Joe Rogan | Is Transcendental Meditation a Cult? w/Tom Papa

Well, I guess we're fast forwarding to noon. Okay, give me a radio day. On a non-radio day. Okay, non-radio day. Non-radio day. I get up at seven. Damn. I get up at seven, I go upstairs. Like a soldier. I make coffee. I get one cup of coffee. Do you play classical music softly? Once in a while. Yeah. I picture you OCD butter in your toast. That's what I'm saying. No, I don't eat straight away. It's a straight black coffee into the office. I have an office. And I try and write. I sit at the desk. I call it going into the shop. And I sit there and I write. And I make sure that there's no appointments until noon. Anything I'm going to do, I don't do until noon. Except if I'm going to go for a run or workout. I'll put in a couple hours. And then when I start to fade, I'll go for a run and then come back and continue. Oh, I skipped something. Sorry. Before the coffee, if I'm up early enough and the house isn't up, I'll meditate first for 20 minutes. Before you even write. Before coffee, before I write. Really? Yeah. Wake up, water in the face, maybe brush teeth, up into the office and then take 20 right away. Because it's more restful than sleep. So even if you had like a bad night's sleep or you're tossing or whatever was going on, you're now ready to go through the day. What kind of meditation are you doing? TM. Transcendental Meditation. Transcendental Meditation, there's a weird thing about that, right? Some people think it's kind of culty. It's not culty. It's not culty. There's no leaders. Right. Wasn't there some controversy with TM a while back? I think so. No. I'm misconstruing it with something else. Yeah. That's why I'm very into it. Doing it for a long time. It's great. But I like yoga. I like all that kind of stuff. Unless you get a little hippy dippy with it and a little too preachy. Then I'm out. Yeah, me too. It's totally basic, simple. When I was taught it, there was nothing hippy dippy flaky about it. But you know what's meant? That hippy dippy flaky shit, it only feels shitty if the person's not really living that life and you can kind of feel it. That's kind of bullshitting. Yes. There was this guy I used to take classes from, I'm saying it was Peter. He's from South Africa. I only took his classes a few times. But he was one of those genuinely spiritual people. Right. He was one of those people who made these things and you could tell he wasn't trying to manipulate you or namaste you or satnam. He wasn't trying to bullshit you. That's yeah. And then there was another guy that I used to take classes with that felt like he was always bullshitting. Right. It was always, it was so annoying. I know. And he wound up banging this other dude's wife and it became a giant disaster. He's the guy with the acoustic guitar making eye contact with you. So funny you said that. He would sing. Yeah. Sing in his classes. Of course, of course. No, you can smell it. And that's why I had a hard time with yoga until I found this one teacher and she was just great. It's the same thing with TM. Controversy. Here it is. There's some cult controversy or something. Yeah. A while ago. With TM. Yeah. Okay. With TM. Can you make that a little larger? I can barely read that shit. Yeah. That's really small. What's inside the organization, organization has been the subject of controversies labeled a cult by several parliamentary inquiries or anti-cult movements of the world. Some also suggest that TM, its movement are not a cult. TM movement has been characterized in a variety of ways. It's been called a spiritual movement, a new religious movement, a milleniairean. Yeah, this is. A milleniairean. Yeah, it doesn't match. Okay. There's some other articles about that. World affirming movement, social movement, a guru centered movement. How a new book exposes the dark side of transcendental education. I don't even understand where you would have, like where it would happen. Like there's no place to go. Well, honestly, ignorant of it. So explain it to us. Yeah, there's nothing, it's very, you know, I tried meditating in all these different ways and this was, this kind of made it very simple. It's. Doesn't Seinfeld do this too? Yes. Isn't he into TM? Yeah, he's actually the one that got me into it. And for a long time I was thinking, well, I meditate, I count breaths, I'd kind of do it. And I wasn't really feeling, I always had in my head that maybe TM is different. Maybe going and learning that would kind of dial it in. So he took classes on it? So he took four classes. You went and saw this guy here in California and just go for an hour, four days in a row. And he teaches you what to do it. And the analogy is that there's this, the reality is just in this tumultuous ocean waves. We're on the top, we're on the surface. That's where we live. And this is just a way through a mantra to get you down below the waves to sit for 20 minutes. And it's very freeing because there's no, there's no control in your mind. There's no forcing it to come back and count breaths. There's no, you're never, you're not, you're not thinking about what you have to do. You just do the mantra, do the mantra, and then let it go. And if your brain starts thinking about work, it thinks about work. If it starts thinking about your wife, just let it be, let it be, let it be. And 20 minutes you pop out of it and you feel, not right away, I don't feel changed immediately. Like I'll feel, you know, I have an Apple watch and my heart rate is low. Like it's 40 to 50. All the time or when you do it? No, when I'm doing that. How much is it normally? Probably like 80. What's it right now? How long does it take to find that out? It's going to take a while. What can you say, Siri? It's at 80. 