SWAMI PURNACHAITANYA

LOOKING INWARD
Meditating to Survive in a Changing World

PENGUIN BOOKS
 Contents

Introduction: A New Approach

1. Yes, the World Is Changing

2. Understanding How Our Minds React to Change
3. What Are You Seeking?
4. Finding Inner Peace
5. Meditation: Mindfulness . . . or Emptiness?
6. Starting Your Meditation Practice
7. Finding the Time to Meditate

Continuing the Journey: What Next?

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 PENGUIN BOOKS
LOOKING INWARD

Swami Purnachaitanya is an author, speaker, and spiritual guide to

many around the world. He is a sought-after teacher of yoga,
meditation and mantras, and an enthralling storyteller. Swamiji
was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch father and an Indian
mother, who played a central role in kindling in him a keen interest
in the spiritual practices, cultures and philosophies of the East. The
defining moment in his life came at the age of sixteen, when he met
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living, in
whom he recognized his spiritual Master.
After completing his university studies in Indology with a
specialization in Sanskrit, he left the Netherlands and moved to The
Art of Living International Centre in Bengaluru, India to master the
Vedic knowledge, rituals and recitation of mantras and Vedic
hymns. He received his title Swami (monk) as an acknowledgement
of his high state of consciousness and commitment to dedicating
his life to serving others. Purnachaitanya is the name given to him
by his Master, meaning he whose consciousness (chaitanya) has
fully blossomed (purna).
He is currently a Director of Programs for the Art of Living where
he conducts a range of personal development trainings and
oversees various service projects in India and Africa.
 Advance Praise for the Book

‘Your emotional health has a direct impact on your physical health.

Looking Inward allows you to identify the root cause of your stress,
anxiety and other negative emotions and this book will enable you
to address them with the help of meditation. Its beauty lies in its
simplicity and clarity of thought. A must read for anyone looking to
build meditation as a practise.’ – Luke Coutinho, author and
wellness guru

‘In Looking Inward, Swami Purnachaitanya brings to the reader a

beautiful handbook on meditation that one can safely practice and
learn in their home. Given the state of the world we are in, everyone
must read this book full of ancient wisdom presented in an easy-to-
follow format.’ – Yash Birla, Indian industrialist
 Introduction: A New Approach

The world as we know it is rapidly changing. Global warming, a

pandemic, information spreading like wildfires, fake news, riots,
and changing social structures and lifestyles. The magnitude and
impact of these and so many other challenges we face affect our
health, productivity, and finally, our happiness and inner peace. It
is in times like these that most people could feel stressed, acutely
anxious and in some cases, even depressed. And it is now more than
ever that we need to look inward for strength, focus and peace of
mind.
In this practical guide, I will help you on your personal journey
towards finding the source of your anxiety, stress and restlessness,
as well as give you the tools to address and overcome them, using
meditation to soothe distracted thoughts and refocus your energy
to being present in the moment while also building resilience.
The idea is to acknowledge the changing outside world while
strengthening your inner energy reserves to better cope with it. It
does not involve you running away or pretending all the bad stuff
never happened, nor does it involve you trying to feel better by just
imagining everything is actually okay. It is about finally learning
how our mind works, and how to manage it, so that you can
transcend it and access the one source of peace, happiness and
support that remains unaffected and unchanged.
For years I have been teaching meditation to people from all
backgrounds, ranging from indigenous people in the most interior
parts of the North Eastern region in India, to top executives and
CEOs of leading international corporates, from college students and
homemakers to successful artists and politicians; and all have
greatly benefitted from the practice in various aspects of their lives.
Realizing the increasing need for this valuable knowledge to reach
the many people looking for an effective way to deal with life and
come out on top, I decided to write this book.
The book you are holding in your hands right now contains many
of the most valuable insights and techniques that I have learned
and realized over the last twenty years of my meditation practice
under the guidance of a realized meditation master. I am offering
my learning and experience to anyone who is sincerely interested
in finally looking a little closer at life and trying a new approach, or
rather a very ancient one, to deal with many of life’s challenges and
how they affect our health, happiness and peace of mind. Sharing
this knowledge and the techniques with you in an easy-to-
understand-and-apply language and methodology, I provide you
with the practical tools to manage your mind, and finally master it.
There are many misconceptions and wrong notions when it
comes to meditation nowadays, as in the last few decades it has
found itself transitioning from what was, by many, perceived as a
strange occult practice, that was associated with scarcely-clad yogis
in the Himalayas, to the latest trend of mental fitness for the hip
and successful, with an increasing number of mobile apps that
promise you peace of mind in as little as three minute ‘instant’
meditations. On top of that, many embraced the term ‘mindfulness’
as the new and much more secular word for meditation, making it
easier to market to both the masses and corporate honchos, not
realizing that meditation and mindfulness are really not the same,
and in some ways even exactly opposite to each other.
I felt it was high time, therefore, to write a book that clears many
of these misconceptions and wrong notions. One that allows
anyone with an interest to start exploring meditation in a proper
manner, and without getting caught up in either too much incense,
or too little substance.
Meditation is an ancient, time-tested and very effective art of
managing our mind and transcending it. It has countless benefits,
ranging from how it impacts your social and professional life, to
your personal health, happiness and sense of freedom and
fulfilment. Trying to strip it from its context and tradition will not
only be an injustice to the very masters who have preserved this
knowledge till today but would also deprive the practice of some of
its most effective and essential aspects.
At the same time, our modern world and lifestyle requires us to
make this ancient wisdom and techniques available in a way that
they can be easily understood, related to, and practiced by anyone
who wishes to explore the manifold benefits it offers. This book will
be your personal guide to understanding this profound practice for
a healthier, happier and well-adjusted life.
This book is structured in a way that each chapter will give you
some of the tools, to progress on the journey, and impart you the
knowledge and know-how of principles that will finally come
together in your personal meditation practice. Many of the
principles that you will learn in these pages will also make you
more effective, efficient, and empathic in your day-to-day activities
and help you to deal more skilfully with this abstract thing called
the mind and all its tantrums. It will make your life easier, more
enjoyable, and more fulfilling, but it will require you to read,
understand, and practice what has been shared.
You will learn that meditation does not require a lot of focus or
concentration, rather the opposite, and that it can actually be a
joyful journey full of eye-openers. It is a journey from effort to
effortlessness, from activity to stillness, and from stress, anxiety
and frustration to a state of peace and tranquillity. One thing that I
would like to emphasize though, is that meditation is so much more
than just a solution to some of these problems that many of us face.
And practicing it simply to overcome these problems would mean
you may drop the practice when your mind or life has settled down
again. I would rather encourage you to aim higher and think bigger.
Meditation will give you all those benefits, but these are more like
the side effects. The real treasure you can find inside lies beyond,
and is only revealed to those who are really ready to look inward.
 Come then, whether you are totally new to meditation, or have
been practicing regularly or irregularly for many years. I invite you
to embark on this fascinating journey with an open mind. When
you are able to do this, I guarantee that you will learn and realize
many things that can help you understand and deepen your
meditation practice and enrich your life. After all, in today’s
modern world, meditation is not a luxury, it is a necessity, and the
sooner we realize this, the better.
A mind without agitation . . . is meditation
A mind in the present moment . . . is meditation
A mind, which becomes ‘no mind’ . . . is meditation
A mind that has no hesitation, no anticipation . . . is meditation
A mind that has come back home, to the source . . . is meditation

— Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 1
Yes, the World Is Changing

I picked up my phone and scrolled through my WhatsApp

conversations. Ah, there it is, the number of my friend from Delhi. The
Covid-19 pandemic had me locked in an apartment in Johannesburg
for almost two months now. After India closed her borders and airports
overnight, I had managed to travel to South Africa from Ghana at the
last minute, before both countries also closed their borders. A friend in
Johannesburg had kindly agreed to provide me a place to stay for as
long as I needed – something I was grateful for as many have not been
so fortunate during this sudden global shut-down of not just travel, but
most aspects of our lives itself.
‘Hey Samir, how have you been? I was remembering you all. How is
your family?’
‘Swamiji, so nice to hear from you! Things are okay, we are
managing.’ The tone of his voice sounded a little less confident than the
words he chose. ‘My brother came back home, due to the lockdown. So,
we are all together again.’
I have known Samir for quite a few years now, and we had become
good friends. He is a professional photographer, who mostly shoots
weddings – a huge industry in India, with plenty of opportunities if you
are good at what you do. Samir got married a few years back, and his
brother was going to be a father soon. Samir and his wife are living
with his parents, and his brother temporarily moved to West Bengal
some time ago for a good job opportunity there. They had all been
saving money as their apartment is small, especially now that both
brothers were married. They bought a small plot of land in another part
of Delhi and were planning to build a house there for the whole family.
One floor would be for their parents to live, and one floor would be for
Samir and his wife, with his brother occupying the last floor. This way,
they would all have enough space to live comfortably. There had been
some delays, as business had been slow, but the upcoming wedding
season would have brought in sufficient money to finally start the
work. They had all been dreaming of finally having their own place.
‘How about the house? I forgot to ask you about that the last time we
spoke. I remember you were planning to start the construction work
any time now, right? But I guess it is delayed now with the lockdown?’
‘Actually, Swamiji, it looks like we won’t be able to start the
construction. Not any time soon at least. We just got the news that my
brother is losing his job, as the company is not able to retain everyone in
the current scenario, so we will need the money we had saved to
manage our expenses. I have also not been able to earn anything the
last few months as a photographer, and we do not know how much
longer the lockdown will continue. Even when it opens up, it will take a
lot of time before there will be any events like weddings again. Then
too, people will have much less money to spend – it is a difficult time for
everyone right now.’ I paused for a moment, thinking of what to tell
him. I pictured all of them living together in the small apartment – a
place I knew personally as I had also stayed with them once in the past,
when visiting Delhi. Considering that his sister-in-law was expecting a
baby, it would become even more crowded and challenging.

