#232 | From the Vault: A Chat with Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, on the Power of Transcendental Meditation
Quick SUMMARY:
In this episode of "From the Vault", host Douglas Vigliotti reshares a conversation from his previous podcast “It’s Not What It Seems" with Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation and a seasoned meditation teacher. They delve into the transformative power of Transcendental Meditation (TM), discussing its benefits for personal growth and well-being, highlighting the physiological and psychological benefits of TM, providing practical advice for integrating it into daily life, and the importance of authenticity and interconnectedness in personal development. (Original air date: 3/10/19)
Listen to the episode:
*Subscribe to The Books for Men Newsletter, a monthly round-up of every episode with full book and author info, all the best quotes, and newsletter-only book recommendations!
TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction to the Episode (00:09) - Douglas introduces the episode and discusses its relevance following David Lynch's passing and Bob Roth's work.
Bob Roth's Background (01:22) - Bob Roth's credentials as a meditation teacher and his influence on celebrities are highlighted.
Personal TM Journey (02:35) - Douglas shares his evolving experience with Transcendental Meditation and his goals for 2025.
Topics of Discussion (03:52) - An overview of the key topics to be discussed, including TM's benefits and differences from other meditation types.
Douglas's New Book (04:58) - Douglas mentions his new book "Aristotle for Novelists" and encourages listeners to connect.
Conversation with Bob Roth (05:12) - Bob expresses gratitude for the opportunity to discuss meditation and its benefits.
Bob's Meditation Experience (05:47) - Bob discusses the accessibility and benefits of his book about Transcendental Meditation.
Bob's Early Life and TM Introduction (06:27) - Bob shares his background and how he became interested in meditation during a stressful time.
Founding the David Lynch Foundation (12:37) - Bob explains the motivation behind starting the foundation to bring TM to at-risk youth.
Challenges in Starting the Foundation (14:11) - Bob discusses initial challenges in learning to run a non-profit organization.
Funding and Awareness of TM (16:39) - The need to educate donors about the benefits of TM for mental health and trauma.
Insurance Companies and TM (17:22) - Bob comments on the challenges of getting insurance companies to fund preventive measures like TM.
Importance of Mental Health (19:13) - Discussion on the significance of addressing mental health issues through TM.
Consciousness-Based Education (21:24) - Bob explains the concept of consciousness-based education and its transformative effects on students.
The physiological effects of TM (23:02) - Discusses how TM provides profound rest, lowering cortisol levels significantly compared to sleep.
TM's impact on veterans (23:32) - Highlights a study showing TM's effectiveness for veterans with PTSD, outperforming standard treatments.
Benefits in education (24:42) - Explores how TM reduces teacher burnout and improves student outcomes like graduation rates and test scores.
Understanding meditation (25:10) - Introduces the concept of meditation, differentiating between various techniques and their purposes.
Types of meditation (25:47) - Describes three basic types of meditation: focused attention, open monitoring, and self-transcending.
Focused attention meditation (28:05) - Defines focused attention meditation, emphasizing the importance of clearing the mind of disruptive thoughts.
Open monitoring meditation (26:43) - Explains open monitoring meditation, which encourages observing thoughts without attachment.
Self-transcending meditation (28:57) - Discusses transcendental meditation's unique approach, allowing the mind to settle into deeper states of consciousness.
TM's simplicity and effectiveness (32:21) - Explains how TM can yield similar benefits for beginners and experienced practitioners alike.
The benefits of TM over time (33:30) - Discusses the cumulative benefits of TM practice, highlighting its long-term positive effects.
Attractiveness of TM for busy individuals (33:58) - Explores why busy people, like celebrities, find TM appealing for maintaining focus and creativity.
TM's energizing effects (39:44) - Emphasizes the importance of morning TM sessions for sustaining energy and resilience throughout the day.
TM and coffee consumption (42:51) - Advises against drinking coffee before meditation, suggesting it be consumed afterward for better results.
Food and TM (43:27) - Recommends avoiding large meals before meditation, as digestion can hinder the practice.
Alcohol and TM (43:56) - Discusses the relationship between alcohol and meditation, advocating for mindful consumption after meditating.
Comparing TM and napping (45:33) - Explains that TM provides deeper rest than napping, highlighting its superior benefits for relaxation.
The Benefits of TM Over Power Napping (46:33) - Discusses how TM reduces stress and makes power napping unnecessary.
The Importance of Meditation Depth (47:17) - Explores the value of all meditation forms, emphasizing that every practice is beneficial.
Connecting with Bob Roth (48:12) - Bob shares how to learn more about TM and connect with him.
Bob Dylan's Influence (49:33) - Bob Roth mentions Bob Dylan as a significant influence on his work.
Advice on Authenticity (50:18) - Bob Roth reflects on the importance of aligning words with actions.
A Life Motto (50:33) - Shares a Sanskrit proverb emphasizing that the world is our family.
Impactful Reading (50:59) - Bob highlights "Science of Being and Art of Living" by Maharishi as influential.
Final Thoughts on Life (51:13) - Discusses the deeper happiness within everyone that can be accessed through TM.
Meditation Beyond Religion (53:03) - Clarifies that TM is not a religion but a physiological practice for well-being.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have another edition of From the Vault to share with you. So just to jog your memory, these are episodes that appeared on my previous podcast. It's Not What It Seems, and this is a conversation with none other than Bob Roth. I thought it was timely to share with you, given the recent passing of David Lynch and coming off of last week's episode. Bob is the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation. So he, along with David Lynch, has helped bring meditation to more than a million students in underserved schools in over 35 countries. I believe it is also to military veterans and their families who suffer from post-traumatic stress. And to women and children who are survivors of domestic violence. So this conversation centered around his 2018 book “Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation”. So we talk quite a bit about that. He is one of the most experienced and sought after meditation teachers in America.
01:22 - He's taught many names that you've heard of before people like Jerry Seinfeld, Katy Perry, Hugh Jackman, Michael J. Fox. The list just goes on and on. And as I just alluded to, we do talk a lot about meditation in this episode. It aired in 2019, March 10th, 2019. So it's almost six years old, but everything that we talk about is entirely evergreen and maybe even more important today than it was then. I was only at the early stages of my TM journey, and I will admit that it has been a lot more intermittent than I wanted it to be when I first started. That's not to say that I've given up on the practice. I have not. I just incorporate it in a little bit different way. At this point, I do a lot more breathwork and include my TM practice at the end of that breathwork. So it's really a combination of multiple forms of stillness. But I will say that one of my big things for 2025 is to strengthen that practice as a whole.
