David Lynch, known for his unique and sometimes hard to follow movies, will present a weekend called “Explore the Frontiers of Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain” this weekend. Before the weekend begins, the Northern Star got the chance to talk with Lynch on a conference call about transcendental meditation, the focus of the seminar in Iowa.

I was making films and one of the things I liked about transcendental meditation is that you learn the technique and you’re on your own. You add it to your life and go about your business. It’s not about mood making and going door to door and telling people about it. It’s for the individual. I noticed in my life that things got better and better. And I love my meditation and I have never missed a meditation in those 32 years. I was put into a position where some people would listen if I said something, so I said something. I don’t think this world is such a great place right now. I think there is a lot of suffering a and lot of ignorance and a lot of trouble. I think there is a solution. They say this unified field; this field of pure consciousness is a field of all solution.

— When asked why it took him 31 years to become active in promoting transcendental meditation.

It’s in a different category. I love ideas, as I said. I don’t believe films should be message films. And I get ideas for many different things and if I get, what I call, a cinema idea, I fall in love with some of them and I see what cinema can do to tell this story. I say that always there’s going to be stories and stories are always going to show conflict. They’re going to show light and dark and all of in-between. There’s the story and the way the story is told and there is the beautiful language of cinema on how it can tell certain things and there is plenty of darkness in there. I say the artist or the filmmaker or whatever does not have to suffer to show suffering. That’s the secret right there. If you are really suffering, you can’t create. You can’t get the depth of the things. If you are really truly depressed, you can’t get out of bed let alone create. Transcendental meditation lifts that blanket of negativity and you can really get down to creating.

— When asked if his film work promoted peace or if it was in a different category

One thing feeds another. I may be more and more interested in random access kind of things. And if there is a field of unity, which I believe there truly is, all things are related. It’s so beautiful. And this film I’m working on now is proof all things are related because it grew out of the strangest way. It is a beautifully abstract world and they say the unified field is the field of the greatest abstraction, pure abstraction, unmanifest pure consciousness. It’s thrilling to me and it must influence things along the way.

— When asked if transcendental mediation affected his filmmaking

To me, it’s just telling people about it. It’s like you can lead a horse to water, that kind of thing. I wish I had heard about transcendental meditation sooner. I don’t know if I would have started meditating sooner, but I wish it was in the air and people knew about it. For me, it’s just letting people know about it. And then a lot times people will say, ‘Oh, that’s not for me.’ And a lot of times people say ‘My golly, this is what I’ve been waiting for.’ That bell starts ringing inside and they just have to have it.

— When asked what the primary goal of the “Explore the Frontiers of Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain” seminar

One thing feeds another. I may be more and more interested in random access kind of things. And if there is a field of unity, which I believe there truly is, all things are related. It’s so beautiful. And this film I’m working on now is proof all things are related because it grew out of the strangest way. It is a beautifully abstract world and they say the unified field is the field of the greatest abstraction, pure abstraction, unmanifest pure consciousness. It’s thrilling to me and it must influence things along the way.

— When asked if transcendental mediation affected his filmmaking

I was making films and one of the things I liked about transcendental meditation is that you learn the technique and you’re on your own. You add it to your life and go about your business. It’s not about mood making and going door to door and telling people about it. It’s for the individual. I noticed in my life that things got better and better. And I love my meditation and I have never missed a meditation in those 32 years. I was put into a position where some people would listen if I said something, so I said something. I don’t think this world is such a great place right now. I think there is a lot of suffering a and lot of ignorance and a lot of trouble. I think there is a solution. They say this unified field; this field of pure consciousness is a field of all solution.

— When asked why it took him 31 years to become active in promoting transcendental meditation.

It’s in a different category. I love ideas, as I said. I don’t believe films should be message films. And I get ideas for many different things and if I get, what I call, a cinema idea, I fall in love with some of them and I see what cinema can do to tell this story. I say that always there’s going to be stories and stories are always going to show conflict. They’re going to show light and dark and all of in-between. There’s the story and the way the story is told and there is the beautiful language of cinema on how it can tell certain things and there is plenty of darkness in there. I say the artist or the filmmaker or whatever does not have to suffer to show suffering. That’s the secret right there. If you are really suffering, you can’t create. You can’t get the depth of the things. If you are really truly depressed, you can’t get out of bed let alone create. Transcendental meditation lifts that blanket of negativity and you can really get down to creating.

— When asked if his film work promoted peace or if it was in a different category

To me, it’s just telling people about it. It’s like you can lead a horse to water, that kind of thing. I wish I had heard about transcendental meditation sooner. I don’t know if I would have started meditating sooner, but I wish it was in the air and people knew about it. For me, it’s just letting people know about it. And then a lot times people will say, ‘Oh, that’s not for me.’ And a lot of times people say ‘My golly, this is what I’ve been waiting for.’ That bell starts ringing inside and they just have to have it.

— When asked what the primary goal of the “Explore the Frontiers of Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain” seminar