This is life. This is our life. We, more than often, don’t realize it, but
everything that we take for granted, or that we rely on, can change
at any time. And this is nothing new of course; it has always been
like that since time immemorial. Despite our sincerest efforts, life
doesn’t always go as planned, and it never ceases to surprise, be it
for the better, or worse.
However, recent years have seen things change faster, and more
radically, than many of us, and even our previous generation,
would have known. I cannot speak for those who lived through the
Second World War, but we are currently seeing a scenario that is
affecting many people in almost similar ways, if not worse. It’s no
wonder that even eminent personalities and experts have not shied
away from describing the Covid-19 pandemic as the ‘Third World
War’ when explaining the impact it has had on people’s lives. The
United Nations (UN) has officially stated that the pandemic is the
most challenging crisis the world has faced since the Second World
War, and it is the worst crisis the UN has ever faced since her
inception. ‘It is not just a health crisis, it is a human crisis,’ the UN
chief Antonia Guterres has warned, explaining that the economic
impact will bring a recession that has been unparalleled in recent
times. The UN’s food relief agency has warned of a possible 265
million people being pushed to the brink of starvation, fearing a
global famine of biblical proportions. The UN has also projected
that around 200 million people may lose their jobs due to the
pandemic, contributing to a total number of about 800 million
people across the world being pushed below the poverty line, not
being able to meet their basic needs. An Oxfam report published
before the G20 group of leading developed and developing nations,
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, even said
that by the time the pandemic is over, half of the world’s population
of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty.
And to make matters worse, the pandemic is just one of the most
recent developments that has shaken up the lives of people in
countries across the world, leaving many desperately reaching for
anything that could possibly stop them from falling – falling into
despair, depression, or disillusion with life itself.
In the year that culminated in the announcement of this new
virus that started spreading in China, we saw massive wildfires
raging across Australia, as well as sudden violent protests in Hong
Kong, the Middle East, and in various countries across South and
Central America. A trade war between the United States and China
had people worried all over the world, and climate change
continues to have more catastrophic effects on our ecology. Natural
calamities have hardly left any continent untouched, spanning
from earthquakes and floods to cyclones and droughts. A recent
example is the cyclone Amphan in West India that left thousands of
people without roofs over their heads, and many tens of thousands
more with damaged homes or crops, having destroyed large parts of
coastal West Bengal, including Kolkata, in India, as well as parts of
Bangladesh. It was claimed to be the most destructive cyclone to
have hit the metropolitan and the entire region in the last 500 years
and is said to have directly affected 70 per cent of the entire
population of West Bengal.
Friends of mine in Argentina and Zimbabwe have seen their
savings wither away as local economies started collapsing, leaving
them without many options but to pray for better times, and they
were not the only ones. We have seen economies stumbling across
the world, sometimes falling as far as to border collapse, even in
regions like Western Europe, some that are counted amongst the
most developed countries in the world.
For me, it was surreal to see that even in our modern, developed
and advanced societies, things could change overnight. To see our
so-called civilized societies turn to violent protests, looting and
experience a sudden economic collapse, reinforced something that
the ancient scriptures of the East that I have studied have always
warned us about: don’t look for support in the ever-changing, as the
nature of the world is change. The only true support and security
can be found in the non-changing. And for that you need to look
inward.
So, what is it that we look for to feel secure, that we look for to feel
safe? Having a comfortable home? A good bank balance or pension?
Good health, a large circle of friends? Social status, or recognition?
Often, we only realize the importance of these things, when they
suddenly fall away, and with it, our peace of mind, our sense of
security, our happiness, and sometimes even our hope, or faith. And
we are not really to blame, because this is how we were raised; this
is what we were taught since childhood. We should work hard so
that we could get a good job, a nice house, a good circle of friends,
and maybe even earn social status. We should also exercise and
watch our diet a little so that we are healthy and strong. We should
have all these, as they will provide us with the happy and secure life
that we all aspire to. Because in the end we all want the same: to be
happy, to be peaceful, to feel safe and secure, and to be free. It is
what every commercial promises you, whether it is trying to sell
you a new watch, a new car model, a certain shampoo, or a life
insurance. It is why many are ready to sacrifice almost anything to
attain that magical life where you don’t have to worry about
anything and you can live the life you dreamed of, because you can
afford it. But then again, when you look a little closer, you will see
that the people who are supposed to ‘have it all’ have almost all the
same problems. They are also stressed, worried, insecure or anxious
at times, and sometimes even more so than us!
Much too often, I open a newspaper to come across stories of
people, even students, who have committed suicide over setbacks
like a bad break-up or having failed an exam. Farmers committing
suicide because they were not able to cope with the challenges and
debts they were facing are sadly just one more example of this
phenomenon. Depression numbers have continued to rise globally,
which makes us wonder if our technological advancements and
economic progress and development are taking us in the right
direction.
No doubt, having a tidy sum in the bank or a good pension can
help you take care of your needs, and maybe even leave you with
enough to meet some of your wants. Good health, a nice group of
friends to hang out with, and a steady job, all help us to feel happy,
secure and free. But what if these suddenly fall away? Because as
unlikely as it may have seemed earlier, it is now a reality for many
across the world. How does one deal with that? How to remain
unshaken, how to face such challenges? History has left us with
stories of great people who faced adversities or opposition that may
have seemed insurmountable, and yet they were able to keep
moving ahead until, eventually, even emerging successful. How
were they able to do that? When they may have even lacked all
these things that we may turn to for our support, or security? What
gave them this strength?
A story comes to mind here that has stayed with me ever since I
heard it many years ago. It relates an incident that is said to have
taken place in the life of Alexander the Great, during his conquest of
the known world. It is said that his teacher, Aristotle, had asked
him, before he left Greece, to bring back a yogi from India, as they
were known for their profound wisdom and esoteric teachings,
even in those days. Having crossed the Himalayas and having
reached India, Alexander heard about a great yogi who was
rumoured to be living in the forest nearby.
Alexander sent one of his generals to go fetch the holy man and
bring him to him. As the general approached the place where the
yogi had supposedly taken up residence, he saw a man sitting in
meditation, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Approaching
the yogi, the general made his presence known, but it was only after
addressing him a few times that the yogi finally opened his eyes
and spoke. The general told him to come with him, as the great
Emperor Alexander the Great had summoned him. The yogi made it
clear that he was not bothered, and he made it known to the general
that he was disturbing his meditation and asked him to please leave
him alone. The general was shocked with this answer. He tried
persuading the yogi with many fine and precious gifts if he would
accompany him to no avail. The general even threatened the yogi
with dire consequences for his refusal to obey the Great Alexander’s
summons, but the latter had made up his mind, closed his eyes
again, and did not move an inch.
 Perplexed with this whole episode, the general returned to
Alexander, and recounted his experience with the holy man.
Furious but also intrigued that someone had so blatantly ignored
his order, even when threatened, Alexander decided to go and see
this yogi himself. Having come there, he told the yogi who he was,
and that he better obey him if he wanted to keep his head. The yogi,
however, coolly replied by explaining to Alexander that all he had
power over was this body of his, which was going to drop one day.
‘Whether you kill it now, or it dies a few years later on its own, so be
it,’ the yogi said. ‘My spirit, however, is eternal, indestructible and
ever blissful. You have no power over that. And this is what I truly
am. You, therefore, may do as you please, and so will I. Now stop
disturbing my meditation,’ and with this, the yogi closed his eyes
again.
Apart from the shock of being refused by someone who was not
even bothered to greet him properly, Alexander was also astonished
to see the fearlessness and composure of this holy man. He had
never met a man who had truly no fear of death, or his own well-
being, like this yogi had. This made him wonder what the yogi
knew that he didn’t.
It made me wonder too, because even at an early age I had had
enough experiences of how life can shake you, no matter how hard
you try to tell yourself that everything will be okay, or that things
will work out fine. When I was still very young my mother was
diagnosed with cancer, and there were moments where even the
doctors did not know whether or not she would survive the
treatments. For a child the strongest and most unshakable source of
strength, support and security is their mother, and the very
thought of my mother suffering or maybe not staying with us was
almost inconceivable. At other times, it may have been the stress of
maybe not having enough money to buy even the most basic things
that our parents would try to hide from us because we were too
young to understand, or even if we did, to do anything about it. The
change of joining high school was accompanied by another change
at home, as our parents shared with my brother and me that they
would be getting divorced, and suddenly I saw my father only over
the weekends, or even less. And these are just some of the examples
of situations that really shook me, or the people around me, and
made me wonder how great masters like the Buddha had attained
such lasting peace and mastery over their mind without having to
rely on anything external, not even a home. This is probably why
the stories of great saints of the past, or a documentary on TV about
Shaolin Monks, or stories from my father about the yogis of India
and Tibet that he had come across during his travels there, or the
little Buddha statue that my mother had in her room had such a
strong pull on me, as if silently calling out to me to learn more
about their stories. What would I not give to be able to face life with
such poise, feeling so calm and secure in any situation? How could
people who had so little be so confident and peaceful, without
relying on any of those things that we rely on for the same? It is this
hidden strength and unshakable peace that has drawn me to the
traditions of the East from a very early age.
Of course, this was nothing unique, as all of us in our childhood
and school days have had to face challenges, be it of a lesser scale
maybe. Let’s be honest, at that age those problems don’t feel any
less scary, difficult or important! Who has not had trouble sleeping
soundly one time or another, knowing that when they wake up,
they need to face an important math exam or presentation in front
of a teacher who dislikes them? Who has not spent hours trying to
gain the courage to ask someone out, facing an equally disturbed
state of mind even after they have said yes, because what if things
don’t go as planned, or as you hoped? We start feeling we cannot
live without something, and then desperately try to obtain it, only
to find out that after that the stress and fear continue, because now
we stand a chance of losing it again. If this is the case, then how to
possibly remain peaceful in a scenario of such global uncertainty as
what we faced during the Covid-19 lockdown? The number of cases
of depression, domestic violence, suicide and divorce increased
drastically during this time, in just a matter of weeks! This only
shows that we are not equipped to deal with uncertainty and
change – or at least not sufficiently.
Yet, once in a while, you come across someone who seems to be
unfazed by any of these things. It was the search for this
unshakable peace that led me, initially, to practicing various
martial arts as well as exploring some books and teachings of
Buddhism and the Yogic traditions. What is it that could make
people so fearless, so calm, so comfortable, in almost any situation?
I have met people who may have had very little, and yet they were
happier than most people on this planet. Growing up with movies
like The Karate Kid and Star Wars, I used to envy the boys who came
across an actual ‘Master’ who could teach them how to master their
mind and transcend it, giving them access to a level of tranquillity,
power and centeredness that made them unshakable even when
facing the most difficult situations or dangerous people.
The truth is, if we look back, we have also known a similar state in
our own lives. If you retrace your steps to your early childhood, you
will find a time that even you were freer and more peaceful. You
were not bothered about how many friends you had, or whether
they really liked you or not. You were not bothered about what you
possessed, and whether it was enough for you. You were free, each
moment, living life to the fullest. You were not worried about
tomorrow, and you were not sad or upset about yesterday. Having a
pebble or a twig to play with was enough to have a great time – for
hours! Even if something would upset you, it would last for a
matter of minutes at most, after which it was finished, gone, and
you were onto the next adventure.
So then where did we go wrong? Where did we start conditioning
our happiness and peace, our freedom and our security? Why did
we start linking these to all those factors outside ourselves, be it our
bank balance, comforts, relationships and success, that are often
also outside our control? We have given away the control over our
happiness and now it’s time to take it back.
 When we retrace our steps, they lead us back to ourselves, they
lead us inward. We can only aspire to become unshakable, when we
take ownership for our state of mind and how we feel about
situations life hands out to us. This begins with coming to terms
with our reality, with the world that we have created for ourselves.
Take an honest look at your life and think of all the conditions
that you have created for your well-being, joy and peace. Knowing
the problem and understanding it is the first step in finding a
solution. Our securities are the things that we think give us stability
in life, that we can fall back on. The problem is that we have a
tendency to rely on things that can change any time, and then we
get shaken. Our world falls apart. What is it that really disturbs you,
scares you, or could throw you off balance? What is it that you
cannot do without? And then inquire, why is that? What do those
situations, conditions, relationships or comforts give you that you
do not already have, or that you cannot do without? As a child we
did not have any of these, and yet we were happy, peaceful, joyful,
full of love and enthusiasm. So, what has changed?
If we look at our lives, we notice that everything changes,
whether we like it or not. Some change may be slower, but that
doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Look at your life closely. Your body has
changed, and will continue to change, with every day, month, year
and decade that you age. Your thoughts have changed, your likes,
dislikes, your values and preferences. The music you were crazy
about in high school may not appeal to you anymore, and the goals
you have set for yourself would have also changed along the way.
Your friend circle has changed, and the people you feel at home or
comfortable with has changed as well. The way you see yourself has
changed, and the way you want others to see you has also changed.
Even your memory has changed – not just what you remember but
even how you remember it. The same incident that broke your
heart may have been difficult for you for some years, but after that,
the feeling behind the memory faded. Some things that seemed
unfair to you at that point in life are now remembered as a blessing
in disguise, or a lesson that taught you how to become more skilful,
or that gave you more depth and compassion for others.
If we look at our life closely, we have been experiencing change,
and adapting to it from the day we were born. Sure, that doesn’t
mean that we were always happy, and that we never faced
challenges, or got upset, but we were able to keep moving, and we
found our centre again.
And if we look at our life even more closely, we will find that the
very reason that we are able to perceive all these changes is because
there is one thing that has not changed throughout. To notice
change, after all, you need a reference point; you need one thing
that stays the same, looking at which you notice that everything
else has changed. That reference point is what you truly are. Your
‘self’ or ‘being’ or whatever you would like to call it. You.
Not your body, because you know that you are more than just the
body. The very fact that we refer to it as ‘my body’ and not ‘me’
already indicates that you are something separate from it. In the
same way, we talk about ‘my mind’, ‘my thoughts’, ‘my memories’,
and ‘my feelings’. You may have never realized it, but on a subtle
level you already know that you are something that is beyond all
these different layers or dimensions of your existence. You
sometimes get a glimpse of this when you meet an old friend,
colleague or distant relative after many years. You are shocked –
they have changed so much! You can hardly recognize them, and
yet, you feel you are still the same, that you haven’t changed. Even
looking back at your own life, your early childhood, your primary
and then secondary school days, looking at the pictures and
remembering all the ups and down, challenges and adventures, you
feel that even though life was so different, and even though you
were so different, there is a part of you that has stayed the same
throughout. That is You. That is what you truly are. And whatever
happened to you, be it good or bad, has left that part of you
unchanged. To become truly happy, peaceful and successful in life,
we need to become unshakable, at least to some extent, and this
starts by shifting our attention to that which does not change. To
find that anchor in your life, that will allow you to sail through all
the storms of emotions and challenges successfully, and that is this
centre of your existence.
Tapping into this part of yourself, experiencing it consciously,
identifying with it, is what meditation is all about. Peeling back the
layers of our identity and existence, until we reach the point that is
beyond time, and thus untouched by it. This is the source of your
true strength, and to find it, we must look inward. Here I would like
to add that meditation is not just mindfulness, it is much more, and
we will discuss this later in the book. It is also not something that
you can do by just downloading an app and listening to it when you
have some idle time. It will require practice, some introspection and
commitment – but don’t worry, this book will guide you on this
journey, and it is a path that is suited for all, not only those with a
super fit body or an inclination towards leaving everything for a
cave in the Himalayas.
Sure, it may have taken Kung Fu Panda or Luke Skywalker only a
few hours to learn to look inward, find their true strength, and by
doing so, become able to endure and even overcome the challenges
they had to face, and it may not be as easy in reality. You and I may
need a little more than a few hours to master this art, but that does
not mean it is out of reach. And it is worth it, for everyone.
I have been teaching people how to manage their mind and how
to meditate for fifteen years now, and if there is one thing that all
my students have in common: it is that they are just like you and
me. They may be heads of state, homemakers, university students,
prison inmates, corporate executives or villagers – they all have
similar problems. When they are stressed, anxious, or upset, they
cannot enjoy their lives, they are not effective in their work, and
they struggle to find their balance again whenever life does not
work out as planned. Even the prospect of the possibility that
things don’t work out the way they hoped can be enough to cause
sleepless nights, stress and anxiety. It takes away their ability to
enjoy the things their lives had to offer, be it small pleasures or big
achievements.
Haven’t we all experienced that the tasty food or the beautiful
scenery in front of you just loses its charm when you are stressed or
upset or anxious? The quality of our lives is greatly dependent on
the quality of our state of mind, and yet we have never learned how
this mind really works or how to manage it.
In the next few chapters, we will embark on a beautiful journey
inward, tracing back our steps to find out where we took a wrong
turn or missed some of the signs. And know that you have already
taken the most important step: you stopped. You stopped moving
further away from that true happiness, peace and freedom that
kept escaping you till now. By stopping, you moved one step closer
to your goal. This is a journey that will allow you to start taking
back control of your own happiness, one step at a time.
The more you progress, the more you will be inspired to start
implementing the simple tools that you will be learning into your
daily life, allowing you to not only become a happier person, but
also a lighthouse and refuge for the people around you. Don’t
worry, this does not require you to sit in a lotus posture or exchange
your comfortable apartment for a rugged cave in the mountains
somewhere. You have been running around chasing things in this
world long enough now. You may have changed jobs, relationships,
cities or even countries. It has left you tired, and without any
lasting result. The time has come now to rest, recharge, and to
finally start looking inwards.
Wisdom Sutras
The only constant of life is change. Acknowledge that change
is inevitable and embrace it willingly.
You experience the changes in the world around you because
there is a part of you that does not change. Acknowledge the
part of you that is unchanging and know that that is what
you truly are.

