TM

How meditating in a tiny Iowa town helped me recover from war

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Supriya Venkatesan, Washington Post: At 19, I enlisted in the U.S. Army and was deployed to Iraq. I spent 15 months there — eight at the U.S. Embassy, where I supported the communications for top generals. I understand that decisions at that level are complex and layered, but for me, as an observer, some of those actions left my conscience uneasy.

To counteract my guilt, I volunteered as a medic on my sole day off at Ibn Sina Hospital, the largest combat hospital in Iraq. There I helped wounded Iraqi civilians heal or transition into the afterlife. But I still felt lost and disconnected. I was nostalgic for a young adulthood I never had. While other 20-somethings had traditional college trajectories, followed by the hallmarks of first job interviews and early career wins, I had spent six emotionally numbing years doing ruck marches, camping out on mountaintops near the demilitarized zone in South Korea and fighting someone else’s battle in Iraq.

During my deployment, a few soldiers and I were awarded a short resort stay in Kuwait. There, I had a brief but powerful experience in a meditation healing session. I wanted more. So when I returned to the United States at the end of my service, I headed to Iowa.

Forty-eight hours after being discharged from the Army, I arrived on campus at Maharishi University…

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Jerry Seinfeld credits meditation for endless energy

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Michael D’Estries, Mother Nature News: Comedian, who has practiced Transcendental Meditation for 40 years, says the technique has helped him stay balanced throughout his career.

For more than 40 years, Jerry Seinfeld has twice daily practiced Transcendental Meditation, a mantra meditation he credits with giving him endless energy and peace of mind.

“When I think about the things I love more than money, more than love, more than just about anything, I love energy,” the 60-year-old said in an interview earlier last month. “I love it and I pursue it, I want it, and I want more of it. And I think this is the reason by the way why I’m so enthusiastic about TM. Physical and mental energy to me is the greatest riches of human life. And TM is like this free account of an endless amount of it.”

Transcendental Meditation (TM), introduced in the mid-1950s by an Indian yogi, is experiencing a resurgence as people with stressful lives seek out easy-to-follow relaxation solutions. While TM is a form of mantra meditation that one generally has to learn through paid training, there are alternatives if you’re working off a smaller budget. Results usually expected from any form of meditation include lower blood pressure, greater focus and reduced anxiety.

In an interview with Bob Roth, executive director of the TM-focused David Lynch Foundation, Seinfeld detailed how he fits meditation into his daily routine.

“I’ll get up at 6 a.m. My kids get up about 6:45 a.m. And so I do the TM before anybody gets up,” he said. “And how does it feel? It doesn’t feel like anything. I don’t understand it. But here’s the difference. At 1 p.m. that day, my head does not hit the decks like it used to. That’s the difference. If I didn’t do TM that morning and I’m working, then by 1 p.m. I’m shot, and I think most people are. And now, at 1 o’clock, I’m feeling good. I just sail through the day, and then I have my second TM at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m.”

Other recognizable names who are big fans of meditation include Oprah, Jared Leto, Miranda Kerr and Paul McCartney. MNN’s own Starre Vartan is also a big believer in the practice, having practiced meditation since she was 15.

“Try out what works for you,” writes Vartan. “I find I like different kinds of meditation on different days, and as a person who doesn’t really like a regular schedule or following rules, it works for me to mix it up. The opposite might be true for you — maybe the same time, same place, same breathing sequence and mantra is how you will make meditation yours. But you’ll never know unless you try.”

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Meditation might cut risk of heart attack, stroke in blacks

Steven Reinberg, HealthDay: For black Americans suffering from heart disease, meditation might help prevent heart attacks, strokes and early death, a small new study suggests.

These benefits appear to be the results of meditation’s ability to lower blood pressure, stress and anger, all of which have been linked to increased cardiovascular risk, researchers say.

“This is a whole new physiological effect on top of conventional treatment,” said lead researcher Dr. Robert Schneider, director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention in Fairfield, Iowa. “People can prevent heart disease reoccurrence using their own mind-body connection. People have this internal self-healing ability.”

An outside …

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Levitation was one professor’s plan to cut crime. And it worked. Sort of.

Marc Abrahams, The Guardian: Prof. John Hagelin’s decision not to run against Mitt Romney and Barack Obama left this year’s US presidential race without a major candidate who is a scientist and who acknowledges – publicly – his ability to both counteract gravity and prevent crime.

Two decades ago, Hagelin and a team of fellow scientists performed a bold experiment. Their aim was to drastically reduce the amount of violent crime in Washington DC – a metropolis then noted for its high incidence of murder, rape and robbery. The Hagelin method was to systematically blanket the city with mental emanations from transcendental meditation …

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For Russell Brand, meditation puts life in perspective

Russell Brand, how do you stay so happy-go-lucky?

“I meditate often,” he told the Ministry of Gossip on Saturday. “It connects you to a source of energy that’s more powerful than the material world in which we primarily dwell. It helps you relax and unwind.”

