin to recede and when I first started meditating I had among many other negative problems I had her anger and it was a real real anger an anger that dissatisfied and so two weeks after I started meditating she comes to me and she says what's going on and I said I was quiet for a moment because it could have been any number of things she might have been referring to but I finally said what are you talking about and she said this anger where did it go it's magical I didn't even realize it was lifting so naturally it lifted away she realized it negativity begins to recede as this light of consciousness is ramped up so this second guessing a lot of this comes out of fear and you know that kind of just lets up lets up lets up and I call this negative thing the suffocating rubber clown suit and and it starts to dissolve it starts to dissolve and this is so much freedom for the filmmaker for the human being it's it's so beautiful over time has your through personal or world events as your views on your movies changed as my take on previous films change ya know meditation you know when you feel our thing where do you gain more insight I understand but I sort of lucky in a way I I bet what I haven't seen them all but I don't see them all the time but it's it's when you you try to get each element when you're working to is good you know toward a hundred percent each element and if you're really working and and get that then the whole has a chance of holding together and maybe even get that thing the whole is greater than the sum of the parts so I accept boon hi yes do you happen to have any meditational techniques conducive for invoking inspiration or for general creativity and if so what is it okay you know meditation is that thing that takes you within and if you go all the way in you experience this ocean of pure consciousness or as modern Sciences Unified Field oneness pure bliss consciousness and that is also a field of pure creativity Vedic science has always said this field is there and now modern science with each step forward is affirming that it's so beautiful time we live in and so it's a field of pure creativity they say all of anything that is a thing emerges from this field it's pure creativity you get wet with that creativity to me it's problem-solving it's intuition it's a knowingness it's a field of knowingness start ramping up the light of intuition knowingness and it comes it's so energetic it's it's filled with inspiration and ideas you know come from there and they're filled with inspirate the whole thing is inspiring in several of your last films particularly Lost Highway Mulholland Drive and fire walk with me I for me personally it seems like there are a lot of underlying themes concerning TM and within the characters and such and I was wondering as you personally delve farther into TM can we expect to see more abstract themes inheritance some of the later David Lynch films to come out I didn't realize that there were those things in those films I think if you you know you make I'd like to catch ideas and some of those ideas for one reason or another I start falling in love with and I fall in love with them because I get excited to what cinema could do to those ideas right and I don't I don't like they say if you want to send a message go to a Western Union films I think and if I got an idea I fell in love with it would show some of these things then I would do that but these ideas are their own thing and and those stories are and those characters came from ideas may I give you this package you can give it to me later on and you can be fine thank you you bet mr. Lynch who would you say have been your most important influences as a film director well I always say the same thing the city of Philadelphia I have two questions for you I know that you've been practicing trans identity ssin for quite a while but just practicing you know something doesn't necessarily give you know someone the authority to speak about that topic alone and so I was wondering my question is you know exactly what authority is that you have to come and speak about you know Transcendental Meditation and metaphysical inquiry the only authority is my own personal experience and what I've learned by asking questions and getting answers okay and the second part of my question is when is the second season of Twin Peaks on DVD coming well I know it's not coming out soon because we're gonna do the 5.1 mix in my studio and and we haven't done it yet thank you thank you hi there I teach popular culture and my students have come up with two questions number one what role does censorship play in the digital age and number two what do you believe has unfolded from the Pabst Blue Ribbon subculture the censorship I think is I think every filmmaker has a line they won't cross and it's just that way and there's pretty much [Music] darkness and confusion coming from the Pabst Blue Ribbon thank you for being here incidentally I've two questions one is I love many of your characters in your films and I'm curious when you're writing certain characters do you have actors in mind or is it a more separate process I'm thinking particularly here of Dennis Hopper and blue velvet or Willem Dafoe as Bobby Peru just curious if you have certain people in mind when you're writing them my second question is you've made it very clear that you're now wanting to commit to the digital medium and I wonder if you just speak to it seems like your commitment to that is fairly emphatic and I wonder if you'd speak to that okay but sometimes I might have somebody in mind if I get an idea if a character comes along there's a character in Mulholland Drive I was it was about 7:30 in the evening and I was dictating to my assistant who was my assistant then this beautiful woman and I started talking in a funny way and the I started talking like the cowboy in Mulholland Drive and just came walking out and I realized after I got it for a while that my friend Monty would be perfect for that and he's not an actor but he is an actor really he's a very great actor but he married to that part with Dennis Hopper I had I work with casting director Joanna ray and she we had all brought up Dennis but then everybody said no no you can't work with Dennis he's you know really in bad shape and you'll have nothing but trouble and so we looking for people but then Dennis's agent called and said that Dennis was clean and sober and it already done another picture and I could talk to that director and you know verified all that but then Dennis called and then maybe you heard Dennis said I have to play Frank because I am Frank and that's that's thrilled me and and scared me so sometimes the whole rule is as everybody would know get the person that marries to that part they can do that part and it's I don't ever give it actors cold readings I just feel that's completely torment for them and I don't learn anything and I also then want to start rehearsing with them so that would be a long long time to do that with every actor so I like to talk to them and just look at them while they talk and I start running them through the script as they're talking and some of them go part way and then stop and one of them goes all the way through like that hi I uh I also had two questions if that was okay first off I'm wanting to be a filmmaker as well trying to get into that area and just as a director which do you prefer working with feature-length films to convey an idea or shorter films to convey an idea and secondly after you get the story in the script nailed out where do you go from there to make it easier to progress into production well I just say Internet has brought the short film back okay so that's it that's a good thing but and the feature film has a certain form and it's a tricky form and so if you were you know motivate if your idea was unfolding and it's a feature I'd say you know do that and then stay true to yourself all the way through and then you know you've got the script you said oh no no I was just curious about in your experience how you did it you just do it you know it's the whole thing is just to get that film made get that film made get that film made okay thank you you bet hi I just like to thank you for coming here tonight I'm a big fan of your work I have two questions what what gives you inspiration to create the characters in your movies and would you consider Mulholland Drive to be a symbol of a transcendental meditation between multiple Minds okay there's answer the second one is no and [Music] what gives you motivation is you you catch an idea and that idea has this it's like a spark goes off I guess that's how come I use this light bulb the light bulb goes off and that light bulb has a thrill with it and you see the idea and you see those carrot or that character it may just be a fragment but to hold so much promise and it has an inspiring quality to it so you get that you're very very lucky and then if it's only a fragment the desire for another one seems to attract those ideas to it and the thing grows and out comes a story and so so that's how it seems to go hi David how are you doing Jenny I'm fine how are you good to see you good to see you too you've been my favorite director since I was 10 so I'm really glad that you're here and I have a specific question and it'll probably be more of a yes or no my favorite movie that you've ever done is Mahal and drive and when it turns from I think what is reality or dream into the reality you have the box and the key what the hell is the box monkey is it the idiot and the ego I just I don't know if it's subjective but I mean I thought about it mm and why nice what is it do you know