10-Minute Exercise

Make a list of all the things that you rely on in your life that you
cannot or would not want to do without and see how many of them
are subject to change and could change any time. They could be the
job you have had for the last ten years, the money you saved for
your children’s education, your relationship, or your own home
that you will finally purchase after a few more years of doing the
right investments.
The more you feel you cannot manage without these, the more
you have conditioned your happiness, sense of security and
freedom. Ask yourself why you cannot do without them – what is it
that you are looking for outside yourself to make you feel
comfortable or at peace? What is it that these things will give you,
that you do not already have, to feel free in your life? Could you be
happy without getting these as well?
 2
Understanding How Our Minds React to
Change

It was a warm sunny day – definitely not a day to be sitting inside, I

thought. The summer holidays were around the corner, and with it the
promise of freedom. The only thing that stood between me and a whole
new chapter of my life were the high school final exams, and even
though I was a bright student, we all have those few subjects that are
challenging. Physics was the main one, and even though I liked the
subject, my average scores throughout the year were such that I could
not afford to mess up the final exam. Not if I wanted to graduate from
high school at least.
I had been studying hard for the last few days, trying to squeeze as
much information as possible into my brain, but unfortunately my
mind worked the same as everyone else’s: the tenser you get, the lesser
you actually absorb. Studying for two-three hours straight, therefore,
mainly consisted of worrying about the outcome of the exam, creating
various scenarios of success and failure in my mind, and re-counting
the pages that I still had left to study. Whenever I turned a page, one of
two things would happen: a page with big diagrams, pictures or
drawings would boost my enthusiasm as it had only little text to cover,
while a page filled with nothing but text would mean a lot more work
and tension. ‘Come on, concentrate, focus, you have only one day left
before the exam,’ I told myself. But wanting to focus and actually doing
it are, unfortunately, not the same, and it is not as easy.
‘You have three hours to complete the exam. Please maintain silence
and switch off your phones. You may only leave the hall after
submitting your papers,’ the teacher facilitating the exam announced. I
carefully placed my watch, pencils, pens and an eraser on the desk.
After an assistant had placed the exam papers on my desk, face down, I
quietly prayed to whoever may be listening to help me through this
successfully.
I took up the bundle of pages stapled together and turned them
around. I quickly scanned through the questions, hoping to see many
things that looked familiar or doable. However, I did not get far. The
first two questions did not make any sense. Did we cover this? Did I miss
this somehow? My brain was racing, trying to remember what these
terms meant or when we had, maybe, covered this in class, but nothing
surfaced. My hands became a little sweaty and I realized that I was left
with only two choices. I could either panic, mess up the exam, and face
the consequences later or I could take a moment to calm my mind and
see how I could still make the best of whatever life had put in front of
me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, took a few deep breaths, and then
decided to start from the third question, doing my best to answer them
well. If I had time in the end, I could always come back to the first two
questions, and maybe by then I would get an idea of how to solve those
as well.

Unfortunately, this is a situation that all of us have to face in life at

one point or another. The bad news is that it doesn’t happen once or
twice but is a cycle that just doesn’t seem to end. No matter how
well prepared you think you are, life has a way of coming at us in
new and impossible ways that even the brightest mind could never
have imagined. Things don’t go as planned and the only thing you
can do is manage the situation as well as you can. But here is the
problem: we have never learned how to manage it. We have gone to
school for so many years, and yet nobody bothered to teach us how
to manage our mind. Or maybe, they also never learned in the first
place?
From the early years of going to school the teachers would have
told you, at least occasionally, to pay attention. It is not that you did
not want to. Which student would not rather really focus, do well
in school, and spend only one-third of the time on their studies and
homework than we normally do? Which employee would not
rather really concentrate on their work, so that they get more done
with fewer mistakes, and that too in much less time? Would it not
be so much easier if you could focus fully on what you are doing,
rather than worry about what may or may not happen, or feel upset
about something that did not go as you had planned? And yet, in all
those years we spent on our education, nobody ever taught us how
our mind, that which we use to study and do everything else in life,
really works. We put so much effort yet, at the end of the day, we
find ourselves at the mercy of this unpredictable thing called our
mind. It can suddenly go for a toss, get stressed, sad or anxious,
leaving us in a mess despite all the good things we have going for
us.
You may have a good job, a nice family, and many of the other
things you were once hoping for, and yet you find it difficult to fall
asleep at night, no matter how many times you keep telling
yourself that there is no need to worry about the presentation that
you need to give tomorrow. No matter how sincerely you tell your
close friend that she should just forget about that ex-boyfriend who
dumped her, because you all agree that she is much better off
without him, deep down inside we all know it is not that easy. She
also feels that she should just forget about him, move on, be happy
and enjoy life again, but how to actually do it? You can keep telling
your mind to just drop it, but most of the time it doesn’t listen to
you – at all! This is exactly why so called ‘positive thinking’ or too
much stressing on ‘trying to be mindful’ doesn’t work at all – rather
it can compound your stress and make you mentally tired.
Now what if I told you that this unpredictable thing is actually
not unpredictable at all? What if I told you that there are laws that
govern our mind – fixed principles – which when understood
properly can allow us to manage our mind much more effectively?
If you look at your life closely, you will find that this mind of yours
may actually be the biggest obstacle to you living a happy and
peaceful life.
We spend so much of our time and energy trying to get all those
things that we deem necessary to feel happy; be it relationships, a
comfortable lifestyle, success, seeing the world, doing service, or
something else. And yet, we find that even if we are able to get all
that we desire, there is no guarantee that we will be able to enjoy it.
A phone call, a text message, some unexpected news or an
argument with a loved one can be sufficient to spoil our state of
mind, and with it, the quality of our life. Many people living in the
most beautiful houses, boasting lifestyles that so many are trying to
achieve, are taking medication for depression and stress, and have
difficulty sleeping peacefully at night. We need to wake up and
realize that comfort and happiness are not the same thing, and that
to really be content in life, we need to start looking inward. And
when you do, the first thing you will come across is your mind.
The mind is without a doubt the most overused and under-
utilized part of our existence. It literally plays a role in everything
we do in life, and yet we have never taken out the time to really get
to understand it. It is both responsible for our most creative and
genius insights, as well as our biggest mistakes and failures. And
yet, we have never learned how to manage our mind, or how it
works. Learning to understand the mind, and the laws that govern
it, we can finally start taking back control – over our mind, and
thus, over our life.
If you observe your mind closely, you will notice it has an issue in
just being with what you are doing at that point in time. It keeps
running around, whether it is into the past or into the future. Just
pause for a moment and observe it. While reading this chapter, you
may have remembered some pending work that you still need to do
today, or you may have been daydreaming about a different you in
the near future, free from stress, worry and insecurity. So many
past events or people would have come up, and all without taking
any prior permission. The interesting thing is that our mind hardly
spends any time in the present moment and we’re often not even
aware of this tendency. It is only when you make a mistake, like
pouring some hot water over your hand when making a cup of tea
or hitting your toe against the side of the coffee table that you
realize ‘your mind was not fully there’. It is because our mind is not
on what we are actually doing that we make mistakes, do half-
hearted jobs, and get mediocre results in life – not just at work, but
also in our relationships.
If you examine yourself closely whenever you are focused,
relaxed, happy or creative, you will find that these are the moments
that your mind is fully in the present moment. Happiness,
therefore, is a mind that is present, fully. And whenever you are
sad, angry, upset or annoyed, you will find that it is because your
mind got stuck with an event of the past – something that has
happened, and that you are not able to let go of. Worry, anxiety and
stress, on the other hand, are all signs of a mind that got stuck in
the future – resisting a possible outcome of what is happening right
now, based on your past experiences and knowledge. But we have
all known a time when we were not troubled by our own mind like
this. We have all experienced what it is like to be truly free.
Do you remember what it was like when you were a child? How
free and happy and peaceful your life was then? You would wake up
in the morning, full of life and enthusiasm. It was a new day, and
you could not wait to start playing again. You were not worried
about what would happen later that day, or how things would be
tomorrow, or next week. Nor were you thinking about what
happened yesterday, what that other boy said to you, or why that
girl had not returned your toy. You were fully with what was
happening right now in whatever you did. Even if you got angry or
upset during the day, it would only be there for a moment,
expressing it totally, and then you were fine again. You were so free,
so happy, and so present. But when growing up, our life became
more complicated, and so did our mind.
Nobody enjoys worrying about their future nor does anyone
voluntarily dwell on their past experiences. The problem is that our
mind does not listen to us, or rather, it often seems to have
something against us. The more you try to stop thinking about a
person, the more they keep coming to mind, and the harder you try
to remember something, the slighter the chance of it actually
coming back to you. The moment you drop the effort, you’ll find
that it suddenly reappears, almost as if to rub it in your face how
futile your efforts were in trying to remember it. How many have
not wondered if maybe God had something against them when
walking out of an examination hall in high school or college, having
struggled to remember all that they had studied in the previous
days, only to find that those things that were right at the tip of their
tongue, but just outside their reach, suddenly reappear in their
mind’s eye in all their glory, the moment they stepped through the
door into the hallway? This is but one of many more classic
examples of us having failed to understand how the mind works
and how we fail to manage it. It is not that you did not study
properly, nor is it that you did not know the subject, but you were
not able to access it at the required time, despite all your sincere
efforts.
Or was it maybe because of those sincere efforts? One more law of
the mind is that it is governed by effortlessness, and not effort. The
law of our body is effort, so this is what we are used to and have
been taught. To train the body, to make it stronger, more flexible, or
more skilled, we need to put effort, practice and train. Whether it is
sports, learning to play an instrument, or anything else, it requires
practice, which is effort. Our mind, however, is governed by a very
different law. Whether it is remembering something, being
creative, being focused, or being at peace, effortlessness in the key.
One needs to learn to let go.
Of course, we already do this sometimes, knowingly or
unknowingly, otherwise you would not be able to fall asleep at
night. But to be able to be focused and relaxed at the same time
needs proper guidance and practice, and this is what meditation is
all about. Meditation is a special state of restful awareness, and with
regular practice it teaches the mind to remain relaxed and at peace
even amidst activity, making it much more effective and resilient.
Another aspect of our mind is that the quality of our state of mind
and its resilience are also closely connected to our energy level. If
you observe carefully, you will find that the same situation or event
does not always disturb you or at least not as much. Sometimes it
takes just a small thing to throw you off balance and to send your
mind spiralling down into a series of negative emotions, while at
other times the same thing doesn’t really bother you and you just
brush it off. Those days, or times, when you are already tired, a little
low, and when your energy levels are down, it takes very little to
disturb you, just look closely. And when your energy level is high,
when you are well-rested, and energetic, you will find that the same
thing doesn’t bother you as much at all. So, taking care of your
energy level will also help you in managing your mind and
emotions.
Here it is also important to add that this dynamic works both
ways; your state of mind affects your energy level as well. We have
all experienced being busy all day long organizing a surprise party,
a celebration or some other festive occasion, and yet you still feel
great at the end of the day. Doing something you are really
passionate about sometimes even appears to give you energy,
rather than deplete it. At the same time, we have also experienced
how draining it can be doing something that you really don’t like or
don’t feel like doing. Even just sitting and worrying about
something is sufficient to drain your energy, all you need to do is
just keep sitting and allow the mind to keep churning its way into
misery. Even to become aware of the fact that your mind has taken
a wrong turn you need a certain amount of awareness to have a
chance to come out of it. This is why the yogis also practiced
breathing techniques or pranayama in preparation of their
meditation. Some of these techniques are effective tools to quickly
energize the body and mind, making it calm and aware. They also
used to make sure their diet and lifestyle were conducive to
maintaining a high energy level, as they knew that all of these are
factors that influence our mind as well.
The breathing techniques are actually one of the easiest ways to
manage the mind and quickly bring it back to a peaceful state
whenever it gets disturbed or loses focus. We teach a number of
these techniques in the Art of Living courses, and it is one of the
main things that made me join one of these courses many years ago
during my high school days in the first place. I had already learned
a little about using the breath to calm and focus the mind during
my martial arts training over the years, but the practical
application and use was very limited in our classes, and I was keen
to explore this more and go a little deeper. The mind may be very
difficult to manage and not really listen to you, as we already saw,
but through breath it becomes much easier.
A beautiful example that I learned in my first Art of Living course
was that the mind is like a kite, and the breath is like the string.
Without the string a kite will fly all over the place, depending on
where the wind blows, but with the string you can control where it
goes, how far and how high. I learned that whenever our state of
mind or emotions change, the rhythm in the breath also changes,
and that this works both ways. Of course, we had also learned to
steady the mind by taking our attention to our breath in martial
arts, but suddenly I realized that there are many layers to this
practice. There are not just two modes of being peaceful or
disturbed; there is a whole range of emotions and mental states,
and each of them has their own corresponding rhythm in the
breath. And by becoming aware of the breath, and consciously
changing the way you breathe, you can actually change or reverse
these modulations of the mind. When someone gets angry, their
breath becomes faster and shallower, while someone who is
emotional has a very shaky breath. When you are sad or worried
your exhalation is more prominent, while when you are relaxed and
happy it is the inhalation that is naturally deeper. I started
experimenting with these techniques and realized that even just
becoming aware of my breathing and consciously slowing it down
and making it deeper whenever my mind would get disturbed,
would already help me a little when faced with sudden challenges. I
may not be able to get rid of all the stress and frustration or
irritation immediately, but at least my mind would be a little more
centred and aware, allowing me to not act too impulsively.
But even then, knowing all this, we see that some people are
perfectly fine, while others end up so miserable, upset or disturbed
in exactly the same situation. You may feel you are dealing with
such difficult challenges in life, and yet you can find people facing
the same or even worse, and they seem to hardly be affected by it.
How is that possible, I used to wonder? Here an interesting story
comes to mind that I heard many years ago that gave me a clue. It
relates an incident that is said to have taken place in the life of the
Buddha, that gives us a glimpse of how to free the mind from the
unnecessary anger, sadness and regret that prevent us from being
happy and peaceful right now, as well as how to deal with
unpleasant situations.
The Buddha was staying in a beautiful garden just outside a town
for a few days, and every day he would preach for some time,
sharing his teachings with those who had come to listen to him. A
businessman of the locality started noticing that every day his sons
and some of their friends would disappear for a few hours to go and
listen to the Buddha, and he became more and more annoyed. ‘This
so-called holy man is filling the heads of my sons with all kinds of
nonsense, while they should be here, running the business,’ he
thought. ‘Sitting there with their eyes closed will not earn them
anything!’
Finally, he decided to voice his disapproval and went to where the
Buddha was sitting and teaching. After reaching the place he made
his way forward through the crowd and went straight towards the
Buddha. Suddenly finding himself in front of him, and not knowing
what to tell the saint, he ended up displaying his anger by spitting
in the Buddha’s face.
The disciples of the Buddha got upset and angry but seeing that
the Buddha did not say anything and just smiled at the man, they
were unsure of what to do. The man, seeing the Buddha smiling at
him, was shaken and did not know how to react. Becoming uneasy,
he quickly turned around and walked out of the gathering and back
to his home.
That night, the man could not sleep. The smiling face of the
Buddha was haunting him – it was the one reaction that he had not
expected at all, and he was not sure what to make of it. Having
calmed down, he realized that his behaviour was uncivilized and
inappropriate, and that he had done the saint a great disrespect.
Feeling guilty, he went back the next day and hesitantly
approached the Buddha, until he finally stood in front of him once
more. ‘Oh, Great One, please pardon me for my behaviour
yesterday, I don’t know what came over me. Please forgive me for
my ignorance and anger.’
The man now looked up at the Buddha, whose face still bore the
same gentle smile. ‘I cannot,’ the Buddha replied. Hearing this not
just surprised the man, but even the disciples of the Buddha. Their
master was the embodiment of compassion, and yet he himself was
not ready to forgive this man for his earlier rude behaviour? ‘I
cannot forgive you,’ the Buddha continued with a smile, ‘because
you have not done anything wrong.’
‘My lord, I think you don’t recognize me,’ the gentleman replied. ‘I
am the one who came here yesterday and spat on your face.’
 ‘No, you are not,’ the Buddha replied, ‘You are not the same man
that you were yesterday. Nor am I the same person as the one that
was spat on yesterday. And as both of us are different people, how
then can I forgive you? Who is there to forgive, and who is to be
forgiven, and for what?’
This story is often shared as an example of how true compassion
is to be practiced, but it also teaches us a way to free our mind of the
unnecessary burden of past events that keep haunting us. It is a
technique taught in the Yogic scriptures that the Buddha, who was
also a yogi, knew as well. It is the fact that the more importance we
give to events, the stronger the impressions become and the more
they bother us by becoming returning thoughts.
Have you ever wondered why certain thoughts keep coming back,
and others don’t? Have you ever paid close attention to the things
you remember and the things you don’t? You may remember what
someone said about you behind you back a few years ago, but you
will not remember what you had for lunch even one or two weeks
back, unless it was something unusual or a special occasion. You
don’t remember your lunch because it was not important to you.
This is also the reason why most of us don’t remember any of the
dreams we have at night. You may wake up feeling anxious, angry,
sad or very happy, but after the initial few moments of realizing
that it was just a dream, the emotions usually subside within
seconds. And a few hours later we normally don’t even remember
the dream at all.
A colleague of yours may have abused you in your dream, but by
the time you meet them in real life, you don’t even remember it, let
alone hold it against them. If at all you remember it vaguely, you
may even have a good laugh over it, telling them what all they did
to you in your dream. But if even a fraction of what transpired in
your dream would have happened in ‘real life’, it could have spoiled
your work relation, and maybe even your overall peace and
wellbeing at the office for weeks, months or even years. The only
difference here being how much importance you gave to the event.
 One may argue that we cannot compare these two scenarios,
because dreams are not ‘real’, but the principle discussed here
definitely applies to our mind and is valid. Another example could
be having a random person call you an idiot or shouting at you on
the street while you are on your way home. You may not be too
bothered about this, thinking that the person may have mistaken
you for someone else, or maybe that they must be drunk. In most
cases, you won’t even remember the incident a few days down the
line. Were that person someone in your family or at the workplace,
however, then it would be a very different story. Why? Because we
give it that much more importance. Trauma is that state where you
are not able to let go of some experience, something you have seen,
heard, or experienced and it keeps disturbing you. So, in some ways
you could even say that until we are really able to let go of the past,
we are all traumatised to some extent.
It is therefore not so much the challenges and situations that
really disturb us and take away our peace of mind, it is the
impressions they leave on us that continue to pull our mind back
into the past, or push it into the future, making it swing between
anger, sadness and disappointment on one side, and anxiety, stress
and insecurity on the other. And this is where we find a clue to live
a more happy and peaceful life. The more you start looking inward,
you start realizing that it is not so much the world outside that is
defining our happiness and peace of mind, it is the world we have
created within us. It is the baggage that we have accumulated when
growing up, whether these are bad experiences or just dreams and
desires of how we think things should be, that weighs us down and
does not allow us to be at peace wherever life is taking us.
Realizing this is the next step that you have taken, one step closer
to the goal. You will now slowly start to see that in all your
earnestness you were not lacking in effort or commitment, you
were just looking for the wrong things, or rather, you were looking
in the wrong place. Come, let us continue, don’t stop here. You are
now ready to start asking the right questions, that will eventually
lead you to the right answers as well.
But just like any journey that is really worth it in life, don’t forget
to pause in between and look around. Many a times the most
beautiful experiences and most precious discoveries are those that
happen while you were actually looking for something else. Our
mind has many secrets to disclose to those who pause to really
listen.
Wisdom Sutras
The law of the mind is effortlessness. The more peaceful and
relaxed your mind is, the more powerful it becomes.
On the level of the mind, less is more. The emptier your
mind, the happier, more peaceful and freer you are.
The more importance you give to events, the stronger the
impressions become. Wake up to the transitory nature of
things – this will free your mind.

