Prominent radio talk show host Howard Stern sat down recently with CBS “Late Show” host David Letterman for a long talk about the future of the entertainment industry, politics, and life. In the midst of the chat, David turned the discussion to the Transcendental Meditation technique.

“One of the things I have admired about you is that you meditate,” David said. “If I could learn to meditate I know it would help me. I just don’t want to go to someplace where people are sitting around without their shoes on making ‘hhmmmmm’—I don’t want to do that.”

Howard replied: “It’s not like that. I (learned when I) was 18 years old. I was in college. My mother was severely depressed—her sister had died and she took it very, very hard. I was worried about her…. I get a call one day from this happy, elated woman and I wonder, ‘Who is this?’ and it’s my mother. She tells me she was watching the Johnny Carson Show and she saw Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and she went on and learned Transcendental Meditation. My mother sounded transformed. She said to me, ‘Come on, I want to take you down to the TM Center.’ I did it. And it’s the easiest thing I ever did. I have been doing it since I was 18. I love to do it after the show. I find it very relaxing.”

Howard is an out-spoken proponent of the Transcendental Meditation technique and strong supporter of the David Lynch Foundation’s global initiative to teach one million at-risk students to meditate. He joined David Lynch, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jerry Seinfeld and other stars on stage at the “Change Begins Within” benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on April 4, 2009.

Time magazine featured Howard in its “Time 100” list in 2006—its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He also ranked seventh that year in Forbes’ “World’s Most Powerful Celebrities” list.