Celebrities Who Meditate
Italian Film Director Bernardo Bertolucci directed a Hollywood film titled Little Buddha in 1993. The movie intercuts its modern story with a retelling of the life of Prince Siddhartha, who grew up to become the Buddha, and also the present day practice of Buddhism. The main attraction of the movie was familiarizing different practices of meditation to the audience. The movie had a huge impact on many people.
Meditation has now become an integral part of the glamour of the movie world. Meditation has found its way to all genres starting from martial arts to technology oriented movies like the Tomb Rider. The Sci-fi characters of The Last Samurai, Star Trek, and Horizon are seen meditating in the movies.
The actors and actresses of these films are not only meditating on the screen. They are also meditating in their daily lives. Pretty Woman and Chicago heart-throb Richard Gere meditates daily. 'It helps me set my motivation for the day,' he says. His passion for these issues has led him to advocate for human rights in Tibet and earned him good name in the process.
The action movie hero Steven Seagal, who specializes in toting powerful guns and blowing stuff up in movies meditates regularly for peace in personal life. He says, 'I have been doing serious meditation in my own pitiful way for probably twenty-seven years.'
While sharing her experience about meditation, Kate Bosworth of Blue Crush and Superman Returns fame says, 'It's just a really incredible state of mind. It’s just a beautiful place to try and be at. It’s basically about constantly growing and making yourself a better person and focusing on what you want for yourself and the world and really putting it out there. It’s amazing.”
The dashing star of The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean Orlando Bloom thinks meditation helped keep him from the self-destructive path. Bloom stresses that 'meditation is about studying what is going on in my daily life and using that as fuel to go and live a bigger life.'
Some renowned personalities of the East played an important role in popularizing meditation in the West. In 1893, Swami Vivekananda joined the World Religions Conference in Chicago, USA, where he made an unforgettable speech on Eastern meditation techniques. Many in the audience became his instant devotees. During his stay in America he was taken to visit a golf course and invited to play golf. Swamiji, who had never played golf before, did a short meditation and then hit the ball. The ball rolled right into the hole.
World famous golfer Tiger Woods has earned 110 million dollars playing golf. Tiger's family had a long tradition of practicing meditation. Practicing meditation from early life helped develop his extraordinary power of concentration.
One of the most revered contributors to modern jazz is Herbie Hancock. Hancock's meditation practice has been integral to his artistic development. According to him, 'Meditation opened me up to being out of my comfort zone — to exploring things and being courageous enough to try new things.'
In the 1960s, The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music, became devotees of Maharishi Mohesh Yogi. The Beatles met Maharishi in 1967 in Wales. The four members of the world's best-known band moved to Rishikesh the following year to study TM under him. They wrote many new songs in Rishikesh which were later recorded on the White Album.
Why so? Because meditation gave them a fulfillment that drugs and riches couldn’t. In a conference on April 2009, Paul McCartney commented that Transcendental Meditation was a gift the Beatles had received from Maharishi at a time when they were looking for something to stabilize them.
Later, Moharishi Mohesh Yogi helped popularize TM in the West. American actress, singer, and fashion model Mia Farrow is another of his celebrity devotees. This Golden Globe Award Winning celebrity also travelled to Rishikesh, India to study Transcendental Meditation.
The universal love poems of the 13th century Persian Sufi Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi are so much in demand even today that renowned meditation teacher Dr. Deepak Chopra decided to bring out an album called a A Gift of Love with them. Hollywood stars such as Demi Moore, Goldie Hawn, Martin Sheen, Debra Winger and Madonna recited the poems in the album. Madonna gave voice to the song Bittersweet.
Tom Knoll is a meditation teacher from Hollywood. Many Hollywood celebrities starting from Heather Graham to David Lynch, Natalie Mendoza and Kate Fisher took meditation lessons from him. He said that there is no doubt that every day meditation is becoming more popular amongst the people in the show-biz. They are relying on meditation to meet the challenges of the celebrity pace of life.
The 'Queen of Rock and Roll' Tina Turner is another serious meditation practitioner. It was Turner’s meditation practice that gave her the strength to leave her abusive marriage and reestablish herself as a media icon.
The Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen recovered from a long-term drug problem and dispelled off the gloom that had pervaded his life with the help of meditation. He was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk by an influential Zen teacher. During the time of starring in the thriller movie Gothika, actress Halle Berry started practicing meditation to get rid of nightmares.
World renowned movie director David Lynch recently announced that if 1 million children of the world could be taught meditation then the entire face of the earth would change. With this view he has taken an initiative to teach meditation to 1 million children in 5 continents. He has already launched a campaign to raise funds through concerts and other mediums for this purpose.
Apart from celebrities from the silver screen, many renowned politicians, journalists and writers from both the East and the West are also practicing meditation. The former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi meditated regularly. However busy she never started the day’s work without half an hour if yogic meditation. Her granddaughter Priyanka Gandhi is continuing the practice.
Mao Tse Tung, former Chairman of the Republic of China, often went off to spend some time in solitude. It is after one such solitary times that he initiated the Cultural Revolution in China.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Noble Prize winning democratic leader who was in and out of house arrest for 21 years, says meditation was a great help during the years of confinement. Commenting on her long isolation, she said 'Isolation is not difficult for me. Maybe it’s because of my meditative upbringing.'
The chief architect of the Indian constitution, Baba Ambedkar was another renowned and respected Buddhist meditator. And thanks to the media it is now well known that Al Gore, the former Vice President of America and the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also practice meditation.
Many wealthy tycoons are also in the list of meditators. Bill Ford, Chief of Ford Motors, and Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, both meditate.
The love for meditation in the Western world is a result of the effectiveness of meditation. Meditation is everywhere – schools, hospitals, law departments, government offices, commercial offices and even prison cells. In Iowa, the students of the Maharishi University run schools and colleges are meditating twice a day. In some places it is mandatory for sportsmen to practice meditation. And these days in the airports, apart from a prayer room and a cyber café you can also find a meditation room indicated with a special sign.
The informative and attractive articles on meditation that were published from time to time by world famous magazines like the New York Times, Guardian, Time and Newsweek piqued people’s interest about meditation even further. In August 2003 Times did a cover story on The Science of Meditation. The story reported that more than 10 million people were then meditating regularly in the US. This figure is twice the number from the previous years. Meditation is the new trend amongst the mainstream population of the US. Those who don't believe in meditation are now the minority.