02:35 - So the relisten of this episode came at a really good time for me, I would say. And I think you're going to get a lot out of it. Some of the things that we discuss are why Bob started meditating and how he helped start the David Lynch Foundation. What is consciousness-based education. What are the different types of meditation? Why is Transcendental Meditation different? Why does someone doing TM for only a month have the same experience as someone doing it for over a year? Something that I find to be really empowering, especially for new practitioners. Also, why is Transcendental Meditation the preferred meditation for many celebrities and well-known people? And also, we talk about what's the difference between sleeping or napping and meditation. So to make it easy to find out more information about the David Lynch Foundation, Transcendental Meditation, or even Bob's book “Strength in Stillness”, all of those links will be provided in the show notes of this episode. There will not be a wrap up on this episode, so I want it to quickly just remind you of a couple things before we hop into the conversation.
03:52 - And one of them is my new book, of course, “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. If you're interested in finding out more about that, you could always visit AristotleforNovelists.com. The link for that will be in the show notes. Also, if you enjoy this episode, please remember to click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. It is the best way to get it in front of more eyeballs and ears and in return, inspire more men to read. Or as an added bonus, you could take two seconds and just rate the podcast and you'd be helping out immensely. Of course, I'd love to know what you think about this episode or any of the episodes. And in that case, there are two ways to connect with me on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It's the only social media that I have or on my website DouglasVigliotti.com. And lastly, of course, I will preemptively thank you for listening to this conversation and remind you that if you want more information on this podcast, which includes signing up for the monthly newsletter, then all you have to do is visit the website BooksforMen.org. Okay, without further ado, here is my conversation with the gracious Bob Roth.
Douglas Vigliotti 05:05
Bob Roth, welcome to the show.
Bob Roth 05:12
Wonderful to be on your show. I really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you.
Douglas Vigliotti 05:17
Well, I'm delighted to have you on the podcast. So as I told you just before we started recording here, before we jumped on, I've been doing TM now consistently for a few months, so I've definitely seen a a marked difference in a few areas of my life. So I'm very, very thrilled to to spread this message. Plus, I loved your book that came out last year and Stillness The Power of Transcendental Meditation found it to be almost as effortless a read as actually doing TM, which which is a good which is a good thing, right? It's great.
Bob Roth 05:47
Well, the thing is, is I have a short attention span myself, so as I was writing it, I figured if I was losing interest then the poor reader would be losing interest. So I tried to keep this lively and and as conversational as possible.
Douglas Vigliotti 06:01
I love that, so it's great. It's it's not just about the practice. You provide all the science behind it. You talk about some of the amazing work you're doing at the foundation, and I even love the meditative moments. They're very light hearted, but we'll get into all that stuff. I want to go back a little bit to the beginning. Right. So you've been meditating for 50 years. You were once a bright eyed 18 year old working at Swenson's ice cream shop.
Bob Roth 06:27
Oh, you did read the book.
Douglas Vigliotti 06:28
Of course I read it. So TM wasn't even a thought in your mind. And I think there's probably a lot of people who are listening who as wide as the message is starting to spread, I think there's still a lot of people that are like, you know, a little bit hairy on meditation, right? So it's not a thought in their mind. Right? So I think you even mentioned in the book you never thought you'd be here right now. I just wanted to ask you what happened.
Douglas Vigliotti 06:52
How did this all begin for you?
Bob Roth 06:54
Well, I grew up in a very politically minded family in the 1950s and 60s in the San Francisco Bay area, and I worked for Senator Bobby Kennedy when I was a high school senior. And I really wanted his message of sort of people getting together. Politics was less important as just sort of a consensus and social transformation through collective action and legislation changing legislation. So when he was assassinated, it was a very devastating blow. And I decided when I went to I went to Berkeley in 1968, UC Berkeley, and I wasn't a hippie and I wasn't a druggie, and I wasn't a crazy person. I just I wasn't wanted to go to law school and become a US senator and change the world like Senator Kennedy had been doing. So I went to college with the idea of that, and it took me about a month at Berkeley in 1968 to realize that politics was never going to heal the soul of the nation. And that's just too destructive. And I thought, okay, education, maybe.
My mother was an educator. Maybe I'll write educational curriculum. I was really concerned about the new generation of kids, particularly inner city school kids, who were going to grow up in an environment that no one really cared at all. So I thought I'd like to I'd like to write curriculum. I'd like to give these kids tools that could help them navigate a very tough political, social, economic climate world. I was going to school full time and I was working full time, and there were Army tanks parked outside my door because of the Vietnam War. And it was pretty stressful, and I didn't know what to do. And I didn't want to just I was not interested in drugs. I didn't want to have something that I took. And then when it wore off, I was back to being. I didn't want that. I wanted truth, I wanted to be able to. What was it I wanted to be able to be by myself. I one thing I really wanted to do is I wanted to be able to.
Why can't I sit for two hours and not feel lonely and not feel restless and not feel antsy? Why aren't I just comfortable in my own skin? So a friend of mine who I was working at Swenson's Ice Cream, told me about transcendental meditation, and I was skeptical but curious. Skeptical because I didn't believe in that stuff, but curious because he was such a down to earth guy. So I thought, okay, there's nothing to lose here if it can help me focus better, if it can help me be be less stressed, be more comfortable, so be it. So I decided to learn. It was taught over four consecutive days at a TM center and about an hour a day over four days. And my first meditation was so profound. Not in some woowoo spiritual way, but in a deep relaxation, deep physical. I was like, oh my God, every muscle. And one of my first thoughts after I meditated was not, oh, I'm going to get enlightened. One of my first thoughts was, oh, so this is the tool I want to teach these kids.
So that was June 28th, 1969. And now, 50 years later, I run a foundation. We brought TM for that meditation for free to a million inner city school kids.