what it is I mean is it I don't have a clue [Applause] hi my name is Winston and I was just wondering you keep on talking about this pool of consciousness in this place that you go inside and I was wondering what do you see anything when you're there and if you do what do you see that's a very good question like visually do you see anything I understand okay I you know I'll tell you the story of my first meditation I had when I was going along there was a time when if I heard the word meditation I didn't even wasn't even curious about it I wasn't for it or against it I just didn't care about I didn't know what it was and I didn't care about it and but for me I heard this phrase true happiness isn't out there true happiness lies within and I used to think about that thing and in this phrase they don't tell you where the within is nor do they tell you how to get there so I thought of it as a kind of a mean phrase like maybe another phrase or two were missing and then this within within within you know comes up and one day I started thinking wait a minute maybe meditation is that way to go within and I started asking questions there's a there's a thing that happens to us human beings we go along you know just fine and suddenly they say we you become a seeker and yet you want to know you want to know we're all like detectives there's so many clues out there and suddenly we are we start wandering and we start asking questions and I started looking into different kinds of meditation I started asking questions and right about then my sister calls and she says she's started and been doing Transcendental Meditation and I hear a change in her voice and I've known her for a long time I hear a change in her voice a happiness and she tells me about this and I put that together with what I've been learning and I said that's it that's what I want to have so I went down and I started I didn't have a clue what it was I just knew I wanted it I wanted it and I went in and you get a mantra and a mantra is a very specific sound thought now like my friend charlie lutes used to say if you meditate on the word buttermilk you're liable to go to the dairy you don't want to go to the dairy you want a specific mantra that will take you all the way within and experience this pure consciousness so I got my mantra I was taken to a little quiet room they would have sit down close my eyes start the mantra and it was like I was in an elevator and they snipped the cables and I just jettisoned into pure bliss and it was so familiar and yet not like any other experience I've had it's unique and I say the word unique should be saved for that experience it's it's consciousness it's just it's bliss it's lively and you experience this and things start getting better and that's that's been my experience the joy of doing increases increases increases that suffocating rubber clown suit dissolves more and more and more you don't get enlightenment overnight but you go along the path and like Mari she said if you walk toward the light with each step things get brighter and if this rings bells with you all we're all human beings we all have that for many many years they thought the earth was flat and if you walked in one direction long enough you'd fall off and all during that time it was just as round as it is now this Unified Field is there if it was 50 years ago and somebody said there's a field of unity the scientists would say you're full of baloney but now they'll say yes there is it's there and you can experience it and things get very very cool and you don't keep one size consciousness all your life now you can expand it you can expand it and expand it hi thanks a lot for coming it's really an honor to be this close to you thank you I have a couple questions that might take you back quite a ways but I I'm a really big fan of Industrial Symphony number one as I do a lot of work in the theatre and I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about your experience of working in the theatre setting and I was also very curious of how intertwined the inspirations for both the symphony and Twin Peaks were because I feel there are quite a few but I don't know since I'm not you well there they were done close to the same time I I think Twin Peaks was before industrial symphony but I learned a lot that's the only theatre thing I've ever done and we had two weeks to set it up and one day to do two shows and it was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I was gonna use some people from LA but everything started getting strange and I couldn't get them so I got this one woman I forget her name she saved the day and she had a company on over in New Jersey that built these sets and they'd worked in theater before it so they knew just how to play it to make sure those things were built and on the stage so I and I cast it I had that and I had the music and we did special music for it but existing music from this beautiful singer Julie cruse so the day came and we had that the morning and no late morning and afternoon to rehearse and then put on two shows so I thought that would be plenty of time and so we started rehearsing and I'm sitting with the lighting director and we're stuck I'm talking to her about lighting and we start rehearsing and I'll you know maybe two hours later I realized that I was involved with a gigantic definite disaster so I got this idea and it and it was this and if you could try it sometime you know the whole thing so I went to each person in the cast and I said do you see that that over there when that man there goes there and then leaves then you go there and he said okay and it's when you get there you do this this and this he said okay then I go to the next person I say you see that man there when he does this this and this then it's your cue to go over here and you do that that everyone and then we'd never had a rehearsal and we put on the first show with with that kind of working method but it but it worked out because everybody knew what to do ha hi I'm a grad student in the film studies program here and I have a couple questions sure thing the first one is I had I've had just a little bit of exposure to experimental cinema and and a lot of what you're talking about seems like it fits within what a lot of experimental cinema people would try to do in their films and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that if you have um certain experimental filmmakers that you like a lot that's the first question the second one is I it's kind of a behind-the-scenes question one of my favorite scenes from Mulholland Drive is the screen test with me yeah I was wonder if you could just talk a little bit about what it was like to film that good that's that every time I watch that kind of hold my breath um I don't know I I think film in a way is in an experiment because it's it's given to action and reaction and until the thing feels correct and and this thing of intuition is a tool for the filmmaker how do you know what to do how do you know it's the weirdest thing the idea is talking to you but you know they're the thing is and you've got to work it and all these elements to work it until it feels correct and for me it's gotten better and better and better because of that you know dive everyday now in that scene Naomi Watts now has become a superstar and and she is fantastic and did a beautiful beautiful job but there was a guy in that scene and his name is Chad Everett and he used to be a TV star his curse in life is he looks like Clark Gable but this guy did such a great job that day I was so impressed he came there he was prepared he knew that you know knew everything and he did he was the perfect guy and and he got hardly any notice and that's what that's what kills me but if he had not been the way that way that's wouldn't have worked he was perfect and she was perfect and the thing just just did it Chad Everett hi in your movies you really probe the depths of darkness and you know ugliness and violence and it seems like the farther extreme you go in that direction the more if the characters have a chance to experience the opposite you know goodness it seems like the farther you go in the direction of darkness the more extreme can their experience of beauty or you know of all the good things that life has to offer it seems like they can go farther in that direction the darker you go so my question is do you believe that there is an objectivity to that process do you believe that there's an objectivity to good and evil and when you talk about you know the oneness that's there to be sought after in meditation do you believe there's an objective quality to that and what's your favorite movie what's my what your favorite movie of all time the top 10 Sunset Boulevard eight and a half Lestrade ah all of Kubrick's movies and a rear window those are some and you know the this field of pure consciousness is a field of pure positive and so will you start enlivening that they say darkness negativity is just like darkness and when you look at darkness you see that it's nothing it's just the absence of something and so you just turn on a light and it goes but you know that sunlight removes the darkness of night but it doesn't remove negativity so what light can you ramp up to remove negativity and the answer this is this light of unity this pure consciousness and it happens in the individual that it starts going but you you do the whole thing of the contrast in a story is just as easy as you say if it's all down a narrow way there's not much you know going on but if it broadens out and runs out and if it has depth in the other direction too then you're getting somewhere and