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The Quiet Revolution: Bob Roth on How TM Transforms the Mind From Within · The Inner Well Podcast

• The Inner Well Podcast: We all contain a space within that when enlivened and nourished will support us with unwavering stability, expansion, and peace of mind. Join us each week as we dive into honest, grounded conversations about transcendental meditation, consciousness, and growth, and what it means to live an integrated life supported by a foundation of creativity and calm. This is the Inner World. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Interwell podcast. I'm so excited to be speaking today with Bob Roth, renowned Transcendental Meditation teacher, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation and author of the best seller, Strength in Stillness. He's taught TM to thousands of people over his 50 years as a TM teacher while leading efforts to bring meditation to at risk population. So welcome Bob. It's wonderful and a privilege to be here with you, Emily. Thank you. We're so happy, you know, this conversation, a lot of people have been requesting to hear from you. You are sort of legendary in the TM space. And maybe we just start very simply, set the scene for us. How did you learn about transcendental meditation? How did you hear about it? What was that experience for you? So I was just a regular kid. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. And, you know, when I was just sports and all that. And then in 19, I'm an old guy. in 1967 and 1968 with the Vietnam War and all these issues were coming up and civil rights. And so I became sort of much more aware politically of what was going on. My family was very politically engaged. We talked about it a lot. And I worked for Senator Bob Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. when he was running for president in California. And I was very inspired by him. And I remember going to see him speak in San Francisco on June 1, 1968, at a big hall with 2,000 people. And I thought, we're really going to change the world. It wasn't that I was a Democrat or Republican. We're going to change the world. And then four days later, he was... killed. It was devastating to me as a 17 year old kid who didn't really you know, nice upbringing didn't really know death. So I decided I was going to I want to be a US Senator like Bobby Kennedy. So I went to the University of California Berkeley in 1968. Amazing wild time. And The reason I wanted to go into politics and US senators, I wanted to make a change in the world. And I thought the way to do that, my dad was a doctor, my mom was a educator. I thought, you want to change things on a scalable way, politics was the way you do it. You change laws. It's a little different than we have today. And so when I went to Berkeley, it took me about two months with all that rioting to realize that politics was not going to be my path. when I wanted to do something. So I thought maybe education, educational curriculum. And I would write educational curriculum for kids in preschool and kindergarten. Give them some tools to start off with to help them navigate a stressful life even then. So I was very stressed. It was a lot of tumult in the world. I wasn't into drugs. I wasn't into crazy stuff. I just sort of wanted to make a better world. And a friend of mine was There was something about him, Peter Stevens, that was so extraordinary, Emily. There was a calmness about him and a clarity and an energy and he wasn't crazy. He wasn't wackadoodle. And I found out he was doing Transcendental Meditation and he told me about it. I said, it wasn't a word in my vocabulary at the time. It was like, what? And I said, ⁓ don't believe in that sort of stuff. My dad was a doctor and a researcher. He said he had a pen in his hand and he dropped the pen. And he said, you don't have to believe in gravity for the pen to fall and you don't have to believe in this meditation, Transcendental Meditation for it to work. So I said, well, I'll go in and I'll give it five minutes. if I don't, because there was a lot of, if I don't like it, then I'm not going to do it. And my first meditation wasn't flashy. It was just so relaxing and so familiar and yet unique. And it was like, And I remember one of my first thoughts that I had after I learned it was, maybe this is a tool I could teach those kids. And that was June 28th, 1969. And now, all these years later, 50 plus years later, I run a foundation that's brought the meditation to a million and a half kids and adults. so it's a who to thunk back in those days. Beautiful story. And I want to, you know, I want to spend some time today talking about the work that David Lynch Foundation does because it's incredibly important and you've millions of people ⁓ through this technique. But I want to go back to a couple of things you said because, you know, 1968 college campus Berkeley, transcendental meditation, you know, this was like the time and you know, a lot of people either today haven't heard of Transcendental meditation or maybe they've heard of it, but they don't really know I am a teacher I get a lot of people come in saying, you know, well I do I traditional meditation or I do you know, I do regular meditation and I would say well What's the difference but maybe we can kind of start