Douglas Vigliotti 09:58
It's really amazing what you do at the foundation there. You know, you mentioned something that really rings home for me, and it's kind of like a macro concept of you say, I didn't want to take drugs. I didn't want to do something that I wasn't going to be able to maintain, like it's going to go away. And I think that that's like a really important concept for a lot of people on a bigger scale is as you introduce things into your life, are they things that you're going to be able to maintain? So I love that about TM in general, that it's maintainable. You know, there's a lot of things that will introduce into our lives that just aren't maintainable. And those things are there, like they're like a flash in the pan. So it's like always like a key question that we should be asking, or that is, can I maintain this in my life? And that's anything inside your business, inside of anything, right? Because if it's not maintainable, it's not going to have the compound effect associated with it. And if you don't have that, then it's almost like, why even do it? So I really love just that idea that that you brought to the surface there.
Bob Roth 10:59
The beautiful thing about this meditation is that it's number one, it's effortless. It's easy to learn, it's effortless. You can do it anywhere. If it was a meditation that was hard to do. You have to be in the right frame of mind, and you had to be sitting on your pillow in your bedroom, where it's perfectly quiet and there's no sunlight, and you're great. Well, most people could do that once in a blue moon. The beautiful thing about this is it is goes along with your life so you can do it in a car. If someone else is driving, you can do it in an airplane. You could do it in a park bench. I like to obviously do it in my home when I'm traveling. So it's very practical and you can do it at different. It's done twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.
But there's flexibility on the time. So yeah, and that's one thing I want to say. The other thing I wanted to say though about it, and that is once you have this is my little message. Once you have something like TM or an exercise program, that's not too impossible, then it's up to us to decide that we want to make it a part of our life too. If we have something that's flexible, then we catch it. Well, I don't stick with things. Well, stick with things, you know what I mean? It's your life and don't. Yeah. Anyway, know that that's for a later time.
Douglas Vigliotti 12:18
Yeah. No, no, totally. I want to talk about meditation. I want to talk about the practice. But I want to just rewind just for a moment and go back to. So you learned TM, you started teaching TM. We'll fast forward a little bit. You met David Lynch, who's director, filmmaker. You started the started the foundation in 2004. What I mean, what was the deciding factor on that? How did you end up?
Bob Roth 12:41
Well, it's an interesting thing because I. From 1969, when I, when I had the thought about wanting to bring this to school kids and then I became a TM teacher in 1972 I studied with. It was actually a great physicist, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who became a great meditation teacher. And I studied with him for six months, five, six months, and I became a TM teacher. I taught in San Quentin Prison in the 70s. I taught in in the Mission District in San Francisco. I also taught at Apple Computer later on, and I taught and taught at General Motors, and I taught for decades, taught TM at Ran TM centers. But always in my mind was I wanted to help these kids for whom they have no help. Politicians pay them lip service. They're just it's like a hopeless for okay, there's one success story out of a of 5,000,000 in 2005. Actually, I had become friends with David Lynch because of his meditation.
He'd been a meditator almost as long as me, and I went up to him and I said, David, I'd like to start a foundation to raise funds so we can bring the meditation to at risk young people in the country so that any child or teenager anywhere in the country who would like to be able to meditate can meditate not only for free, but it would be brought to the school and it would be done in the schools. And he said, great. So that's how we started the foundation almost 14 years ago.
Douglas Vigliotti 14:05
Yeah. That's amazing. So what was like maybe one of the biggest challenges you had in starting the Foundation.
Bob Roth 14:11
Was for me to figure out how to run a business. I had no idea. I just had this thought. It's like somebody saying, I want to. I'm in this way, you know, I want to start a business. And they know nothing about running a business. And this was even more so. I think the biggest thing was that there's something called a 501 C3 to run a non-profit.
There's legal requirements and I wasn't I. I was just a I love teaching, I wasn't a money guy. I wasn't a accountant. I wasn't any of these things. I never fundraised before. So because the desire to help these kids was so huge in me and it wasn't like some fo, I'm a good person and I want to save the world. Sort of. It was just this deep passion like, this is my like, some people have a life mission that they want to be an athlete or a musician. This was just education and kids. This was my thing. And so I think learning how to run a foundation and then learning how to build it up. And now we're you're in 35 countries. So I think that's the biggest thing.
Douglas Vigliotti 15:10
No no, no, it's amazing. And all the listeners know that I'm bullish on on this one idea. It's invest in stupidity now for wisdom later. It's just do it. Embrace your naivete and just and just go for it.
Bob Roth 15:21
Wise wise thing. The other thing that was an obstacle in the beginning days was the whole idea of, okay, so we're raising money because we want to bring. We want to be able to pay young people in their 20s and 30s. We're specially trained as TM teachers to go into the schools in the Bronx or go in the schools of South Side of Chicago or East LA or South San Francisco, and teach kids to meditate and be there day after day after day and help them with their meditation and sort of become a big brother, big sister while they're in the school. So there was that. And then you have to talk to a donor and they're saying, yeah, well, meditation, that's fine, but I'd rather buy books or I'd rather, you know, hire more school teachers, all legitimate responses. But we had to make the argument the case that actually trauma, a child's trauma and toxic stress levels were fueling drug abuse and fueling dropout rates and fueling suicidal tendencies and fueling all those things, and that this was a very real problem and that the medical intervention to address that problem was not going to be some Ritalin or Valium, but it could it could be something as simple as TM.
And so I think we had to spend a few years hosting medical conferences and research seminars to get people up to speed. But now I think there's a recognition that mental health is a very serious issue, and that TM is a very effective antidote.
Douglas Vigliotti 16:54
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine the uptake has been significantly better just based on the amount of research that is backing TM now. You're pretty clear about that in the book. And it's something that when I was learning, even though it was something that was was taught, you know, to me in some regard. So the interesting thing about that too, is, is that battle kind of still going on with, with insurance companies, like trying to get them to understand how important this is.
Bob Roth 17:22
The thing about insurance companies that I've discovered is they have a big problem. Funding prevention because it's much easier than for them to fund. This is just a little sidebar thing for them too. All right. Person has high blood pressure.
Douglas Vigliotti 17:37
That's fine. Sidebar. Let's go.
