segunda-feira, outubro 27, 2003
Lynch goes from Twin Peaks to world peace
Gothic director wants to build 100 meditation palaces
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday October 26, 2003
The Observer
For decades director David Lynch has been the guardian of American Gothic. His films have been lauded by critics and fans for exposing the dark underbelly of popular culture. He has been dubbed the 'Tsar of the Bizarre'.
But now Lynch, whose masterpieces include Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, is surprising people with a different kind of mission. He wants to save the world. Literally.
Wearing trademark black suit, white shirt and black tie, Lynch was deadly serious about his plans to bring about world peace. 'Peace could be on this Earth this year. It could be a whole new world,' he told The Observer.
The answer, says Lynch, is simple: Transcendental Meditation. Once sought out by the Beatles, it is the hottest Hollywood spiritualism of the moment. Other practitioners include actress Heather Graham, recently pictured meditating on the front of Time magazine, which devoted a cover story to the craze. But for Lynch it is no passing fad.
He became last week the public face of the practice, which originated in India with the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. At a press conference in New York's plush Plaza hotel, Lynch launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign to build 100 'peace palaces' across America, part of a plan for 3,000 buildings across the globe, one in each major city. Inside the palaces up to 300 devotees will spend their time meditating and 'yogic flying', which practitioners say is a form of levitation. Once the peace palaces are up and running - the theory goes - war, violence and crime will come to an end.
Lynch, a man who has defined weirdness through his films, is not joking. He has been practising TM since 1973, after being introduced to it by his sister. Lynch said the experience changed his life. 'I had an anger in me before I started meditating, and I took it out on my first wife. But two weeks after meditating, that anger had left. Since then each day has been better than the day before.'
Lynch practises meditation every day and has also tried yogic flying, where devotees appear to hop off the ground in a state they describe as 'bubbling bliss'. His inner tranquillity will come as a shock to his fans. Lynch's reputation is founded on his films' ability to shock with sex, violence and grotesquery. Blue Velvet is famed for its sadistic scenes involving Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini, who later became Lynch's girlfriend. Twin Peaks told the surreal story of how a brutal murder shocked a small town. Lynch's first film was Eraserhead, a dystopian vision of the future that ends with its main character's head ground into pencil erasers.
The weirdness has frequently spilt into his personal life. On his office desk in Los Angeles, Lynch keeps a jar of formaldehyde. Inside is the uterus of a friend's daughter who had it surgically removed. His artistic projects have included making human heads out of cheese and letting ants eat them.
His commitment to peaceful meditation is a world away from the darkness that inhabits most of his films. He says he has met the Maharishi several times, including during a month-long course which he recently took at the guru's Netherlands base. 'I can't really talk about what I learnt there,' he said apologetically.
But, in the course of an hour's conversation, Lynch's speech is peppered with lessons from the Maharishi. Transcendental Meditation teaches that all living things are connected at a fundamental level of consciousness, he said. This can be reached via meditation and can also be used to affect society as a whole: say, to promote peace and lessen war and crime. The movement estimates that it needs just 8,000 meditators working together in one place - such as a planned University of Peace in Los Angeles - to bring about a fundamental change in the world.
Lynch has no doubts, nor does he care what the sceptics think. 'If we get enough people to do this, it doesn't really matter what other people believe. It will work anyway. It is a beautiful revolution.'
Lynch is now just the latest Hollywood star to reveal high-profile spiritual beliefs that can bemuse or shock the movie-going public. Mel Gibson's strict Catholicism has been the inspiration for his coming film about the Crucifixion. The film has been made entirely in Latin and Aramaic, and has also been accused of being anti-Jewish, which the director denies.
Lynch told The Observer he had no plans to alter his own directorial style to reflect his new crusade. He won't be producing a Blue Velvet sequel where the brutality is stopped by the power of meditation. 'If you want to send a message,' Lynch quipped, 'don't send it in a film. Send a telegram.'
sexta-feira, outubro 24, 2003
Maharishi University of Management
Fairfield, Iowa
52557 USA
800-369-6480
www.mum.edu
Foi atribuído um subsídio de 2 milhões de dólares aos investigadores médicos do Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, que faz parte do College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine da nossa Universidade. Desde 1988, já foram atribuídos mais de 20 milhões de dólares de fundos federais destinados a subsidiar investigação na área médica.