there? Your friend, how did he hear about this? What was happening in 1968? Why was transcendental meditation suddenly available to people on college campuses in that time in the world? It's a great story in 1967 an introductory lecture was being given at a Hilton Hotel in London. And ⁓ George Harrison's wife saw it, the announcement, and told her husband, George, and his friends, Beatles, about it. And so they went to hear the lecture. And ⁓ it was being given by Maharishi. And Maharishi didn't know who they were. And they heard the lecture, and then they were so inspired by it that they went with him... a few days later to Wales for a retreat that he was giving. And he taught them to meditate in Wales. And then that became big news. And then a year later in February of 1968, he ⁓ was doing a teacher training course in Rishikesh, India. And they came for several, some of them stayed two weeks, some of them stayed a month or more. John Lennon and... ⁓ George Harrison. that became, it was a front page, Mar, she was pictures on the front page of all the magazines and newspapers. And on college campuses, it just like, so thousands and thousands and thousands of people learned about it. And that's how I heard about it. I remember when I first heard, I thought, the Beatles and meditation. I like their music, but whatever. then, you know, so things where you hear something about something, it takes a few times before it clicks. And that was negative. It just had no effect. And then two or three times, you know, someone else said, I had a class in astronomy at Berkeley, and this Nancy Ritter, one of my classmates, was going to, her brother was going to go and get instructed in Transcendental Meditation. went, oh, and then it wasn't until I met Peter, I knew Peter. months later, same words, and this time it resonated. Beautiful. Yeah, and it's still the case today. I think so many people come to LearnTM because someone they know does it. They love it. They see a change in them. They see some quality that they want to have, and they ask, what are you doing? And it's this beautiful, simple technique. Yeah, it's always that. There's a great quote from Maya Angelou. People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how they made you feel. Beautiful. So that's what it is. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, I love that. I love that story. And, definitely in those days, meditation was not a thing today. It's sort of a saturated market meditation this and that, you know, you've obviously been able to teach a lot of people this technique. And I'm curious, you know, many people listening still may not do transcendental meditation. They may not be familiar with what this technique is. Can you explain simply what is transcendental meditation? What makes it unique or different from any other meditation out there? And how do you talk about it really simply to people? So I use the example analogy of an ocean where you have a cross section of an ocean. So it's choppy on the surface and then at the depth of the ocean it's silent. And I use that as analogy for our mind. And I say the mind is that choppiness on the surface, that's our thinking mind, the gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta mind. Gotta do this and I gotta do that, all of that. And there's so much of the gotta, gotta, gotta. And some traditions call it the monkey mind. And it's a natural human desire to say, ⁓ I'd like some inner calm, I'd like some inner equanimity, I'd like some inner peace. And the operative word there, Emily, is inner. And the question is, is there such a thing as an inner? And if so, how do we get there? And so enter the realm of meditation. And there's gazillions of different types of branded meditations and all these claims. But when they look at neuroscience, they say there's three basic, you could say basic, not legitimate, but authentic approaches. One is called focused attention. And that's where you concentrate or control your mind. And that is using the ocean. And can I go into this much detail? Yes, great. ⁓ that is using the ocean analogy. Well, if you want to have a calm ocean, what disrupts a calm ocean? waves, so stop the waves and you'll have a calm motion. So if you want to have a calm mind, what disrupts a calm mind? Thoughts, stop thoughts, have a calm mind. Who can stop thoughts? It's unnatural. But that's an approach. And people work hard at it. And then they say it's very difficult. And when they look at the EEG brainwave signature, they say it's gamma brainwave, which is 20 to 50 cycles per second. That's where it's going, really working hard. Second approach is called open monitoring. many of those are the mindfulness approaches. And this approach says thoughts are not the disruptor of calm, but the content of thoughts are the disruptor of calm. So you can have a thought about some guy named Joe, and if you don't know anybody named Joe, But if Joe done you wrong, and you remember about Joe, rrgh. So what mindfulness approach, the key words here are dispassionate observation. So you're just neutrally looking at your thoughts that come into your mind and not getting worked up about it. And if you can live in the present moment, then it's not, Joe did that in the past. Well, when you do that, it creates something called ⁓ theta brain waves, which are