Bob Roth 17:39
That's high blood pressure. You take this medication, the blood pressure goes down. Now, a person doesn't have high blood pressure, but you want to prevent them from having you ever have high blood pressure and then having a heart attack or something. So here's here's a mechanism to prevent it. Well, they didn't have it before. They don't have it now. What's the deal? How do you know if they're doing it? How do you how do you know if it works? Well, the thing about transcendental meditation is it's equally effective as a healing mechanism for people who have high blood pressure as it is to as a preventive tool. So insurance companies are very slow to move. I have to say they're largely in the pockets of a lot of pharmaceutical industries. Oh, just a fact.
Douglas Vigliotti 18:19
No, no, it's a fact.
Bob Roth 18:20
So the idea of them funding this is a little bit off of their beaten path, but they're going to be driven to do it because the other medical model isn't working. I have nothing. I'm not against medication. There are people who have bipolar disorder. There are people who have depression for whom medication is saving their lives. And when they add TM to it, what they find is over time their doctor takes them, starts to wean them off of the medication because they're healing from within. That is the best case scenario. So I'm not saying don't have medication, but that's not a long term. Oh good. I get to take Ambien for insomnia for the rest of my life. I get to take Prozac for depression for the rest of my life. After a while, it stops working anyway. It's incredibly costly and TM works a long time and is not costly at all.
Douglas Vigliotti 19:09
Yeah, it kind of goes back to that whole maintainable thing that we started this conversation.
Bob Roth 19:13
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah
Douglas Vigliotti 19:14
It's funny. In preparation for our conversation today. I watched your interview with Ellen and she said something that was that was really. It's so true. It was. We do everything to work on from our neck down, exercise, you know, exercise. All this stuff on our neck down. Yet anything that involves from the neck, up the head. We don't put a focus on.
Bob Roth 19:35
It's a three-pound organ that runs the whole show. But the thing is, we haven't known what to do. And now, with the whole influx of meditation and meditation apps, headspace, muse, calm and then of course TM. So now there's a big flooding of the market and a lot of people are sort of getting on board because there's a lot of money to be made, but they're getting on board and starting and promising a lot of money. But there's no long term, substantive, solid, serious research to show that it works. It's just like, oh yeah, okay, here's something to do. And I think what you're going to see in the next few years is a real sorting out that the research is going to come along because the problems are real. The problem of depression is real. The problem of anxiety is real. It devastates lives. It takes lives.
And to say, well, here's this little app and this is going to make you feel better temporarily. That's not good enough. It's a false promise. I feel very confident in the in the year or two to come that there'll be a shaking out and the real strong evidence based meditation approaches, those are the ones that will win out. And I and I think you're going to see a lot of people and insurance companies bringing TM because it's the easiest thing to do. It's getting the most traction and it actually has the most substantial benefits.
Douglas Vigliotti 21:01
It's funny, before I started TM, you know, I tried some of those right calm and headspace and none of them really stuck for me. You know, I tried a lot of different. So that definitely hits home for me. And if anyone's listening out there, in case they didn't gather Bob's Foundation, David Lynch Foundation provides conscious based education for schools across the country, in the world.
Bob Roth 21:24
So in consciousness-based education just means transcendental meditation or quiet time, where the kids start and end each school day with a few minutes of meditation and it life transforming, the kids get rid of stress.
Bob Roth 21:37
Who knows how much from these inner-city school kids I know I just interrupted you.
Douglas Vigliotti 21:41
No, absolutely go for it. I might interrupt you, so don't worry about it.
Bob Roth 21:46
But they start, you know, who knows? A lot of these kids, they. I in schools were the ten year old child is the head of the household, for crying out loud. One parent is a drug addict. The other parent is absent. And who knows if they've slept? Who knows if they've eaten. So they come into school. They have to learn their fifth graders. They have to, for whatever reason, memorize the state capitals, or they're in high school and they've got to learn algebra. Are they did they sleep? Are they awake? Are they? The term is learning readiness. What do we do to prepare the student to use the computers that we've spent money for? To listen to the teachers that we've hired. And so the focus now in education is learning readiness. And so you start and end the school day with a few minutes of, of time, and you really wake up the brain. And that has a huge effect on graduation rates, test scores, kids going to college. It's a very transformational.
Douglas Vigliotti 22:46
Yeah. So that's always going to be the next question I asked you quick before we kind of tied a bow on this and moved on to the meditation piece, was, have you been able you've been able to quantify it and how has the uptake been? And then how are the results? What are some of the things that you're seeing.
Bob Roth 23:02
Well, it's an interesting thing. So first of all, the amazing thing about TM as opposed to other approaches, it's very physiological. It's not just and we'll talk about this in a minute. It's not a cognitive procedure of watching your thoughts or something. It's really giving your mind and body a profound rest. And so the data shows. For example, there's a hormone called cortisol, which is your stress hormone. When you're anxious, your adrenal glands would sit on top of your kidneys, pump out cortisol. That makes you feel more anxious. So you produce more cortisol and more anxious and more cortisol.
It becomes a vicious cycle. If you get a good night's sleep, cortisol levels will drop 10% 20 minutes of TM, cortisol levels drop 30 to 40%. That's a huge change because 40 million Americans suffer from high levels of anxiety. So this is and 32 million Americans take anti-anxiety medication for which there is no getting off. It doesn't cure anything. It just suppresses the the anxiety. Again, take it if you have no other choice. But there are other choices reduced high blood pressure, improved academic. All the things I was saying. But I think two of the most recent studies that have come out, One was on veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which is just a horror, and it's a constant night living a nightmare. It's not just not you have a nightmare and you wake up an hour later and cold sweat and but it's living a nightmare. And the Department of Defense gave $2.5 million to study the effects of TM on that. And they found on TM, and they found that it was more effective than even the gold standard approaches that the veterans VA hospitals use.
So I think within a few years you're going to see it. Same with education. So you have less teacher burnout. 1 in 4 teachers quit within four years from teacher burnout. Higher graduation rates, higher test scores. All the good things lower. Just all the good things. What you'd want from healthy kids and healthy adults.
Douglas Vigliotti 25:04
I think I just love the fact that you're meditating for what's going to happen outside of the meditation, right?
Bob Roth 25:09
Exactly right. Not what's going to happen inside the meditation.
