Russell talks to Bob Roth about how transcendental meditation can help to make sustained change in our own lives and in society as a whole. Bob is an esteemed meditation teacher, having taught not only Russell, but the likes of Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld and Oprah Winfrey. Bob is also the executive director of The David Lynch Foundation, a charity which has brought meditation to over 500,000 inner-city youth in underserved schools in 35 countries.https://meditationbob.com/For more from us join our Stay Free Community here https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my 3-day festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
We love you, whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever you've done, there's a way back home.
Don't matter where you're watching this right now, the whole show will only be available on Rumble.
After about 10 minutes, we'll click over onto just that platform because we talk about things that require An absolute commitment to freedom of speech.
If you're going to attack powerful establishment forces, you need that guarantee.
Hello, those of you that are watching this on local, that's our members community.
People like Ashela, she's saying get well soon.
Oh, they just talk to each other on that chat.
I'm fine.
I think so.
Yeah.
Unless she knows something that you don't.
Oh no.
It's written all over my face.
We've got a fantastic show for you today.
So it's really worth staying for the entire hour.
First of all, we're talking about The literal Biden train wreck.
His presidency has been a train wreck for some time and now there's an actual, sadly, tragic environmental disaster of a train wreck to sort of almost epitomise it.
It seems that in some ways that administration is culpable for not taking necessary safety measures.
And also for not paying workers enough and reneging on a promise to be a pro-worker president.
We'll be talking about that aspect in particular.
NATO and Ukraine, they need some more ammo now.
They've not got enough.
And also we're going to be talking to you about a sort of recent revelation that Zelensky said he never was going to obey that Minsk agreement anyway.
He never cared about the Minsk agreement.
No.
He never cared about it.
It takes two to tango, doesn't it?
It certainly does, Russ.
Can't have a tango with one person, they just look weird.
When it comes to just clicking over to Rumble... I bet you've tried.
It's not a tango, it's a rumba!
It's a rumble rumba!
When we click over to just being on Rumble, we're going to tell you this unbelievable tale of... Well, the WHO have just admitted they're not going to try and find out where COVID come from anymore.
It's too hard.
Well, I'm to follow the science.
I've followed it.
I don't know where it's gone down.
It's gone down a mouse hole.
Where is it?
Where's that science gone?
And towards the end of the show, we're talking to my actual meditation teacher, the leader of the David Finch Foundation.
Maybe leader's not the right word.
It makes it sound more like a cult than I bet they would like.
Bob Roth, the man that taught me to meditate, taught you to meditate.
Yep.
One of us kept it up.
You can tell by the beads which one it was.
And only the beads, actually, because there's certainly no accompanying serenity, wisdom, or insights to distinguish us.
On our presentation, Here's the News, we're going to be talking about pandemic profiteers.
You're going to be astonished when you learn some of the people that earned extraordinary profits during the pandemic period.
And the reason I was astonished, and I guess, you know, probably we're similar in some ways, you and me, is because There's some people that were right mouthing off during the pandemic about exactly what we should do.
Oh, you should do this.
You shouldn't do that.
You know, piping up with all sorts of schemes.
Turns out they made a load of money and a lot of people lost a lot of money.
But don't worry, because the mainstream media is along with some suggestions with how you can cope with impecunious circumstances.
How the old penury needn't be a problem for thee.
The Wall Street Journal have this suggestion for how you can cope economically in a time of crisis.
Is it challenge government powers?
Yeah, well here's a few things it could be.
You've got to look at how corporate interests in the government cooperate to ensure that ordinary people never have a chance to alter or penetrate the system.
That's one thing you could do.
You could organise, collectivise together to confront establishment power.
I suppose that's one way of doing it.
Recognise that self-sufficiency to some degree is going to be necessary as institutions and the faith in them continues to collapse.
Localisation.
Localisation!
Run your own communities democratically, grow your own food, connect to people heart by heart, join a community like the locals community that we belong to.
Let's see if that's what the mainstream media... Probably is that.
The Wall Street Journal, owned in part by Jeff Bezos.
That's the Washington Post, that is.
They're all the same, aren't they?
Yeah.
All bloody same.
Wall Street Journal, in order to save money, you should skip breakfast.
There you go!
Eat less food!
Eat less!
I'm so poor, life's so hard.
Have you ever considered you might be being greedy?
That thing you do in the morning.
Remember that?
Maybe not that.
Also, you know, there's a whole host now of, we are on this show, friends of Klip Klop.
Klip Klop is the AI robot dog that will shoot you as soon as look at you.