80? Yeah. And you get down to 40 when you get TM? Yeah. Yeah. It's very calming and it just kind of like gives your nervous system a respite. That's pretty heavy. It's pretty great. Did I just activate Siri by saying, Hey Siri? Something's going to happen. Oh yeah, Siri, I didn't catch that. Siri is paying people right now screaming at me because their car is going boop boop. What would you like me to do? But I don't feel it like right away, but like I'll notice it hours later that I have more energy. Like I'm still going. What is the process? How do you do it? I just sit. And what's the mantra? Everyone has an individual mantra. Tell us your mantra. I can't. Come on, bro. What if someone's a gigantic Tom Papa fan? They want you to want to do everything that you do. Oh, that's true. It's jelly beans. That's what you say. No. It's just a noise. Pretty much weird if you just kept saying Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld. It's our dough. So we're done. So our dough would be cool. So our delicious food. So it wouldn't be nearly as weird. Something about Brad Garrett. Yeah. Brad Garrett. Yeah, it would be weird. Right. So I'm so I do it first thing in the morning. 20 minutes. And then sometime in the late afternoon. So can you explain all you do is you sit and you just chant your mantra in my mind and you don't say it out loud. Don't say it out loud. OK, so as you're just repeating the mantra in your mind, you just try to stay on path or just keep in. I just keep saying it. And when I don't try and stay on a path, I don't force anything. I just keep saying it. But if your brain trick you, it's a great idea for a new bit. Do you let it happen? Let it go. It's OK. Do you write the bit down or do you go? No, no. Well, you're risking it all. I'm not that great of a comedian. So those things don't happen. Moments where I have been laying in bed and I was too tired to get up and I would say I'm going to remember. I remember that. Sure. Yeah, I definitely didn't. No. And yeah, 20 minutes. And I'm telling you, it my one friend described it as it adds another four hours to your day. Wow. And it's really true. When I when you call me today, last minute to come in, I took 20 before I came because I was dragging. I went for a run this morning. I meditated this morning, but then I went for a run. I came back. I was writing and you called and you're like, can you come on over? I was like, yeah, that's cool. But let me drop for 15 minutes before I get in the car. So that's what you did. You meditated for 15 minutes. Yeah. Wow. Do you do that before sets? If I'm tired? Yeah. Like it's towards the end of the day and I've got something at, you know, at night that's a little later. Does it help you make decisions? Yes. How did you still make the decision to do a radio show at seven in the morning? Because I'm not afraid of it because I know that I can meditate and I'll have energy. How many days a week? I don't have to worry about getting a good night's sleep ever. No, that's crazy. I can meditate and then I'll be okay for the show. That's crazy. I can't do that. Yes, you can. You should go. You should go. Okay. Really? Yeah, I'd love to. I'll hook you up with the guy. Can I just watch a YouTube video? Is that good enough? No. I've learned so much from YouTube though. Have you? Yes. It's true. Why can't you learn Transcendental Meditation from YouTube? You know what? There is this mystery about it and I would research it. I was like, maybe, why can't I just learn it? Mystery. The only difference is having this man explain it to you, it kind of dials it in and I went back once since I learned it initially just to kind of tune up. Tune up. There's not that much, but it's just, you know, they give you a little bit, you know, it's like playing tennis or something and they're like, no, just hold it like this. Oh, right. Okay. Or like in yoga, they're like, you think you're doing this, but your elbows are out. Just kind of bring them in. That's big in yoga. Like sometimes the instructor will give you one thing. She'll say one thing about your, the way you're standing or the way you keep your weight and you're like, Oh man. And then you just change it just slightly. Yeah. Like, Oh my God, it's so much harder. I know, which you never would have learned at home. So it's kind of a similar thing. And, uh, it just, uh, and over time, so that's what it is on a daily basis, but over time, it, uh, it makes you more chill. Things don't bother me the way they used to bother me. Just day to day aggravations, normal bullshit. There's it's, it's, um, you slowly transform without realizing it. Do you know, um, who Dan Harris is? Sam Harris, Dan Harris, Dan Harris from, uh, no, from what is the show nightline? Is that what he's on? Anyway, he'd been on the podcast for a really nice guy. He's got a, is it nightline? He's got an app called 10% happier. And it's just a meditation app. And just, he wants people to know that it's been super beneficial to him. So he talks about it often. He talked about it on my podcast and he actually used the tank. He's the only guy. Yeah. He's the only guy other than me that's ever used that tank. I want to use the tank. Okay. This was a weird thing. I offered to fucking everybody, but Dan Harris is the only one that said, I'm in.