Douglas Vigliotti 25:10
And I think that was one of the big sticking points for me personally. Right. And all right, so everyone's listening to us talk about TM, hear it kind of cryptically because some probably a lot of listeners are like, what is it like? What is what is it? So let's be clear still clear. Let's we could actually break it down. How about that. We'll we'll break down transcendental and meditation, but we'll start in reverse. So we'll talk about meditation first. What is meditation and what are the different types of meditation techniques?
Bob Roth 25:47
Meditation means thinking, and according to science, there are three basic types of thinking meditation. I mean, you can have walking meditation that. But there's three basic legitimate forms of meditation. One is called focused attention, which is your classic concentration form of meditation where you're trying to clear your mind of thoughts. Thoughts are seemed to be the disruptor of calm in the mind. So if you could get rid of thoughts then you'd have a calm mind. The analogy I use is of the ocean. You have turbulent waves on the surface of the ocean. If you want a calm ocean, just go ahead and stop all the waves on the surface of the ocean. Good luck. But that's that approach. When you do that, it creates something called gamma brain waves, which are 20 to 50 cycles per second, which your brain working very fast, very hard. Second type of meditation is open monitoring. Is this okay, this kind of detail.
Douglas Vigliotti 26:42
Of course. Let's go.
Bob Roth 26:43
Open monitoring and open monitoring. There are many mindfulness techniques in this. And that's learning how to observe the waves rise and fall and not getting too excited when the right when the waves get too high and not getting too depressed. When the waves are, you know, dip down. And that teaches you to be in the present moment, just present. And that is creates something called theta brainwaves, which are 4 to 8 cycles per second, which is your when a person just when you're just trying to, you're just sitting quietly thinking about something, you're trying to figure out a problem. You just sort of thinking through something not scattered in a million different directions. That's theta brainwaves. Those are two focused. I know I'm getting abstract here. Those two, those two focused attention clear the mind of thoughts. Observe your thoughts, feelings, moods. Those are called cognitive processes. They are about thoughts, feelings and emotions. Part of cognitive behavioral therapy. They're about the wave
Your attitude towards the waves, your ability to suppress waves or focus. You know, channel waves. Transcendental meditation, completely different. The third type is called self transcending. And in this approach we hypothesized something.
Douglas Vigliotti 28:05
Really quick before you jump into that. Do you have any examples of what the focused attention like? Like, so would that be like a body scan?
Bob Roth 28:11
So very good. So you would, close your eyes and watch your breath and take ten breaths and watch yourself breathe in and hold and breathe out and breathe in and hold and breathe out. And that is something that brings you some calm in the moment. Or even more advanced mindfulness is you close your eyes and you observe your thoughts. So now you watch, a thought comes and I'm going to put it in context. Focused attention is I'm having a thought about Joe, the thought. And so I want to push out the thought about Joe. That's concentration. Open monitoring or mindfulness, says the thought about Joe doesn't cause any problems if you don't know a guy named Joe. But if Joe done you wrong 20 years ago or last week. And then you have a thought about Joe. You get angry. So mindfulness teaches you to observe the thought about Joe and not live in the past, not live in the past, not worry about the future. So the thought about Joe comes up and you explore it and you acknowledge it, and you sort of put it off into a basket somewhere. So it's really a conscious thing of just sort of monitoring your thoughts, or when you're walking in a, in a park and you find yourself missing something, you know, a friend or something like that, but you're not in the moment. So then mindfulness teaches you, oh, look at the leaves. Look at the sun. Look at the clouds coming in. Be where you are. Be in the present moment.
Douglas Vigliotti 29:48
Which sounds amazing, though.
Bob Roth 29:50
Absolutely amazing. Fine. And that is a cognitive process. No, these are fine. When we talk about different meditations, it's not saying what's better. It's different outcomes. It's like saying vitamin A is better than vitamin C. No, vitamin A is great for what vitamin A. You know, they don't compare them. They're completely different. So those but those are called cognitive processes. They are pertaining to the thought’s feelings, emotions. Now transcendental meditation in the analogy of an ocean waves on the surface. But in reality the ocean has a verticality to it. The 30-foot waves on the surface. But the ocean and reality is over a mile deep. And while the surface of the ocean may be turbulent and tsunami esque, and you're really trying to come to grips with it, the depth of the ocean, by its nature, is already silent. It's already silent. So transcendental meditation, we don't fight or manipulate or play around with the waves, with our thoughts. We just say you're cool and we just learn a technique. Get a mantra, as you know, and you're taught how to use it effortlessly.
It allows the active, agitated thinking mind to just settle down and experience deeper, quieter, more peaceful, more settled levels of the mind. And when you do that, access the vertical nature of your mind, this pure consciousness, your body gains a state of rest deeper than the deepest part of deep sleep. And that eliminates the buildup of stress and tension. Like I said, cortisol levels, all these things from this physical process of experiencing silence, quiet within. So it's completely different from the other approaches. And what I tell people is first meditate and then spontaneously, you're in the present moment. Spontaneously you're walking through Central Park or Golden Gate Park or whatever, And you're just you're right there enjoying life spontaneously. You're able to focus your mind when something is important. So these are all wonderful qualities. It's just that I think they come about spontaneously from a healthy mind.
Douglas Vigliotti 32:10
Why is it that someone that's doing TM for only a short period of time, call it a month, could have the same results as someone doing it for a year or two years?
Bob Roth 32:21
They have the same experience in meditation. The ability to transcend. The ability to dive within, the ability to to go from that heated level of the mind to that calmer level of the mind. You know how we have we say, oh, that little kid is a hothead, and he's boiling over with rage. And that poor little kids body is so tense. And then we say, well, that kid is cool, calm and collected. It's a cooler. Minds will prevail, and the kid's body is, like, healthier. So Transcendental meditation just gives access to that quiet, calm. Anybody can do that, access that right from the start. It's not an acquired skill. So it shows the research of a person on the brain who's been meditating for one month or meditating for two years, very similar, where the difference is significant differences benefits in daily life. That's the person who's been meditating a month and a person who's been meditating two years. That's a huge difference. Natural to it's not a gap, you're just growing in that direction.So the benefits are very marked in activity.
Douglas Vigliotti 33:29
It's the compound effect right?