That’s something clearly needed by the comic and actor, who has been percolating on a publicity tour for “Rock of Ages,” shooting his FX comedy show “Brand X” and navigating a media firestorm linked to his divorce from Katy Perry, whose new documentary “Part of Me” includes personal footage from their marriage.

Hardly relaxing stuff. On the other …

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Transcendental meditation studied for military use

Steve Zind, Vermont Public Radio: The military devotes a lot of money and resources to training for combat and to treating post-combat stress. Now there’s research underway at Norwich University in Northfield that uses a tool more associated with peace than warfare to prepare military men and women.

The study is looking at whether Transcendental Meditation will not only make better soldiers, but inoculate them from the psychological trauma of combat.

VPR’s Steve Zind has this story on a group of cadets that some are calling ‘Om Platoon’.

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David Lynch gives $1M to teach veterans meditation

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Academy Award-nominated director David Lynch – a longtime advocate of Transcendental Meditation – wants soldiers and veterans to experience the stress-reducing benefits of TM.

The David Lynch Foundation is giving $1 million in grants to teach the meditation technique to active-duty military personnel and veterans and their families suffering from post-traumatic stress.

The filmmaker said Friday that the grants are from the Operation Warrior Wellness division of his foundation, which funds meditation instruction for various populations, including inner-city students and jail inmates.

Recipients of Operation Warrior Wellness grants include Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Wounded Warrior Project and UCLA’s Operation Mend.

Lynch’s credits include the films “Eraserhead,” “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart,” “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive,” and the TV series “Twin Peaks.”

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Maharishi foundation: Competitor violates trademark

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Jeff Eckhoff: A nonprofit Iowa-based educational foundation tied to the calming meditation teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has injected new stress into the life of a competitor.

Maharishi Foundation USA Inc. of Fairfield this week sued the Meditation House LLC, accusing it of infringing on the foundation’s trademark covering the teaching of “Transcendental Meditation.”

Paperwork filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Des Moines accuses The Meditation House of lying in its advertising about the benefits of “Vedic Meditation.” Claims about the studied health value of those techniques are “false on their face,” according to the lawsuit, and designed to confuse the public with research done on Transcendental Meditation, which has been actively taught in the U.S. for roughly 50 years.

“The Foundation has never had an affiliation or license with The Meditation House nor, on information and belief, has anyone connected with The Meditation House ever taken an authorized course on the TM technique, let alone acquired the skills and knowledge necessary or the authorization from the Foundation required to teach it,” the lawsuit says. “The Meditation House’s belief that the parties’ respective meditation services are equivalent is based on a self-serving desire to appropriate the valuable goodwill associated with the Foundation’s brand for its own commercial gain.”

A disclaimer on themeditationhouse.com insists that the company and life coach Jules Green “expressly disclaim any association with Maharishi Foundation Ltd.,” its trademarks or its practices.

Green, a “holistic life coach” who offers workshops in San Diego, New York and Des Moines, on the website lauds the “5000-year-old tradition of Vedic Meditation” and describes how her own meditation “led her to India to study with world-renowned Vedic scholar Thom Knoles in an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas.”

Green did not immediately return a phone call to the Iowa number listed on her website.

Iowa corporation records show The Meditation House, LLC was formed in May 2010 by Jules Green Zubradt. The corporate address listed in state records belongs to an Ankeny home owned by Marilyn Green.

The Maharishi Foundation’s lawsuit accuses Green’s company of false advertising, unfair competition, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, false representation, unfair competition and unjust enrichment. Court papers seek “all profits wrongfully derived by The Meditation House” from its allegedly improper activities, as well as multiple changes in the content of the Meditation House website.

The foundation also seeks a court order requiring that Green’s company notify “each and every customer who purchased services” from The Meditation House that “there is no evidence that the technique taught by the defendant reduces the risk of heart disease or normalizes blood pressure, and there is no published scientific study that demonstrates any health benefit from the technique taught by the defendant.”

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David Lynch’s strange solo album debut

Chris Willman: Sometimes it’s hard not to think that David Lynch’s fixation on transcendental meditation isn’t a joke the filmmaker is playing on us. Is there any major artist whose entire body of work has seemed more ominous, more filled with sinister intonations, less meditative? Mantras don’t come much scarier than “fire walk with me.”

Lynch’s first solo album, “Crazy Clown Time,” doesn’t sound very Maharishi-approved, either. If you’ve ommm-ed your way to a state of higher consciousness, it’s just the record to bring yourself back down to earth, though it might overcompensate by taking you to the third or fourth rung of …

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Transcending a different type of PTSD — helping children of the night

Dr. Norman Rosenthal: Lately there has been a storm of publicity – and deservedly so – about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The public has become better educated about this potentially disabling disorder and its symptoms, such as hypervigilance, an exaggerated tendency to startle, flashbacks, nightmares and emotional numbness, to name just a few.
Mental health professionals have emphasized the need to diagnose and treat PTSD wherever it arises. In this piece, I would like to draw attention to yet another group suffering from PTSD – child victims of prostitution who, against all odds, are trying…

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