The Beatles may have flunked yoga over four decades ago but it doesn’t mean it didn’t stick with them, not for the least of whom are the late great George Harrison and the very much alive Ringo Starr, as evidenced by the latter’s recent Grammy performance of the song he co-wrote with his bandmate, “Photograph (Ringo Starr song).” Prior to the Grammys, Starr was awarded on January 20th with the Lifetime of Peace & Love Award from the David Lynch Foundation. In his acceptance speech, Starr took the chance to recognize David Lynch for helping to bring meditation to schools.
“I admire David Lynch for what he’s doing. They’re teaching meditation in school, and it’s a fact that in those schools the violence goes down. Why would you not support it? It’s a win-win-win-win situation,” said Starr who connected with the David Lynch Foundation in 2009 when he and Sir Paul McCartney, another yoga and meditation fan, performed at Lynch’s Change Begins Within benefit concert.
Of course, the famous yoga connection stems all the way back to 1968 when the Beatles visited Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, learned about Transcendental Meditation and helped popularize it in the West. Those hippies.
Noted filmmaker David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks) began the David Lynch Foundation 10 years ago with a mission to raise money and fund scholarships to bring Transcendental Meditation to at-risk youth in underserved areas, veterans with PTSD, women who are survivors of domestic violence, people who are homeless and those who are in prison.
The organization recently made news for bringing TM to San Francisco’s toughest middle and high schools, improving grade averages and graduation rates as well as improvements in social interactions and emotional balance with a program called Quiet Time – twice a day a gong sounds in the school and students stop what they’re doing, shut their eyes and clear their minds. So simple.
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