Este apoio destina-se ao estudo sobre como a técnica de Meditação Transcendental e os programas de saúde Maharishi baseados na consciência são úteis, tanto na prevenção como no tratamento das doenças do coração e outras desordens crónicas em americanos de origem africana. Este apoio vem do National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Faça um copy paste do endereço abaixo para ver
http://mail.sapo.pt/imp/message.php?index=51
A $2 million grant has been awarded to medical researchers at our University’s Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, a part of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. The University has been awarded more than $20 million in federal funds for medical research since 1988.
This grant will study how the Transcendental Meditation® technique and Maharishi’s Consciousness-BasedSM health programs are useful for both prevention and treatment of heart disease and other chronic disorders in African-Americans. The grant is from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Fairfield, Iowa
52557 USA
800-369-6480
www.mum.edu
Foi atribuído um subsídio de 2 milhões de dólares aos investigadores médicos do Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, que faz parte do College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine da nossa Universidade. Desde 1988, já foram atribuídos mais de 20 milhões de dólares de fundos federais destinados a subsidiar investigação na área médica.
Este apoio destina-se ao estudo sobre como a técnica de Meditação Transcendental e os programas de saúde Maharishi baseados na consciência são úteis, tanto na prevenção como no tratamento das doenças do coração e outras desordens crónicas em americanos de origem africana. Este apoio vem do National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Faça um copy paste do endereço abaixo para ver
http://mail.sapo.pt/imp/message.php?index=51
A $2 million grant has been awarded to medical researchers at our University’s Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, a part of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. The University has been awarded more than $20 million in federal funds for medical research since 1988.
This grant will study how the Transcendental Meditation® technique and Maharishi’s Consciousness-BasedSM health programs are useful for both prevention and treatment of heart disease and other chronic disorders in African-Americans. The grant is from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
quinta-feira, outubro 23, 2003
quarta-feira, setembro 24, 2003
Citizens of Denver will vote
on a proposal this fall that
would seek to reduce
stress in the city through
techniques like meditation.
(PhotoDisc)
Stress Busters
Companies and Communities Try New
Ways to Deal With Growing Stress
By Catherine Valenti
Sept. 15— At one law firm in Buffalo,
N.Y., Mondays are a time for peace
and quiet, reflection and relaxation.
But it's not because the lawyers at Renda, Pares & Pfalzgraf don't
have enough work to do. They begin their weekly meeting at noon
on Mondays by meditating.
"It's our universal experience here that much more can be
accomplished in the practice of law if we are doing it in a thoughtful
and quiet manner rather than in a frantic manner," says David
Pfalzgraf, a partner at the firm.
Pfalzgraf's firm has been meditating for five years, but more
recently, many companies have started using methods such as
meditation, massage, mind-body exercises like yoga or Qigong
and other relaxation techniques to soothe the frazzled nerves of its
workers.
And outside of the workplace, some communities and schools are
trying to alleviate mounting stress and tension with new programs.
This November, residents of Denver will vote on a controversial
initiative that would allow the city to provide stress-relieving
activities such as group meditation to alleviate society-wide stress.
Blamed for everything from physical illness to psychological
problems, depression and growing health-care costs, stress has
been a growing problem for decades. Now more organizations are
turning to alternatives to try to get people to relax — and save
money at the same time.
Rising Cost of Stress
Job stress is estimated to cost American industry alone $300
billion a year from factors like absenteeism and job turnover,
according to the American Institute of Stress, a Yonkers,
N.Y.-based nonprofit organization that serves as a clearinghouse
for information on stress.
More than half of the 550 million working days lost annually in the
United States from absenteeism are stress-related, according to
the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. Unanticipated
absenteeism is estimated to cost American companies $602 a
worker per year, and health-care costs are nearly 50 percent higher
for workers who report high stress levels, according to surveys
cited by the AIS.
These daunting statistics have made many employers take notice.
"It wasn't until the cost of health insurance premiums got high that
the pressure got on them," says Dr. Bruce Rabin, medical director
of the Healthy Lifestyles Program for the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center. The program develops innovative approaches to
wellness and disease management.
