"Water the root and enjoy the fruit" was a sentence uttered by acclaimed filmmaker David Lynch Saturday night at a Q&A session where he and quantum physicist John Hagelin explained how transcendental meditation was the way to achieve world peace. First off, I should probably mention that I'm about as spiritual as a brick and as open to ideas of karma, healing, auras, and reincarnation as a Nazi. But I went anyway as I honestly just wanted to see David Lynch and also the fact that he brought along a scientist intrigued me. I was expecting Lynch to lay out these New Age ideas and then the good doctor would use rational arguments and flow charts to show how it wasn't as crazy as it sounded. Unfortunately, Hagelin was more of a whack-job than Lynch, so it didn't quite work out as I had hoped.

The overall theory was that everyone in the world is connected via some sort of matrix of brainwaves and if enough people practice transcendental meditation their positive vibes will influence their surroundings enough to help cool down conflicts leading to the end of all violence and war. So in order to do this Hagelin is setting up meditation centers all around the world, where people are meditating away hoping their inner peace will rub off and create outer peace. This is all fine and good, but what really rubbed me the wrong way was the way Hagelin kept insisting that his theories are based on academic facts without doing anything to prove this. The guy has a very impressive resumé, but is now a professor at Maharishi U (I kid you not) and ran for President twice for the Natural Law Party, which has apparently swallowed up the remains of (or at least parts of) Ross Perot's Reform Party. But I could forgive him this if he had just shown us anything remotely resembling tangible evidence, but alas that did not happen.

Being the perpetual smart-ass I started constructing questions in my head, which would underline how ridiculously naive these two seemingly intelligent men were. But I eventually decided against asking them anything as they seemed like nice enough people and I didn't feel the need to poke fun at them in front of a couple of hundred people (especially when I can do that here instead). On a positive note I'll say I was pleasantly surprised to find that most people were actually interested enough in what they had to say that they asked questions about meditation and peace instead of asking about the dancing midget or the blue key. Unfortunately, two Lynch buffs asked questions, which they'd prepared from home. But they were so nervous speaking in English in front of their hero their questions got completely jumbled and impossible to understand. The best question came from a guy, who was curious to hear what Hagelin's response to the attacks on September 11th would have been had he been President. Unfortunately, Hagelin only talked about how meditation could've prevented the attacks, but never actually got around to explaining how he would've hunted down Osama using the first battalion flying Yogi brigade.

I didn't learn a lot about the Transcendental Meditation organization, which has a center in Copenhagen, so I'm not really sure what kind of organization it is. But when Hagelin started talking about how we only use 5% of our brain powers and how meditation could help us get more focused and smarter I had flashbacks to a Scientology lecture I once heard. So it suddenly started reminding me of the 90210 episode, where Kelly Taylor unknowningly joins a cult and the movie The Wave. But as there weren't any valley kids in attendance, I very much doubt they were able to recruit any new members.

I'm sure meditation is a great way for some people to relieve stress and if you're calm you're probably a positive influence on your surroundings. But I don't have the patience to sit around hoping to reach Nirvana. So afterwards I decided to relieve stress my way by going on a bender with a group of movie people, who had also been at the Q&A thing. After a few hours I split and hooked up with friends at Sway and later went out to a club and met more friends. I had a great time, so I think the lesson we can take from this is you should do what works for you. I might only be trying to keep a leaf or two alive, while Lynch is watering the roots of the tree to make the whole tree survive. But right now I'm quite content to focus on the leaves, and quite frankly that gives me all the inner peace I can handle.