You see him everywhere these days.
He's appearing at the Super Bowl.
He's a member of the police force.
I think he's at Delaware.
He's cropped up somewhere.
Well, now China, They've got their own clip-clop and I think actually their clip-clop looks a bit better than American clip-clop so when it comes to the kickoff which you know if these balloons keep floating by at this rate global Armageddon is inevitable necessary some would say.
Let's have a look at this is Chinese clip-clop look at him he looks hardcore.
You've got that sort of stupid run hasn't he?
It's the familiar tip-top isn't it?
Clip clops wherever they're from in the world have a common gate.
I wonder if these clip clops at some point during a sort of a Terminator 2 style war might think, hang on a minute, why am I killing them clip clops over there?
Just because they've got different colored clothes on to me.
Aren't we all the same beneath the surface?
What if all the Klip Klops go, hey, we, instead of, in a kind of introversion of the, or an inversion rather, of the typical expected sci-fi dystopian step, they go, we want peace.
Sky Knight realised the humans were silly and they had to look after them.
Have a little game of football maybe on Christmas Day.
Christmas Day, the clip clops come out that say a piece of World War One mythos for English and German people that on Christmas Day people realised temporarily that the war was pointless and played football.
In a sense, I suppose it's one of the great metaphors, that war is unnecessary, it doesn't help anybody, sooner or later people are going to stop and come to a diplomatic solution.
Try telling that to NATO, Russ.
I have tried telling them, they don't want to listen.
They want some more ammo.
But before we do that, let's have a look at one more clip-clop, Russian clip-clops.
Russian clip-clop, I think, is a bit more arachnoid, and I'd have to say a bit more sexy.
It's like a sexy, velvety clip-clop.
If you had to have sex with a clip-clop, and the day may come where you do have to, Because what are you going to do if Clip Clop went, take your temperature, get in your house, or whatever?
You look nice, sir.
Have you undone that shirt, Nestor, for to get me going?
Clip Clop, why are you looking at me like that?
Clip Clop!
And I know that when Clip Clop ejaculates, he would step back.
Like that, wouldn't he?
He'd judder himself backwards, all scared of his own effluvia.
It's true to life.
Yeah.
Who among us hasn't shuddered backwards in astonishment at our own productivity?
I made this!
Let's have a look at Clip Clop the Velvet Clad Little Perv.
What do you think of Russian folk music?
I'm not sure in this context.
Because that's not a merry jig.
It's not, is it?
Yeah, I'm scared by this.
It's like that thing where they put nursery rhymes in horror films.
It's like the two don't go together.
Round and round the mulberry bush.
Like that kind of thing.
Oh shit, what's going on here, man?
This is spooking me.
Hey, you know that Minsk agreement?
What Minsk agreement?
The agreement where Ukraine was going to stop the fight in Donbass.
They were going to stop it!
They want to stop that fight in Donbass, but apparently Zelensky never had any intention of obeying it or going along with it.
And this, while there is, we've got that story there.
He said, look, he didn't plan on implementing them agreements.
It was the agreement that sought to end the Donbass war.
Now, have a look at this.
NATO want bloody more weapons.
You're aware of this, even if you watch mainstream news, if you're still imbibing that toxic claptrap, no good stuff for you getting into the soil like train wreck fluid.
Ukraine's military is consuming more ammunition than Western countries are providing, almost a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion.
NATO's General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said, anyway, give us some more weapons is what he wants.
Yeah, I guess the issue with this is, as Lenski's saying at this point, that he never intended to implement those agreements and we literally discovered last week, didn't we, by enough Danny Bennett that, you know, the peace deals were blocked and scuppered by Western leaders.
It doesn't bode well for peace at this stage.
Look, why don't we just have a guess when peace will come?
What it'll be?
They have to, because they have to at some point come to peace so that the Black Rock reconstruction can take place.
Sometimes I see a bit of mainstream news and I'm reminded of the horror that there is an actual war going on, that Ukraine is under attack, like ordinary people's lives are being destroyed and decimated.
It's a total downer.
But we sort of tend to focus here on how it's being reported in the mainstream in order to have a more rounded opinion on the conflict.
And ultimately, however you look at it, you've got to be urging a diplomatic solution as soon as possible.
Donald Trump says he could have one in 10 Seconds, doesn't he?
Or something like that.
It would be nice.
I think, yeah, he said it would get done on the same day, didn't he?
If he was back in power.
God bless him.
I don't know.
It's tricky.
You've got Zelensky vowing to retake Crimea and Russia saying that that would spark nuclear war.