you know so that trying to get deep deep deep into the story and you know in in in the you know dark part and in the light part deeper and deeper and deeper and then you've got something going hi David how you doing well well I was curious first of all thanks for coming and sharing your experience with us but there's a great movie out there called Capote have you seen that I haven't seen that okay it's really good but anyways Capote after finishing his last book in cold blood I saw Paul blood yeah didn't didn't really do anything afterwards you know I was curious as for you as an accomplished artist do you either want that or fear that you know when you finish something there's a hair of a back and you've been putting all your attention on that and and then it's finished but there's a there's a good feeling to it too so but it you you wonder are you gonna it's like going fishing you you've got a beautiful beautiful fish yesterday and you're out today with the same you know bait and you're wondering if you're gonna catch the fish so you're you're really lucky if you keep catching them thank you thanks what if anything have you heard about meditational techniques that being able to affect people or places outside of you ones not directly connected to you this is such a beautiful question and and what you're saying is the key in my mind to world peace because we're like light bulbs and you have an effect on your environment just like a light bulb you enjoy that light inside and if you wrap it up brighter and brighter you'll enjoy more and more of it and that light will go out farther and farther and there's examples like you go into a room where someone's been having a big argument it's not so pleasant you can feel it even if the arguments over you can feel it and if you go into a room where someone's finished you know meditation and you you can feel that bliss and it's it's very nice to feel that it's so beautiful so my rishi has this technology for the peace creating group if there were many many many many meditators that would be one thing it would be beautiful but even if they're not if there's the square root of 1% of the world's population meditating and doing advanced techniques in a group then that group is they say quadratically more powerful than the same number scattered about the peace creating group and this what your enlivening is this now dr. John Hagelin is here tonight one of the world's greatest quantum physicists so if I'm up here talking about the Unified Field people are gonna say hey champ you're a filmmaker and so I'll take it up to that point that we do it affect our environment and we've all have felt and seen examples of that but and that this the unified field field of pure consciousness is very magical in that regard I I really enjoyed Mulholland Drive because it is one of the best films to convey dream state to me and I was wondering do you like you obviously to find inspiration and dreams and does does the dream experience for you have anything in common to with the meditation I hardly ever have gotten ideas from dreams in blue velvet I was really struggling with the script I wrote four different drafts and I had one problem with near the end and I was in an office and there was a secretary and I was supposed to go in and meet somebody in the in the next office and I asked her if I could have a piece of paper because I suddenly remembered the night before I'd had this dream and there it was three little elements that solve those those problems but that's what that's the only time that that's happened but I love dream logic I love a random access I love a you know a thing that's happening more and more and more in the world and so the dream logic that kind of thing really thrills me thank you Thanks hiding in when you speak of Transcendental Meditation you talk about going into a place of bliss and extreme positivity in your films you show us a lot of horror and darkness and I'm wondering if you think there is any inherent value to be had in human suffering and if so what not a lot of value except that it might use might turn you in another direction and I think the number one thing is stories you should we should understand suffering and understand depression but we don't have to have the suffering and have the depression and as that understanding grows you can you can understand that and get that into a story and those characters let them do the suffering but the artist the filmmaker doesn't have to be suffering one more question and then Bobbie Roth is going to introduce dr. John Hagelin to you I guess my question has to do with one of the other gentlemen's questions at the cost of Transcendental Meditation I've been meditating for about 25 years and I've had no teaching at all whatsoever and I can say I fully know what you're talking about the whole entire the bliss and I guess the peace that comes with that and the inner fulfillment that you find that unity that you find out there that comes back with you that you want to share with the world I guess my question is is that if money can't buy happiness how does money buy peace and I understand that the money goes to the university back into the teaching and then world peace but I I guess my question is that it seems like the cost of has gone up so much from the beginning of it in the rate of inflation that it's almost out of reach for the people that really suffer from depression anxiety and really really needed I understand and that's again this foundation is going to try to raise money you know to do you know as much as much as we can and for a piece creating group a piece breeding group is the thing that gets me is why do I even care you know about you know you're saying this thing about money it's we pay for things we want we pay for things we want if something works if a piece creating group works it would be worth trillions gazillions of dollars you just don't think it's going to work and I think it's going to work and if you want a piece creating group you've got to set it up it's gonna cost money if you want a beat one bomber you've got those you didn't bat an eye when they spent two billion dollars for each one of those planes we got to get real what do you want you want to try this piece grading group and and and and see if it works or not for 1 billion dollars put that in the bank the interest coming off that would sustain a group of 8,000 and that's the magic number do you want to try it or don't you oh I don't don't I don't disagree with you at all I'm starting a nonprofit organization here join the fun and let's do it oh yeah my thing I just wanted to have a reasoning on why I just wanted to have an explanation and reasoning and why you thought that okay so god bless you buddy thanks a million thank you very much I'll be back I'll be back after after there David's foundation has already raised money so that inner-city schools across America students in inner-city schools can can learn to meditate so that children with ADHD can meditate he's also just completed a wonderful tour on the East Coast and now scholarships are being provided for students at the University of Michigan at American University at University of Pennsylvania New York University Yale Emerson College and brown so that any student who's interested in learning to dive within can do so and David will provide that for you before I introduce dr. Hagan I really wanted to thank the people here at the University of Oregon all of you here and the Eugene community for your wonderful wonderful wonderful warm welcome David has been traveling all over the country and being here tonight with all of you and appreciating the depth and the sincerity of your questions it's absolutely great to be here this is the final evening for David's tour and so it's wonderful to be here at this time so I just wanted to thank you I also wanted to welcome three groups that are watching the simulcast of tonight's lecture to everyone who has gathered with Dave price in the den at Western Oregon University's Werner center and Monmouth to everyone watching in Owen Hall at Oregon State University in Corvallis and to the very large overflow group gathered here on the University of Oregon campus at the EMU Ballroom David did go and visit you and who's very happy with that so welcome all of you thank you very much for coming one more thing I want to do before we introduce John Hagelin I want to thank the co-sponsors from the University of Oregon and the Eugene community which include the UFOs Department of English the schools of journalism and art the folklore program the comparative literature comparative literature and the Office of the President and Lane Community College's division of the Arts as well as Divac the downtown initiative for the visual arts thank you all so everyone at scheduling and events event services and media services here on the U of O campus for your support and special thanks to Professor Kath Kathleen Rowe Carlin from the film studies Department excuse me from film studies and to Raphael Raphael and the you O film and media group for all your help but who I really want to thank I really want to thank David Lynch you're just amazing dr. John Hagelin is a renowned quantum physicist educator author public policy expert and president of the David Lynch foundation for consciousness based education and world peace dr. Hagen has conducted pioneering research at CERN which is the European Centre for particle physics and it's slack the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and is responsible for the development of a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the superstring his scientific contributions