The First Dive
He whose happiness is within, whose contentment is within, whose light is all within, that yogi, being one with Brahman, attains eternal freedom in divine consciousness.
-- Bhagavad-Gita

When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn't even curious. It sounded like a waste of time.

What got me interested, though, was the phrase 'true happiness lies within.' At first I thought it sounded kind of mean, because it doesn't tell you where the 'within' is, or how to get there. But still it had a ring of truth. And I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within.

Transcendental Meditation takes you to an ocean of pure consciousness, pure knowingness. But it's familiar; it's you. And right away a sense of happiness emerges -- not a goofball happiness, but a thick beauty.

I have never missed a meditation in 33 years. I meditate once in the morning and again in the afternoon, for about 20 minutes each time. Then I go about the business of my day. And I find that the joy of doing increases. Intuition increases. The pleasure of life grows. And negativity recedes.

Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit
It would be easier to roll up the entire sky into a small cloth than it would be
to obtain true happiness without knowing the Self.
-- Upanishads

When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt a sense of depression and anger.

I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, 'What's going on?' I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, 'What do you mean?' And she said, 'This anger, where did it go?' And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted.

I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom.

Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they're like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They're like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.