Over Memorial Day weekend this summer, filmmaker David Lynch, quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin and singer/songwriter Donovan will converge upon Fairfield, Iowa's Maharishi University of Management for a three-day mix of workshops and seminars on transcendental meditation and how it has influenced their respective careers and creativity.
Recently, The Daily Cardinal had a chance to speak with David Lynch and Dr. Hagelin as part of a student-journalist conference call, where we learned more about how Mr. Lynch views creativity, his personal art and the potential for world peace.
""I was filled with tensions and doubt and anger, and sometimes a depression and kind of a hollowness—not a strong inner happiness,"" Lynch said about his life before practicing transcendental meditation, or TM, in the '70s.
""[After starting to meditate] the anger went away in two weeks,"" he said. ""The joy of doing things increased. You have this desire to make films and paintings and photographs.""
Transcendental meditation was popularized during the '60s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and attracted worldwide attention when the Beatles attended a retreat to learn how to use the technique. TM involves repeating a mantra while meditating with one's eyes closed for 20 minutes, twice a day.
Though Lynch asserts that TM has brought calm to his life for the last 30 years, the majority of his film career has involved violent and disturbing imagery.
""I say the artist doesn't have to suffer to understand suffering,"" Lynch said. ""You should understand all the negative things in order to tell the story, but you yourself don't have to suffer.""
Practitioners say not only does TM help them find inner peace, but they express hope that the technique could help bring about real world peace. Considering that Lynch explains he makes violent films because the world is a conflicted place, The Daily Cardinal asked him what kind of films he might expect to make in a world where TM-inspired peace has taken over.
""I don't have a clue what films I would be making in a dynamically peaceful world, but it wouldn't be a calm, boring world,"" Lynch said. ""I don't really know exactly what it would be, but I think it would be extremely fulfilling and thrilling ... I know films would change, but I also know stories will always be told and those stories will always hold conflict and struggle and strife and torment and the human condition overcoming those things.""
Even if you're skeptical about TM holding the key to world peace, finding out why one of the premier filmmakers of the last three decades swears by it and how it has affected his life and art should make the weekend extremely worthwhile. Not to mention that Donovan is slated to play an hour-and-a-half set. Quite rightly.
Details can be found at www.lynchweekend.org.
