Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity

“I sat down, closed my eyes, started this mantra and it was as if I were in an elevator and the cable had been cut. Boom! I fell into bliss — pure bliss.”

– David Lynch 

I admire David Lynch not only because he is one of my favorite directors but also because of his over fifty-year commitment to Transcendental Meditation. He has a foundation where he offers lessons to learn how to practice TM. To summarise, “Transcendental Meditation allows the active thinking mind to settle inward to experience a naturally calm, peaceful level of awareness. During TM, the body enjoys a profoundly rejuvenating rest, while the brain functions with significantly greater coherence.”

“Little fish swim on the surface but the big ones swim down below. If you can expand the container your fishing in, your consciousness, you can catch bigger fish. Here is how is works. Inside every human being is an ocean of pure vibrant consciousness. When you transcend in Transcendental Meditation, you dive down into that ocean of pure consciousness. You splash into it, in its bliss. You can vibrate with this bliss. Experiencing pure consciousness enlivens it, expands it, it starts to unfold and grow.

If you have a golfball size consciousness, when you read a book, you’ll have a golfball sized understanding. When you look outside the window, a golfball sized awareness. When you wake up in the morning, a golfball sized wakefulness and as you go about your day, a golfball sized inner happiness.

But if you can expand that consciousness, make it grow, then when you’ll read that book you’ll have more understanding; when you look out, more awareness; when you wake up, more wakefulness; and as you go about your day, more inner happiness.

You can catch ideas at a deeper level and creativity really flows. It makes life more like a fantastic game.”

– David Lynch in Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity

I thought it was important to share the above quote from the book because it is a wonderful way to visualise what happens when you crack the code of meditation. “Lynch describes the experience of “diving within” and “catching” ideas like fish – and then preparing them for television or movie screens, and other mediums in which he works, such as painting, music, and design.”

The book is a very quick read but has some wonderful insights into the benefits of meditation that he relates to his own work. It was inspiring and a motivation to be more consistent with my own practice.

“Through meditation ones realises the unbounded. That which is unbounded is happy. There is not happiness in the small.”

– The Upanishads