Transcendental Meditation /// David Lynch

I’ll admit it. Transcendental Meditation (TM for the indoctrinated) is an odd bird.

Like, I got my personal mantra sitting in the middle of the wood-paneled basement of a grandma & grandpa’s house who ran these intro sessions back-to-back sessions like clockwork.

Grandma handled the paperwork in the kitchen. Gramps sat facing me in the basement; with nothing in between us except a ceremony that got dangerously close to tripping a smoke detector.

Received my secret mantra, told to keep it secret, and to secretly repeat this secret to myself in my mind (so it stays a secret) over and over again during each meditation session.

Now, Gramps boasted he’s kept his secret alive every day, twice a day, for forty-something years. He mentions this again during our two follow-up group video calls.

You’ve never lived until you hop on a 7 P.M. six-person video call (cameras on) to meditate with your little secrets (eyes closed and silent) for 20 minutes (hearing what everyone’s microphone could pick up (dogs, kids, doorbells)).

Unavoidably, my name entered the conversation during the digital slideshow Gramps put together. But oddly rushed. It went like this:

Something something “wow you’re named after The Beatles”, something something “Maharishi Mahesh taught them in India”, something something “don’t worry about the sexual controversy around him, that has nothing to do with the meditation… anddddd okay let’s go to the next slide”.

Anyways, it’s my favorite way to perform routine garbage collection on my mind. And oddly recommend it.

If you want to go deeper with David Lynch, here’s the full one hour