''When I first met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it was one of those mind-altering moments of your life because the man was so full of joy and happiness. It just blew me away. On my best day, I never felt like he looked. I wanted some of that,'' said Ringo Starr during an interview on Success Without Stress hosted by Bob Roth on Sirius XM Radio.
Ringo and his fellow Beatle bandmates helped to popularize Transcendental Meditation in the 60's, learning the technique from Maharishi during a course in Rishikesh, India. In the interview, Ringo explains how TM has helped him achieve balance and clarity during turbulent times in his life.
An avid meditator 48 years later, Ringo is a vocal and financial supporter of the David Lynch Foundation's mission to bring TM to at-risk youth throughout the world. ''My sense of David Lynch and his work is brilliant. The big one for me, of course, is bringing meditation to schools and how they know from the research that the violence goes down. How far-out is that? And the Foundation goes into tough schools. That is incredible. You have to support David for that.''
In honor of his music and his lifetime dedication to peace, Ringo was awarded the David Lynch Foundation's 2014 Lifetime of Peace and Love Award during a tribute concert celebrating his music at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. Ringo announced the launch of a ''Ringo Starr Peace and Love Fund'' to raise support for at-risk students around the world to learn to meditate.
Following the concert, Ringo partnered with fashion designer John Varvatos to start the Twitter #PeaceRocks campaign to raise an additional more than $50,000 for the Peace and Love Fund. Mr. Varvatos donated $1 to the Fund every time someone posted a picture flashing the peace sign. . . .
''With meditation you learn to relax—it's a whole new way of being. It's all very simple, it's not way-out there. You just go with it,'' Ringo says.
