The movie Meditation, Creativity and Peace was shot on David Lynch’s tour of 16 countries. This movie is a collection of videos from the tour of 2006 and was compiled by his students. Moreover, the videos are of interviews, public meetings and stage shows in which David not only answers the questions asked by the audience, his fans and journalists but also elaborates his well-known ideas of meditation, peace and creativity. The movie moves at slow pace with music running in the background and one can easily configure how the videos have been used to support and explain one another.
Apropos to the three words Meditation, Creativity and peace, David talks about how one word connects and leads to the another. He describes how meditation allows one to enter a new world of infinite possibilities, a world full of pure and untouched ideas waiting for us to see them and providing every individual to achieve something in life. Interestingly, he mentions the word bliss in the part when he illustrates the fibrous roots of meditation, which relates to the idea of “following your bliss” shared by Joseph Campbell. Although meditation is considered as a simple task yet it has its own complexities and it spreads out into a number of branches.
In the documentary he was asked how he brings out ideas that support the issues of the society and to which he replies that, he does not think about the theme set by the ideas instead he just follows his thought, his bliss and stays true to it which results in a good representation of the social issues. He describes meditation as a ocean of bliss, into which when one dives he or she experiences lively silence and goes beyond the capacity of human brain and when he comes out of that ocean, the person not only itself feels the bliss but also splash some water on the other human. Moreover, he makes a bold statement that one single dive into the ocean of bliss can remove negativity and life sorrows. Interestingly, addressing his own work he describes how the mechanism of catching the fish works, how one should have the desire for ideas and how this desire would act like a bait on the hook, the deeper it would go into the ocean the better would be the chances of finding unique and desired fish or ideas. Consequently, one fish leads to another and forms a bigger and better idea.
“Let’s be quiet, we’ll get some fish”
In one of the clippings, he was asked about failures and in return he addresses failure as an incredible thing as it is surety of not loosing more and one can only go in single direction which is upwards. He further explains this by the idea of consciousness demonstrates that it boosts multiple feelings like creativity, intelligence, energy, love, power, bliss and dynamic peace. He considers consciousness as life itself and one can understand it only if it is taken out of it, he says that we exist because of consciousness. However, one can increase their conscious by transcendental meditation and this method is eternal, forever unbounded, immutable and immortal.
On the other hand, David talks about the concept of unified field and how every thing which happens in the world is controlled or is due to this one force which comprises of all the other scientific forces present in our universe. He emphasizes on making students learn about the technique of unified field as it would help them increase their consciousness thus make their path of life easier and actually give more meaning to life itself. He translates the meaning of unified field into the Vedic word ATMA which means “self”. Moreover, when one learns about itself only then he or she can fully potentialize get enlightened. On the path of enlightenment, one needs Mantras which act as key to open specific locks and help and individual rise above all the limitations of life and gain full consciousness. Here’s a quote from David on significance of Mantras
“The Mantra that Your’e given in Transcendental Meditation you keep to yourself. The reason being, true happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within.”
Furthermore, David Lynch relates the concept of religion to that of Dalai Lama and he explains how every religion has the ultimate goal of reaching enlightenment but because of interpretations and over the huge amount of time which has been passed to when the rule of religions were written, the keys to the path to enlightenment has been lost
In regards to tools and techniques which were used in the movie to make it David look like a spiritual teacher, the whole documentary was in black and white which presents a number of things about the message and theme of the video as how the video focuses on making life simpler and that is why the complexity of colours was removed. Moreover, this could be done to so as to present David as a bright light on a black background. The movie has a lot of close up shots of David and in various clippings the technique of hand held shot has been used to make the audience observe the world through David’s perspective. Moreover through the film there is a soft running track which connects and fills the gaps between the clippings.