I started the Transcendental Meditation technique in June 1969, after my freshman year at the University of California at Berkeley, where I was studying political science and journalism. I found out about the TM program from a friend. He was a clear, easy-going, intelligent person, and I respected him a lot. But it was more than that. There was something about him that I wanted in my own life—some ease and naturalness about life and living that was different from anyone else I knew. At first I didn't know that he practiced the technique, but when he told me about it as we hiked through the Oakland hills one sunny Sunday afternoon, I knew immediately that I wanted to know more.

The next Wednesday evening I showed up for an introductory lecture at the TM Program Center on Channing Way. I don't remember the specifics of that particular lecture other than the ideas made sense and I was impressed with the person giving the talk. I signed up to learn right away. I started before there were hundreds of research studies documenting the benefits of the technique for lowering high blood pressure, raising IQ, improving grades, promoting peace in the world. I started before there were Fortune 100 companies paying for employees to learn the technique, before medical doctors were prescribing it to patients to prevent heart disease, before professional athletic teams were offering the program to players.

I started because I was interested in bettering myself, because the technique made sense, and because of my friend. I found benefits right from the start. I was able to learn more effortlessly, balance the demands of studies with a part-time job and my sports activities more comfortably, get better grades, and feel happier. But the best benefit, which I didn't notice but others did—was that I had changed. It was not as if I was a different person, but that I seemed easier, more natural, more enjoyable to be around. It must have been noticeable because people started asking me what I was doing. I told them about TM. As a result, my whole family started—my father, who was a radiologist; my mother, who worked as a volunteer at a local school for handicapped children; my older sister and two younger brothers; plus a lot of my friends. I started because of a friend; many people started because I was their friend.

It has been that way since Maharishi started teaching the TM technique more than 40 years ago. A lot of people learn the TM technique because of a friend. Some things never change.

In April I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area on family business and I visited the Maharishi Vedic School in Palo Alto, where I met up with Jennie Rothenberg and Elizabeth Scranton. Jennie, 23, and Elizabeth, 19, had arrived in Palo Alto just days before, fresh from their TM Program Teacher Training Course in Compton, Quebec. They were very busy—giving introductory and advanced lectures and helping to administer the School. They were also setting up a series of special presentations on the TM technique in local colleges and high schools.

Watching them I remembered my early days as a TM program teacher. I was 20 years old, and I was doing the same thing that Jennie and Elizabeth were doing right now. It is so timely, so necessary to bring the technique to the awareness of students. Our school days are when we learn what we will need to be successful in life. We should learn the basis of job skills that will last us a lifetime, how to think for ourselves, how to make the right decisions, how to be better people, how to be fulfilled. For that there is one fundamental thing we have to know. Ourselves. Who we are. The knower. We have to experience directly the essence of what we are made of, the source of thought—pure intelligence, pure consciousness. That's the purpose of the TM technique, and that's the message that Jennie and Elizabeth are bringing to students. The TM program is not a philosophy, not a belief. It's a technique that anyone can do, that anyone can benefit from. Millions of people of all ages, religions, and educational backgrounds who practice the technique know that. So let's tell a friend.