“All of humanity’s problems stem from mans inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Blaise Pascal ~ 1623 – 1662
What a brilliant way of describing the value of meditation by someone born 400 years ago. Never more pertinent then in todays world.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from mans inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Blaise Pascal ~ 1623 – 1662
What a brilliant way of describing the value of meditation by someone born 400 years ago. Never more pertinent then in todays world.
This will come as no surprise to anyone who meditates and is nicely summed up by maharishi who introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world in the late 1950’s :
“Meditation is a bit like being asleep, but being awake to enjoy it.”
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“I first learned TM (Transcendental Meditation) nearly 40 years ago when I was in a very dark place after losing my mother. It really helped me a lot, but I did not keep my regular practise up as the years went by. I tried many different meditations, but always came back to TM. It was like an old friend and saw me through many difficult times in my life. It helped me with insomnia too. Several years ago I took a refresher course with Chris Greathead and have been practising regularly ever since. Now there are daily zoom TM meditations online which really help with keeping up with the practise. There is so much free ongoing support and I feel that the zoom sessions are quite powerful and as good as in person sessions.
If I cannot make the zoom calls there is a recorded sesion from Chris that can be downloaded which is very useful.
My only regret is that I did not keep up my practise from the start as its certainly the best.”
Rosalind ~ Dorset
Miniscule study as usual, but 1000’s of medics (in the UK alone) who practice Transcendental Meditation will recognise these findings.
BTW ignore the posture shown in pic, comfort is number one when meditating
Transcendental Meditation may decrease depression and burnout in academic physicians, according to a randomized controlled study.
: One Recommendation
I’m going to recommend something that I think is huge, and its Transcendental Meditation. Although the technique is super easy, the effects are huge, and all you do is kind of get given a mantra, you repeat the mantra and you sit down for 20 minutes and its just life changing.
How long have you been doing it?
Since 2008.
Did you find it hard to get into? Because for me and meditation, I always find it difficult to stay in focus. You said 20 minutes, but after 2 minutes my mind is wondering all over, I have trouble locking in. Did it take you awhile to get to that point?
Well actually no. Because I had all that kind of trepidation beforehand, I gave up drinking and I gave up taking drugs. For a year or two I was just kind of like, wondering around, wondering how to fill this void, because your kind of empty. You’ve lived your whole life drinking and doing all this and all of the sudden you’ve got this awakening – a rude awakening – where you just have to learn how to live without drinking.
So, I was in my apartment trying to remain friends with all my friends that still liked to get drunk. Playing records, playing records, playing records and I just sat on the opposite side of the room drinking a Diet Coke. [laughs] And a friend of mine came up to me and she said, “Have you ever tried meditation? Ever thought about Transcendental Meditation?” And I hadn’t. We started talking about the Maharishi, because I was always a huge fan of The Beatles and my favorite period is the Magical Mystery Tour and in any Beatles documentary is the time they go to Bangor [Wales] and then to India and they write The White Album and all that and it’s just mind-blowing. And I’m just like, “Oh yeah, yeah – I’m into that.”
I went to the Isle of Wight and I learned how to meditate – I went within a week of my friend telling me. I was thinking, “How can you do 20 minutes?” That’s just so long! And how can you fit it in twice a day? It takes up so much time. But the 20 minutes that you put into it almost gives you about four hours extra in the day. It’s just mad. It’s like time, I don’t know, it’s like a time shift or something like that. The 20 minutes you put in, you get so much energy and you do so much more in the day. It’s just really helped me to be able to do everything I do.
Have to say personally I’ve always found chairs better for meditation then stools.
Below one persons experience
“In early 2001 I was a frequent visitor to the doctors, I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer and IBS, but finally decided something had to change when I was prescribed Tamazapan for insomnia.
Although I did not feel particularly stressed, all my conditions appeared to be stress related, so I decided to look at reducing stress in my life. From a work colleague, Rick, I found out about T.M North East and went to a talk by Chris Greathead about Transcendental Meditation. I have to admit that although T.M seemed to offer many benefits it seemed a bit far fetched and hippy-ish, but after a further chat with Rick I enrolled on the T.M course with Chris.
The course was excellent, initially one to one and then three, two hour group sessions. In the group sessions I soon discovered other people were having the same T.M experiences as myself, which was very reassuring. In less then a week after starting T.M my IBS had improved drastically and I was sleeping much better. As the weeks went by I just got better and better eventually coming off all medication. These medical benefits have proved to be only the tip of the iceberg, I have become far more relaxed, positive, energetic and simply just happier since taking up T.M.
T.M is quite simply the most beneficial thing, outside relationships, that you can do in your life – it just makes life better.”
Mark ~ Stockton on Tees, UK
“As both stress hormones and inflammation can affect gut bacteria, practicing meditation can help to balance these hormones and decrease inflammatory markers, potentially protecting the gut microbiome.”
All kinds of people meditate.
I do like Ray Dalio’s description of his experience during TM :
“You’re peaceful. You’re quiet,” he said. “You’re not awake, but you’re not asleep.”
The crazy thing about Transcendental Meditation (TM) is that because it is so simple, it is actually surprisingly difficult to describe accurately. For example when the article say :
“Transcendental Meditation is a form of mantra meditation that eschews chanting and focusing on breathing in favour of repeating a mantra in silence.”
The word “repeating” gives the impression that effort, concentration, ie : getting rid of thoughts is involved. Wrong, that’s what make Transcendental Meditation different, even unique. It is so easy, that it becomes effortless to practice. Hence another favourite quote of mine from someone whom I taught on a TM course in York a few years ago :
“I really enjoyed the course, after years of struggling with thought control meditation techniques, TM feels like a breath of fresh air – it almost feels like cheating! I’m managing to practice twice a day and I’m getting a lot out of it already.”
Zara ~ Leeds
“Normally if I have a spare 20 minutes, I’ll be on my phone, I’ll be watching something, and that’s it — now I do this. It’s great.” James Corden
I must admit sometimes it does get a bit tiresome to hear of yet another celebrity taking up TM (Transcendental Meditation), but to be fair if it had’nt been for those four young lads from Liverpool most people would never of heard of it – including me 50 years ago.
Since Covid I have been fortunate to discover that teaching TM (Transcendental Meditation) online works beautifully, just as well as face to face, enabling me to introduce people to this wonderful technique across the UK and around the world – brilliant!
Here’s a comment from someone who attended my April 2022 online TM course :
“Twice a day every day for me apart form the odd bump in the road Awesome!”
Tim ~ Richmond, North Yorkshire
Over the course of his sudden rise to fame, Shetty identified three traits he believes successful people share: persistence, dedication to a purpose beyond themselves, and commitment to a meditation practice.
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