May 7, 2020 • 7 mins
Bob didn’t know he would grow up to devote his life to teaching Transcendental Meditation. Today he recounts his life journey of trying to bring peace to the world, from dabbling in politics to founding the David Lynch Foundation. Listen to hear how he became inspired to help manage the world’s stress.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Hi.
I'm Bob Roth, and I've been teaching people to meditate
for fifty years, helping them to stay calm under pressure,
reboot and re energize their lives, and basically be a happier,
healthier version of themselves. And now I want to help
(00:22):
you do the same. Welcome to Stay Calm, your daily
dose of calmness. Every weekday morning, I'll share a meditation story,
offer a simple practical tip about how you or loved
one can stay a bit calmer in your life, and
then we'll end each episode together with a moment of gratitude.
My hope is that I can share what I know
(00:42):
to anyone who needs it. Ready, sit comfortably, take a
few deep breaths, and let's begin today's journey. Over the years,
I've had the very good fortune of interviewing some very
impressive people, business leaders and doctors and professional athletes and
guidance counselors, therapists and VA hospitals, And I always enjoy
(01:06):
asking them is this something that they knew they wanted
to do their whole lives. It's kind of amazing how
many people had that feeling inside they had a sense.
People have asked me that same question, and I said,
not on your life. I didn't know. I wanted to
make an impact in the world, but nobody even knew
what meditation was. When I was growing up, my family
(01:28):
was really politically minded. When I was seventeen years old,
I volunteered to help out with Bobby Kennedy presidential campaign.
In fact, I remember going to see him speak on
June one and looking around the room with two thousand people,
and it wasn't that I identified with being a Democrat
or a political party. I just wanted to make a
(01:50):
better world. So there I was thinking, now I've got something.
We're going to make a better world than as history records.
Four days later, Senator Kennedy was killed. So I went
off to college with a career track of I'm going
to become a lawyer and then I'm going to become
a United States Senator like Bobby Kennedy and change the world. Well,
it took me about a month for me to realize
(02:13):
that politics was never going to heal the soul of
the nation. And my mom was a school teacher, so
I thought, well, how about if I write educational curriculum
that a child can learn to help them navigate and
survive a very tumultuous, stressful, trauma filled world, particularly inner
city school kids. I was just naive, just want to
make a better world, and pretty darn stressed, anxious. Where
(02:39):
I was working, I happened to meet this one guy.
His name was Peter Stevens. There was something just special
about him. He was a good person, he was smart.
And I found out he was doing something called transcendental meditation,
and I had no idea what he was talking about.
I asked him more about it and said, you know,
I don't believe in that stuff. He held a pen
up and he let the pen go and it dropped
(03:01):
into his other hand, and he said, you don't have
to believe in gravity for the pen to fall, and
you don't have to believe in this meditation for it
to work. Still very skeptical that I went and herd
of talk and then I decided, Okay, I'm gonna learn
this thing. Imagine, here's this tightly wound eighteen year old kid.
No it all sure that this is just bunk. And
(03:23):
the first experience was so physically relaxing and mentally familiar
and yet unique, and I remember after my first or
second meditation, the thought came, oh, so this is the
tool I want to teach those kids. That was June
nineteen six, and a few years later I began teaching.
(03:47):
Over the years, taught a lot of people, but always
in the back of my mind was these kids. In
two thousand five, I had become friends with the filmmaker
David Lynch. I said, you know, there's this huge need
in the world for kids. Our kids are just getting
demolished by stress, and particularly kids going to under resource
schools and underserved communities. There's sixteen million kids who live
(04:10):
below poverty in the United States. Why don't we start
a foundation so we could bring this meditation for free
to school kids and then veterans and women survivors of
domestic violence. And I'd like to do it in your name, David,
who had been meditating himself for thirty years sitting grade.
I think none of us thought this thing was going
to take off, but I had learned how to write
(04:32):
a press release, wrote it. Next thing I know, there
are articles in newspapers all over the world, and that
was the seed of a foundation that has now brought
the meditation to over a million kids, and now we
work with veterans and their families who suffer the nightmare
of post traumatic stress disorder, women who are survivors of
domestic violence and sexual assault, young people and adults who
(04:55):
are battling substance use disorder. But really everybody, as everybody
now is at risk for the impact of stress and trauma.
So never in a million years what I have thought
that I was going to be running a foundation that
was using transcendental meditation to make a change in the world.
But here I am. My trajectory for teaching is my trajectory.
(05:17):
But there are thousands and thousands of teachers of meditation
who took a focused but unforeseeable path to get to
this point now where meditation is so widely accepted and
appreciated in the world. So my tip here is really simple,
be true to yourself. If you're looking for a career path,
(05:39):
first and foremost, you have to be true to yourself.
Has to resonate with you. I like to conclude with
these thirty seconds of quiet, where you have an opportunity
to reflect, appreciate your life, someone in your life, just
(06:00):
to slow down for a moment. And the great thing
is that when we do that genuinely, spontaneously, naturally, it's
very healthy. I'll be right back all right. Thank you
(06:41):
for joining. This is Bob Roth. Keep calm, Thanks for
listening today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that
uplifts you and that you can incorporate into your own life.
Until next time, remember, meditate, be kind, and be true
to yourself. Hey, all of you out there, I'd love
(07:01):
to hear from you. You can send me your stories,
your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect
with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob.
