Last year filmmaker artist David Lynch visited Russia to promote both his book on Transcendental Meditation, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, and the work of his charity, the David Lynch Foundation, in the country.
David Lynch relaxes in Moscow
Lynch, who has been popular in Russia since his Twin Peaks was released on local television at the end of the Soviet era, was enthusiastically welcomed, and an article about his trip published in Moscow’s Passport Magazine got a record high number of hits on its website.
The renewed interest in the Transcendental Meditation technique was so great after his visit that Moscow’s Passport magazine recently published another article simply called “Transcendental Meditation in Russia” in April’s issue. It likens Lynch’s Moscow visit to the first time since World War II, in 1988, when the USSR had accepted international assistance with teachers of Transcendental Meditation arriving as part of a humanitarian aid effort in the aftermath of the earthquake that had struck Armenia.
The article provides an in-depth account of that project and of the flourishing of business, agriculture, education, and health care projects in Russia since that time, in cooperation with the worldwide Maharishi organisation. It concludes that these offer a means to build a “future of light for the country”, as understood by Russian artist and philosopher Nikolai Roerich:
“Wealth in itself does not generate Culture. But broadened and subtler thinking and the sense of Beauty produce that subtlety, that nobility of spirit, which are distinctive for a cultured person. It is this kind of person that can build the future of light for its country.”
- Nikolai Roerich, Russian artist-philosopher, early 20th century.