four to eight cycles per second. That's like when you're falling asleep. The third is going to answer your question. Wondering, ⁓ The third is called self-transcending, automatic self-transcending. And that recognizes that waves are on the surface of the ocean, but it also recognizes that there's a vertical dimension. Just like the ocean has a vertical dimension, the mind has a vertical dimension. And that the hypothesis is deep within every one of us, everyone watching, everyone listening to this, everyone in the world, deep within every one of us, there's a level where our mind is already settled and peaceful and calm and wide awake. and we have lost access to it. You can call it state of restful alertness, source of thought, pure consciousness, just vocabulary. It's your innermost self and it's quiet and settled. And when we experience that, completely different brain wave signature. It's ⁓ called alpha one, which is eight to 10 cycles per second. That means how fast the brain is working. It's a state of restful alertness. And that state of restful alertness has a constellation of health benefits. that doesn't show up in any other form of meditation. Not sure I answered your question, but at least that talks about how they differ. It was perfect. And I love how you talk about that restful alertness experience state. And that's such a big differentiator with this technique. Again, many people could think meditation means relaxation. I'm just going to calm down. But what if I'm someone who can't sit still? What if I can't do that? This is the big question we get a lot. Well, what if it's not going to work for my brain? Could you talk a little bit about what is that restful alertness? Why is restful alertness more profound than just relaxation? Well, first of all, think one of the, when what the Beatles and everybody else really liked about transcendental meditation is what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Maharishi was trained as a physicist at Alhaba University, and then he had an opportunity to spend 13 years with the greatest scientist of meditation and consciousness. in the world whose name was Brahmananda Saraswati and Gurudev and Maharishi studied with him. And from that experience, he began teaching Transcendental Meditation around the world. And he brought out a few things that people had not talked about for hundreds of years. Number one, this notion that there's a vertical dimension to the mind and that meditation is not a, they call mindfulness a cognitive process. They talk about learning to surf the waves. There's no sort of sense of you want to control thoughts, you want to control that, manipulate that, watch that. And Marsha said, no, every human being, doesn't matter what your religion is, you don't have to believe this, there's no, every human being has deep within her or him the state of restful alertness, this wide awake. The first thing he said, second thing he said was, contrary to the understanding, you read any texts about meditation, other than TM, say the mind is a monkey. The mind wanders and you have to control it. You have to corral it. You have to stop it from bouncing around because you'll never have a calm mind if your mind is always active. And Maharishi said, no. Nature of the mind is not to wander. The nature of the mind is to seek something more satisfying. Mind is in search of happiness, pleasure, beauty, fragrance. Delicious, mind is drawn. You're sitting in a room listening to terrible music in the other room, some great music comes on, your attention goes there. So now we all have this field inside of my own innermost self, really nice place, really nice place. The Sanskrit word is ananda, which just means happiness or bliss. So it's nice, we have it. You don't have to believe in it, find out, it's there. And so all we do with Transcendental Meditation, is we learn how to give the attention, which is being drawn outward to look for something more satisfying. Powerful motivating factor. It's why we pick the people we marry, the job we have, the music we listen to, the movies we watch. Powerful. Turn that within, like you teach a child how to dive. Give the attention of the mind an inward direction, and on its own, without any effort, the attention is drawn inward, settles, settles, settles towards that. state of restful alertness, that innermost self. And when that happens, your body gains a state of rest in many regards, deeper than the deepest part of deep sleep, a unique state of restful alertness. And that, and it happens effortlessly. And that experience is transformational. This is just manipulating. This is opening your awareness to what they call it a fourth major state of consciousness, different from waking and dreaming and sleeping. And the data on that, read 480 published studies showing the health benefits from that simple process. And I'll let you ask another question, one more thing I wanna add. A lot of people say these days, I believe meditation could work. I just don't think I can do it. My mind is a monkey, my mind is bouncing. I can't sit with my eyes closed for more than 10 seconds, 20 minutes? And it's like two minutes. Well, the beauty of this, is that it's so pleasing. And when I learned it, I was a typical 18-year-old snotty-nose-know-it-all hyperactive kid. I just afterwards, went, wow, that's