10-Minute Exercise

Sit quietly and take a moment to look at today and the last few days.
What are the things that keep your mind preoccupied amidst your
activities? What are the things or people that you are bothered by,
that you are upset about, that make you feel uneasy, or that cause
you to worry? Write them all down, one below the other. Take your
time to really introspect. If nothing much comes to mind, or you
don’t remember anything right now, then you can take the next day
to observe your mind and whenever you catch it getting stuck with
something, whether it is in the past or the future, make a note of it.
Now look at each of the things that you have written down, one
by one, and ask yourself why you are giving this so much
importance. You will notice that your anger, sadness, frustration
with past events, as well as your worries and anxiety about the
future, are based on the experiences and concepts that you have
accumulated over the years.
Wake up and realize that the past is gone. Whatever has
happened, or whatever someone said, or did to you, has come and
gone. It is nothing more than a dream, and the only power it has
over you right now is the power you give to it. The more you are
able to let go of the past, the more you will free yourself from the
emotions behind those events that keep disturbing the mind – and
the freer you will be.
 Now for a moment close your eyes and consciously drop your
entire past. Drop everything; the good, the bad, the right and
wrong. Drop your very identity, and everything you think you
know about life and this world. Drop all your experiences. Feel as if
you are a new-born baby, in the sense that you have just come into
this world and you are like a blank page. You have no past, no plans
for the future, no goals, worries or concepts about who you are or
how things should be. Dropping the entire past, become aware how
empty and peaceful your mind becomes and how free you are
feeling right now.
 3
What Are You Seeking?

It was only 8 pm so I had time to finally catch up on my pending emails.

The past four days I had been busy conducting a yoga retreat in
Rishikesh for a group of yoga enthusiasts from South America. I opened
my laptop, logged into my email account, and saw there were fifty
unread mails. Scanning through the names of senders, I noticed a
familiar one: Shweta.
It must have been about two or three years ago that Shweta had
written to me for the first time, on Facebook, asking me for some
guidance and blessings. She had just lost her job in Dubai and on top of
that the guy that she had been in a relationship with had also suddenly
left her, just when she was hoping to finally get married. She was quite
desperate to get married also because she was now in her early thirties
and her parents were putting a lot of pressure on her. I had given her
some guidance on how to deal with the situations and manage her
mind. In the months that followed, life was a struggle for her, where a
few more possible marriage proposals did not work out, and neither did
the job applications she wrote to various companies. And then one day
she wrote to me that her prayers had finally been answered. She had
applied at a bank that had an opening for the job she had been wanting
for years, and she had been accepted. On top of that she had also been
introduced to a wonderful guy, Vishal, who was working in the United
States. They had been speaking on the phone, and he was very kind,
considerate, humble and had great values. It was a perfect match. In
the months that followed the families also came in agreement about
the marriage, and the day she had been praying for came: She got
married to a wonderful guy, and moved to the US, another thing she
had been dreaming about. In the months that followed I just received
one more email about how life was everything she had been wanting,
and that she was so happy with how things had turned out.
But then after a few more months I started receiving emails again.
Shweta now needed to find a job in the US and was worried about
getting a job that she liked and that would pay well. On top of that she
was yet to make new friends in the US, and she felt uncomfortable
when her husband would spend time with his friends there. They were
not her type of people and she did not enjoy spending time with them.
She did not want to let him out of her sight, but he also wanted some
time with his friends. They would end up having arguments about this,
leaving her feeling scared that he might leave her, and that she would
end up alone again. Her insecurities and demands put more strain on
the relationship and she grew more anxious. She was accepted with a
big bank after applying for various job openings, but it soon turned out
that the job wasn’t all that she had hoped. She felt that it was not what
she had pictured herself doing in life. She would go to work and be
miserable there, feeling that this was not what she wanted. Of course,
she was lucky, she told me, because she was not sitting at home, she had
a good job, and received a good salary, which is more than many other
people in the world. She had received everything she had prayed for,
and yet, she was not really happy.
I paused for a moment, took a sip of the herbal tea in front of me,
and then started writing my reply.