Bob Roth 33:30
Yes, yes, yes. Year after year.
Douglas Vigliotti 33:31
So the I mean, the list goes on and on. Of all the all the people that you've taught, you know, busy, demanding schedules, but people that have I mentioned Elon before, Seinfeld is in the book Oprah, Hugh Jackman or was Oprah. I don't know, Michael J. Fox, a bunch of them. Ray Dalio right. My question is these people all have really busy demanding schedules. What is it that makes TM so attractive for people that have these type of schedules?
Bob Roth 33:58
Any one of us these days? Life is not just a physical game. It's not just, okay, I got to get I got to relax. We need to have a sharp mind. We have I mean, this interview is is excellent interview. And that's because you're focused and you're following and you're not distracted. And I have a feeling when I'm answering questions, you're actually listening to what I'm saying. Sometimes you do interviews and the guy's just reading what his next question is waiting for me to stop. So if you're in computers, if you're in anything, you have to have a sharp mind. And we have to be perpetual learners, and we need to be more creative and more innovative to solve problems. And the fact is, the data is very clear that not only does TM give you that deep rest that releases the buildup of stress and tension, but it actually wakes up the different centers in the brain. It wakes up the what's called the CEO of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. Executive functioning. It wakes up the imagination network in the brain. It calms the amygdala, which is the overreacting part of the brain. So these people do it because to get to where they are and to stay where they are requires healthy, focused, clear thinking. And Ray Dalio famously says there's 1440 minutes in a day. If he doesn't have 40 minutes to take care of his brain and his, you know, health, he's got his priorities wrong.
So and he said it's the best investment. You meditate for 20 minutes first thing in the morning. Your next ten hours are great. You meditate for 20 minutes at four in the afternoon. You have a wonderful evening. And you sleep better at night. How could he not do it?
Douglas Vigliotti 35:35
I can attest to it. I really. You know, I think the the two biggest improvements that I've seen personally are both with my creativity and communication, especially communication in in times when I would typically be agitated. I would get really annoyed with how this person is handling this situation, and it would cause me to be a little more stern or a little more aggressive with my tone back. And I've noticed since I've been meditating that that has that has definitely I've lost that edge a little bit. Now, I don't know what the correlation is, but I've noticed it for sure. So there's three adjectives that describe the TM practice, and I think that they'll kind of help us tie a bow on TM as a practice. Simple, natural and effortless. So what makes it simple? I think we already alluded to this a little bit, but what makes TM simple?
Bob Roth 36:26
Well, I will answer those simple, natural and effortless, if I may, with an example of why TM actually works. So then I'll do that as a background and then address those. The question is how do you get from that surface choppy waves to that quiet depth. How do we get there in time, particularly simply, naturally and effortlessly. How do we do that? And I use two examples that have nothing to do with TM. And then I'll tie it back. One is you're sitting in a room and you're doing some mindless, you got to do some numbers, so you got to balance some account or something and you're just driving. It's boring as hell. It's got to be done. But it's boring in the other room. Maybe the most incredible music you've ever heard in your life fills the air. Where does your attention get drawn to? I mean, it's the music.
Or you go on a vacation and you bring two books, and one book is just not readable in a million years. And the other book is, like, fantastic. Hours go by. It's so great. So what are those expressions of that? Your mind being drawn to the music, your mind being drawn into the book. The nature of your mind, the nature of the mind, given the opportunity, will be to be drawn to something more satisfying just by its nature. You don't. The nature of water is too wet. Water doesn't wait a half a second and then wet. It just wet. The nature of the mind, given the opportunity, will be drawn to something more satisfying, and inside is completely satisfying. So in TM, we learn how to do one thing set up the conditions, give the attention of the mind in the inward direction, like teaching a child how to dive. You say take this, just bend over. Lean over. Like this. Take the correct angle and then nature let go.
Then nature takes over. And so we set up the conditions, which is very simple. You have a mantra which is a word or a sound in TM that has no meaning. A couple of syllables. Very nice sound comes from a 5000 year old tradition, and a teacher will select a proper sound for you, and then teach you how to set up the conditions so that simply and naturally and effortlessly. Your mind settles down. I'll give you one. You dive deep in meditation. I'll give you one more example. You're on the 30th floor of a building. You're gripping a tennis ball. You want the ten? There's nobody below you. You want the tennis ball to be on the ground. You have to do only one thing. Loosen the grip and then nature takes over. The ball falls. You do nothing else other than loosen the grip. Same way. We're up here. All the thoughts tense. All this stuff. And then we learn how to set up the conditions. As if. Loosen the grip. And by its own nature, the mind is just gently, gently, gently drawn inward. And for that we use a mantra. And how to use it properly.
Douglas Vigliotti 39:32
There's a couple things that I wanted to ask you. How they affect TM. One of the things that you address a little bit in the book, but there are, you know, things that definitely are addressed when you're learning time of day. How does time of day affect TM?
Bob Roth 39:44
Traditionally, it's always done. It's done first thing in the morning. Not because you have to get rid of stress because you've just slept. Hopefully you've gotten rid of the stress. But you do it first thing in the morning and it's really a preparation for the day. It really gives you the energy to go through the day. And it's not peaks and valleys and you need to have 12 cups of coffee. It's like a sustain, like more of a laser focus. The more energy, you're more resilient. So when stress is come at you that you're not knocked over by it.
And you don't, you don't absorb it and it doesn't knock you over, you're just resilient. So it gives you the energy. It also wakes up the brain when you've been asleep. Your sleep brainwaves are delta, which is like half a cycle per second to four. Very slow, like beating a drum very slowly. That's why people need coffee to get going. But they really don't want coffee. You do it, you meditate first thing and it wakes up the brain in the best way. With this alpha one. With his calm and alert. So that's why you do it in the morning. Then you do it again in the afternoon. Not before bed. Because it's restful, but energizing if you keep you awake. But you do it ideally before dinner sometime. That gets rid of the stress of the day. And almost in a way, gives you a fresh start for the second part of your day. So now you're home with your family, or you have studies to do for school. And then you sleep much better at night.
So it's done as a preparation in the beginning of the day and as a rejuvenation at the end of the day.