real. That's real. It's not, I mean, what's your, you're a great teacher. What's your experience? I love that. It's real and it's a complete. pleasure to practice. you hear this again, just like you said, you know, ⁓ sitting still for 20 minutes, closing my eyes, going inside. What if I don't like what's inside? Well, I don't want to deal with that, right? That's where people sit. And so this idea of the inward dive of the mind could seem radical, unattainable. The beautiful thing is, it's something that feels so good. You you and I practice this technique, not because, ⁓ we're incredibly disciplined, while maybe but it's because it feels good. It feels good and it works. And it works, you said that word that sometimes is thrown around with TM, but it's absolutely true, which is transformational. Now, what does that look like? Because how it's going to transform me might be different than how it transforms you. But what it's doing is it's bringing us back to ourself. Water on it, you can water an apple tree becomes more of an apple tree, a pear tree, more of a pear tree. It just allows you to be more yourself. One thing that's interesting, I was giving a talk to this some Wall Street guy and I said, and ⁓ mind settles down, he had two really good questions. I said, your mind settles down to quieter and quieter levels of thought. And he said, what are you talking about? What's a quieter level of thought? And I said, you're a trader. You he traded the markets and he said, yeah. And I said, use your intuition. He said, yeah, somebody comes up to you and they say, here's three reasons why you should do something. And they make makes perfectly good sense. And then you get home and you think about it later and you go. think so. And the person says, why do you want to do it? You say, doesn't feel right. I'm sure we've done feel right. That's a quieter level of the mind. The hypothesis even deeper than that. There's a level where the mind is completely settled and wide awake. Same guy said, ⁓ I said, and so you sit down for 20 minutes and the mind settles down, you experience this nice. And he said, So you're experiencing this, he's great, loves the guy. He's been meditating for six months, twice a day, 20 minutes, loves it. So good. Bruce. So anyway, is he settling down quieter? And then he said, how do you know when your 20 minutes are up? And I said, you look at your watch. You're not going anywhere. You're not going in, you're just settling down home to your own innermost self. Beautiful. It's that experience. earlier you mentioned your first experience with TM, and you said, it's not flashy. We're not going somewhere. We're not looking for these lights. And it's something that it will feel so familiar. It will feel like coming home to yourself. Very natural. Very natural. Very easy, very effortless. And I want to talk a little bit about what you have been doing for these last many decades, which is eight million years. Give or take. bringing this technique, I mean, to everyone, you've taught the most powerful people, influential people, you've taught CEOs and celebrities, and you've also taught the most stressed populations, the people who need this most. I've taught in situations where I've taught veterans with PTSD, I've taught very skeptical people who say, it's not going to work for me. I'm not really interested in closing my eyes. But somehow there's that kernel of willingness. I'd love to hear from you. How does it work for someone who's incredibly stressed? Can they still have that same effect as anybody else? Yeah. If you can think a thought, you can meditate. Because when you learn Transcendental Meditation, you have a certified teacher. is an example of some of great, great certified teachers we have in America and the world. And that your certified teacher will give you a mantra, a sound, which is a few syllables, something like that, something like that. no meaning associated with it, because then you're stuck up here. So it's just for the sound quality, positive life supporting. And the teacher will teach you individually how to use that sound to serve as like a catalyst, to turn the attention within, like a vehicle to allow the mind to settle down. You're taught how to use it effortlessly and without stress or strain. And anyone can do it. And the thing is, if a person, I would say, I think one of the best things is usually what happens is a wife or a woman starts meditating. said, my husband needs this. boy, does my husband need this. But he'll never want to learn. And then somehow she convinces him. I'm using she and he very, because about in our work, about 80 % of the people who learn to meditate are women initially. And then the husband comes in and there's, say, are you here under duress? I said, okay, you're give me an hour a day, hour and a half a day over four consecutive days? Yeah. And then they'll open their eyes after the first meditation and ⁓ they'll go, ⁓ my gosh. So is it, that's all there is to it? That's all, you know? It's such a wonderful thing to be a teacher of transcendental meditation. If a person's looking for a great career, nothing could be better. So deeply fulfilling. yeah, that fact that anyone can do it. We don't need any prerequisite. When you learn TM, you're going to have that experience in your very first session. You don't