June 14, 2010
Russell Simmons is considered the godfather of hip-hop. In the mid-80s he co-founded the Def Jam record label and went on to launch L L Cool J, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and Run DMC
The 53-year-old New Yorker has also long encouraged social and political involvement in urban areas through various means, and most recently Simmons has been helping to bring peace and stillness to homeless men on a project in Harlem, by introducing Transcendental Meditation to their daily rehab programme, with the support of the David Lynch Foundation.
Simmons himself has been practising TM for years and he told the Atlantic magazine why he thinks 20 minutes of meditation twice-daily is a basic need:
“Right up there with food and shelter is peace of mind. There are many roads to peace of mind. But some roads have so much proof that you know you’re definitely on your way. Transcendental Meditation has really got so much research, so many examples, so many people who have become calmer and more peaceful – even enlightened. It’s hard to get around how valuable meditation can be.”
June 12, 2010
As a global business leader, Rick Goings, who is Chief Executive of the international plastics storage giant Tupperware, spends 70% of his time travelling, meeting thousands of his 2.5 million staff and making vital business decisions in five different continents.
One thing that enhances his performance – and which he fits in every afternoon – is 20 minutes practice of Transcendental Meditation.
“For me,” he told the UK Financial Times, ” It’s a practice that not only burns off stress but gives me fresh eyes to clarify what’s really going on and what really matters.” He learned the technique more than 25 years ago from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
May 26, 2010
At 79, Clint Eastwood is an inspiration for the baby-boomer generation. Not only has kept his youthful strength, energy and good-looks, he has also continued to be incredibly prolific in his work, making sixteen movies in the last 18 years, one of which, Unforgiven, won him his first Oscar in 1993.
How does he do it? In a recent interview with GQ magazine, he let on to one of his secrets: Transcendental Meditation. (See “Do you still meditate?” on page 2.) He revealed that far from being a passing fad of his youth, he’d been practising it twice a day for almost 40 years. Eastwood went public about his Transcendental Meditation routine when he famously appeared on an American TV chat show with the founder of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in the early 70s. He delighted the audience by giving a flower to Maharishi.
He told GQ, a British magazine, of the practical value it has had in his life: “It works great. I’m religious about it when I’m working … Meditation with me was just a self-reliant thing. I believe in whatever self-help you can give yourself.”
Read the full text at GQ magazine
May 25, 2010
Fashion designer Amy Molyneux starts her day with Transcendental Meditation, which she describes as “yoga for the brain,” reports the Sky Showbiz column. Amy is one half of the label PPQ (the other half, Percy Parker, also practises TM), and has designed dresses for Girls Aloud, Sienna Miller and Kirsten Dunst, amongst others.
Amy, 32, learned Transcendental Meditation at the age of 16 in Skelmersdale, and has been practising the technique ever since. “It’s like extra sleep,” she says, “it boosts your energy, and gives you more clarity and confidence.”
Running a record label and organising promotional events in addition to her PPQ work leaves Amy little time to recharge her batteries, which is why she makes sure she always fits in her Transcendental Meditation. And she would recommend the technique to anyone coping with high-pressure demands.
“I think people who are at the top of any business definitely need something, because the stress is massive. A lot of them survive on drinking – not excessively – or they’re into sport, or they’ve got a really amazing partner who does loads for them. But when you’ve been doing TM for a while you can tell if people are giving the signals that they need a break!”
Nor is Transcendental Meditation just about stress release, says Amy – it’s about living your full potential.
“A lot of people have the attitude ‘I’m doing OK, so why do I need TM?’ But then they think, well, I could do even better. If people say to me, I don’t need that because there’s nothing wrong with me, I would say no, it’s not that there’s something wrong with you – it’s that what you’ve got is really special, and you should look after it.”
May 12, 2010
David Lynch has taken a break from filming a horror movie with Werner Herzog to fly to India to start work on a documentary about the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Hollywood film director became close to Maharishi – who is famous for bringing Transcendental Meditation to the West – in his later years and wishes to pay tribute to the guru who died age 91 in 2008.
In an online report from India, Lynch, garlanded with flowers, gives an intimate glimpse of the Maharishi’s house and its setting by the Ganges. Asked the name of the film, he says “Maharishi”.
In November 2009, Lynch, known for films such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive, told New York magazine, “I’m going to make a film on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It won’t be a so-called David Lynch film, really; it will be about Maharishi and the knowledge he brought out. It’ll hold a lot of abstractions. We’re on our way to India in December.”
“We’re going to do a lot of interviews with people. We’ll interview – I hope – in India, a 97-year-old man who was with Maharishi from the beginning, and get stories of times that weren’t so well recorded.”
Brief video reports on the David Lynch Foundation TV website provide a diary of his progress. His first report came from high in the Himalayas, in the small town of Uttarkashi, known as the “Valley of the Saints”, where for thousands of years seekers of truth have gathered to meditate and rise to enlightenment. Maharishi spent two years in silence in Uttarkashi, from 1953 to 1955, following the passing of his teacher, Guru Dev.
May 12, 2010
British chess champion Jonathan Rowson has followed Nick Clegg and William Hague in speaking about how Transcendental Meditation had equipped him for life at the top of his profession.
The three times UK chess champion told Indian newspaper The Deccan Herald during a visit to Delhi that he maintains a strong interest in Transcendental Meditation as well as yoga and Indian spirituality. Aberdeen-born Rowson, 33, learned Transcendental Meditation in 1998 while a student at Oxford University and says he owes his first-class degree to it.