in the fields of electroweak unification grand unification supersymmetry and cosmology includes some of the most cited references in the physical sciences the reason why dr. Hagen is here is because he has also led for the last 25 years one of the most significant scientific investigations into the foundations of human consciousness into looking at these understandings that have come with us throughout time of meditation of a field of bliss consciousness or pure consciousness within and how we can access that and create a more peaceful world dr. Hagan received his PhD from Harvard University he is currently director of the institute of science technology and public policy and professor of physics at Maharshi University of Management and he is now in working in Washington DC to establish a much needed long overdue youth university of world peace would you please welcome dr. Hagan thank you very much I'm normally not afraid of public speaking but David Lynch is a hard act to follow he's got this million-dollar coiffure which makes some of us feel follically challenged Eddie speaks in such a lucid and poetic way about an experience of pure abstract consciousness which is very tough to talk about and very tough to rival he is asked me to come and shed a little bit of scientific perspective on what this experience of unity is experience of inner peace is which I will try to do but this experience of unity has been the core experience of essentially every major tradition of knowledge on earth every major spiritual tradition in the world and the whole tradition of meditation that has evolved over so many hundreds of years thousands of years it's been an approach to refine and refine and perfect powerful techniques to give the most efficient and profound experience of that inner unity and peace but I wanted Astron a scientific perspective is this inner unity inner peace fact or fiction and now modern science with its own slow but reliable means of gaining knowledge is it a position to corroborate the fundamental truth of the unity of life the way that has worked over the past quarter century mainly has been to peel away layer after layer of the onion of existence by probing deeper levels of nature's functioning from the macroscopic to the cellular to the molecular to the atomic to the nuclear world to the sub nuclear world of quarks and leptons to the electroweak unified world grand unified world and super unified world and the culmination the conclusion of all of that inward discovery inward exploration is that the universe is superficially complex but fundamentally simple the universe is superficially diverse but fundamentally you defined so the deeper you scratch beneath the surface of life beyond the cellular and molecular you start to see a convergence where the diverse forces of nature gravity electromagnetism radioactivity the nuclear force all become one and the so-called particles that fill the universe the quarks and leptons are also united so that all these superficially diverse forces and particles are now just understood to be little ripples on the surface of one unified universal ocean of existence one universal unified field also called the second quantized heterotic superstring field but a name by rose by any name is just as a sweet this intellectual investigation of ultimate reality is impressive it's creditable and with tremendous predictive power it's an impressive understanding where one formula essentially allows you to earn the libraries and if you want to read arrived everything that is known at least about science about the universe can be systematically unpacked unfolded from a single compact formula but this understanding of unity this Fountainhead of all the laws of nature that governed the vast universe the understanding of this unity of life is not reserved for a handful of theoretical physicists but it is an age-old experience of the greatest poets greatest mystics greatest Saints seers and the meditation process is a systematic process to give that experience really to anyone who sits to do it so Transcendental Meditation is just a technique to turn human awareness powerfully within to experience deeper levels of the thinking process deeper levels of mind corresponding by the way to the direct experience of deeper levels of nature in this inward March inward exploration of consciousness culminates in the direct experience beyond the source of thought really at the source of thought a direct experience of a field of unbounded consciousness Universal awareness and I think there's one more way to understand this which will shed light on a profound transformation in the brain which we'll see in real-time in just a moment a very brave student is gonna come and let us take a look under the hood at what's happening in his brain when human awareness turns within and waking consciousness gives way to this inward experience of unbounded awareness we'll see that in just a few minutes but to understand that I think there's another way to look at the transcending process that perhaps is a little more graphic in waking consciousness our awareness which is normally abstract limitless unbounded yet somehow funneled it gets narrowly focused not to a particular object of experience this or this or something from the moment the alarm clock goes off in the morning can you realize you're late for class from that moment on you're aware of one thing after another one object one thought what emotion until you collapse to sleep that night so the awareness in waking consciousness is sharply focused on a particular concrete object of experience the meditative process is one of retiring or withdrawing that narrowly focused consciousness to begin to relax and expand and comprehend greater wholeness and greater wholeness and greater and greater wholeness --is as the awareness retires from that sharp focus of awareness so broader comprehension broader comprehension and then suddenly surprise limitless comprehension unbounded abstract ba now when that happens not surprisingly the activity of the brain transforms markedly the electrical activity of the brain which we're going to look at in a moment is normally measured it's the EEG with a number of electrons electrodes on the scalp measuring what's happening at different areas of the mind in personality now I don't know if any of you got a chance to see your own EEG skin but it's depressing it's like there's not much obvious intelligence in there a certainly very little coordination or communication between different areas of the brain and personality and mathematically frankly it's a lot like in Orchestra before the conductor takes the stage and what happens the musicians are warming up sawing away at their instruments no real effort to coordinate their activity and the result is a cacophony of discordant sound then the musician or the orchestra the conductor steps up to the podium and raises the baton and in an instant that cacophony of discordant sound is transformed into glowing music the difference is the integrated functioning of the orchestra the coordinated synchronous functioning of the orchestra that's what happens to the brain in what's now called the meditative state now considered to be a fourth major state of human consciousness distinct from waking dreaming or sleep and in this fourth state of consciousness they very narrowly confined electrical activity here versus here versus here all different uncoordinated that as the awareness expands and expands and expands the whole brain comes into concert the electrical activity of the entire brain becomes synchronous coherent and that corresponds with this subjective experience of expansion and unbounded awareness global citizenship replacing narrow-minded nationalism and so forth so as an educator I believe this is an educational breakthrough of the foremost magnitude why why such a big deal because EEG coherence orderly brain functioning correlates with rising IQ intelligence increased creativity improved academic performance learning ability short-term long-term memory increased psychological stability emotional maturity reaction time moral reasoning alertness everything good about the brain depends on its orderly functioning and now orderliness of brain functioning can be systematically developed in students of any age just by exposing human awareness to the source of thought this field of unbounded consciousness within this reservoir of intelligence and creativity within so it's an extraordinary thing to see students grow impressively over a period of months for years in their study just from this addition to an educational program of this deep experience of unity within what we're gonna see in a moment again is the transformation of the brain that comes from this direct experience and why it's so important I think is not just for development of IQ development of creativity development of stability but what's really going on here is something called growth of enlightenment enlightenment is often described as self-realization realization of oneself the two nature of one's self and it's not rocket science it's pretty clear to understand what that is the self our innermost self is our subjectivity that which experiences the experiencer that which sees that which knows and the problem with this consciousness the self is that it's an experience as basic as it seems that is systematically missed in waking consciousness because waking consciousness is all about the experience of the object of perception not the perceiver which somehow gets sacrificed experience of consciousness gets overshadowed in effect by the experience of the concrete object so self-realization