What do you want in life? Why are you here? Even if you have not
yet reached to the point of asking these fundamental questions, you
cannot escape making choices in life. And more often than not, you
realize only afterwards that you may not have ended up where, or
with what, you wanted. That joy, fulfilment, peace, true happiness,
or love that you were trying to achieve so badly, keeps slipping
through your fingers, almost tangible, but just out of reach. The
more miserable we are, the louder these questions become. Yet all
those who have truly managed to achieve these goals, at least to a
great extent, will tell you the same thing – the answer you were
looking for and the thing you want most, are the things that were
always there and that can never be lost. This realisation only comes
when you start asking the right questions.
If I look at my friends from high school and university, I can
safely say that most of them ended up doing something very
different than what they had actually studied. This is not because
they were not able to get the jobs that they were most qualified for;
rather it is because they were not at all interested in choosing those
jobs. They had realized that they would rather do something else.
It happens to so many of us; you start something, only to find out
somewhere along the way that ‘this is not really what you wanted’
or expected. Sadly enough, most people end up living their life like
this. They don’t know exactly what they want, or what they are
looking for, and this keeps leading to disappointment or
frustration. It is like getting into a train, not knowing where you
want to go. The train takes you somewhere, you get off, only to look
around and realize that this is not where you wanted to land. You
don’t know exactly where you want to go, but you are certain that
this is not the place. Sounds familiar?
You are looking for real happiness, lasting joy and true freedom,
but you don’t know where to find them or where to begin looking.
You wake up one day and realize that the relationship you are in is
not what you had hoped it would be, or that your job isn’t what you
had expected, and you are very sure that this is not how you want
to spend the rest of your life. All you know is that this is not it.
Here some choose to let life get the better of them and they keep
moving down the same road, even if disillusioned, knowing
somewhere deep down that it is not taking them to where they
wanted to go. But it is too late now to turn back; they have already
spent so many years treading this path.
Some others, who are braver, or more adventurous, may choose
to take that leap of faith and try a new path. They choose one of the
many options that are supposed to lead us to real happiness, and
then dedicate themselves to it whole-heartedly. Even this can be
confusing though, because if we look at the advertisements and
commercials that we are bombarded with from morning till night,
literally anything from a special soap, deodorant, pack of instant
noodles, luxury watch, or new sports model or all-terrain vehicle
comes with a promise of real happiness, the perfect family life, or a
sense of true freedom.
Somewhere during our childhood, we stopped just being happy in
the moment with whatever was there and started postponing our
happiness, linking it to anything that was not there yet. You saw
your elder sibling getting ready to leave for their first day of high
school, carrying a big bag with books, a calculator, and other things,
and you thought ‘Oh wow when I finally get to go to high school
and have a bag like that, I will be really happy.’ But when you were
able to get those things that you promised yourself would make you
happy, it would just take moments for your mind to latch on to the
next thing – if I have that, I will be really happy. Be it the latest
phone your friend just got, a date with that pretty boy or girl, or a
visit to Europe.
I remember when baggy clothes became a new fashion in The
Netherlands during my early high school days. It was new, it was
cool, and suddenly the clothes I had been wearing for the last year
seemed at least two or three sizes too small for me – and I hadn’t
really grown that much. My parents had divorced two years earlier,
and my brother and I were living with my mother. We were happy,
but we never had a lot of money, and we were used to buying our
clothes at second-hand stores. I had been saving some money that I
earned with a newspaper round I used to do, and recently I had
joined as a dishwasher and kitchen help in a local bistro on the
weekends. I couldn’t wait to buy some of those fashionably big
trousers and the oversized hoodie and t-shirts that would complete
the style. Oh, and don’t forget the shoes, which were ideally DC’s,
that was the main brand that all the skaters wore. I had already
gone to the main shops selling these types of clothes in our city – a
few times actually. I would carefully check out the price tags and
calculate how many more weekends I would need to work to be able
to afford them. The shoes were the most expensive.
Finally, the day came, and neither the heavy rains nor the stormy
weather could stop me. By the time I came back home and parked
my bicycle in front of our yard, I was drenched. But my face was
beaming! I was carrying three plastic bags with three new t-shirts,
two hoodies, two XXL pants, a new belt (to hold up those
ridiculously oversized pants) and finally, my new DC shoes! I
remember my mother looking through the kitchen window,
smiling to see her son so happy. She shared my joy and was the first
one to tell me to try on my new clothes and show her how they
looked on me. Looking back, I appreciate her even more, because the
wise woman she was, she must have known that those clothes I had
worked so hard for would only keep their charm for a limited time.
That is exactly what happened. The first few days, maybe weeks, I
wore them ever so proudly, feeling great about my fashion sense.
But soon enough, my mind had already found the next thing to
focus on. If I could get that new portable CD player my friend has,
I’d be able to listen to music anywhere, even when riding to school
on my bicycle. I had once more successfully postponed my
happiness. And like this, it goes on and on. We end up looking in so
many places that we forget to pay attention to the subtle clues that
our mind and consciousness have left us to actually lead us to our
goal.
If you look a little more closely at your life and your mind, you
will notice something fascinating. Whenever you truly enjoy
something, whenever you experience pleasure or happiness, you
will find that your mind stops for a moment and turns inward. The
mind that is normally so caught up with and lost in all the
experiences of the senses, getting pulled in so many directions,
suddenly stops moving outward and reverses. Think about it: What
happens when you taste something really delicious? Let’s say a
special delicacy ice cream your friend brought over. You take a
spoonful and put it in your mouth, and then what happens? For a
moment your eyes close and you taste it fully. You take the
experience in completely, and a sense of joy, satisfaction, peace
wells up, even if just for a moment. Whenever something tastes
delicious, you naturally close your eyes for a moment to relish the
experience. It brings you joy.
A similar thing happens when you smell something exquisite,
like a wild rose or jasmine or a subtle perfume. When you breathe in
the smell, your eyes automatically close for a moment and the mind
stops, while you take in the experience as fully as you can. But is it
you taking the experience in or is it the experience that is taking
you inward? Whether it is you hearing something beautiful, like
some music that stirs something inside of you, or the experience of
touch, like the embrace or caress of a loved one, they all have a
similar effect on us. We close our eyes for a moment, our mind goes
inward and we experience that momentary joy or happiness or
pleasure.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen and this is where we
get another clue. You hear a song somewhere, and it makes you feel
so good and happy, that you find out what it is called and you
download the song or stream it. The thought behind you wanting to
have it is that when you will hear it again, you will again experience
the same joy or peace that you felt when you heard it earlier. More
often than not, it doesn’t have the exact same effect on you later on,
when you listen to it again. The same goes for a movie you saw that
made you so emotional or the amazing meal in that new restaurant.
We find that doing the exact same thing does not give us the exact
same result. This means that the joy or peace that we experienced
earlier was not just because of that song, movie or amazing food;
these were just a trigger at that point in time for you to go inward
and experience the joy that was already there. These external
stimuli don’t always trigger the same emotion in you. Think about
it: If it was the food that made you feel a certain way, it should have
the same effect on you every time you eat it, but it does not.
How many times have you gone back to a place, or ordered the
same special dish, or rented the same movie, hoping it would make
you feel as great as you did the first time or some earlier time you
experienced it, only to find that it did not live up to your
expectations? If you have never paid close attention to this, start
doing it now, as these are valuable lessons that life is teaching us
every moment.
Another clue to solving this mystery is when you start asking
why people enjoy scary things or suspense. Have you ever
wondered about it? Why did you want to go inside the House of
Horrors as a child when there was a fair in town? Why do people
like to read horror books or watch scary movies and thrillers? Why
would anyone want to feel uneasy or scared on purpose? It is the
same reason why people enjoy riding on a rollercoaster or driving
fast on a bike or go skydiving. What all of these experiences have in
common is that for a moment the mind stops and it comes totally to
the present moment. Just think about it. Our mind that is normally
all the time going to the past and future, worrying about what may
happen, and regretting or feeling upset about the past, suddenly
comes to a standstill. The story or movie or experience is such that
in that state of suspense the mind stops and is fully present. And
when the mind is in the present, it is happy. This is the only reason
why all these so-called scary experiences give you joy and make you
feel good. They are a means to temporarily bring the mind to the
present moment. Any experiences that bring your mind to the
present, to the here and now, so totally, will therefore give you
some amount of fleeting joy and happiness because happiness is
only in the present. It is never in the past, nor in the future, it is
only now. When you realize that this is your natural state, that you
don’t need anything outside of you to be happy, then all you need to
do is to learn how to skilfully bring your mind back whenever it
gets stuck in the past or the future, so that you can be in the
present, and thus happier.
Using this principle, you can go one step further and apply it to
activities that aren’t as interesting as well. By applying your mind
fully to what you are doing, you will start becoming more peaceful
thereby enjoying the task at hand more. This is also one of the
principles behind mindfulness. The more you are able to be fully
immersed in what you are doing right now, the less your mind will
wander into the past – which causes feelings of regret, sadness or
anger – or the future, which brings with itself anxiety, worry or
stress. On top of that, your productivity, awareness and quality of
work will go up because it is mainly due to your mind drifting off
that you are less efficient, effective and attentive. Another benefit
of giving your hundred per cent to the task at hand is that it will not
leave any space for regrets, as it is the thought that you could have
or maybe should have done that little extra that allows for the
feelings of regret to creep in in the first place. So, doing things and
living life with a mind that is anchored in the present moment has
so many profound benefits! This is why small children are so
happy, joyful, enthusiastic and stress free.
For those of us who don’t remember what it was like when you
were a small child: Have you ever wondered how children do it?
They can fall asleep in any position and sleep so deeply and
peacefully without a care in the world. You may be dead tired and
yet you have difficulty sleeping in your comfortable bed because of
all the worry, stress, pending tasks that just don’t seem to leave
your thoughts. Your mind keeps racing. A small child wakes up in
the morning and is so full of energy and enthusiasm without
needing any reason for it. We, on the other hand, first need a cup of
tea or coffee, in order to start our day. Why? Because somewhere
along the way that enthusiasm that used to be our nature has now
been overshadowed by our worries, desires and stress. When we
were small our mind had not yet become so complicated, and so
caught up with the past and the future. For a child, the mind is still
naturally in the present moment, and that allows them to do
anything fully and enjoy it. Just notice how intensely a small child
can look at something; whether it is a flower, a toy or their finger.
There is so much we can learn just by carefully observing small
children – you would be amazed.
For most of us, however, we find ourselves in the opposite
scenario. When our mind is disturbed, we are unable to enjoy
things, even if life puts the tastiest food or most beautiful scenery
in front of us. Unless we learn how to unwind our mind again and
reconnect with our true nature, we can keep spending all our
energy trying to find peace and happiness in life, but we may never
succeed.
So, is it wrong then, you may ask, to strive for job satisfaction, for
example? Well, that depends on how you look at it. The beauty is
that if you are able to be satisfied, irrespective of what you are
doing, you will also be satisfied doing your job. And that is
something worth achieving. On the other hand, if you keep on
changing or rejecting job opportunities because you are waiting for
that perfect dream job, you are not being realistic, and honestly,
also not very practical. After all, the purpose of a job is to earn
money and to be able to support yourself and those dependent on
you financially. If that’s the case, you need to make this your main
criteria and not whether it is all that you dreamed of doing with
your life. If the main purpose of a job is that you enjoy it all the
time, then it is not a job, but a hobby. This does not mean that you
need to be miserable though because, like I said, it is possible to get
real job satisfaction. But the key there is that you are already
satisfied, irrespective of the job.
The same applies in many ways to relationships as well. You will
find that the more contented and happier you already are, the more
you are able to give to the relationship, and the more your love and
support for the other becomes unconditional. This allows the
relationship to flourish. However, if you are coming from a space of
need, expecting the relationship to make you feel happy, peaceful
and loved, or at least less lonely, then there are much bigger
chances that you are in for a rollercoaster ride, and possibly a
disaster. Because the thing about love is that its nature is to give,
not take. The more you demand love, the more you destroy it, and
the same holds true for a relationship. Whether it is a good friend or
a partner, you will find that the more they start demanding from
you, from the relationship, and the more they ask you to prove or
show your friendship or love towards them, the faster it will
diminish. Even if you had a lot of love for them before, it would
start shrivelling up until you come to a point where the only way to
regain your peace is to move out of the relationship. It is not wrong
to look for satisfaction, love, peace and true happiness; rather it is
natural and totally normal. These are our very nature, and it is what
life will keep propelling us towards, until we regain it one day. But if
we hope to do so one day, we need to know where to look.
There is an interesting story that beautifully illustrates this
dilemma of ours that I first heard when my Master related it to us
one evening during a public discourse. It is one of the funny
accounts of the eccentric thirteenth-century Sufi philosopher
Mullah Nasiruddin, and it beautifully conveys the predicament we
find ourselves in even today. The story goes as follows.
It was evening and the sun had already set, when a gentleman
who was on his way home noticed Mullah Nasiruddin crawling
around on the street on his hands and knees, frantically moving
here and there under the light of a streetlamp right outside his own
house. It appeared that he was looking for something.
‘Mullah, what are you doing here outside at such an hour? Did
you lose something?’ the gentleman inquired.
‘Yes, I am searching for my key, but I am not able to find it,’
Mullah replied, sounding rather disturbed.
 The man felt sorry for Mullah and decided to lend him a hand.
‘Let me help you,’ he said, and he also got onto his knees and started
looking for the key together with Mullah. This went on for some
time, but the lost key was nowhere to be found. Finally, the man sat
up and turned to Mullah. ‘Where exactly did you lose the key
Mullah? Are you sure it was somewhere here? Do you remember
where you dropped it?’
‘Oh yes, I remember exactly where I lost the key,’ Mullah replied,
and pointing towards his house, he proclaimed: ‘I lost it there,
inside somewhere.’
The gentleman looked at him confused, quickly got up and with
irritation in his voice asked the Mullah: ‘But then why are we
searching here out on the street?’
Mullah, however, calmly and in a matter-of-fact tone replied:
‘Because it is very dark inside my house. I am searching here
because there is more light.’
Now, before we judge Mullah, we must look at our own life
closely, because many of us are really not that different from him,
at least in this matter. We look for the key to our lasting joy,
happiness and peace in so many places, but they are all ‘outside’ of
us. The truth is, the key to our true happiness and peace has always
been inside, and as a child, we still knew how to use it. Somewhere
along the way though, many of us seem to have lost it – or maybe
‘misplaced’ is a more appropriate term. We have started placing our
happiness in things, people and conditions outside of us, and thus
also outside of our control. Now we are frantically searching
everywhere for the key, changing jobs, relationships, places where
we live and holiday destinations, forgetting where we lost the key
in the first place.
Don’t keep repeating the same mistake as Shweta, as like her, you
will keep finding yourself feeling anxious and uncomfortable with
life, either because you are not sure if the thing that you imagine
will make you happy finally will be within your reach, or because
you are so afraid to lose what you have already acquired. Too many
people have lived their lives falling prey to regrets of the past,
discomfort with the present, and worry about the future, losing out
on the beauty that our life in this world has to offer us.
Come, you are tired of searching, it has become dark already and
it is cold outside. Now that you know where you have lost the key, it
is time to finally start looking in the right place. If you are really
serious about regaining your inner peace, you need to start going
inward.
Wisdom Sutras
When your mind is fully in the present moment, it is
naturally happy.
True and lasting happiness can only be found within you, it
is never outside of you.
Know that whenever you think that something or someone
will make you happy in the future, you have yourself
postponed your happiness.