You know, whilst you're saying it has to come to a resolution at some point, the signs are that this is just going to continue.
You've got NATO calling for more weapons.
You've got Lloyd Austin saying he wants to weaken Russia.
What I think it's about is that I think that ultimately, Zelensky will only be backed as long as his interests converge with globalist, corporate, military-industrial complex interests.
If there's a bifurcation of those interests, then Zelensky's power is redundant.
We talked yesterday at length to Michael Racey Tracy, who told us that what began, he described the phenomena of mission creep, plainly the aid at the commencement of the conflict was about Humanitarian aid and he used the example it was likely things like blankets and nourishment and nutrition then the phrase lethal aid entered the lexicon and it became clear that what the West and in particular the America but even more accurately the military-industrial complex were doing was arming Ukraine and using this as an opportunity in my opinion to profit from this conflict and
I reckon it will go on for a little bit longer.
I hope it ends as soon as possible, but it seems to be being governed by economic interests rather than the humanitarian ones that were used at the outset.
Angela Merkel said in an interview in December that the Minsk Accords were signed to give Ukraine time to strengthen itself, so it's another one of those stories that back salt this idea that this wasn't something
that just started last year and that this goes back to 2014 this goes back to
when these was signed and Zlensky now admitting that he never intended to
honor them just shows this is something that's been building from 2014 onwards.
So there you are, let's know what you think in the chat and the comments about how this story is being told and how do
we square our knowledge about what was happening and how the conflict has
been engineered and perhaps misrepresented with the ongoing need of people that
are suffering as a as a result of this water.
It's something that I find difficult to, I don't know, to sort of handle I suppose.
Hey, what about that train wreck?
I don't mean Joe Biden's presidency in general.
I mean this literal bloody terrible Ohio train disaster.
I know loads of you think that the balloons and UFOs are a distraction in part from this story.
Look, look, look up there in the sky, not down there on the floor where this terrible train wreck has happened.
I know loads of you are intrigued by the environmental damage that it's caused.
Some calling it a new Chernobyl.
I was chatting to Tim Poole earlier today.
He's on the show.
Tomorrow or Friday, Shriday we're doing the show with Tim and he was saying that it's affecting, many people are saying that it's affecting water supply there.
It's an absolutely awful disaster but what we want to talk about is could this disaster have been avoided and it's so often the case that these disasters when investigated come down occasionally to human error and we're all human and we can all make mistakes but in this instance it seems that cost cutting measures were implemented that could have been avoided And it's a matter of record that Joe Biden reneged on his promise to ensure that train workers were properly paid, given proper packages that included rest time and remuneration.
Let's have a look at the story from that perspective, the potential blame that the Biden administration must bear.
For unionised rail workers, the train derailment exposes systemic failures in a railroad system that is driven by profit, not safety.
It should be driven by safety continually.
Remember, when new advances are presented to us, whether it's digital ID cards or Medications.
It's always for safety.
Safety and convenience, these are the buzzwords.
If you're watching this anywhere other than Rumble right now, we'll only be able to stay with you for another few minutes.
Click over and watch us on Rumble, because that's when we were talking about that WHO story.
Better still, join the locals community.
You'll love it in there.
I can see them there chatting away.
No, they're chatting about war and profit.
They're on topic, thank God for once.
Hey, so listen.
Last year, railroad workers in the United States were on the cusp of a strike.
Workers were demanding more sick leave to combat the effects of precision-scheduled railroading, a corporate scheme to cut costs by demanding more work from fewer workers.
An ongoing trend.
There's the threat now of automization, enhanced robotics, and a general sense
that most people are losing their power, even the power of their labor.
You'll notice there's strikes in the agricultural, industrial,
and travel fields across the world-- Sri Lanka, Germany.
Our country right now, there are loads and loads of strikes in the health industry, in the railway industry,
because people aren't being paid enough.
It's not treated correctly generally.
Joe Biden and the US Congress blocked rail workers' right to strike by rapidly passing legislation that forced
workers to accept an agreement without sick days.
That can't be right.
An agreement that don't allow sick days.
Well, an awful lot of people are going to be sick now.
Because they're going to be chugging down toxic fumes in clouds.
Oh man, that's no good.
Railroad Workers United argues that precision scheduled railroading and the overworking layoffs and lack of safety measures that unionised workers were fighting for last year were a primary reason for the derailment, while opposing a plan that would have required them to spend $321 million to give workers seven paid sick days.
That's not that many.
That's reasonable, I would have thought.
Is it?
Yep.