is just the realization through direct experience of the unbounded nature of consciousness and that's called a lighten mint or liberation or self realization because until that happens until you're so familiar with this field of consciousness within that you never forget it that it's always with you never lost to the experience of once unbounded blissful inner self even if you're under anaesthesia or in the depths of sleep or dreaming or playing tennis or taking an exam never losing the experience of this unbounded inner consciousness that is called self realization or enlightenment and I'll tell you why it's called liberation or freedom from bondage because until that experience is stable I'm not that kind of fun until that experience is stabilized your life is all about what you experience and if you're having mashed potatoes and gravy and you like mashed potatoes and gravy that's not so bad because even though that's all there is to life at that moment even at the expense of ones unbounded cosmic Universal self at least it's mashed potatoes and gravy if you're having okra or marinated eggplant life is a disaster because that's all there is to life at that moment that's called bondage where our not that kind of bondage where our experience is completely bound our sense of reality is completely bound by the object of perception so enlightenment which is just the result of regular experience of the true nature of ourselves enlightenment brings strength of invincibility a stability of bliss to the point frankly where it doesn't matter so much whether you're eating the okra or the mashed potatoes it's all a play on this continuum of reality which is oneself experienced as eternal unchanging in the source of universes I have to say one more thing as a physicist I can't totally hold back this field of unity within is a huge reality this ocean of existence gives birth to all the forces and particles that fill the universe gives birth to the universe itself and not only that it continuously percolates universes like bubbles from effervescent ginger ale ten to the 144th universes per cubic centimeter per second continuously spawned by this field of enormous creativity now most of these universes are duds they live about 10 to the minus 43 seconds but many of them undergo this remarkable process of exponential expansion which we call inflation and spawn galaxies and star systems solar systems trillions of them many perhaps teeming with life as is our own universe we are the occupants of one such universe but there are an uncountable infinity of simultaneously coexisting universes that gives a taste of the magnitude of this ocean of creativity ocean of intelligence ocean of solutions that David describes in a far more poetic way than I can sweet so I am going to I would like you to spend five minutes seeing this and I'm going to introduce one of the best brain researchers in the country probably the leading researcher on brain development and meditation dr. Fred Travis who has brought with him again a very brave student who's willing to show us what's happening when he's meditating in front of a group of a thousand people well take a look at the real-time transformation of the functioning of the brain and at least to those who are used to seeing the electrical activity of the brain this transformation is amazing and then I'll come up and reintroduce David to answer more of our questions on the foundation meditation and world peace please welcome Brett Travis and Shane zisman [Applause] take a moment to set up here if I only had a brain doctor Hagelin asked is this unified field is it fact or fiction he looked at in quite detail in terms of physics we're going to look at it in terms of reality of brain function the reason we can do this is the brain is the interface it's the interface between our innermost self in the outer environment and I'm sure it's your experience you have a real good night's sleep you wake up there's no problem too big for you on those days but what about the days you don't have a good night's sleep it's a chore just to remember what day it is now this process goes both ways not only is a brain the interface for every experience but when we're having experience it actually changes the brain this is a point I want you to remember this is a point tomorrow morning when you wake up I want you to think about right now I'm entering your retina my words are entering your ears it's creating a cascade of electrical activity over your brain what's happening is out of the hundred billion brain cells in your brain about a hundred million of them are as if shaking hands they're creating this delicate network over the whole brain and that's what lets you see that's what's let you hear that's what lets you think every time you have an experience this connection gets stronger and stronger and what these networks are doing is letting you gain meaning to process to understand your life so what you're doing with every experience is literally physiologically cortically in your brain creating your reality now the point is everything shapes your brain here we have some research this was done with a monkey and it's a very benign research they brushed the fingertip to the monkey with a soft brush sure the monkey loved this and this is about how his brain responded or her brain I don't remember the gender when the finger was being brushed and what there is is a very direct correspondence between your outer body and your inner brain you have all these maps of your body in your brain and this is what the brain looks like after about three months of this research now you can look at this area do you see this after this three months of stimulation the amount of the brain that's responding to what's coming through the fingertips has changed just much more this is what you're constantly doing your River your brain is a river it's not a rock it's a river with every experience your reallocating your brain resources to allow you to better understand your world now on they've ever tried to read the Braille on the elevators it's my thing I go in there and and it's really difficult but you've seen a blind person they go in and that can take a whole page you can take into information what the blind person has been able to do is take all of this brain tissue that used to process seeing and now processes touch and spatial relationship they have a completely different reality within which they live because of how their brain is actually processing the world now again this point is that all experiences change the brain your calculus teacher is changing your brain and learning about limits and that's probably pretty okay but also it's happening is when you stay up late a few nights when you take on a really heavy load one semester and you just under pressure stress the whole time this is also creating circuits these circuits are lead to down shifting what you do is this back part of the brain this is where you produce a concrete image of the world this is the screen of the mind just like the screen behind me all the powerpoints are just going one after another this is what's happening in the back of your brain right now you're creating these concrete images these concepts when you're under stress that's working but it's only the surface level that you're getting and your motor system is working this is a stimulus response mode you can see the world you can react the world this is what fires when you wake up you're late for class quick they get up put on your clothes run the class sit down panting and you forgot your homework this is what happens when you stay up all night studying for an exam you go to the exam and you go to sleep what's happening is this part of the brain which is the frontal executive system which is the CEO of your brain the chief executive officer of your brain it's right here and this part of the brain some of the traditions no it's there you know they they're trying to wake up not really but this part of the brain gets connections from all other parts of the brain literally it integrates it it sends it back this is a David Lynch of the brain this is the part of your brain that can take any possible input and create a very beautiful output now what happens over time if you're under high stress and fatigue you actually create circuits that leave this part of your brain out of the picture it's called functional lesions what we have here on the left is a normal brain what we're looking at is brain metabolic rate how active the brain is and this is typically what you see you're looking at the bottom up of the brain here's the front here's the back this is a brain it's not of a college student but it is of a criminal very violent criminal and notice these areas of the brain which are less active what dr. Amon did in this research is he just didn't graph the picture if the activity was very low these are the parts of the brain that have to do with impulse control which have to do with judgment planning decision-making even the high stress of college life leads in this direction you begin to make circuits which leaves this part of your brain out and so the question can may come up how can you develop these frontal circuits and transcending this is experienced during transmetal meditation practice directly exercises directly activates coordinates the frontal areas of the brain so now it's time to stop talking we're actually see a live demonstration of brain waves during transcending first like to welcome chains this mid what we'll be seeing is his brain electrical activity in real time here I have to do is connect it it's wonderful so here we go this is his brain this is