10-Minute Exercise

Choose any one of your daily chores or normal activities that is part
of your routine, but this time do it with a total sense of newness.
Apply yourself fully and feel as if you are doing it for the first
time.
Give your hundred per cent and involve your mind as well – do
not let it drift anywhere, don’t multi-task. Don’t let it go to the past
or the future. It may be washing the dishes, taking a shower,
sweeping the floor, preparing some sandwiches, or making the bed.
Whenever the mind drifts off, bring it back to what you are doing,
and do it as well and as perfectly as you can. Forget about all the
times you have done this already in your life and forget about
everything you think you know about it. Forget about whether it is
important or not and forget about what you would gain from it or
how it will benefit you. Just do it, giving it your complete attention,
involving your mind fully in the process. You will find that the
more you are able to do this, the more you will start enjoying it. You
will start feeling more peaceful, and happier.
This is how you used to do every little thing as a small child,
remember? You would pick up a spoon with such total attention,
and just watch it hang there in your hand. Everything would be a
game, and you would play it with such enthusiasm, without
worrying about the outcome. And you were happy!
 4
Finding Inner Peace

‘Mary, can you keep an eye on the helpdesk counter for the next thirty
minutes? I am going out for lunch.’ Mary nodded and gave me a smile.
‘Enjoy!’
Stepping out of the large public library building, I was greeted by a
gentle warm breeze that carried traces of the smell of the delicacies
being served by the various restaurants in the square nearby. In the
Netherlands the days where you can comfortably step out without any
sweater or coat on are precious, and therefore even more enjoyable.
The public library where I was working to earn some extra money
before joining university was located in the heart of Haarlem city, and
was surrounded by all the main shopping areas. Welcoming the
summer sun on my face, I walked towards the nearby public square
where many people were enjoying their lunch served by the bistros and
cafeterias. I walked into a small Turkish bakery and was greeted by a
friendly man who already knew what I was about to order.
‘Two fresh Turkish baguettes and a spinach feta cheese roll?’ he asked
with a smile. ‘Yes please, the usual,’ I replied. I came here every day to
buy ‘the usual’ for lunch – it was fresh, delicious, healthy and
affordable, so why change a winning formula?
‘Here you go. Just give me two euros, that’s okay.’
 ‘No, no, you don’t have to give me a discount! It is already very
cheap,’ I objected. The gentleman smiled. ‘Please, just take it. It is nice
for us also to have someone walk in here every day who smiles and
appreciates our work.’ I reluctantly agreed to pay the reduced rate but
appreciated their heartfelt gesture.
Walking back to the library, I could already smell the freshly baked
bread in the paper bag that I was carrying. The bread was still warm,
crispy on the outside, and inside it would be very soft. Fresh from the
oven! I quickened my pace, and after entering the building went
straight up to the employee area on the top floor. Filling a big mug with
hot chocolate from the coffee machine, I now went to what was my
usual spot during the summer days – a chair on the rooftop balcony.
Sitting there, in the sun, with the occasional warm breeze gently
carrying with it the sounds and fragrances from the city centre below
me, life was perfect for a moment. I closed my eyes, taking another bite
from the freshly baked bread, really tasting it, and I felt a deep sense of
contentment and peace spread throughout my body and mind. Slowly
opening my eyes again, I looked down at the thousands of people
moving through the alleys below, buying so many things, eating so
many things, drinking so many things, and it made me wonder. Why do
we think we need so many things? We keep running, thinking that one
day we will get everything that will make us happy, but does it ever
happen?
I took another bite of the bread that was so fresh and tasty that it did
not even require anything to be added, neither butter nor cheese or jam.
When a simple piece of bread and a mug of hot chocolate and the sun in
my face could give me so much happiness and peace, then why would I
even want to run after so many things? What was the need? And then it
struck me – the less you need, the freer you are. Not sometime in the
future, but right now.

