May 28, 2014 03:22 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Perhaps the most unique commencement speech this spring, Jim Carrey gave an emotional address at the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) on meditation, decision-making and more.

According to their website, MUM's students and faculty practice Transcendental Meditation (TM) to heighten brain function, creativity and reduce stress. The hugely successful comedic actor addressed the school's central practice.

"It does allow you to separate who you truly are and what's real from the stories that run through your head," Carrey told the graduates of the Iowa non-profit school, donned in a golden robe. "You [the university] have given [the graduates] the ability to walk behind the mind's elaborate set decoration, to see that there's a huge difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind, and an actual dog that is going to eat you. That may sound like no big deal, but many don't make that distinction. They spend a great deal of their lives living in flight-or-fight response... or calling the dog pound."

CLICK HERE to read more excerpts at the blog TM.org.

Carrey said his father chose not to be a comedian to make the "safe" choice of being an accountant. When Carrey was 12, his father was laid off and their family had to "do whatever we could to survive."

"I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love," Carrey said.

The actor has performed his share of stand-up comedy, but he is most well known for his work in movies like "Dumb and Dumber," "Ace Ventura," "Bruce Almighty" and more.

"Now fear is going to be a player in life, but you get to decide how much," Carrey said in his address. "You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all it will ever be is what's happening here, the decisions in that we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it."

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