How did you get interested in meditation?

When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. And I’d hear it, but I wasn’t even curious about it. I was not for it nor against it; I just didn’t care to know about it.

And I had these phrases coming that we all hear, that “True happiness doesn’t exist out there; true happiness lies within.” And that phrase always got me. But in that

When I listen to you talk about Transcendental Meditation, I like everything about it. But I am a devout Christian, and Transcendental Meditation comes from a tradition totally different from Christianity—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a Hindu monk. I feel I’m ready to learn TM, but I can do it only I reconcile it with my beliefs.

I was raised Presbyterian. I respect people who are religious, and I

Most of your movies are full of negativity, violence—the more shadowy things in life. And yet you promote Transcendental Meditation, which seems to give you so much bliss. How are these opposites reconciled in your mind?

There are many, many dark things flowing around in this world now, and most films reflect the world in which we live. They’re stories. Stories are always going to have conflict.

You speak a lot about spirituality, and I heard that you were raised Christian. Did the Bible ever inspire you?

Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is.

Eraserhead was growing in a certain way, and I didn’t know what it meant. I was looking for a key to unlock what these sequences were saying. Of course, I understood some of it; but I didn’t know the

It’s easy to speak about success through Transcendental Meditation when you are a successful movie director. Do you mean to say that people who practice TM never fail?

You have to learn to find balance in success and failure. Success can kill you just as failure can. And the only way to have balance in success and failure is to function on that Unified Field level. There’s your friend. You can’t