real-time here you can blink three times Shayne once twice three times good this is a front left this is the front right now Shane's brain isn't really in Technicolor but whether it just helps us see what's here and what we're going to do is we're going to look at a single brain cell we'll start in the front and now you're looking at what the brain is doing when it's really really active you see how fast this is there's eight seconds on the screen here this is called beta activity this is what the brain is doing when it's processing people looking at you when it's thinking when it's evaluating let's add another lead this one would be in the back of the brain this is the back of the brain this is a visual system so that this is Shane looking out at 700 people this is the front of his brain he's thinking what are we going to have for dinner once this is done and the key thing is notice it's different what's happening here is different than what's happening here here we have a little settling alpha activity the front area is very very active these are the brain has many many modules and they do are doing different things when the eyes are open let's see what happens when you close your eyes you close your eye shape you see this come right up here this is called alpha activity you see if we get another alpha verse there that was good this this type of activity is resting rhythm of the cortex Thank You Shan what we see here is this is what the brain looks like when it's not actively processing information the back part of your brain is your visual Center what falls on your eye goes to the back part of the brain so when your eyes are open you have all this electrical activity streaming back the brain is working as fast as it can you close the eyes that part of the brain can rest and that's where this was the first scene in the back part of the brain its resting rhythm of the cortex what happens when you meditate we see this very much also in the front of the brain the chief executive officer of the brain so you can open your eyes Shan you wanted to see - so we'll start with eyes open now close your eyes now begin Transcendental Meditation practice I'm noticing what's happening you can see it here is the burst here so here notice this is 16 seconds Thank You Shane so notice this is 20 seconds into the meditation and what we have here is in the front in this frontal executive area that the part of the brain which is judgment decision-making like that notice how high amplitude this is and most key is noticing how this and this go together you can see how this wave rising up and down is also seen down here and seen here this is what coherence is the actual physical movement of the wave and time is is stable and what this is suggested it's thought to mean is connectivity one part of the brain the other part of the brain are doing the same thing during TM practice we'll just have two leads here running the front one in the back during TM practice we see it over the whole scalp this idea of restful alertness the whole brain is now quiet silent but highly alert ready to go it's like a arrow that's been pulled back on the boat great dynamism let's just spend a few more a minute or two and we'll watch some more meditation here and you notice it's becoming much more dense now these been meditating for a few minutes here that's this great thing so you can stop meditating thank you now the point again to take home his experience changes the brain I want that deep in your brain experience changes the brain ok so now his eyes are open what we see here is what meditation does is yes it's a delightful experience inner experience but more fundamentally what it is is it leads to a different style of brain functioning what it actually does is leads a whole different character of connections between your brain cells and by swinging it back and forth from this restful alertness to activity restful alertness activity you can actually bring them together so you can have quietness alertness expansion of vision lists at the same time as going very deep into whatever you're doing so what I'd like to ask you is what will your brain be like when you graduate we've actually come up with a brain integration report card to actually test this we're giving this to our freshman at marshy University of management to allow them to see how their brain is changing how the level of integration changes we have done this because research shows that regular meditation increases the level of integration coherence in the brain especially during activity what this will do is it won't replace the academic report card but it will give something more endearing you probably know that in five years 80% of what you're learning is going to be obsolete and so so what's the value of going to school well it has a lot of value you learn some processes and techniques good networking but the most enduring thing you can create in college is that level of brain connectivity which allows you to think clearly allows you to plan in the future so I'd like to leave you with one bit of recommendation we'll go back to the Wizard of Oz motif to get back to this film idea this is the end of The Wizard of Oz and here's a Scarecrow in The Wizard and with the Scarecrow wanted a brain the squared Scarecrow wanted a brain and remember what he did he was almost burned to death the monkey's carried him away pulling out the stuffing from all over he did all that because he wanted a brain he gets to the Wizard and what does the Wizard give him a piece of paper this is my recommendation to you don't be content with just getting a piece of paper from college thank you very much [Applause] [Music] I'm gonna invite David back in just an instant but in case that went by pretty fast that's for someone familiar with brain research a remarkable and fast transformation in the functioning of the human brain those results are you know very comparable to what you might find in a 20-year Zen meditator but these results come very very quickly with Transcendental Meditation and David wants to bring this experience which really brings the total development and integration of the brain to all students who want to develop poor brain potential he has an ulterior motive the ulterior motive really is world peace this is not a small idea it's a David Lynch sized idea but the principle is pretty simple you can't have a green forest without green trees you can't really expect a peaceful world without peaceful individuals so david wants to bring this experience of inner unity inner peace inner harmony to as many students as would like to have that experience and then a side effect of that is going to be a more peaceful campus a more peaceful city a more peaceful world and it is one of the most remarkable things some of the most incredible research of our generation how powerful the spillover effect of meditation is we inevitably have an effect on our loved ones our friends our families our campus or community if enough people are involved it's a powerful spillover effect it's almost counterintuitive but if consciousness is fundamentally a field yeah very active consciousness is very sharply localized but the silent subtle consciousness is unlock alized like a field it is a field it's this Universal field or Unified Field that underlies and connects us all so if you create a ripple in that field by contacting that deep level of consciousness it radiates isotropically at the speed of light and has an influence on people that surround you when David said we radiate like a ball that is literally true and it's also true when a group of people simultaneously stimulate that field those ripples add to become a big tidal wave of peace and that's the principle of coherent superposition that's the principle of constructive interference that's the principle that says two loudspeakers playing the same music moved close together produce four times the sound of a single loudspeaker three speakers playing the same music moved close together produced nine times the sound of a single outpaced speaker because those waves add together to make a wave three times as tall and the power of a wave grows is the square of the height of the wave and that explains the research that shows the remarkable power of groups of meditators and we're beginning this now on a permanent basis in Washington DC starting with this project at American University in Georgetown at George Washington University 500 students are just about to learn TM with the help of the David Lynch foundation for credit as part of a university research project on student help student happiness student performance student brain development why Washington DC why put our resources there now also here on the west coast to give some sanity and some peace to that stress as long as Washington DC is driven by fear and partisan infighting that's the sort of policy we're gonna get for their concerns our environment global warming or nuclear arms proliferation or decisions of war and peace that's the kind of decision we're gonna get we would very much like to teach george w bush to meditate if you were capable of it i assume he is but if we can't do that i'm not holding my breath we're going to surround him with in an environment that is peaceful and coherent to provide an atmosphere in which longer-range thinking is possible and broader comprehension is possible and global citizenship global thinking hopefully will begin to replace some of the narrow-minded nationalism that drives the dynamic in Washington DC so we're starting there and this David Lynch foundation for consciousness based education of world peace has got tremendous momentum already