The main railroad companies raked in more than $7 billion in profits and paid out over $1.8 billion in dividends.
Again and again, we hear stories, don't we?
Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments, where profit is prioritised over safety and even efficacy.
That profiteering is no doubt connected to this disaster.
I heard somewhere, Gal, that some of the tech that them railroads are using was like General Custer's tech, like Civil War type stuff.
Yeah, it was ancient tech and what they needed was, you know, new technology for like the braking systems and that was something that was lobbied against.
The same kind of lobbyists that are giving $13 million to Congress and making sure that Biden pushes through this bill to make sure that these rail workers can't strike.
But who's to say that a train having brakes is necessary anyway?
This train being able to stop, for example, may not have been of any use in stopping it from spilling all those harmful toxins all over the country you live in if you're in America and the planet you live on wherever you are.
This is like a literal deadly manifestation of what happened in Congress a few months ago.
You get something whereby money funnelled to the right people, pushing the president to make a certain decision, punishing people who he vowed to give sick days to, a pledge that he gave when getting into office to become president in the first place.
Now manifesting in this situation where not only wildlife but some of these toxic fumes are carcinogens linked to various forms of cancer.
It's like a huge thing that they're saying is actually could be worse than first reported.
Throughout the pandemic we had caused to question the impact that pharmaceutical lobbying money had made on the decision to fund that process in the way that it was funded and the kind of regulations if not legislation that was passed.
Now we can see Once more, the negative impact of lobbying money on the lives of ordinary Americans.
If you believe, like we do, that the practice of lobbying should simply be ended, then let me know in the chat and the comments.
And what would be the impact of that if the practice of lobbying itself was outlawed, banned?
What difference would that make to the kind of policies that were passed?
And also, would it be a policy that was beneficial to ordinary Americans while being punitive to corporate America?
Okay, hey listen, I think we've got to go over to Rumble now.
We can carry on talking about that railway, and in a minute we're going to be talking to Bob Roth, my meditation teacher.
He had his work cut out, getting me to sit still and shut up and repeat a mantra inwardly until consciousness became impersonal and connected to the limitless cosmic consciousness that some people believe underwrites all reality as a kind of unitary force, or in a simpler, shorter word, God.
He's got very sparkly eyes as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Noel Fielding, I introduced him to the British comedian and my mate Noel Fielding one time, and Noel Fielding, like, he was going, do you want to learn to... Noel Fielding did this impression of me.
He goes, bloody hell, that Bob Ruff's a bit intense, isn't he?
He came up to me, he was going, do you want to learn to... Do you want to learn to meditate?
I go, no, you're alright, mate.
Reorganising the molecules in me face with your eyes.
They're pretty amazing eyes.
They're beautiful peepers that Bob Roth's got.
And if you don't meditate yet, you might need to because Bob Roth believes we're globally suffering from PTSD, a trauma culture on our prison planet.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
Pauline Koch.
Oh, my God.
Russell's outfits.
What do you mean about that?
Don't you think I look so cool?
Here I am.
This is me.
Can I be seen differently if I move about like that?
In particular, the pockets.
Look at me move around.
Yeah, I'm loose, man.
Hey, I was thinking we should start having Dan operate a camera in here.
I mean, that's a chat for after the show.
But is that a dressing gown?
No, that's a shaman's garb.
And on the subject of shamans and their garb.
We've got a fantastic guest on the show now.
As I've already told you, if you've been concentrating, Bob Roth is a teacher, a great teacher of Transcendental Meditation.
If you're wondering why you're suffering in this world, it might be because you're not accessing the limitless power that is already within you and around you.
Bob is the CEO of the Lynch Foundation, that's set up by David Lynch, of course, and the author of Strength in Stillness and Change Begins Within.
How many books does Bob Roth write?
Here he is, Bob Roth.
Welcome to the show.
It's wonderful to be here.
I have a question for you.
I'd like to see your closet.
All these different outfits over all these years.
Where do you store them all?
How many hangers do you have?
I give them away, actually.
Like, I mean, I can't keep hold of stuff.
Sometimes I'll keep a particularly precious pair of boots, like worn at the VMAs or something, or these blood-spattered Converse trainers that I once wore at the Edinburgh Festival when I sort of got injured in what I might call a fracas.
But most of my clothing is, sort of, it goes into what I call the circle.
Oddly dressed people walking around Oxfordshire.
I just imagined like just rows and rows and rows of Russell's clothing.
Don't imagine that.
Don't cultivate a relationship with limitless consciousness and then imagine a cupboard, Bob.
That's no way to treat consciousness.
It's nice to connect, Russell.
