David Lynch Expands Consciousness and Creativity

David Lynch: (applause) Thank you very much… It’s good to be here in Boston, and thank you very much for coming here tonight.

Questioner: Hi. I teach film; I make films; I am not a meditator. I would like to know – can you say anything about how meditation connects to your creative process or might help the creative process of my students or myself?

David Lynch: Yes. I can.

Questioner: Will you?

David Lynch: Yes I will. (laughter) Tonight’s talk is Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain. If you have a golf ball size consciousness, when you read a book you’ll have a golf ball size understanding. When you look out, a golf ball size awareness and when you wake up in the morning, a golf ball size wakefulness, but if you could expand that consciousness, then you read the book with more understanding; you look out with more awareness and when you wake up you have more wakefulness.

It’s consciousness and there’s an ocean of pure, vibrant consciousness inside each one of us, and it’s right at the source of mind, right at the source of thought, and it’s also at the source of all matter.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaches a technique called Transcendental Meditation. It’s a simple, easy, effortless, technique, yet supremely profound, that allows any human being to dive within and experience subtler levels of mind and intellect, and transcend and experience this ocean of pure consciousness.

This pure consciousness is called by modern physics: “the Unified Field”. It’s at the base of all mind and all matter, and they now say, modern science says, all of matter and everything that is a thing emerges from this field. This field has qualities like bliss, intelligence, creativity, universal love, energy, peace and it’s not the intellectual understanding of this field but the experiencing of it that does everything.

You dive within and transcending, experiencing this pure field of consciousness you enliven it. You unfold it, it grows, and the final outcome of this growth of consciousness is called enlightenment. Enlightenment is the full potential of all of us human beings, and a side effect of enlivening this consciousness is negativity starts to recede.

When I started meditating I was filled with anxieties, filled with fears, kind of a depression and anger, and I took this anger out on my first wife. After two weeks of meditation she comes to me and she says: What’s going on? And I was quiet for a moment because it could have been any number of things she might have been referring to (laughter) but I finally said: What do you mean? And she said: ‘This anger, where did it go?’ And I didn’t even realize it had lifted.

Now these negative things like anger and depression and sorrow, they’re beautiful things in a story, but they’re like a poison to the filmmaker. They’re a poison to the painter. They’re a poison to creativity. They’re like a vice grip. If you are super depressed, you can’t hardly get out of bed let alone have ideas and have that creativity flowing.

So, it’s money in the bank to get that beautiful consciousness growing, which is flowing creativity, the ability to catch ideas at a deeper level, intuition grows. This field is a field of pure knowingness. You dive in there and you sort of just know how to go. You know how to solve solutions. It’s like an ocean of solutions.

You can just feel this thing growing, but the ultimate thing for me is the enjoyment of the doing, the enjoyment of life, grows huge. I love making films now more than ever before. Ideas flow more. Everybody has more fun on the set. Creativity flows. People look like friends and not like enemies. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing and it’s us. In Vedic Science this field of pure consciousness is called Atma, the Self. The Self of us all at that level, as Dr. John Hagelin would tell you, at that level of life we are all one. We are one. Diversity up here, unity down below – it’s a great thing for the filmmaker.

Questioner: Thank you (applause)

David Lynch: I would like to have a glass of water if that’s possible. (applause) This is Jay, my friend and assistant. (David drinks water) It’s really good. It’s not quite as good as pure consciousness, but it’s really good. (laughter)

Second Questioner: Hello

David Lynch: How you doing?

Second Questioner: Not bad. How are you? My name is Alex Harvey and I have been meditating for a while. I wanted to know if there was a moment where you realized the effect that pure consciousness had on your work?

David Lynch: Right from the very beginning, and like I said I might have been…I think I had so many anxieties and fears and I felt those lifting, and bliss is a thing in the Unified Field. Bliss they say is the sweetest nectar of life. Bliss is physical, emotional, mental, spiritual happiness, and you can vibrate with this bliss. It’s this happiness from within. They have a saying: ‘true happiness isn’t out there; true happiness lies within’. I always wondered: where is this “within”, and they don’t say where it is and then they don’t even say how to get to it. This is the beauty of this technique. There are lots of forms of meditation but with Transcendental Meditation, for me the key is the word “transcend”—to dive all the way in. It’s a huge realm between the surface of life and this fundamental pure consciousness, but it’s there, and when you’re in it you know you’re in it. It’s familiar but it’s you.

Right away happiness, but it’s not like a goof ball happiness. It’s a thick beauty. It’s a thick beauty to appreciate life and living, and why suffer? Suffering starts to go and people say you’ve got to have anger and you’ve got to have an edge to create. You’ve got to know about anger. You’ve got to have energy. You’ve got to have clarity to create. You’ve got to be able to catch ideas. You’ve got to be strong enough to fight unbelievable stress and pressure and the whole thing in this world. That will lift because this whole thing is tied to world peace. It’s going to be a better world, but it is still a tough world, and this just gives you more and more ability to say: ‘It just looks beautiful. It’s way, way, way better’, and this happened right away.

Second questioner: Thank you

David Lynch: You bet!