in great support by some of the country's greatest philanthropists and our goal is his goal is to bring enough inner peace to enough people that we really start to enjoy a more peaceful world on the strength of all the research that shows that that is possible and that it's easy so please welcome back David Lynch to take any remaining questions you have on film consciousness creativity meditation his foundation or world peace [Applause] how you doing hi I've tried to do some experimenting with I guess it was in technique of meditation I'm curious as to and sometimes I think I have had the experience of bliss that you describe but equally often I have experiences of advertising jingles or profound resentments for sins committed against me in high school or and I just wonder does that mean that I'm doing it wrong I mean and I have a second question which any of the speakers might be interested in answering and that does this what does this unified field theory of consciousness imply to you or any of them about the possibility of life after death Oh life to be is a continuum and it just you know there's it's a continuum and an evolving continuum until it's evolved to unbounded infinite and eternal smaller than the smallest bigger than the biggest enlightenment estate described as more than the most I don't know then you know meditation in Transcendental Meditation there's plenty of thoughts and you you just go with the mantra and take the dive and you you reach there transcend and and there's then there's thoughts you start them keep them up go back to the mantra take the dive and it's a process and and and touching that getting wet in that it's you know life gets better and better and that field in Vedic terms is called Atma the self this off of us all and there's a line know thyself and this is that thing know thyself that's the big self huge huge and like it's so enjoyable and at that level we're all one we don't act like we're all one and it would be so beautiful to go around in the world and meet friends instead of enemies and that's so possible just by enlivening unity it's like a garden all the flowers are still going to be different but they just come up and you appreciate them fully in that light of unity all the flowers the little roots are all in the same soil and they all come up and you appreciate them more and more and more why not appreciate life more and more and more and appreciate the doing more and more and more it's right there thank you thank you yeah I have a couple of questions first one is how have you seen any results with transit on meditation and performance anxiety for example stage fright for a musician that sort of thing and that would be my first question and the second question is had to do with how I'm forgetting that's okay I really still suffer I've been meditating for 32 years and never missed the meditation and I still suffer from stage fright so I'm still I'm and I'm not enlightened now I I can I can almost guarantee you if I have experienced you know this bliss and sometimes you get a good jolt of it that could just last for hours and bliss you can vibrate in bliss and it's us you can vibrate in bliss it's physical emotional mental spiritual happiness it's unbelievably beautiful and in when that is vibrating zero fear zero fear it's it's you know zero fear I remember my second question too and that is do you have some books or internet websites that that can explain how to practice TM without having to pay thousands there's supposed to be some cards you if anybody's interested in knowing more about this starting it we're trying to raise money to give scholarships I think there's lots of information here and there'll be somebody back there to give you you know websites okay thanks a million I how you good how are you doing doing very well I was hoping you could discuss a little bit about your personal lessons in the spirit that you've discovered over the years as well as the purpose of creating personal lessons in the spirit Oh personal lessons like things that you've learned about whether it be dear spirit collective or that and the purpose of you creating anybody in this room I'll tell you for me what has happened is the heavy you know weight of anxieties and fears those things have gotten less and less and less and for me life has gotten to be more like a game and the things that used to you know almost kill me don't kill me so much and enjoyment of doing gets so beautiful and the ideas are flowing more and more and that the thrill of it all the thrill of it all I appreciate people more I see people and I see their faces and I I feel like I they seem familiar and I just don't have so many problems and life gets more and more beautiful and I and I still love the same things you know painting and making films it just gets better and better that's my experience thank you hello thank you so much for your words today I have a question that's about attention that I'm struggling with and I'm sure a lot of students here struggling with that's the tension between changing your internal world and the external world and we're talking about the okra versus the meat and potatoes and how you need to become at peace with the okra and I understand that I'm down with that but you guys are all clearly people who have not settled for the okra in your external life you guys have all gone for your bliss for the meat and potatoes for doing films for doing what you think needs to happen in the world so I guess it's this tension with being content with whatever you have because you're at peace internally and really transforming your external world so that you can be at peace internally and making the change that you want to see happen in the world so I'm wondering how you balance those and how you'd recommend a student or a stressed out working person deal with that that that ocean of consciousness is an ocean of solutions it's so strangest thing and you know there's a guy named dr. brother furred and he about 10 or 12 years ago sawed went to Iowa and saw a school that was had consciousness based education consciousness based education is just that same education everybody we all get with the F the bonus of the student learning to dive within knowing the self unfolding that and the expanding that container so he saw students super happy and he went back to DC to a school it was filled with violence all the things we've hear about and he got the staff meditating he got the teachers meditating he got the students meditating and watched it turn around and I've met some of the students that his third school now and I've met some students you know at this Natasha school in Detroit and they were on TV you know they did a thing all the students meditate in the gymnasium for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes of the evening before they go home the afternoon and it's they're glowing self-sufficient happy from inside inside inside and then these these things that are just making us crazy you know a thing of depression and anxiety and nothing's working it's like you know this thing starts lifting up it lifts up and things start getting really good really good I have two questions the first one is that we've heard you talk a lot about consciousness we've heard bits about the brain and I'm wondering I know it's a tall order but if you could make some explicit statements about the creativity piece and my second question is that you are saying that your foundation is servicing people ages 10 to 155 I'm wondering what's magical about the age of 10 and that we talk about children and reaching children at a very young age and so why 10 and can you explain a little bit about your experience with that and that preteen and early teen ages you can get what they call a walking mantra at 5 and you're sitting mantra at 10 that's how come I said Tim and with the creativity creativity is is a little bit like problem-solving and and catching ideas they got to enter your conscious mind so in my to me if that conscious mind can get larger you can catch ideas at a deeper level and you can understand those ideas more and appreciate you know a depth of them and the thrill of them is more and you can solve those problems along the way with the added bonus of bliss traveling down the track with you it's a strange thing and when you when you transcend when you you you go sometimes it's a it's a knowingness you go into a thing where you grab on to blissful electricity and the thing just shuts off and it's it's knowingness this stuff starts growing that turns into an ability to create an ability to create and it's in its us is super creativity can you give it a specific example of a time that you felt that and we're able right well you know it's like all the time you know it's it's where did where ideas came I'll tell you one example and but if you don't use meditation you don't dive in there to get ideas but I was working on Mulholland Drive and it was at first as meant to be a pilot to some of you know and so they saw the pilot a pilot is open-ended it wants to go on and on and on so I got the pilot finished and ABC hated this pilot then I got the opportunity to turn it into a feature and after the process of going through all the contracts and everything like that I finally got the green light and they said David you can now turn it into a feature and I had not the ideas to do that and it was a hair of a torment and I sat down that night to meditate and just that desiring of it it just must have you know been sitting there but like a string of pearls all of it came to me in one at one time you open up a thing more and more and more and release the pressure cooker