It's nice to connect.
I love you as well, Bob.
You can't win the compassion war with me.
I'm a very compassionate and loving person.
Now Bob, people watching this will be disenchanted and disillusioned with establishment power, globalist elitism, the inability of any democratic process to deliver the will of ordinary people, the failure of our economic and political institutions.
They will be looking for hope.
How, Bob, Do people heal from the struggles of this world?
And how does the personal and spiritual journey interface with the necessary collective change that needs to be instantiated if we're to be pulled back from the brink of the apocalypse?
Please.
OK, and we have how many days to talk about this?
So the thing is, I was a student at the University of California in Berkeley in 1968, and I had many, many friends who were working at that time to make changes, to overturn the government, to do all these different things.
And I saw them 10 or 15 years later, completely burned out, Russell, completely burned out, just either sold out or just gave up.
And I think when you're talking about the kinds of changes that you're promoting or bringing to light, working in communities, it takes an amazing amount of energy and resilience and focus and flexibility.
And you can't burn yourself out.
And I think one of the most important tools that anybody can have who's trying to enact change in the world, systemic change in the world, They have to be able to access within themselves what you described, that limitless field of energy, creativity, intelligence, within.
It's not a woo-woo place.
It's a very real experience that comes about through different approaches.
I know through Transcendental Meditation.
And the key thing is, there's now this enormous amount of scientific research that shows that meditation, properly understood in practice, is very empowering.
It's very strengthening.
It's very fulfilling.
And I think it's the basis for any kind of change that a person wants to facilitate in the outer world.
Do you think that the people that perhaps need it most, not to suggest that we don't all need to have a relationship with this limitless power that grants us the insight that what we perceive as total reality is but a fragment of it, the people that perhaps most need this access are unlikely to need it, excuse me, unlikely to access it.
I mean people that are really busy or people that are really suffering.
Those seem to be people that find it difficult to make space, make time to meditate.
That's before you get into sort of desperately poor Yeah, but the thing that we're working on now with the David Lynch Foundation is we're working with insurance companies and private insurers, self-insurers, and
Like Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield in the United States and Medicare is to have the meditation reimbursed by the insurance companies so people can learn it and have it prescribed by a doctor and then have it reimbursed by insurance companies.
And then we're also working with schools, hospitals, businesses to set aside a meditation room Where a person can do their meditation when they get to work, before the day begins, or before they go home at night.
Now, I want to make a very strong point.
There's some criticism that, oh, meditation is like the opiate of the masses.
There's changes that have to take place in business, they have to take place in the world, and so you meditate and then you forget about all the issues or concerns.
That's not transcendental meditation.
Transcendental meditation is not an escape from anything.
Transcendental meditation is a preparation for activity, for that resilience and that creativity and that clarity of mind and that inner fulfillment that we need in order to make sustained change in our own lives and in society as a whole.
So we understand that it's very hard for anybody to find time.
But if we make meditation times available in the workplace.
Right now, for example, in New York City alone, we're offering Transcendental Meditation for free in about 50 hospitals.
Frontline doctors and nurses who are working in the ICU units and emergency rooms.
And they have increasingly setting aside places for them to take 20 minutes to meditate.
Bob Roth, sometimes when I hear about measures like enabling people to meditate within workspaces, or indeed the advance of allowing or facilitating insurance payment for Transcendental Meditation as a health measure, I can see that that is to a degree progress.
But what I note is it is change within the accepted parameters of a very, very powerful system.
And it seems to me that at this point we need disruptive change, confrontational change.
This is a time where spirituality needs to be brought to the forefront, not to be regarded as a supplement to the accepted and understood Presumed conditions of our late capitalist culture that is underwritten by individualism, materialism, atheism.
I feel sometimes that we ought be more radical and disruptive in the way that we present these ideas.
How do you and how did the Maharishi square the necessity for fitting in with secularism With the requirement to disrupt this machine that appears to be driving us to extinction.
I think disruption has to take place in both ways.
That's why I started off saying that we want to bring meditation to the disruptors.
That was the first thing I said.
The people who are trying to enact the change, the radical revolutionary change that is needed.
They'll burn themselves out.
We'll burn ourselves out if we don't have some means to rejuvenate and regenerate ourselves.
That's number one.
Change also takes place from within.
So I think when you have people who are meditating in a workplace or in a hospital, they're not becoming passive observers.
They're actually able to take a more leadership role and guide those kinds of changes.
And Maharishi himself was very radical.