Douglas Vigliotti 41:15
I love it. And, you know, it's funny in the book that Seinfeld has a funny quote in there. He says, I laughed because I feel like there's like an element of truth that a lot of people would think when he says, I stopped doing my morning meditation pretty early because I didn't understand the value of getting out of bed and then resting. I had trouble with that concept. Get out of bed now. Meditate and rest some more. And then he goes on and says, obviously, that he started doing it two times a day. And but I just thought it was funny because I meditate first thing in the morning. Right. And, you know, I have a very like tight morning routine. And so when I was first, when I very first started, I was like, how am I going to fit this in? And so then I do it first thing in the morning. And I thought that I'm like, so I get out of bed, I'm getting out of bed, and then I'm sitting in my, you know, I, I wash my face off and then I sit in my chair and I meditate. But it's it makes sense when you say it right. It's different. Brain waves are different things going on inside the brain. And I don't really have any issue with it now, but I just thought it was it was funny.
Bob Roth 42:14
If we think of TM only as a as a relaxation technique, that's going to sort of get rid of stress, then you think, well, I don't need to do that. But if you think of it as a way of sharpening the mind, giving you energy, giving you focus, more resilience than, than absolutely. But Jerry, in the in that talk, he's very funny because he says, you know, look at your bed When you just got out of bed, you look at it. You said you didn't. There's a war in there. You know you didn't. You didn't just. That wasn't just sleeping. You didn't rest. You just stopped.
Douglas Vigliotti 42:45
That's funny. So there's a couple other things I wanted to ask you about with the how it affects TM coffee.
Bob Roth 42:52
I would say just say, have your coffee after you meditate, not before. Coffee is a stimulant. And I think what happens when people learn to meditate is they they drink coffee because they enjoy the taste, but they don't do it as a self-medication. That's what we don't want to do. We don't want to drink wine for a self-medication. We don't want to. We don't want to do that as a we do medicate ourselves, we meditate. And then you enjoy your wine in the evening because you love the flavor, the taste or how it makes you feel, but you're not doing it because you're stressed. So it's fine just just at the proper time and food.
Douglas Vigliotti 43:26
How about food?
Bob Roth 43:27
You don't want to eat a big meal right before you meditate, because when you digest food, it raises your metabolic rate. I remember when I first learned to meditate, as in that 18 year old kid at the University of California at Berkeley. I had a giant burrito and then tried to meditate. And Doug, that didn't really work all that well.
Douglas Vigliotti 43:46
I think there's one that the listeners might be wondering about, so you kind of already mentioned it, but might as well hammer it home. Alcohol. What is the policy with meditating and alcohol? Is there a policy?
Bob Roth 43:56
No, there's no policy. The fact of the matter is what alcohol does. There's a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex or the or the frontal lobes. It's also called the CEO of the brain. It's the size of your fist and it's right behind your forehead. And this is the executive functioning. This is decision making, which is a subtle, you know, to make decisions requires a subtle intellect to really weigh all things. It's planning so that the ability to to look into the future and know what you want to get to that point in three months, that means I what I need to be doing today and it's judgment.
Should I do this or should I do that for my life? Well, alcohol shuts down the prefrontal cortex. That's why it impairs judgment. That's why you can't drink and drive. You've you've lost judgment. People drink when they need to self-medicate because it helps shut down all the thinking, the incessant thinking. It gives them a moment over, I should say, over. Drinking gives them this, you know, this. This shuts down the incessant drinking. But the long term effects is is it makes us afterwards much more vulnerable to stress in the first place. So it's no solution. And I think fine, meditate first and then enjoy your alcohol. Enjoy the drink. But don't do it because you're just stressed out of your mind. Do it because it's a nice social thing to do and or don't do it if you don't want to do it, but at least you have the you have the choice whether you want to or not.
Douglas Vigliotti 45:26
Yeah. No, totally. Is there any research that's been done comparing TM versus napping?
Bob Roth 45:33
No, except this is what they know about napping in sleep. So it takes five and a half or six hours for your metabolic rate to drop about 8%. And that's, you know, deep state of rest. And then the last the last hour or so of sleep, you're coming out. And so it takes a while to get into what's called a stage three or stage four. Sleep deep rest. And when you go into sleep, as I said, it's delta brainwaves, which are half a cycle per second to four cycles. When you nap or so-called power nap, it's just a variation on that theme. You're not as deep as deep sleep, but it's something a lot of people wake up from napping feeling groggy and achy. When you do TM and your mind settles down, your body gains a state of rest in many regards, twice as deep as the deepest part of deep sleep. It well. It takes eight, five and a half or six hours for your oxygen consumption, just like fuel. You know, that's what you need to run the body.
And so if you're if your body is less stressed and more restful, then you don't need as much oxygen. So in a way, it's almost has nothing to do with power napping and people who power nap and then do TM say they don't need to power nap anymore because it's much more efficient.
Douglas Vigliotti 46:49
I was a power napper. That's why I ask. Yeah, it's, it's definitely a difference in coming out in my experience. So when I come out of the nap, I need some time. You know, I do, you know, 20-minute nap. I needed some time to kind of re acclimate. And it's not that you don't with doing TM, but it's just a different feel. I can definitely agree with that. I think one of the, the great quotes from from the book, it's a Maharishi quote: “Even in a shallow dive, you still get wet.” Which was a thought I really liked.
Bob Roth 47:17
Oh, isn't it great?
Douglas Vigliotti 47:18
I thought so. Yeah.
Bob Roth 00:47:19
People ask, they say, well, they asked Maharishi. They said, well, you know, some meditations seem deeper and some meditations, but a lot of meditations could be on the surface. Are deeper ones better? And he said, no, no, they're all every meditation is good. And the guy said, well, how is that possible? And he said, well, even in a shallow dive we get wet. And as you said at the beginning of the show so beautifully, we're not meditating for the sake of meditation, not meditating to get six feet under rather than three feet under. We're meditating to get wet. So we're refreshed when we get out of the pool and we have a good day. So it really doesn't. This is not a competition. This is not a competition.
Douglas Vigliotti 47:55
I love that. Okay, we're getting towards the end here. You know, before we do the the rapid fire questions, always give the guest yourself today. What's the best place for people to connect with you. Do you have a final ask maybe how people can can first engage with TM? It's your time. What do you want to tell the audience?
