The Transcendental Meditation program is a powerful and innovative new educational tool for systematically dissolving stress and developing the inner potential of students and teachers. Transcendental Meditation has been successfully implemented in public and private schools and in after-school programs across the U.S. and around the world, with thousands of students enjoying its benefits.
Children need to feel safe in school because pressure, stress, and fear undermine learning. And when the safety of students in schools must be protected by metal detectors and armed guards, and when students in America’s most elite upper schools report worrisome levels of stress, pressure, and fatigue, it’s safe to conclude that something’s wrong. This distorted picture is made worse by the escalating incidence in both children and adolescents of depression and other stress-related disorders, which have dramatic effects on learning and social development, as well as by similar increases in the incidence of learning and attention disorders.
Published research on the Transcendental Meditation program in educational settings has shown a wide range of practical benefits for both students and teachers. Benefits for students include decreased stress and stress-related disorders, reduced substance abuse, increased intelligence, increased learning ability, improved memory, improved academic performance, and improved standardized test scores. Benefits for teachers include decreased stress and stress-related disorders, decreased anxiety, reduced substance abuse, increased creativity, improved job satisfaction, improved interpersonal relationships, and reduced health care utilization and costs.
Validation: Scientific Research and NIH Grants
During the past 30 years, more than 600 scientific research studies validating the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique have been conducted in 33 countries at 210 independent research institutions and universities, including Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA Medical School. These studies, more than 125 published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, show that the Transcendental Meditation program provides benefits for mind and body that are highly relevant to improving educational outcomes. The National Institutes of Health has granted over $21 million to researchers studying the effects of the TM technique in reducing high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease.
The David Lynch Foundation bears all TM instruction costs, TM instructor cost, and the cost of the follow-up program, which includes faculty and staff training in the proper supervision of the Quiet Time period.
DAVID LYNCH SPEAKS:
In today’s world of fear and uncertainty, every child should have one class period a day to dive within himself and experience the field of silence—bliss—the enormous reservoir of energy and intelligence that is deep within all of us. This is the way to save the coming generation.
I have been “diving within” through the Transcendental Meditation technique for over 30 years. It has changed my life, my world. I am not alone. Millions of other people of all ages, religions, and walks of life practice the technique and enjoy incredible benefits.
Someday, hopefully very soon, “diving within” as a preparation for learning and as a tool for developing the creative potential of the mind will be a standard part of every school’s curriculum. The stresses of today’s world are taking an enormous toll on our children right now. There are hundreds of schools, with thousands of students, who are eager to relieve this stress and bring out the full potential of every student by providing this Consciousness-Based education today.
Our Foundation was established to ensure that any child in America who wants to learn and practice the Transcendental Meditation program can do so. The TM program is the most thoroughly researched and widely practiced program in the world for developing the full creative potential of the brain and mind, improving health, reducing stress, and improving academic outcomes. We provide scholarships for students to learn the technique and to receive the complete follow-up program of instruction throughout their student years to ensure they receive the maximum benefits. We also provide scholarships for students who want to attend the growing number of highly successful schools, colleges, and universities founded on this Consciousness-Based approach to education.
I have had the pleasure of meeting many students who are “diving within” and experiencing Consciousness-Based education. These students are all unique individuals, very much themselves. They are amazing, self-sufficient, wide-awake, energetic, blissful, creative, powerfully intelligent and peaceful human beings. Meeting these students, for me, was the proof that Consciousness-Based education is a profoundly good thing for our schools and for our world.
Research and experience document the profound benefits to society as a whole when our children dive within. Individual peace is the unit of world peace. By offering Consciousness-Based education to the coming generation, we can promote a strong foundation for a healthy, harmonious, and peaceful world. For this, the Foundation also supports the establishment of Universities of World Peace that will train the coming generation in a new profession: that of professional peacemaker.
Thank you very much for your interest. And please remember that Consciousness-Based education is not a luxury. For our children who are growing up in a stressful, often frightening, crisis-ridden world, it is a necessity.
About David Lynch:
David Lynch, founder and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, is an award-winning director, writer, and producer. His work includes Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire.