God, or the Universe, must have a good sense of humour, as trying

to find ‘true happiness’ has for many probably turned out to be one
of the most frustrating endeavours. Millions across the world have
put themselves through all kinds of ordeals, be it climbing snow-
clad peaks, signing up for a local hot yoga class, joining a Buddhist
Zen retreat, or doing a sweat lodge, and maybe even trying drugs,
all in an attempt to achieve what Kung-Fu Panda managed to do
within one-and-a-half hour: find inner peace. And this is where
many make their first mistake, because the moment you leave the
house looking for the keys you left on the dining table, your chances
of finding them have already reduced drastically.
Of course, nowadays finding or regaining your inner peace has
become a much hotter topic than it used to be fifty or hundred
years ago. But maybe that is because we have moved further away
from it. It is nothing new that people look for peace or happiness,
they have been since millennia, but it does seem like our modern
lifestyle is in some ways taking us further away from this goal.
Have you noticed how many of the older generations, the grandmas
and grandpas, used to have such a calm over them? Whether I look
at my grandparents in the Netherlands, or some of the old people I
have met during my travels in India and other parts of the world, I
often noticed a kind of calm, peace and simplicity that is rarely
found in the younger generations. People sometimes even used to
make fun of them a little, joking how all they needed was their
usual sandwich for lunch, a nice book, and a cup of coffee with a
piece of cake late in the afternoon to keep them happy and content.
And yet, if you really think about it, it is that same peace and
contentment that we are looking for but are not able to gain with all
our gadgets, big screen TVs, and trips around the world. Have we, in
our endeavours to attain bigger and better happiness and peace,
become so dissatisfied with our lives and moved so far away from
our nature that nowadays you can even hear a nine-year-old child
confidently state that she is depressed? A nine-year-old child!
It is almost as if the fact that life has been speeding up
continuously and becoming more and more hectic, has also made
us more acutely aware of the need to slow down and move inward.
Where yoga was something that was frowned upon by many in the
West and many other parts of the world, even as recently as fifty
years ago, often associating it with scarcely clad individuals that
prefer a bed of nails over a comfortable sofa, we now find the most
successful corporate executives and movie stars proudly boasting
about their personal yoga practices – and that too sometimes even
more scarcely clad than those yogis of ancient times!
Any advertisement or commercial that tries to sell you their
product or service, in an attempt to convince you that you are not
just buying the product but also your much needed relaxation,
inner peace and fulfilment, will more often than not show you a
person sitting in a meditative posture, displaying a sense of calm
that may have caused envy even in the Buddha had he not been
enlightened.
And yet, we rarely slow down sufficiently to pause for a moment,
look at our life, and inquire why this true sense of peace and
happiness continues to elude us. We are in such a hurry to get to the
future and achieve our goals that we keep running, at least
mentally. When is the last time that you had a meal and only had
your attention on what you were eating and how it tasted? One has
to be very careful that in the effort of achieving lasting happiness or
true freedom in the future, one doesn’t spoil the present by turning
every activity into another item on the to-do-list, leaving no time to
actually be happy or enjoy things right now.
You are eating, but you are also talking to people, or planning the
rest of the day, or replying to your pending messages on your
phone, or watching the news on TV. Which is why after realizing
that you finished an entire plate of food you wonder why you still
feel hungry, or at least not satisfied. You then look for some snacks,
or some dessert or a sweet, not realizing that the lack of satisfaction
doesn’t come from not eating enough, but from not actually tasting
and enjoying the food.
The same principle can be applied to any other aspect of our lives.
In our enthusiasm to multitask, we try to also multitask our
relaxation, our enjoyment, and our peace, and it simply does not
work. I remember an interesting story that I heard many years ago
that beautifully brings our attention to this point.
There was a king who was quite spiritual, and his subjects thrived
under his just rule. One day the king heard about a holy man living
in the mountains somewhere in his kingdom. Whoever had gone to
visit the saint had experienced such peace and joy in his company
and was so touched by his presence that word had quickly spread
throughout the entire kingdom. Learning about this, the king asked
one of his ministers to go and find out what is so special about this
saint, and what techniques he practices, what daily routine he
follows and how he spends his time. The king had met many holy
men and he was curious to know more about this saint, whom
people described as an embodiment of peace and contentment.
After all, even kings were striving to reach such a state, and it had
so far remained outside his reach.
The minister left for the mountains and after taking directions
from a nearby village, finally found the place where the holy man
lived. He decided to quietly observe the man, hiding at a distance, so
that he could make a proper report for the king. A few days passed
like this, after which the minister decided to return to the palace.
When asked by the king about the holy man, there was not much
that he could tell him though.
‘Your highness, I have secretly observed the saint for three days
and three nights, but I was not able to observe anything special
about him at all.’
‘That is not possible, you must have not paid close attention,’ the
king replied.
‘No, my king, I am telling the truth. I did not let him out of my
sight even for a moment. All he did was get up in the morning, take
a bath, have his breakfast, work in his garden for some time, have
lunch, rest for a bit, go for an evening walk or attend to any visitors
that had come, have dinner, sit outside his door for some time, and
then go to sleep. The same thing would happen again the next day.’
 The king realized that his wise minister must be speaking the
truth, and yet, he was not satisfied. He had been doing various
spiritual practices for many years now, and yet this profound state
of peace had eluded him. There must be a special technique that the
saint had discovered that had allowed him to attain this holy state.
The king, therefore, decided to go and visit the saint himself in
order to learn his secret. Arrangements were made and he left the
palace the next day morning.
Having arrived at the place where the holy man lived, the king
also first hid himself in order to quietly and secretly observe the
saint. He soon realized that it was exactly as his minister had
described, and not noticing anything extraordinary, the king finally
decided to approach the saint and request him to share his secrets
with him. The king was given a warm welcome by the saint and
was given a comfortable chair to sit on. Apologizing for the
modesty of his dwelling, the saint then offered the king some tea
made with herbs from his garden, and a little while later they were
both sitting in front of the saint’s cottage, drinking their tea.
Being in his presence, the king could not fail to notice the utter
peace and tranquillity that the holy man radiated, and the gentle
smile on his face testified to the joy and contentment that he was
rich. The king put down his cup, and then respectfully asked the
saint: ‘Great Soul, please forgive me for being direct, but could I ask
you a personal question?’
‘Of course, I have nothing to hide or feel shy about. Please ask,’ the
holy man replied with a kind expression.
‘I apologize. I had been observing you for some time before
introducing myself, in an effort to find out what special practices
you follow that allow you to obtain such an elevated state. I was not
able to discern anything out of the ordinary though. And now,
sitting here with you, talking to you, I am still not able to discover
it. Could you enlighten me on the special techniques or practices
that allow you to be so free, so joyful and so at peace? There seems
to be no difference between what you do and what I do, and yet, this
profound peace still eludes me.’
The saint carefully placed his teacup on the small table and
looking up at the king with a lot of compassion, slowly started
speaking. ‘My dear King, you have not looked closely. There is a
world of difference between what I do, and what you do, and in this
lies the secret.’
‘But,’ the saint continued, ‘as you have asked me in all sincerity, I
will explain it to you. When I do my work, I do my work. When I
have my lunch, I have my lunch. And when I drink my tea, I drink
my tea.’
Looking at the puzzled face of the king, the saint continued with a
smile. ‘But, king, when you work, you are also thinking about the
past, planning, worrying about the future. When you have your
lunch, you are also thinking about the affairs of the kingdom and
decisions you still need to take. And when you drink your tea, you
are not just drinking your tea, you are still so busy. Did you
understand?’ The king nodded, realizing that he still had a long way
to go. And while the king was thinking of how he could somehow
make this a practice and add it to his daily routine, the saint smiled
– he was just having his tea and enjoying it.
We have seen in the previous chapters how all the signs are
pointing inwards, and how the things that we run after are nothing
but a promise of happiness and not the real thing. We saw that
whenever we experience happiness, peace or joy, it is because for a
moment the mind has turned inward and is experiencing our true
nature. And we saw that we have all experienced a state where this
was freely accessible to us, in our early years at least. Finding, or
achieving inner peace is therefore a process of realizing or slowing
down, not of gaining or achieving. When you stop running after all
the things that you promised yourself will make you more
comfortable, you realize that you are already standing in the place
where you were trying to reach. True peace and happiness are your
nature, and you can never lose them. You may not be able to
perceive or experience it due to all the dust and clutter that has
covered it, but it was never truly lost. In this way we are like an
atom: the centre or core is positive, and any stress or negativity (the
electrons) are only present in the circumference – only on the
surface.
Any psychologist that says that deep down in you there is sorrow,
anger or regret, has just not dug deep enough. They have only been
scratching the surface. When you dive deeper, you will find that
deep down inside there is only joy, peace, and enthusiasm. So, all
you need to do is wipe off the dust and dirt of the diamond that you
are. A diamond may get dirty, covered by mud, but it never ceases
to be a diamond. It may have been in the gutter for a century, but
the moment you wipe it clean, it will shine as brilliantly as it did a
hundred years ago. And wiping off the dust, clearing the cobwebs,
and opening the windows to let the fresh air in, is what meditation
is. I would therefore put it like this: Meditation does not help you
gain peace or happiness; rather it helps you to regain it, or give you
access to what was already there within.
Our mind gets so caught up with all the impressions, concepts,
expectations, cravings and aversions, because it latches on to them
effortlessly, but we have never taught it how to let go of these
again. As a small child this was not yet a problem but as the mind
and intellect matured, there came a need to also know how to let go
of experiences again because we started holding on to them.
Meditation is teaching your mind to let go and to anchor itself in
the present moment, effortlessly. The more you are able to drop
unnecessary past impressions and worries about the future, and the
more you are able to be with what is happening right now, the more
you will start to experience that true peace that is your nature –
your inner peace. It is a state that can be available to you at any
time, and irrespective of the situations around you, and this is what
makes it worth striving for.
Meditation is giving deep rest to the mind, allowing it to find its
centre, recharge and rejuvenate. Because our mind gets
overexposed to so many impressions, and in an effort to get some
relief we expose it to even more. This is mainly because we have
never learned how to really give rest to the mind. It is like not
knowing how to turn off the radio that you are tired of listening to,
so to not have to hear it for some time, you turn on the TV at an
even higher volume.
To relax you do different things to ‘escape’ from the continuous
chatter in your mind – the worries and plans and desires – and yet it
does not really recharge or refresh the mind, rather it just distracts
it. Whether it is watching TV, listening to music, playing computer
games, getting drunk or engaging the mind in any other way to
keep it busy enough not to worry for some time; it does not actually
give you rest or lasting relief – not at all. Our mind ends up in such
an overworked state that even in sleep, it does not fully settle. The
quality of your sleep suffers, and you end up having so many
dreams and thoughts during the night that on waking up in the
morning you don’t feel fresh or rested, even after eight hours of
sleep. So many need some peppy music, a cup of tea or coffee, or
even a Red Bull or some other stimulant to really get going again in
the morning. But it was not always like that, remember?
As a child, you would sleep so deeply, and you would wake up
feeling so fresh and rested, that you would jump out of your bed to
start playing again. One of the main keys here is the ability to let go.
Because when a child goes to sleep it surrenders totally, it lets go of
everything. The ability to let go is a quality that comes with
dispassion, and in today’s world, more than ever, we need to
cultivate some dispassion to balance all the passion that is being
encouraged. My Master once beautifully said: ‘Passion is like
breathing in, dispassion is like breathing out, it is letting go. You
need both in life to keep going.’
Dispassion is the ability to drop everything for a moment, and we
all have this quality to some extent because otherwise, you would
not be able to sleep at all at night. It is a state of not craving for
anything in this world or the next, at least for a moment. Unless
you ‘let go’ of whatever is going on in your life, you will not be able
to fall asleep at night. But doing so consciously can allow you to
give real rest to your mind – a rest even deeper than sleep. And that
is meditation.
Without dispassion, passion will turn into depression.
Unfortunately, this is what we see so often nowadays. Depression is
in a way a result of not knowing how to let go – of experiences,
thoughts, events and desires. Even trauma in that way is a state
where you are not able to let go of an experience. Looking at it in
this way, many of us nowadays are ‘traumatized’ to some extent,
because events and situations bother us so much that many need
medication or therapy to sleep properly at night, to relax, and to
deal with the situations that life throws at us. Excessive passion has
been kindled in us for so many years, giving rise to so many desires,
hopes, dreams and concepts, but we have not learned how to drop
these again and come back to our centre. And if passion and
dispassion don’t go together, it gives rise to so many of these
problems we are facing – be it stress, anxiety, depression or
frustration. Dispassion is pausing for a moment and taking your
attention from what is not yet there or what is still missing, to that
which is already there, and knowing that you have all that you need
in this moment. It is becoming okay with whatever is there right
now, even if it is imperfect. It is in these moments that you
experience true rest, peace and happiness.
Otherwise, even when we are happy for a moment, the mind will
again start running, because then you start craving for the next
thing, or worrying about wanting to feel like this forever, and not
losing it in the future. It is only when you drop this desire of
wanting to be happy and peaceful ‘all the time’, that you can be
truly happy and peaceful and free. Otherwise, the desire to feel this
way all the time becomes another stress, another worry.
Of course, dispassion also sometimes comes to us without our
efforts, when we realize the impermanence of things. In ancient
times they referred to this as smashana vairagya or the ‘dispassion
of the graveyard or cremation grounds’. I know people who
experienced a drastic change in how they lived life, or looked at life,
after being exposed to the sudden death of a near one, after
surviving an accident or health problem that could have been fatal,
or after getting to know that they only have limited time left to live.
It opened their eyes to the truth of the impermanence of our life,
causing them to suddenly start focusing on and appreciating what
was really important for them, and not the usual small worries.
I remember once hearing an interesting story about this truth. A
gentleman one day was able to gather all his courage and approach
his spiritual master to ask him a question that had been there in his
mind for years. ‘Master, I would like to ask you something, but
please promise me that you will answer me truthfully.’
The saint smiled, and looking a little surprised at the unusual
condition added to the question, replied to the gentleman: ‘Of
course, haven’t I always been truthful? I have nothing to hide,
please ask.’
The man, hearing the encouraging words of his master, decided
to go ahead and ask him. ‘Don’t you ever get thoughts of anger,
frustration, jealousy, lust or greed? Please tell me honestly master,
how do you deal with these.’
The master looked the man in the eyes for a moment, and then
smiled. ‘I will give you your answer, as promised, but I will do so
this Sunday. Is that okay?’
The man, having waited for years to finally ask this question,
decided that a few more days also did not matter much and agreed.
The next day afternoon the gentleman once more stopped by the
Ashram of the saint to attend the daily afternoon discourse. After
the program finished, however, the saint quickly walked up to the
man, and gently taking him aside, spoke with a certain urgency in
his voice. ‘I am glad you have come today, there is something
important I need to tell you.’
The man, perplexed, wondered what could be so urgent, as his
master had never spoken to him in such a manner.
 ‘In my meditation this morning my intuition showed me that you
will leave this body tomorrow morning at six o’clock. I felt I should
tell you right away, so at least you have some time to prepare
yourself.’
The man looked at the saint with disbelief in his eyes, but then
realized that the master had never spoken any untruth, nor had
anything he had ever shared with them about future events not
come to pass. Shocked by the news he had just received, he quickly
went home, and gathering his thoughts, decided that he should
make best use of the time he had left.
After writing his will and final wishes, he informed his family
and close friends, who immediately showed up and were
heartbroken by the news. Sitting amidst all of them, some crying,
some looking gloomy, the man decided that this was not how he
wanted to spend his final moments and he told them that instead,
he would rather spend his time cracking some jokes and
remembering all the good times they had. And that’s what they did.
After spending some more time like this, he asked them all to leave
as he wanted to spend some time by himself as well. They would all
come back in the morning to see him off during his final moments.
The man then sat down by himself and thinking about what the
future may hold after he would leave the body, he realized that if
there truly were a heaven and hell, he would rather go to heaven.
Figuring that he would rather be safe than sorry, he picked up the
phone and started calling all the people with whom he was not on
good terms, or whom he may have wronged. Apologizing and
making peace with all of them made him feel at peace, as at least he
had done all he could from his side.
Not seeing the point in sleeping away the last few hours on this
earth, he decided to spend the rest of what was left of the night
listening to his favourite music instead, and by the time morning
came, his friends and family started arriving again.
When the clock showed 5:30, he lay down on his bed, ready to
receive Death whenever He would come. At 5:45, however, the
doorbell suddenly rang, and when one of his cousins opened the
door, all were surprised to see the saintly figure of his master walk
into the room. It is considered a great blessing to have one’s master
by one’s side when leaving the body, as it is said this means you will
be liberated, or at least you will go to the best possible place after
death!
‘Master, it is so compassionate of you to come all the way and be
there for your disciple in his final moments, please take a seat,’ the
cousin said. ‘Thank you,’ the saint replied, and sitting down next to
the bed the gentleman was lying on, he turned to face him.
‘My dear child, I need to make a confession. I have done
something wrong to you.’ Before the saint could continue though,
the gentleman interrupted him. ‘Please, it doesn’t matter now. I
have found peace with everyone and I am feeling very contented
and peaceful right now. I don’t want to know. If you tell me it may
stir up some negative feelings again, I prefer to die peacefully. I am
happy.’
The saint smiled and then told him with a mischievous
expression: ‘But that is the point – you are not going to die!’
For a moment the man looked stunned, and then sitting up
straight in his bed, looked at the saint and asked him: ‘What do you
mean?’
‘My dear, I made up the story about the intuition I had in my
meditation. You are not going to die – at least not any time soon!’
The man was not sure what to say, as this was all very confusing.
But then the saint continued: ‘But tell me one thing. During the last
one day, did you have any thoughts of anger, lust, greed or
jealousy?’
All of a sudden, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and the
man looked up at the saint. ‘Not a single one, Master. I thought I was
going to die; where was the time to be irritated with anyone or
bothered by anything? It was pointless to waste any time and
energy on that, all those things were so insignificant.’ Smiling, the
saint then said: ‘Now do you have the answer to your question? I
live my life as if every moment is my last.’
We all know that we are going to die one day, but we never truly
realize what it means until one day we come face to face with the
reality of this fact, and if that happens, it changes us. Until then we
live as though we are going to live forever, postponing most of the
things that matter to us, thinking we will do it some day later, and
getting caught up with so many small things. We forget that the
end can come at any time, and usually without prior intimation!
But when we realize that our time is truly limited, be it ten days
or ten years or fifty years, we find that suddenly all those problems
and issues that took up so much of our time and energy are so
insignificant, that they are not even worth thinking about. Even
this reminder, therefore, can help us come back to what is really
important for us and how we want to spend our days. It can help us
become more aware of the fact that the present moment is so much
more valuable than the future, and at the same time it can help us
to drop so many of the unnecessary worries, anger, hurt and
jealousy, knowing that both we and the people we dislike, are going
to die one day. So here the knowledge or awareness of the inevitable
is not something that scares, depresses or stifles you, but it is
something that actually makes you alive and free. We suddenly
start doing the things that are really important to us – we suddenly
start truly living our life. And it frees us from so many things that
steal away our peace and happiness.
So many people keep living their lives hoping to one day find that
inner peace, true happiness and real freedom that has been
escaping them until now. But doing the same things and hoping for
a different result is the classic definition of insanity. To get a
different result, you will need to do something differently. Peace
and freedom can only be found inside of you, and meditation helps
us to settle the mind so that we can experience these deeper layers
of our existence that lie beyond it. And here dispassion is an
important and essential quality to develop. It is the skill to turn the
mind that is all the time moving outward, running after so many
things, inward, and bring it back to its source. Being able to feel
comfortable with what is right now and knowing that you have all
that you need to be happy and peaceful. When you really feel that
you don’t need anything right now, the mind immediately starts to
settle down, and you start getting closer to your true nature. It is a
being comfortable with yourself, your life, and the world, however
it may be this moment.
Many times, I am asked this question: ‘How come you are so
comfortable, so peaceful, just living out of a suitcase? Moving from
place to place every few days. Don’t you want a place for yourself?
Don’t you need some savings? What will you do when you get old?
What if you will not be comfortable? Don’t you sometimes want to
take time off, go for a holiday? Or go somewhere else? It must be
very difficult.’ Now how to explain to people that it is actually the
opposite? How do I explain that the lesser you need, the happier and
more comfortable you are? This ability to be comfortable anywhere,
to live consciously but without worry, and to be happy with very
little – truly happy – is available to all of us. You have no idea how
beautiful life can be. The small joys become so big. True inner peace
is so solid only because it is not dependent on anything outside of
you. And this is what dispassion can bring to your life. Dispassion
does not mean that you cannot enjoy anything, rather, it will allow
you to enjoy everything. It can bring a beautiful shift in your life
where you don’t need to do anything hoping that it will make you
happy, but instead, you can do those things happily. This is where
you stop living your life as a pursuit of happiness, and instead start
living it as an expression of happiness.
One of the most brilliant minds and greatest saints and
philosophers of India, Adi Shankaracharya said it so beautifully so
many centuries ago in his famous song Bhaja Govindam. He said,
‘Kasya sukham na karoti viraga,’ which means ‘to whom will
dispassion not give true happiness?’ Dispassion is so often
misunderstood as a state of apathy, inertia or lack of joy. It is the
opposite. True dispassion will give rise to such dynamism, such
happiness and joy, such freedom, that nothing can take away –
exactly because it is not dependent on anything; not anything
outside of you at least. And meditation is the practice that leads you
to the place inside where it can be found.
Wisdom Sutras
The lesser you need, the lesser you have conditioned your
happiness.
You need a reason to be miserable. You don’t need a reason to
be happy. Happiness is your nature.
True freedom lies in shifting from living life as a pursuit of
happiness to living life as an expression of happiness.

10-Minute Exercise

Sit quietly and close your eyes for a moment. Allow the breath and
the mind to slow down; you can take a few long deep breaths. Once
you feel settled, consciously feel as if you have died. Really feel it,
believe it for a moment. All the pending work in the office, the
chores around the house, the social responsibilities, everything is
gone, finished. You can spend all your life trying to finish those
things first, but it never ends – until you die. So now you are dead,
you are free from all of that. All the pending work, all the things on
your to-do list, they are all no longer your concern. You don’t have
to do anything anymore right now.
Now consciously also drop all your identities and the labels you
have accumulated over the years. Maybe you were a doctor, an
engineer, a father, a sister, a neighbour, a good singer, or a bad one;
whatever it was, it is all gone now. Even your name, your gender,
your relationships. It is all gone. You are nobody. You are nothing.
You simply ceased to exist.
Feel as if all the desires, all the goals, dreams and ambitions you
had have been fulfilled. You experienced all that you wanted to
experience, and now there is nothing left. There is nothing left that
you are craving for or want right now.
Even the world has stopped existing. The planet, the earth, it is all
gone. Everything is gone. Really feel it.
 Allow yourself to be with this feeling for a moment. This is
dispassion. You are nothing, nobody, and you don’t need anything
right now. The more you are able to feel this, the more you will find
the mind settling down. Suddenly there are so few thoughts, and
you become so peaceful. Rest there in that space for some time.
 5
Meditation: Mindfulness . . . or Emptiness?