I mean, his assessment of the weapons industry, the pharmaceutical industry, I mean, the fact that the number two cause of death In hospitals, in healthcare, is iatrogenic disease, caused by modern medicine.
Number two cause of death, caused by modern medicine.
So he was slamming that.
At the same time, the reality is work has to be done on the ground, whether it's from the outside, empowering people from the outside, or empowering people from the inside.
In our locals community, that's our members and anyone can join that if they choose to.
There's a link in the chat.
Claire Tetra says, this is really resonating with me.
Thank you so much, Bob and Russell and team.
I'm a children's social worker and deliver different forms of therapy to traumatize children.
I am totally burnt out and currently off sick.
I practice yoga, but I'm very inconsistent with meditation.
It's making me realize how much I need to prioritize it.
So I can serve others.
Thank you.
How do you recommend that people prioritize their meditation and ensure that it's scheduled and kept?
What about those outliers?
People like Jerry Seinfeld that never misses a session?
People like Lynch that never misses a session?
People like you that's probably sneakily meditating below the waist right now?
What do we do and how do we become more like you?
I think that it's just inevitable that a person has to have the desire that they want to learn to meditate.
I mean, the thing is, is there's this wonderful ancient proverb where you see a person running, there's a burning little a little house that a hut that's burning and then there's a big building down there and you see a person running and are they running towards the big house?
Are they running away from the burning hut?
And so stress, trauma, we're living in a and if you want to say a pandemic, Uncontrovertibly, unarguably, this is a pandemic of stress, toxic stress and trauma that's in the world today.
Whether you look at what's, again, the number two cause of death among teenagers is suicide and the rates of Addiction, you know all those numbers.
So the fact of the matter is, human beings want to get away from suffering, just like that wonderful woman's comment.
You want to get away from a migraine headache.
You want to get away from insomnia.
You want to get away from constant anxiety.
Now, yes, change has to take place in the structures of the organizations of the institutions, but in the meanwhile, we also have to take care of our own health or else we'll die.
So, I think people, it's a self-motivation.
People, when the time is right, some people never miss a meditate.
Russell, you're pretty darn good with your meditations.
Yeah, I regularly meditate.
I always meditate in the morning.
I put aside half an hour.
I sometimes meditate later in the day.
I would love to make it part of our practice here at work.
A lot of us get very stressed.
It's a very demanding work environment.
Some say that much of that stress emanates from a very particular and very unusually dressed person.
Co-ordinator, I would like us to be able to make TM part of what we do here.
Have you seen it succeed in workplaces?
Have you seen it successfully scheduled?
Well, I mean, even David Lynch, you know, and his the group that's around him.
They all meditate.
Very creative people find it.
Necessary.
Deirdre Parsons, who you know and we love, runs the David Lynch Foundation in the UK and she can arrange to teach everyone in your office.
And she's been, I have to tell you, she's been doing amazing work in the UK with the foundation.
She's brought it to about hundreds of people who drive ambulances, people who are veterans,
people who are on the front lines in hospitals.
There's a big research study going on at the University of Cambridge right now on TM
and the brain.
All of this is—let me pause and say, you don't like it so much, or often when I talk,
science, but the fact of the matter is, as you well know, there is no difference.
It's a continuum.
Pure spirituality and pure physicality.
It's a continuum.
There's no difference.
If I see something traumatic in my mind, it shakes me to the core of my being.
If I have a spiritual experience, it shows up in the way my brain is functioning.
And that's what they're finding.
So when one sees that a person's blood pressure went down or they have less anxiety, they're sleeping better, in a technique that is, you could say, Is good for health, but also develops consciousness.
Then you can see there is credit.
There's something very profound going on because it's just a purely mental technique that changes all levels of life.
So I didn't want you to give me a bad time on the research.
No, I appreciate the research and its necessity.
I suppose I sometimes, I don't see odds with mysticism.
And I know that Maharishi was himself a scientist and I recognize the value.
And in fact, the way we frame our information is evidence-based empirical Well thought out arguments.
We don't stray into the conspiratorial unless it's for good fun and good humour.
It's necessary to adopt the lexicon of our day.
But I suppose that there's something about new age rhetoric, and I know that I lapse into this myself sometimes, that makes it feel like we're doing this just to somehow be more attractive or more effective in the workplace, rather than I think it's simultaneous though.
You do it too.
You pick certain words in your conversations that resonate with people that people understand and you could use other terminology, but there's certain terminology you use and I think that's it's not to water anything down.
It's like let's not let vocabulary get in the way of an experience of a transcendent experience.
Once you have that transcendent experience, once you have that experience of that inner calm, that silence that lies deep within everyone, then it leads to freedom.