Jeff Peckman, the author of Denver's upcoming "Safety Through
Peace" initiative, says his program could save the city millions of
dollars a year by reducing the amount of crime, drug abuse and
traffic in the city. Peckman's plan does not propose any specific
methods for reducing the city's stress level, but he has mentioned
group meditation and offering healthier food in the city's schools as
possible techniques.
"It has to work and it has to save the city money," Peckman says of
the potential stress-reduction methods.
Meditating for Nonviolence
While skeptics are dubious, proponents of stress reduction hail the
transformative power of techniques like transcendental meditation,
yoga and other relaxation techniques.
One study showed that the levels of homicides, rapes and assaults
dropped 23 percent in Washington, D.C., during an almost
eight-week project in which about 4,000 people gathered to do
transcendental meditation in different locations around the city.
"The phenomenon is amplified when people meditate in groups,"
says physics professor John Hagelin, director of the Institute of
Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Maharishi University
School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. Hagelin, a regular
transcendental meditator, co-authored the study.
Many companies do not track the cost benefits of their stress-relief
programs because they are so new and the savings are difficult to
quantify objectively. But those that do offer the programs say their
workers appreciate the offerings.
Wilmington, Del.-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca
began offering Qigong, a Chinese exercise that combines
movement and meditation, to its workers in its fitness center in the
spring. The company also offers Qigong sessions as a way to
open or close meetings or in lieu of a coffee break.
"They want to incorporate it [into meetings] to help refresh people,"
says AstraZeneca spokeswoman Lorraine Ryan.
So that it can better retain its nurses, two of the University Hospitals
of Cleveland have been offering 15-minute breaks to nurses for
aromatherapy, music therapy and Reiki massage, a form of
massage that is said to increase a person's energy. The hospital,
which began offering the massage breaks eight months ago, is
currently studying the impact the program has had on retaining
nurses.
"It's been very well-received by the staff," says Ron Dziedzicki, the
hospital's chief nursing officer. "They told me they'd be very upset
with us if we got rid of the program."
No Panaceas
Despite the rejuvenating effects of these techniques, not everyone
is a believer.
Even health-care experts who praise the benefits of transcendental
meditation say the technique is difficult to learn and is not for
everybody since it requires people to sit still to try to clear their
minds.
"It's wonderful if it works," says Rabin, of the Healthy Lifestyles
Program in Pittsburgh. "But it's not the answer because very few
people are able to do it."
Many proponents say most people should choose which kind of
stress reduction technique they want to participate in, since what is
relaxing to one person could be excruciating to another.
"The program has to be tailor-made to the audience you're
targeting," says Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute
of Stress and professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York
Medical College. "There is no stress reduction technique that is a
panacea."
For his part, Peckman says his proposal for the city of Denver
would not force anyone to participate in anything they didn't want to
do, and any stress-relieving technique offered would be purely
optional.
Many "are wrongly thinking that somehow the government is going
to become their personal stress manager," says Peckman.
Still, not everyone is a fan. Denver City Council member Charlie
Brown, who opposes the initiative, describes Peckman's proposal
as "horrible public policy."
"We've got budget issues like every major city in this country," says
Brown. "We've got unemployed people. If you want to reduce
stress, you got to find these people work."
--- Jeff Peckman
--- biglions@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.
on a proposal this fall that
would seek to reduce
stress in the city through
techniques like meditation.
(PhotoDisc)
Stress Busters
Companies and Communities Try New
Ways to Deal With Growing Stress
By Catherine Valenti
Sept. 15— At one law firm in Buffalo,
N.Y., Mondays are a time for peace
and quiet, reflection and relaxation.
But it's not because the lawyers at Renda, Pares & Pfalzgraf don't
have enough work to do. They begin their weekly meeting at noon
on Mondays by meditating.
"It's our universal experience here that much more can be
accomplished in the practice of law if we are doing it in a thoughtful
and quiet manner rather than in a frantic manner," says David
Pfalzgraf, a partner at the firm.
Pfalzgraf's firm has been meditating for five years, but more
recently, many companies have started using methods such as
meditation, massage, mind-body exercises like yoga or Qigong
and other relaxation techniques to soothe the frazzled nerves of its
workers.
And outside of the workplace, some communities and schools are
trying to alleviate mounting stress and tension with new programs.
This November, residents of Denver will vote on a controversial
initiative that would allow the city to provide stress-relieving
activities such as group meditation to alleviate society-wide stress.