that's cramping at you and and things like that can happen thank you thank you mr. Lynch how you doing good I was wondering if you had the opportunity to speak to someone who had say hundreds of times the filmmaking experience that you have would you have questions for that person and what might they be if I was to in front of someone who had made hundreds of films for instance say if I could meet Fellini sure yeah sure I did meet Fellini [Applause] I didn't I don't think I asked him you know much but I really likes sitting you know near him and I can tell you a story about that I was shooting a commercial in Rome and I was working with two people that had worked with Fellini Tonino della della Kohli and another guy and Fellini was in a hospital in northern Italy but then we heard he was being moved down to Rome so I said do you think it would be possible to go over and say hello to him and they said yeah we'll try to do that and so it came to be that there was an attempt on a Thursday night that fell through but Friday night went over it was about six o'clock in the evening in the summer beautiful beautiful warm evening and we went and Tonino and I went in and were taken in to Fellini's room and Tonino there was another man in the room and tamina knew him and he went over and talked to him and Fellini had me sit down and he was in a little wheelchair between the two beds and he took my hand and we sat and talked for a half an hour and then we left that was Friday night and Sunday he went into a coma and never came out of that so how lucky was I did have that experience don't die on me i-i've actually got a couple of questions though that are similar one for you and one for dr. Travis so but I'll start with mine well I can respect the overall goal of world peace for your foundation I'm wondering do you think that this emphasis on the individual and individual consciousness takes away from important discussions about you know the structural economic cultural historical ideological causes of war and violence in my mind yes but I'm interested in enlivening this field of unity with a piece creating group but many many people are out there doing what they feel is you know good for many many parts of society very very good I'm interested in getting a piece grading group which I think will you know Myra she says water the root and enjoy the fruit this is the root the very root the most fundamental level if we can enliven that all these discussions can kind of come to an end you know so many talking's talking's talking's talking's has been going on for thousands of years and there's a lot of problems we're at a point right now maybe enlivening this field of unity the technology is there let's give it a go and then we got you know a different kind of thing to talk about and my second question for dr. Travis was in your presentation the the point seemed to be that experience the human experience in influences how the brain looks and how the brain operates it was a little disturbed by the comparison between the normal brain and the violent brain which seem to kind of harken back to kind of some sort of antiquated essentialist notion of here's what a normal brain is here's what you know this terrible terrible person's brain is and so I kind of want to give you a chance to kind of defend that use and do you see do you see any kind of role for culture or ideology as one of the in experiences that influence how the brain operates and how it might take shape that was exactly my point the way the criminal got that way wasn't born that way it's just because of the environment he lived in and I want you to know that the brain that you have now is the result of everything that's happened in your life up to this point the brain you have tomorrow is due to what you do today you really have control over your cortical connectivity over the way that you create reality and so that was a key point all experience changes the brain thank you very much thank you my question I've listening to the lecture tonight I've never had a team experience and I was wondering I've been trying to think of something that might be a corollary to the TM experience is there something that you can describe that might be something that we've all experienced it comes close to that what they say many people as experience transcending and there's an experience that you can have just before you go to sleep you're awake but you sort of fall and you and you maybe see some point light and you get a little joga bliss you know a thing like that and you say holy jumping gorge [Music] so now dr. John Hagelin could explain that when when you go from one state of consciousness waking to an another state sleeping you you go through a gap and in that gap you can transcend and I picture it like a round white room and you've got red yellow and blue curtains but in between there you can see the point of the absolute to the the pure bliss consciousness you can transcend in that little piece of white and then you come back to the next state of conscious you're coming around and then next when you go and there's this thing about the gap there's a thing about the gap that white room is all there but so it's here there and everywhere and sometimes we don't know how but people have transcended they transcended think about Transcendental Meditation is it's a guarantee you can do it all the time when you're sitting meditate that's the beautiful thing about it and go all the way in some form of some meditation they say is contemplation or concentration will keep you on the surface you won't transcend you won't get that coherent full brain you know thing and you won't get that you know that bliss it's you you're on on the sphere dizzy and it's it's just as if there wasn't Transcendental Meditation I don't know what form of meditation I would go to get because I want to dive all the way I want to experience that deepest level and one more question how do you think that Transcendental Meditation would affect those of us that find our creativity in conflict and stress I think you've got to understand conflict and stress it gives you ideas the ideas can come from every place but I guarantee you if you have enough stress you won't be able to create and if you have enough conflict it will just get in the way of your creativity you you you can understand conflict but you don't have to suffer in it and you can get ideas from it the whole world most things reduce reflect the world they just reflect the world and but I say you're really and truly depressed you can't get even get out of bed you can't create and if but if you've got a notion of because you want to live the art life and you've got this melancholy you know thing and the chicks really dig this then then you'll just keep playing that role but you're not really suffering [Applause] I had a question in relating your practice of art and filmmaking with meditation and I practice meditation and been to the pasta retreat in which one individual was using a notepad and writing down ideas I assumed he was a writer and the teacher sort of noted and asked him to sort of you know get rid of that don't you know you don't you don't need to carry the baggage of you know your idea with the profession of writing and I was wondering how do you compromise you negotiate your practice of being a seeker of truth Allah gee the self and being an artist that is intensely interested in capturing and creating image I always have a little notepad and a paper when I meditate and transit there's some forms of meditation you'll want to go to the cave you want to leave activity and go to the cage Transcendental Meditation is my Rishi's brought is for the householder where activity is just as important as the diving within and the analogy is you've got a white cloth and you want to make it pure gold so you dip the cloth into the pure gold that's transcending that's meditation hanging it on the line in the Sun is activity and in the early days of meditating you'll see that activity overshadows most of the gold there's just a little bit of gold there so more gold than you had a little bit you dip it in again that's transcending meditation hang in to the line activity more and more even activity the sunlight can't bleach it out activity can overshadow it pretty soon one day that thing is gold no matter how much activity whereas some of those people in the caves they think they're there and they come into the city and I'll you know they are totally overshadowed so it's a it's a where you you're a doer we're doers and you just add this go about your business and things get better for you and the surroundings and then you keep that pencil and paper you know handy if you get it get a good idea and you forget it it's it's a terrible terrible thing thank you thank you gonna thank you all for very much for being here I'll just read this may everyone be happy may ever want everyone be free of disease may auspiciousness be seen everywhere may suffering belong to no one peace thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: University of Oregon

Views: 190,717

Keywords: david lynch lecture, David Lynch Transcendental Meditation, what does david lynch believe in, meditation, mulholland drive, mulholland drive explained, david lynch q & a, david lynch answers questions, david lynch explains transcendental meditation, David lynch in oregon, david lynch talk, david lynch interview, david lynch talks about movies, david lynch explains mulholland drive, david lynch talks at the uo, david lynch vedic philosophy, wakefulness

Id: vtgtkuKs8HQ

Length: 116min 57sec (7017 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 06 2008