This easy to read but very inspirational book from the uber-artsy directory David Lynch would make you want to meditate every day. In it, David Lynch describes his creative process and how Transcendental Meditation helped him expand his consciousness to catch those big ideas. This book can be read in one sitting, but the peaceful, happy, passionate, and compassionate tone of the writing would stay with you long after you’ve put it down.

For 2007 the first book I finished is called CATCHING THE BIG FISH Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch. Yes, that David Lynch! Three-time Oscar-nominated director David Lynch is among the leading filmmakers of our era. From the early seventies to the present day, Lynch’s popular and critically acclaimed film projects, which include Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and INLAND EMPIRE, are internationally considered to have broken down the wall between art-house cinema and Hollywood moviemaking.

The book is dedicated To His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to which he paid references to throughout the book and talked about among other things, his love for Transcendental Meditation. Like wading in shallow water, the book is an easy read but it can take you to the deepest part of your psyche like in meditation. He talks about his thirty-three-year practice of the Transcendental Meditation program which has been central to his work in film, in painting and to all areas of his life. He gave the metaphor of catching the small fish in shallow waters or to dive down deeper in search of the big fish.

The chapters in the book are like precious jewels of koans or sutras, which are short and some are just a sentence short but very profound. Some chapters start with a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads and Ramayana. He talks about his experiences in meditation and how it helps him with his creativity. Instead of taking drugs he practices meditation during his formative years as a painter in art school. He never knew then he would become a filmmaker. He describes his transition into filmmaking as magical when the curtains start to open and you go into a world.

I love his answer when people asked him if meditation is so great and gives you so much bliss, why are his films so dark and there’s so much violence? A creative person doing their own thing will get criticized at one point or another. I have made this observation with Mel Gibson as a director. I realized he is making very controversial movies from different cultures and traditions and he is bound to make one faction angry or resistant to his films. After reading David Lynch’s book, I understood what every creative person is going through when they are under the public lens.

His chapter and view on suffering is another favorite of mine. He stated that it is good for the artist to understand conflict and stress because those things can give you ideas. But too much of it, you won’t be able to create. He wrote about those tortured artists who created great works but thinks that it was not the pain that made them so great but their works (paintings) were the ones that brought them whatever happiness they had as in the case of Vincent Van Gogh.

He talks about his films, his favorite directors like Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Fellini and others. And all throughout he talks about creativity and how to come up with good ideas and meditate. He talks about how stress are now hitting the younger generation and that there are all these different learning disorders that he have not heard about before. He said that if there are ten thousand new meditating students, it would affect this country. It would be like a wave of peace. He wants to propagate meditation among the kids not just for their sake and their own growth of consciousness but for all of us because we are all like lightbulbs. “Like lightbulbs, we can enjoy that brighter light of consciousness within, and also radiate it. I believe that the key to peace is in this.”

His foundation, the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, was set up to help more kids get that kind of experience. They have raised money and given it to schools all over the country for thousands and thousands of students to learn to meditate.

You can visit the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace at http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/ . The author’s proceeds from the sale of his book go to the foundation for the purpose of providing funding for in-school programs in Transcendental Meditation.