“It was by far the best thing I learned at Oxford, “he told a Scottish newspaper in 2007. “I suddenly had more energy, concentrated better and felt warmer towards other people.”
Rowson, who also has a degree from Harvard and is also a widely read author and columnist, added that he would never dream of playing a serious game without meditating beforehand.
“After meditating I feel calm, centred and ready to compete – but, more importantly, the technique allows me to “just play” and enjoy the game without worrying about the result.”
Read more from The Herald, 23 April 2007: Meditation: for old hippies or a better way of life?
April 29, 2010
The shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has become the second leading British politician to speak about the benefits of Transcendental Meditation for life in the fast lane.
In an interview with The Times (17/4/2010), which revealed him as a highly effective, energetic and disciplined individual, Hague, 47, spoke about how he has meditated daily for 30 years using Transcendental Meditation, which he learnt in Sheffield as a teenager. His admission echoed that of LibDem leader Nick Clegg in another recent Times article.
Hague told journalist Ann Treneman – who attributed his highly organised mind to meditation – that he found time in his 6am to 9pm working day to practise Transcendental Meditation because it makes him calmer, have fewer headaches and sleep better.
The former Tory leader, best-selling author and self-made millionaire dismissed that there is anything mystical about it, emphasising that he did it for purely practical reasons.
Nick Clegg told The Times (17/10/2010) that he had practised TM regularly for five years in his 20s as it was a practical tool which was “extremely useful for dealing with the ordinary stresses of life”. In a subsequent Telegraph interview, asked whether Clegg still meditates to cope with the pressures of running for Prime Minister, his spokeswoman said that his family commitments – he has three sons – did not allow him the time now.
April 20, 2010
An important new study into ADHD by the government of Western Australia has found that “long-term use of drugs such as Ritalin and dexamphetamine may not improve a child’s social and emotional well-being or academic performance.”
The findings published in February 2010 have renewed calls for alternative approaches to be used in the treatment of ADHD.
The study, which was commissioned by the region’s Department of Health, drawing on data on over 3000 children involved in a long-term health survey, “found that stimulant medication did not significantly improve a child’s level of depression, self perception or social functioning and they were more likely to be performing below their age level at school by a factor of 10.5 times.”
Prof Landau, who led the study, said it also suggested that a child’s heart function may be affected by long-term stimulant use and may remain affected even after stopping medication.
“While these differences were small, the results suggest that doctors should look at a child’s cardiovascular risk symptoms before starting treatment with stimulant medication,” he said.
Dr William Stixrud, PhD, an American clinical neuropsychologist who led a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Issues in Education into the effects of meditation on children with ADHD, says Transcendental Meditation may be an effective and safe non-pharmaceutical treatment as it reduces stress and anxiety and improves cognitive function.
The children in the pilot study practised Transcendental Meditation twice a day for 10 minutes. After three months, researchers found over 50% reduction in stress and anxiety, and reduced ADHD symptoms in the entire group.
“The children also showed improvements in focus, attention, working memory, organization, and behaviour regulation. The fact that these children are able to do TM, and do it easily, shows us that this technique may be particularly well suited for children with ADHD,” says lead researcher Dr Sarina J. Grosswald, a cognitive learning specialist who heads up the David Lynch Foundation’s Office of ADHD and Learning Differences.
April 20, 2010
Bad manners and reality TV raise our blood pressure and increase the risk of stroke, according to a new survey.
The remedy, says the Daily Mail, could be Transcendental Meditation.
Queue jumping, reality TV shows and poor driving are just a few of the everyday things that make our blood boil in Britain but, according to a new survey reported in the Daily Mail (13 April 2010), most of us do not realise just how much these day-to-day stresses are affecting our bodies.
The survey of over 2000 people was carried out for the Stroke Association, Rotary International and ambulance services to highlight the dangers of having high blood pressure.
Although it is the biggest risk factor for having a stroke, it is estimated that a quarter of adults have high blood pressure and are completely unaware of it.
The Stroke Association say 40% of the 150,000 strokes suffered by people in the UK each year could be prevented by controlling high blood pressure.
Medical experts, the Daily Mail adds, believe Transcendental Meditation could be used to treat high blood pressure as well as psychological problems.
Two new studies have found that it worked significantly better than good diet and exercise in tackling the stresses of modern life. The studies, at Charles Drew University in Los Angeles and the University of Hawaii, looked at more than 100 people aged 55 and older who were at risk from cardiovascular disease. Those who practised Transcendental Meditation showed a 48 percent reduction in symptoms of depression – compared to those given dietary and exercise advice.
April 13, 2010
Moby has spoken out in favour of Transcendental Meditation. The award-winning singer and musician, who is a committed Christian, explained that he had avoided it for a long time because he thought it might have involved “ritual animal sacrifice or moving to some country and renouncing wealth and materialism”. However once he learnt it in 2008, he realised how natural and practical it was.
He said: “One of the things that impressed me so much about TM when I finally learned it was its simplicity. It’s a simple practice that calms the mind… and the thing that won me over about TM, apart from having my hero David Lynch as its vocal practitioner, was its effectiveness. Nothing else helped me quiet my mind and go to a calm, centred place. The thing that makes it effective is you don’t have to do all that much, and, as a profoundly lazy person, I appreciate that”.
