David Lynch may make films like Mullhound Drive that few people understand. But the director, who has a worldwide cult following, sees nothing dark or mysterious about Transcendental Meditation devised by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Lynch, 59, says that TM has benefited him considerably for three decades and now wants to raise $7 billion to create programs worldwide teaching children to meditate the TM way.

The director, who does not find it easy to raise money for his films that cost about $12 million each, has not disclosed how he will go around raising the huge amount.

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Apparently, he has not been discouraged by the experience of The Beatles with the Maharishi and their denouncement of him in the 1970s. George Harrison, who became bitter with his TM encounters, left it to join Swami Prabhupada's Hare Krishna movement. The Beatles found the Maharishi worldly and questioned his commitment to celibacy.

The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace will encourage schools to use the technique in the classroom.

"It's knowledge in terms of the self and it works wonders in children," Lynch told reporters.

But not many school systems across America -- which are animatedly debating whether yoga should be allowed in their classrooms -- may rush out to embrace TM.

Lynch told reporters that he met students during a visit to Maharishi Vedic City in rural southeast Iowa. He found that TM helped students overcome stress and perform better in the classroom by using their entire brain.

He is aware of the expected reaction of skeptics to his $7 billion project. "People laugh about that; they have a really good time with it," he said. "But the real joke is we don't laugh when the US government develops a bomb for two billion dollars that only serves to kill."