You can also send me an email at meditation Bob
Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing
from you.
Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Hi.
I'm Bob Roth, and I've been teaching people to meditate
for fifty years, helping them to stay calm under pressure,
reboot and re energize their lives, and basically be a happier,
healthier version of themselves. And now I want to help
(00:22):
you do the same. Welcome to Stay Calm, your daily
dose of calmness. Every weekday morning, I'll share a meditation story,
offer a simple practical tip about how you or loved
one can stay a bit calmer in your life, and
then we'll end each episode together with a moment of gratitude.
My hope is that I can share what I know
(00:42):
to anyone who needs it. Ready, sit comfortably, take a
few deep breaths, and let's begin today's journey. Over the years,
I've had the very good fortune of interviewing some very
impressive people, business leaders and doctors and professional athletes and
guidance counselors, therapists and VA hospitals, And I always enjoy
(01:06):
asking them is this something that they knew they wanted
to do their whole lives. It's kind of amazing how
many people had that feeling inside they had a sense.
People have asked me that same question, and I said,
not on your life. I didn't know. I wanted to
make an impact in the world, but nobody even knew
what meditation was. When I was growing up, my family
(01:28):
was really politically minded. When I was seventeen years old,
I volunteered to help out with Bobby Kennedy presidential campaign.
In fact, I remember going to see him speak on
June one and looking around the room with two thousand people,
and it wasn't that I identified with being a Democrat
or a political party. I just wanted to make a
(01:50):
better world. So there I was thinking, now I've got something.
We're going to make a better world than as history records.
Four days later, Senator Kennedy was killed. So I went
off to college with a career track of I'm going
to become a lawyer and then I'm going to become
a United States Senator like Bobby Kennedy and change the world. Well,
it took me about a month for me to realize
(02:13):
that politics was never going to heal the soul of
the nation. And my mom was a school teacher, so
I thought, well, how about if I write educational curriculum
that a child can learn to help them navigate and
survive a very tumultuous, stressful, trauma filled world, particularly inner
city school kids. I was just naive, just want to
make a better world, and pretty darn stressed, anxious. Where
(02:39):
I was working, I happened to meet this one guy.
His name was Peter Stevens. There was something just special
about him. He was a good person, he was smart.
And I found out he was doing something called transcendental meditation,
and I had no idea what he was talking about.
I asked him more about it and said, you know,
I don't believe in that stuff. He held a pen
up and he let the pen go and it dropped
(03:01):
into his other hand, and he said, you don't have
to believe in gravity for the pen to fall, and
you don't have to believe in this meditation for it
to work. Still very skeptical that I went and herd
of talk and then I decided, Okay, I'm gonna learn
this thing. Imagine, here's this tightly wound eighteen year old kid.
No it all sure that this is just bunk. And
(03:23):
the first experience was so physically relaxing and mentally familiar
and yet unique, and I remember after my first or
second meditation, the thought came, oh, so this is the
tool I want to teach those kids. That was June
nineteen six, and a few years later I began teaching.
(03:47):
Over the years, taught a lot of people, but always
in the back of my mind was these kids. In
two thousand five, I had become friends with the filmmaker
David Lynch. I said, you know, there's this huge need
in the world for kids. Our kids are just getting
demolished by stress, and particularly kids going to under resource
schools and underserved communities. There's sixteen million kids who live
(04:10):
below poverty in the United States. Why don't we start
a foundation so we could bring this meditation for free
to school kids and then veterans and women survivors of
domestic violence. And I'd like to do it in your name, David,
who had been meditating himself for thirty years sitting grade.
I think none of us thought this thing was going
to take off, but I had learned how to write
(04:32):
a press release, wrote it. Next thing I know, there
are articles in newspapers all over the world, and that
was the seed of a foundation that has now brought
the meditation to over a million kids, and now we
work with veterans and their families who suffer the nightmare
of post traumatic stress disorder, women who are survivors of
domestic violence and sexual assault, young people and adults who
(04:55):
are battling substance use disorder. But really everybody, as everybody
now is at risk for the impact of stress and trauma.
So never in a million years what I have thought
that I was going to be running a foundation that
was using transcendental meditation to make a change in the world.
But here I am. My trajectory for teaching is my trajectory.
(05:17):
But there are thousands and thousands of teachers of meditation
who took a focused but unforeseeable path to get to
this point now where meditation is so widely accepted and
appreciated in the world. So my tip here is really simple,
be true to yourself. If you're looking for a career path,
(05:39):
first and foremost, you have to be true to yourself.
Has to resonate with you. I like to conclude with
these thirty seconds of quiet, where you have an opportunity
to reflect, appreciate your life, someone in your life, just
(06:00):
to slow down for a moment. And the great thing
is that when we do that genuinely, spontaneously, naturally, it's
very healthy. I'll be right back all right. Thank you
(06:41):
for joining. This is Bob Roth. Keep calm, Thanks for
listening today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that
uplifts you and that you can incorporate into your own life.
Until next time, remember, meditate, be kind, and be true
to yourself. Hey, all of you out there, I'd love
(07:01):
to hear from you. You can send me your stories,
your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect
with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob.
You can also send me an email at meditation Bob
Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing
from you.
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