Blamed for everything from physical illness to psychological
problems, depression and growing health-care costs, stress has
been a growing problem for decades. Now more organizations are
turning to alternatives to try to get people to relax — and save
money at the same time.
Rising Cost of Stress
Job stress is estimated to cost American industry alone $300
billion a year from factors like absenteeism and job turnover,
according to the American Institute of Stress, a Yonkers,
N.Y.-based nonprofit organization that serves as a clearinghouse
for information on stress.
More than half of the 550 million working days lost annually in the
United States from absenteeism are stress-related, according to
the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. Unanticipated
absenteeism is estimated to cost American companies $602 a
worker per year, and health-care costs are nearly 50 percent higher
for workers who report high stress levels, according to surveys
cited by the AIS.
These daunting statistics have made many employers take notice.
"It wasn't until the cost of health insurance premiums got high that
the pressure got on them," says Dr. Bruce Rabin, medical director
of the Healthy Lifestyles Program for the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center. The program develops innovative approaches to
wellness and disease management.
Jeff Peckman, the author of Denver's upcoming "Safety Through
Peace" initiative, says his program could save the city millions of
dollars a year by reducing the amount of crime, drug abuse and
traffic in the city. Peckman's plan does not propose any specific
methods for reducing the city's stress level, but he has mentioned
group meditation and offering healthier food in the city's schools as
possible techniques.
"It has to work and it has to save the city money," Peckman says of
the potential stress-reduction methods.
Meditating for Nonviolence
While skeptics are dubious, proponents of stress reduction hail the
transformative power of techniques like transcendental meditation,
yoga and other relaxation techniques.
One study showed that the levels of homicides, rapes and assaults
dropped 23 percent in Washington, D.C., during an almost
eight-week project in which about 4,000 people gathered to do
transcendental meditation in different locations around the city.
"The phenomenon is amplified when people meditate in groups,"
says physics professor John Hagelin, director of the Institute of
Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Maharishi University
School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. Hagelin, a regular
transcendental meditator, co-authored the study.
Many companies do not track the cost benefits of their stress-relief
programs because they are so new and the savings are difficult to
quantify objectively. But those that do offer the programs say their
workers appreciate the offerings.
Wilmington, Del.-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca
began offering Qigong, a Chinese exercise that combines
movement and meditation, to its workers in its fitness center in the
spring. The company also offers Qigong sessions as a way to
open or close meetings or in lieu of a coffee break.
"They want to incorporate it [into meetings] to help refresh people,"
says AstraZeneca spokeswoman Lorraine Ryan.
So that it can better retain its nurses, two of the University Hospitals
of Cleveland have been offering 15-minute breaks to nurses for
aromatherapy, music therapy and Reiki massage, a form of
massage that is said to increase a person's energy. The hospital,
which began offering the massage breaks eight months ago, is
currently studying the impact the program has had on retaining
nurses.
"It's been very well-received by the staff," says Ron Dziedzicki, the
hospital's chief nursing officer. "They told me they'd be very upset
with us if we got rid of the program."
No Panaceas
Despite the rejuvenating effects of these techniques, not everyone
is a believer.
Even health-care experts who praise the benefits of transcendental
meditation say the technique is difficult to learn and is not for
everybody since it requires people to sit still to try to clear their
minds.
"It's wonderful if it works," says Rabin, of the Healthy Lifestyles
Program in Pittsburgh. "But it's not the answer because very few
people are able to do it."
Many proponents say most people should choose which kind of
stress reduction technique they want to participate in, since what is
relaxing to one person could be excruciating to another.
"The program has to be tailor-made to the audience you're
targeting," says Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute
of Stress and professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York
Medical College. "There is no stress reduction technique that is a
panacea."
For his part, Peckman says his proposal for the city of Denver
would not force anyone to participate in anything they didn't want to
do, and any stress-relieving technique offered would be purely
optional.
Many "are wrongly thinking that somehow the government is going
to become their personal stress manager," says Peckman.
Still, not everyone is a fan. Denver City Council member Charlie
Brown, who opposes the initiative, describes Peckman's proposal
as "horrible public policy."
"We've got budget issues like every major city in this country," says
Brown. "We've got unemployed people. If you want to reduce
stress, you got to find these people work."
--- Jeff Peckman
--- biglions@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.
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