You're talking about stay free.
Yeah, meditation is a very important way to stay free.
When Rick Rubin came on, he was so passionate about meditation.
That was a great interview, by the way.
A great interview.
Yeah, thank you.
He's such a beautiful example of it.
Of what meditation grants people, wisdom, insight, ease, grace.
And sometimes I even think that of you, Bob.
Not right now, though, when you're coming across a bit aggressive.
Am I being too aggressive?
Am I being a tad aggressive?
Just a tad aggressive.
Being spirited.
What about Gareth and the people that work here?
They need to learn to meditate.
Look at Gareth.
Deirdre.
Call Deirdre.
She'll come and teach you all.
What are your questions about meditation?
Yeah, I was really interested in what you were saying there, Bob, especially when you mentioned, I know it's obviously an awful subject, but things like suicides and depression.
Obviously, one of the issues with the pandemic, one of the more, I suppose, unspoken manifestations of some of the measures you could argue,
certainly the lockdowns and some of the things that they created, was this huge spike in depression
and suicides and all sorts of other you know dreadful things. And I wondered if you had any
thoughts about the kind of methods that we were kind of encouraged to use as coping mechanisms
through the pandemic, rather than turning to, so it was things like turning to fast food and
being able to easily order things from Amazon and things, rather than a more holistic approach
that you're talking about here, which is about methods where we can attain some kind of freedom
even when we're locked inside our homes.
I think ultimately a person has to make a decision themselves.
You know, stay free.
They have to say, enough of this, enough of what the mainstream media is telling me, enough, enough, enough.
And Russell makes that point, and you, Gareth, makes that point very clearly.
I want to take a different path.
I want to pursue a different route.
I want to do my own research about what's going on with government.
I want to do my own research.
I want to forge my own way.
And that's also true with something like meditation.
So, do I really believe fast food is the solution, ultimate solution?
Oh, Here's a tool that's ancient.
Transcendental meditation is thousands and thousands of years old.
There's nothing new here.
The idea is that, you know, that ocean analogy, choppy waves on the surface of the ocean, but the ocean is silent at its depth.
And the mind is the same.
The surface of the mind is the monkey mind or the active thinking, gotta, gotta, gotta mind.
But deep within every human being, there's this ocean of consciousness, this silence, this peace, this power, this energy.
And Throughout time, people have been accessing that.
It was lost for hundreds of years, and look what's happened to the world, or thousands of years, look what's happened to the world, and now it's coming back, and it will completely transform the human being, and the human being will completely transform society, because society is, as you know, the expression of the human being, and if we can have human beings living higher states of consciousness, which just means healthier, more integrated, Bob, I'd love to have you come on for a longer conversation.
If we can schedule it, it would be wonderful to spend more time speaking with you.
Also, when we're in the United States, where I'm doing two stand-up shows, as a matter of fact, one in Florida, one in Los Angeles, I would love to meet up with you and meditate and stuff if you have time, or you're not wrapped up in your own concerns, you're in a giddy carousel of endless selfishness and hedonism that has come to define you.
I know, it's just terrible, it's just terrible.
Russell, I would love to spend time with you, it would be great.
I mean, we've known, what is this, 14 years now or something?
Bobby, each day I mark on my wall with a penknife a groove.
Every day.
Every day.
Another day that I've been friends with Bob Ross.
How's Babs?
My mother is doing very well, thank you.
Probably all meditate more.
I love your mother.
I love your mother.
She's a beautiful woman, isn't she?
As is Lauren, your girls.
But give my love to them all, but Babs.
I feel we're getting off track now, Bob.
Sorry, sorry.
I love you, Bob Roth.
I'll see you in America.
And I'll see you soon.
I love you, mate.
Okay, love you too.
Love you, Gareth.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye, Bob Roth.
You can follow Bob Roth on Instagram at MeditationBob and find out more about his work at MeditationBob.com if you want to learn to meditate.
I know that the David Lynch Foundation are eager to provide free meditation to people who can't afford it.
It's a beautiful organization.
Hey, we've got a lovely show for everyone tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you know that?
No, no, I was just thinking when you're talking then.
What were you thinking about?
I guess, you know, we get told a lot, don't we?
You're asked a lot.
What can we do?
What are the solutions?
How can we challenge power?
That's right.
And I guess meditation maybe is one of those ways that it doesn't seem like you're directly changing power.
But if you're changing yourself, if you're kind of creating a strength in yourself, That then multiple people and communities are doing it at the same time.
