Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Founder of the TM program, explains the importance of regular TM practice in this 1973 talk in Santa Barbara, California.

Question: Maharishi, why is it so important to be regular in meditation?

Maharishi: Considering only one aspect of TM, it is the rest that it gives. TM produces rest. Now we know from habit—if we are habituated to sleep at ten o’clock every night, and if we are regular in time with our rest, getting up at five o’clock in the morning—if we are regular with the hours of rest, then health is better. Regularity in habits of eating and resting adds a great deal to good health.

When the mind settles down during the TM technique, the body gains a profound state of rest

Meditation also is a procedure of taking rest—much deeper than deep sleep. So if our system is habituated to take deep rest in time every day, that will be a great help to maintain good health. Regularity is very, very helpful for maintaining good health.

It’s very simple to follow, just considering only one aspect of rest, because it’s such a profound rest. And if we expose our system to this profound rest every day at the same time, then the cycle of rest and activity and freshness gets established. All effort should be made to be regular in meditation. And according to our routine, we make the time ourselves, and that is the time, and that’s it.

“If we expose our system to this profound rest every day at the same time, then the cycle of rest and activity and freshness gets established. All effort should be made to be regular in meditation.” —Maharishi

Making the Time to Meditate

Those who are doctors generally find that they don’t have time to meditate. So I tell them to also take TM to be a patient. When you are attending to one patient, whatever the urgent call, you don’t leave the patient half-done. You attend to him, and when you have attended to him, then you go to the other call. Like that, if you are meditating and a call comes, you’re attending to a patient. And that patient is to serve as a doctor to yourself.

It’s just a psychological thing. Not having time is just a psychological weakness. There is nothing which can’t be adjusted after 15 minutes. What is there? Everything can be adjusted for 15 minutes.

And if you have to be there, and you just can’t be late, what will happen if the road is blocked? And if you stay in the car there for 15 minutes? You can’t arrive there anyway. So instead of being compelled to be late, you can afford to be late from your own side, if it comes to that.

There is nothing in life which must be done at that time. It’s a psychological weakness. According to our routine, and the routines are all set, if one goes to the office at ten o’clock, then at ten o’clock one goes to the office, and that’s all. All the time before ten is one’s own structure. One can do anything.

“During meditation, we enliven that level of life which is the basis of all activity in the world. It’s by enlivening that basis of all life that we get the support of nature everywhere.” —Maharishi

Take Deep Rest for Health and Success

So there’s no reason that one should not be regular in meditation, which is the basis of very clear thinking, the basis of very good health, and the basis of all achievements.

And therefore, the importance of regularity cannot be emphasized enough. It’s very vital that we are regular in this one thing. And then the whole life will be so beautifully regulated. It’s just a matter of common sense.

If a man has to go to the bank in order to go to the market, and if he says, “Oh, I am late for the appointments in the market,” what he will do in the market? Without going to the bank, he will just not be feeling very well there.

We calmly, coolly meditate, and then come out. And then we do anything, and everything will be so good. Just because, during meditation, we enliven that level of life which is the basis of all activity in the world. It’s by enlivening that basis of all life that we get the support of nature everywhere.

It is so important. We can never overemphasize the importance of regular meditation.

Watch the video of Maharishi’s talk