Bob Roth 48:13
First of all, you're a wonderful interviewer and a very kind and gracious soul. That's one thing I'd like to say. The second thing I'd like to say is that if you're interested in knowing more about Transcendental Meditation or TM as it's called. Go to TM.org. It's a website that just and you can find out about local TM centers. It's a non-profit educational organization and you can find out what all the requirements are to learn. So that's number one if you want to know more about the work we're doing with the David Lynch Foundation and at risk, under-resourced populations, go to David Lynch Foundation, DavidLynchFoundation.Org. And if you have a question for me, I'm going to give you my personal real live email address. And it's Bob (at) David Lynch Foundation (dot) org.
Douglas Vigliotti 48:59
Wow. Look at that.
Bob Roth 49:00
So just send it. Just do it.
Douglas Vigliotti 49:02
I love it. That's very gracious. And thank you for those kind words. I appreciate it very, very much.
Bob Roth 49:07
Well, I mean them very, very much.
Douglas Vigliotti 49:09
That's tremendous. I really can't thank you enough. With that being said, are you ready for the rapid fire?
Bob Roth 49:14
I'm ready for the fire. So a two-hour answer for each question.
Douglas Vigliotti 49:18
Well, if you need a little time, you can, you know, sometimes I, sometimes I say rapid fire and then I'm like, then we go off on a little bit of a tangent, but we'll get through it first one. What's one musician or band that's influenced you or your work?
Bob Roth 49:33
Bob Dylan.
Douglas Vigliotti 49:35
Oh, that's a great one. I love Bob Dylan, too. Any particular song?
Bob Roth 49:39
I like “One Too Many Mornings”. I like “Shelter from the Storm”. From “Blood on the Tracks”. I really like love songs, though. Of course, there's so many, you know?
Douglas Vigliotti 49:50
Yeah, so many.
Bob Roth 49:53
“Don't Think Twice, It's Alright”. But those two. “One Too Many Mornings” is just a lovely song. And both love songs. Beautiful.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:00
Yeah, I love it. So another one on Blood on the Tracks that I love is, “If You See Her Say Hello”. I love that song.
Bob Roth 50:05
Oh my God, isn’t it? I could start singing them all, but then all your get a headache, so I'm not going to.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:12
That's all right. What's one piece of advice you wish you'd never hear someone give again?
Bob Roth 50:18
It depends what age it is. But do what I say, not what I do.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:23
Yeah. No. Totally.
Bob Roth 50:24
People should only say what they do.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:26
Synchrony, right?
Bob Roth 50:27
You can't do what you say. Then don't say it.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:28
I love that, I love that. What's one quarter motto you live your life by?
Bob Roth 00:50:33
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The world is my family.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:36
Oh, that's a great one. I've never heard that before.
Bob Roth 50:39
It's a Sanskrit, ancient Sanskrit proverb. The world is my family. And a parent is only as happy as his or her unhappiest child. And if the world is our family, then we have to work to make everyone in the world happier.
Douglas Vigliotti 50:53
I love that. It's very admirable. What's one book that's impacted the way you think?
Bob Roth 50:59
“Science of Being and the Art of Living” by Maharishi.
Douglas Vigliotti 51:02
Wonderful. I will have that linked up in the show notes and nobody leaves the show without answering this one question. Are you ready for the final question?
Bob Roth 51:12
Yeah.
Douglas Vigliotti 51:13
Drum roll. What's one thing you want to tell the world? it's not what it seems.
Bob Roth 51:20
Life is not ultimately suffering. Life is not ultimately weakness and problems that you are not at your core, weak. Dark. Unworthy. That there is a field that lies deep within every human being. This isn't a religious statement. This isn't a wishful thinking statement. There's a level of the mind that lies deep within you and everyone, which by its nature, is a field of happiness. It's nature and. But you can't just wish for that or hope for that or read about it. It's like there's an underground reservoir of water, and it's parched earth on the surface and a drought, but you just drop a well down there and there's an abundance of water. So every human being has that within herself or himself. And we just have to go get it.
Douglas Vigliotti 52:20
You have to cultivate it, right? Yep.
Bob Roth 52:22
It's got to go get it.
Douglas Vigliotti 52:23
So that was a great, great way to end the conversation here. And you mentioned something inside of that that I just want to. We didn't mention this specifically, but it's definitely something that I want the audience to leave here knowing. And it's what meditation isn't. Right. And you mentioned religion in there. And there's people from all different types of religions and all types of backgrounds and ethnic diversities that are doing TM and that do and utilize meditation as a way to, to relieve stress and to and to live a healthier, better life. And if there's anything that you want to say on that, of course, by all means.
Bob Roth 53:03
I mean, there are you go to I mean, I'm Jewish and you can go to a, you know, synagogue and there's a service where it says, time for silent meditation.
Remember, meditation just means thinking. So there could be meditation that could be by its nature. You're thinking religious thoughts. Transcendental meditation has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. It's almost more physiological. So TM is not a religion. It's not a philosophy. There's no agenda. There's no shtick. I'm a very skeptical person by nature. I love science, I don't particularly like woo woo and that sort of stuff. I love real things. And the beautiful thing about TM is it doesn't involve any of that superficial stuff. It's it's a we're all hard wired to access our own inner core. And when we do, it has a profound creates a profound constellation of very healthy changes in the way our respiratory system functions and our cardiovascular system and our limbic system and our digestive real stuff. So, yes, I'm glad you brought that up. When you're talking about TM. We're just talking about a tool that gives access to our own inner, unbounded nature. That is not anything on a superficial level of belief or philosophy.
Douglas Vigliotti 54:22
So with that being said, Bob Roth, thank you so much and being so generous with your time. It was an absolute pleasure. I want everybody to not only go check out TM and the David Lynch Foundation, but if they have it in them, go pick up Strength and Stillness The Power of Transcendental Meditation. It's a great book, very entertaining, very easy to read. Bob Roth, thank you so much.
Bob Roth 54:46
Thank you very much, Doug. You're doing great work. Really appreciate your contribution and the time you spent with me.
Douglas Vigliotti 54:52
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Bob Roth 00:54:54
Thank you.