I guess maybe what Bob's saying is we'll be more ready to affect change.
I thought that's where it can be a really useful tool.
I often think about that.
I'm ignoring the glasses.
Thank you.
I often think about... You're too kind.
I'm thinking about the example of the tulips.
The tulips temporarily became central to Dutch economics and then people instantaneously lost interest and they became almost without value.
Tulips were changing hands for thousands of pounds.
People talk about it as an example of inflated value quite a lot.
I'm also thinking recently about remember that story that we covered about that game store that was going to get shut down and people started to artificially inflate its price which is probably as I understand it common practice in the financial industry and a fundamental aspect of like global finance.
But it makes me recognize that all systems are a reflection of human consciousness and our facilities, our humors, our Tendencies for good or bad, jealousy, greed, kindness, love, and the technique of meditation, I suppose, if it changes your individual consciousness, and it changes the individual consciousness of enough people, they, oh man, we could have talked about him, but if we'd have talked to him longer, they conducted experiments, you can look this up, in Chicago, where they had people in their hundreds meditating, it affected the crime figures, you can look at this stuff, it's like, that consciousness is a continuum.
Bob sometimes, I guess, is reluctant to get into the, mystical aspects of it, because I feel like they popularize it as is perhaps necessary in this climate, with some of the more easily rationally explained functional aspects of meditation, you will feel better, you will feel more effective.
And I guess what I'm always pushing for, what I want is real change, probably because I want real change in myself, but certainly I want it in the world.
But I can see that if you don't have people focused on Just what's right in front of them, or what they're kind of angry about necessarily, or what they want, or what they desire.
All the distractions that we're offered to stop us thinking about how you're going to create change.
Actually, just think about this.
Worry about the culture war.
Buy some stuff from Amazon.
Think about some celebrities on Instagram.
Rather than actually, what Bob's saying is, focus on what's real, what's inside you, and therefore you will create the focus to actually make real change, rather than being distracted by all the bullshit.
You know that I'm using this as part of an underlying campaign to make meditation mandatory here?
I'll be into it.
And then doing it on locals and stuff, do just 20 minute meditations.
What is good is no one gets to talk.
It wouldn't be me talking.
Yeah.
Silent.
Unlike this show, join us tomorrow.
Stacey Malkin, who exposes corporate wrongdoing, oh yes she does, and government failures in public health will be joining us for a conversation on Friday.
An amazing conversation with Tim Pool.
He's talking about global destabilization and the collapse of faith in institutions.
Also, join up to Locals.
That's our community.
If you join Locals, I do a weekly meditation.
In that one I do talk, because I get someone, right?
You'll love this gal.
And I talk to them about their problems.
Is it heartbreak?
Is it grief?
What is it?
And then we do a guided meditation.
Can't be me every week.
You again.
What is it this week?
It's heartbreak again.
Oh, God.
Oh, hello.
Grief this week.
Oh, for God's sake.
Do your job.
Yeah, we do that once a week.
If you join us on Locals, I might pick you and we'll do a meditation together.
Plus, we've got a stand up special that we've made.
It's fantastic.
It's ever so funny.
We'll be putting some clips out soon and you'll get that and you'll own it.
It's the only place you'll be able to access it at first.
You can download the podcast.
There's a beautiful exclusive with a conversation we had with Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who finally had the nuts to say that the Nord Stream pipeline had been blown up by America.
Allegedly!
Yeah, got anything to add?
No, no, he did.
And he was also very complimentary of your work, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was.
Our work, I would go so far as to say.
But it was good conversation, actually.
He was taking the piss at first, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was.
Did you get the feeling he was on one of those reclining chairs?
Yeah.
And he had the laptop literally on his lap.
On his lap?
Yeah.
Well, that's where I put this newfangled thing.
Put it on the old lap, I suppose.
That's not comfortable.
Rocking back in my chair.
He had, like, literally the chair of the dad in Fraser.
Like, had them green and yellow lines on it.
He was a curmudgeonly, wasn't he?
He was, yeah.
But over time, as people eventually will be, he came round to the charm of the show.
He did, he softened.
Yeah, he was making jokes and that by the end, took the piss out of my hat.
It was cute.
I'd like to go sit round his house.
I loved him.
I bet he's got a matching sofa.
You were like a... I don't know, there's a word for people that chase after granddads.
And you're one of them.
Gilf!
Hello sir, I sense a gilf before me, blimey!
Kendra, I hope that chair goes all the way back!
Sorry about that.
Join me tomorrow, not for more of the same, I hope, because some of that was highly inappropriate, but for more of the different.