take years to learn how to do it. And then you get the good stuff. You're meditating from that very first moment. And the effects start to grow and accumulate outside. I taught a young in the book I wrote about him. His name is Joey Lowenstein. And he was on the ⁓ spectrum autism spectrum disorder. He was on the far end. He was nonverbal. ⁓ So he had, he couldn't speak and that just not being able to speak turns out he had brilliant mind, but not being able to speak to build up the tension, the anxiety. I, his mom asked me to teach him and usually a person, he was about 12 or 13 years old. So they meditate for 10 or 12 minutes, something, but I started him slow. said, Joey, let's just do this for a few minutes. And after a couple of minutes, you he did great and then he got a little restless. And I said, I'll come back tomorrow. Now, years later, he meditates, he's older, 20 minutes, twice a day. The anxiety levels have gone dip so much. And not only that, it's beyond anxiety. Transcendental meditation wakes up the creative networks in the brain, wakes up there. There's a part of the brain called the attention control center, which is a part of your brain for focusing and concentrating. And there's another part of your brain called the default mode network. where your brain is resting. I mean, your brain is not focused. And they used to think that the default mode network was you're wasting your time, you're just daydreaming, it's mind wandering, it's not task oriented. And now they have new names for the default mode network. One is the ⁓ imagination center, but the best is the genius lounge. Ooh, I love it. Is that the best? That's so good. And so the creative process, this gets woken up with TM, the creative process, it activates that genius loud during meditation in an innocent way, just in a natural way. And it also wakes up this ability to focus. So when you're done meditating... You talk about creativity. mom who solves a problem with two screaming kids is a creative soul. That's right. So anytime you can create something out of nothing, and so we're constantly solving problems, constantly being creative. And so you're waking up those networks in the brain that you need all the time. So it's fine to talk about TM that it heals trauma and stress and tension. Great. But the thing is, what's really satisfying is it just wakes up this full potential, creative potential. brain. And that's all the difference in the world for living a satisfying, creative and fulfilling life. Beautifully said. I love that explanation because we do talk about TM enhancing creativity. David Lynch has some beautiful videos about TM, consciousness and creativity. And we could think creativity means you're a great painter, you're a great musician, but that creative thinking is so important. often describe it to students who are sort of trying to understand what it means to have a more ⁓ flexible way of thinking. It's like, you we've all had this situation where there's a problem and it's either yes or no. I don't know what to do about it. Just this is what it is. I can't see my way around it. And then maybe after some time you come back, you evaluate the situation, and now, ⁓ There's a third way. There's another option. There's a little bit more clarity. And that's what TM is doing. It's expanding the conscious capacity of our mind to be able to problem solve, to be able to see the big picture and focus in on the details naturally. And that's creative, more flexible thinking. So it's in every area of the life that we have that we're living. And the default mode network gets activated when you're working on something and you're getting all stressed and your partner says, let's just go for a walk. You know, you got to. Get away from your computer, put down this thing, you take a break, hot shower, something. We've all had that experience where, we're not even focused, and then the solution bubbles up. And so with meditation twice a day, we're creating those, the term is neural pathways. We're creating those connections in the brain that promotes that ability to think broad and focus. And so just as you said so eloquently. So beautiful. Now, you know, we've talked a lot about what is TM and how it works. And I think this is a really beautiful way to describe this. I'm also curious about you, Bob, because you have taught so many people TM. You've been beautifully running the David Lynch Foundation. And you have a quality, I think, about you where maybe you don't fit into that traditional meditation teacher. What is a meditation teacher? Someone in flowing robes, long hair, something like that. But you are someone who really embodies something that people connect with, where they meet you, they trust you, they can hear you. And it's a really beautiful quality. I think it's something that David Lynch also had when he talked about TM. how do you think that- And you, my dear, have. That's why you're such a wonderful teacher. I'll embrace it. But I'm curious, how do you feel that that quality of being able to just convey this has really helped to inspire people? to learn meditation. Well, I'll tell a little funny story. So David Lynch, we've taught a lot of well-known people, but we've taught gazillions more of regular folk, but people know about the well-known people. And Jerry Seinfeld, super strong meditator. And so I would get periodically people that he knew to want to learn to meditate. And I got a phone call from him saying that Tom Hanks wanted to learn to meditate. And Tom didn't know anything about meditation, but Tom... Tom told Jerry that he was feeling such fatigue that at one or two in the afternoon, just had to, he was gonna probably have to quit acting because he had such chronic fatigue. And would I go over and talk to him about it? And I happened to be, I could have called him, but I happened to be in that area where he was living. So I knocked on the door and I was wearing blue jeans and a sport coat and a shirt. And so knocked on the door and he opened the door and he... took a giant step, like he was shocked. Just standing there, I thought, overacting, Tom. A little much dial it down. So I said, what's that all about? he said, Jerry said a meditation teacher was coming over. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, I expected to see someone wearing yoga pants and have a man bun. And I thought to myself, we've got a ways to go here because it was cardiologists was coming by. Nobody was going to say, where's your man bun. But so I think, you know, when people talk about spirituality and, and meditation, and I think what transcendental meditation does, and when you talk about higher states of consciousness, all these big words, I think it brings about the essence or the best of what it means to be a human being. Just that, the best of compassion, the best of clarity, the best of decision making, the best of inner strength, inner resolution, just love. Whatever the best is, highest value, that's what meditation should do and that's what meditation does. And the lovely thing about Transcendental Meditation is there's no philosophy. I mean, when Emily teaches you or Monica teaches you or anyone teaches you to meditate, they don't have a philosophy for you. They're just teaching with tool. You can be any religion or non-religion or whatever. It's like, again, water the root of a tree. You can have all the philosophy you want about the tree. Apples are going to be better. The leaves are going to be shinier. The flowers are going to be brighter. So I think that if any... I think we all have good qualities and qualities that need work. And I think over the years, the meditation has healed the stresses within me or the traumas within me and just allows me to be more of who I am, just like it allows you to be. And those are the... It's authenticity. These days with AI and all that stuff people just crave not marketing not brand I mean that's fine. You got to get the word out but just Authenticity and I think transcendental meditation allows a person to be themselves So beautiful really well said and you know again that that special connection that you learn from a teacher one-on-one for that first session, that you'll be taught how to use this technique. And it will be so effortless, so natural. And you'll have that forever. But you go through that personalized training. That makes this such a beautiful process. So many people think, four days, an hour each day to learn this thing? Why can't I just learn it in two hours right now? But you have this transformational experience that is based on your own experience. and then some intellectual understanding of how does this work, how does this happen, and then you have it for life. So beautiful. It's not just something. It's just not the, it's actually, it takes that personal attention and that follow-up to learn how to, it's just a simple thing to give, you know, it's like you're sitting in a minute, it just looks like this, and you learn how you. The gives you a mantra, sound, it's used silently. You sit comfortably, you close your eyes, you begin to think it in the way that the teacher told you. And it's such a simple, innocent, and we're so used to, you know, like pushing and jamming and effort and fighting and all that sort of stuff. The other day I was interviewed by Rick Rubin. Mm-hmm. And he's been meditating since he was 14 years old. He talked, he says in music and in life, it's the effortlessness. It's the not forcing, not manipulating. and he said that begins with the experience in meditation of that inner calm, and then that spills over into daily life. So we don't have to work so hard to be ourselves. We don't have to work so hard to get work done. Maharishi talks about do less and accomplish more. When we're stressed, where'd I put my keys? Okay, found my keys. Where'd I park my car? Where was I going? You know, when we're stressed, do less, you do more and accomplish less. Transcendental meditation allows us to do less and accomplish more. Life becomes much more graceful. And powerful and effective. Yes. Yeah. We don't become these Zen, you know, people that are totally checked out. I don't care about the world anymore. You know, we actually become more productive, more creative, and we have more access to that, more ability to have powerful experiences out in the world and make things happen if we choose to. So next time we have the show, I'm going to interview Emily. Because she's got it down. Well, know, firstly, Bob, thanks for being here. This has been such a great conversation and I hope we can do this more and more. You know, when we when we do these conversations, really the goal of this whole podcast is to demystify Transcendental Meditation, to talk about it in really simple, plain terms. And I feel like you have really done that today and it's been both inspiring and also really clear. So I'm going to ask you two last questions. And you sort of answered this, but the last one really is just something that you would say to someone who's sort of still on the fence right now about if this thing is going to work for them or if they're capable of doing this or what would it take? What would you say to that person? First of all, if they have a question, do they have the time? I would say, I'll tell you a story. A man came in with his 15-year-old son. to learn to meditate. His wife and mother had sent them both in. And the man said, the dad said, you know, the kid was ready to learn. said, you know, I'm sure it works. I'm sure it works. I just don't have the time. And the kid had calculated. And he said, Dad, there are 1,440 minutes in a day. If you don't have a few minutes to take care of this, you know, your brain, telling his father, you gotta reprioritize pops. And I think we do. think the fact of the matter is the world is getting more stressed and more stressed. And maybe 20 years ago, the idea of taking a few minutes twice a day to meditate was a luxury, longer luxury. What we know from science about the devastating effects, not just stress, chronic stress. Stress is just everyday stuff. Chronic stress is that residue that builds up day after day after day. According to science, it's at the root of 90, 90 % of all illnesses, chronic stress. Anti-hypertensive medication, anti-anxiety medication, anti-depressive medication, doesn't touch it, affects the symptoms. Transcendental meditation by giving the body this unique state of restful alertness actually heals the body, allows those stresses to be dissolved so that we are healthier and we can live a better, longer life with our people that we love and what we want to do. And the last thing I would say is... Give it a try. It's a short, you know, who knows how much time we have. It's a short life. It's an hour a day, hour and a half a day over four days. Do it. I remember when I learned, said, all right, I'm gonna do this exactly as my teacher told me to do it for two months. Just I'm gonna do it. My dad was a doctor. He always said, you know, follow the prescription. Then you'll know if the- There you go. Giving you some medication for your sore throat. don't just do it and see if it works. And so I say, do it. That's what I said to myself. I'm going to do it, just as my teacher told me. It was 18 minutes then, twice a day. And ⁓ after about a month, I thought. this is really something. And that was 50, almost 57 years ago. Incredible. Beautiful. I'm 120 years old. I was going to ask. look fantastic. For 120, I don't look bad. Well, last question for you, Bob. We'd like to ask all our guests this simple question. This is the Inner Well podcast. So what does the inner well mean to you? There's a great quote on Delphi on the Temple of Apollo, know thyself. And that was the truth of all great wisdom traditions, know thyself. And David Lynch talks about in his book Catching the Big Fish, that if you want to get the big ideas, the big truth, the little fish swim on the surface, the big fish swim down at the depths. And if you want to access that big fish, the big truths, creative truths of life. You have to have a calm, the pond and pool has to be clear. And so what Transcendental Meditation allows us to settle down and access that inner well, the depths of that well, which turns out is not narrow, is unbounded. To quote David Lynch, infinite creativity. Infinite, when he would say these words, think, Dave, dial it down a little. But he's infinite creativity, infinite intelligence, infinite love, infinite happiness. So the inner well is this and that. And it's huge. And I want to say one more thing. Someone one time asked Maharishi, it's like wisdom of advice for life. And basically it was four things. From the temple of Apollo, know thyself. But then he added, be true to yourself. One thing to know yourself, so this is like wisdom of life, be true to yourself. And then he said, do what you know to be right and don't do what you know to be wrong. And I thought all the wisdom of life in those, know thyself, be true to that, do what you know to be right, don't do what you know to be wrong. And this inner well, this podcast. on a regular basis you bring out. It's such a service, I almost cry. It's such a service what you're doing, bringing this out in an accessible, understandable way. And for me, it's a privilege to do this and for me to do anything I can to support the work you do and the work that all the other teachers of Transcendental Meditation in the world do. So thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Bob. It's such an honor. This has been so wonderful talking to you. Thank you for everything you do. You continue to inspire all of us to bring this message out and to teach everyone we can. So thank you so much for all you do. Thank you. Transcendental meditation is a scientifically validated technique that provides access to become more ourselves. Join us next week for more conversations with real people living fulfilling and peaceful lives with infinite support from their inner well.