After travelling for a few hours, we finally reached our destination: A

beautiful complex in the countryside of the Netherlands. I had been
able to convince a few of my friends to join me on this four-day retreat
where we would be learning about mind-management, breathing
techniques and meditation. It was the first program for youth
organized by the Art of Living in the Netherlands.
I had been practising various martial arts for years, and our Judo,
Aikido and Ninpo Bujutsu classes would usually start with a few
moments of deep breathing and quieting the mind, but I had been
wanting to explore these practices more. Every once in a while, I would
sit down in front of the big Buddha statue in my room that my uncle
had brought back after one of his trips to India. I would look at the
perfect posture and the serene expression on the face of the Buddha and
finding a posture that was kind of similar but did not require as much
flexibility as the ancient yogi possessed, I would close my eyes and try
not to think of anything. The problem is, as we all know, that it is really
not that simple. Reading a few books about Zen and meditation had
only made things worse. My thirst for an authentic experience of real
inner peace had increased and at the same time it had made me even
more acutely aware of the fact that I would probably not be able to
figure this out by myself. Having met the founder of the Art of Living,
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at a large public program in Amsterdam
a few months earlier, and experiencing a meditation guided by him
during the program, I now felt I had finally found what I was looking
for: An authentic path and a realized master that could lead me to my
goal. When a few months later we got to know that the Art of Living
would be organizing a residential foundation program for youth, where
I could learn more about breathing techniques and meditation, my
younger brother and I immediately signed up.
‘Hi, my name is Claudio, you guys must be here for the All-Round
Training in Excellence?’ The English accent of the young gentleman
gave away that he was either from Germany or maybe a country
bordering it. It turned out he was from Switzerland and he was one of
the first trainers in Europe that had been certified to conduct this new
program.
‘I will be leading the program,’ he said with a smile. He must have
been in his late twenties or early thirties, and with his short hair and
elegant style of clothes, he looked more ‘cool’ than ‘Zen’ to me. I had not
really given a lot of thought to what to expect from a retreat like this,
but upon meeting Claudio I realized that I had anticipated a little more
incense and meditation bells. Not that I had any problem with those – I
love the Eastern cultures and traditions – but meeting this cool young
guy made me curious about what the program would be like.
In the days that followed, we explored all that had been advertised,
and more. We learned more about how our mind works and how to
manage it more effectively, we learned some breathing techniques to
increase our energy level and relax the mind, and we had our first
experiences with meditation. This is where I learned one of the most
valuable and important principles of true meditation: It is the ‘art of
letting go’.
For years I had been trying to focus my mind into that state of total
tranquillity, as ‘mindfulness’ and awareness and focus were all an
essential part of many of the things I had experienced and read about,
be it my martial arts classes or the books on Zen. It was only now that I
realized that focus or mindfulness is only the first step, it is
preparation. Real meditation, that state of deep rest and unwinding of
the mind, only happens when you let go. And this is easier said than
done – it needs the right guidance, and some practice, to really get it
right. But the results were obvious.
Looking at Claudio’s face sitting across the big wooden table during
our lunch on the third day of the program, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘How
come you are always smiling?’ It had struck me multiple times during
the last few days that he was smiling almost all the time. Not an
exaggerated or unnatural type of grin, but a very subtle, contented type
of smile, as if he was really enjoying every moment. Something very
unusual for an adult, especially in today’s hectic world.
Claudio looked at me, smiling even more now, and putting down his
sandwich said, ‘Oh, that is because I practice the breathing techniques
and meditation every morning without missing a day. I have been
doing so for the last few years already. You try it for yourself when you
go back home. It really works!’ He took a sip of his herbal tea and picked
up his sandwich again.
He may have been very casual about the whole thing, but he didn’t
fool me. I may have been only a teenager at that point, but I had
already seen enough of the world to know that such peace and
happiness are not that easily achieved – at least not by many people
that I knew. Could meditation really be this effective?

Nowadays meditation is quickly going down the road that yoga has
travelled as well in recent years. Almost everybody has heard about
it and many think they know what it is all about. In a matter of
decades yoga and meditation have seen a huge transformation – be
it in branding, image and association, as well as the range of
practices and concepts associated with it. Where in earlier days a
true yogi was often pictured to be a scarcely clad skinny man sitting
on a bed of nails or standing on one leg, some of the most famous
icons of yoga are now scarcely clad skinny women sitting on a
beach or standing on a mountain on one leg. Okay, fair enough, the
scarcely clad, skinny and the one leg still remain, but the loincloth
and the yogi that was more of an outcast than a part of mainstream
society have successfully made way for designer outfits that are
sometimes not too different from a bikini, and the successful and
sought-after corporate trainer or wellness coach.
Meditation, sometimes being a part of yoga practices as well, has
evolved along with it, and in the process a lot of its essence has been
lost, while some other elements were added. In an effort to make it
more ‘secular’ and even easier to market the term ‘mindfulness’
became popular, almost as if it was a miracle solution that finally
stripped meditation of the cultural baggage that was weighing it
down. Mindfulness became another – and more preferred – word for
meditation, and some of its most essential aspects were forgotten,
or deliberately brushed aside.
So, before we embark on our journey of discovering the treasure
that is meditation, let us first clear some of the jungle that has
covered it and understand a little better what it is, and what it is
not. Because nowadays it has become like yoga: everybody knows it,
without actually knowing it, leading to people often discarding it
without actually experiencing it, while thinking they have. And
nothing is worse than someone giving up on meditation even
before they have had an authentic experience, as it means their
misconception has deprived them of the many wonderful benefits
that meditation has to offer. Too many times I have come across
people who told me that meditation does not work for them, only to
find out that they had at some point given mindfulness a try, and it
had not given them the desired results or even left them more
frustrated.
One of the best explanations of the difference between
meditation and mindfulness as it is usually practised nowadays
was given by my Master when he was interviewed by Vishen
Lakhiani, the well-known CEO of Mindvalley, an online learning
platform. The special session was part of a big international
conference in Bengaluru organized by the Art of Living that saw
many distinguished leaders in their respective fields, be it various
industries or government from all over the world and I was
fortunate to be present there as well.
When Vishen asked Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar about
meditation becoming more popular in the West as mindfulness,
and his thoughts on the same, he beautifully replied: ‘Mindfulness
is not (the same as) meditation. Mindfulness is like the driveway, it
is like the balcony or portico of the house, but there is so much more
beyond that, beyond mindfulness. The real house lies beyond that.’
Mindfulness can get you into the garage but sitting in the garage is
not the same as sitting in your living room.
Mindfulness practices are basically all about making an effort to
be fully with what you are doing, or what is happening, at that very
moment. It is about becoming aware, or ‘mindful’, of what is
happening right now. This may sound simple, or very natural, but
unfortunately our modern lifestyles and society have conditioned
us to multitask almost anything we do, including thinking and
paying attention.
While having breakfast you are watching the news on TV, while
at the same time also scanning through the emails on your phone to
see if anything important came in last night. And because you are
sitting at the same table at the same time as some of the other
family members, it can also be classified as ‘family time’, so you
save some time there as well. Even when doing simple actions like
making coffee or taking a shower, our mind is simultaneously
planning, worrying, and so much more. This is where mindfulness
becomes beneficial.
When we start to look at our mind, we realize the mess it is in,
and doing things consciously, with attention and awareness,
becomes a practice to consolidate and slow down the mind. We are
training the mind to become less scattered again, more focused, and
thus more in the present moment. It is like consciously making an
effort to eat fresh and healthy food again, like fruits and vegetables,
because our modern lifestyle has made us so habituated to having
‘junk’ food. It’s sad, maybe even alarming, that in today’s world it
may often require extra effort, and sometimes even extra
expenditure, to eat healthier and natural food that was the common
staple diet for all a century ago. But nobody else is to blame, as we
have ourselves created the fast-food lifestyle, just like we created
the mental overload of impressions that we are facing today. And
this is where consciously going back to a more simple and natural
way of life can already benefit us a lot, both when it comes to diet
and when it comes to our mental activity.
Mindfulness can help us in settling the mind, slowing it down
and creating more space and awareness to consciously observe the
mind and all its tendencies and patterns. Reducing the overload of
impressions that we tend to expose our mind to also has proven
scientifically to have many benefits, such as reducing stress and
anxiety and improving overall mental health. It can also help in
observing one’s thoughts more neutrally, without identifying too
much with the thoughts that come up. But even though
mindfulness in its original form in the ancient traditions was
meant to do exactly all this, it was clearly taught as a step towards
or preparation for meditation – it is not the same thing. And if you
forget that, or don’t know that, then you may miss out on the main
course of the meal, so to speak. It is like sitting in your garage
thinking it is your living room – it is not the same thing, and it will
not give you the same experience. Nobody can really relax in the
garage, for that you need to get out of your car and into your home.
Though mindfulness is in some ways a good place to start, it’s
often not an easy one, especially initially, because the mind is so
active, and we have never learned how to properly relax it. For
many, relaxing means maybe having a beer, or watching TV, or
doing something else ‘to take your mind off things’, where ‘things’
refers to your issues, problems, stress, unfulfilled desires and
worries. These activities don’t relax the mind though, it just takes
your attention off all the thoughts racing through your head, giving
you a break from all the noise. So here mindfulness is doing the
opposite: it is making you more acutely aware of all the noise –
something which, for many, can be quite difficult to confront.
The truth is that, for many it is quite scary to just sit down,
maybe even close their eyes, and then do nothing but observing
their thoughts – because it is like opening a cupboard full of junk
that you have consciously avoided during spring cleaning for many
years. The moment you open it a little and the dust and stench
comes out, there are suddenly many more reasons to just leave the
thing closed and try and forget about it than actually opening it and
start on trying to clean it out. Think about it. For someone who is
really worried, stressed, agitated or afraid, the last thing that will
make them relax or come back to their centre is sitting and doing
nothing but thinking about or looking at that fear, worry or
problem that is disturbing them.
Also, focusing on something for more than a few seconds is easier
said than done – so here we see that even to practice mindfulness
properly, you already need to have a certain amount of peace and
mindfulness to begin with!
Trying to tell your mind to be quiet, or force it, is like trying to
intellectually explain to a child why it is supposed to sit quietly. You
can give all the arguments you want, but it is not going to have any
effect on the tantrum in front of you – except maybe an adverse
one. It is in the nature of the mind to be active, so rather than trying
to wrestle with it, wisdom is to transcend it.
The main things that disturb us, even more than the thoughts,
are actually the feelings behind them. More than the ‘thought’ of
insecurity, it is the ‘feeling’ of insecurity that is bothering us.
Despite trying to rationalize things and explaining to yourself that
there is no reason to feel upset, annoyed, insecure or scared, you
still end up feeling that way because feelings are subtler than
thoughts, and thus more powerful. So, to really address our
problem effectively and efficiently, we need to attend to levels of
our consciousness that are even more nuanced than our thoughts –
we need to transcend the logical mind and go inward even more.
Just like with anything else, the crux here is learning how to do it.
Mindfulness may give you more insight into the chaos inside
your head, the uneasiness you feel with certain people or a
situation, or the challenges that you are facing in life, but it may not
help in actually getting rid of those feelings or emotions because it
doesn’t take you beyond your mind to the source of peace, joy and
stability. At least not until you are a very advanced practitioner.
Inner peace is not an intellectual thing, it lies much deeper, even
beyond the feeling level. For us to be able to access this, we need to
be able to tap into deeper layers of our consciousness. Unless you
are a very advanced practitioner, mindfulness still confines you to
the thinking mind, you are still having thoughts, analysing them,
observing them, and this is not allowing you to go deeper, and to
‘switch off’ the mind for some time, giving it some actual rest and
‘cool down’ time. Some may even end up engaging the mind even
more, making the whole thing actually more tiring for the mind,
and this can be another challenge if you practice mindfulness too
much. There is the risk of losing your ability to relax and go beyond
the mind – to just be with the unknown. I have come across several
people who were struggling with this as they became so focused on
being fully aware of what they were doing that it actually created
another type of tension, where they found it difficult to simply
relax the mind. They couldn’t just sit and enjoy something as they
were only focussed on observing themselves or their minds.
This is one of the things that can happen when spiritual practices
or techniques that have been tried and tested and authenticated by
thousands of years of tradition and scriptures that provide the
supporting context and guidance, are taken out of that context and
repackaged as a modern quick-fix solution, preferably without any
reference to its original context.
Even the roots of most modern mindfulness practices, which lie
in Buddhism, are part of a much broader system of practices and
teachings. It includes many of the aspects of the yogic traditions
and this is what the usual ‘role models’ of these practices have made
their own, and these should not just be brushed aside. The Buddha
practised many things and was an accomplished yogi. When he sat
down under the Bodhi tree to meditate, he was not just doing a
mindfulness exercise – he went into deep meditation and
transcended the mind, attaining a state of deep samadhi, or
equanimity beyond the mind.
Meditation is more than mindfulness, much more, and as such it
also has so much more to offer. Thinking that a few minutes of
mindfulness will get you there is foolishness, and it would be a
shame if you never make it beyond your garage into your actual
home. True mindfulness is actually a natural result of deep
meditation – it happens naturally as a product, without all the
effort and struggle that most of the modern-day mindfulness
practices require.
Nowadays, the words mindfulness and meditation are often used
interchangeably, and the word meditation nowadays usually refers
to a whole range of different practices. But true meditation is going
beyond the mind, to experience that state of ‘no mind’ or emptiness
the Buddha spoke about. It is in this space that the mind gets its
deepest rest, even deeper than sleep, and where it can really refresh
and recharge itself. It is the mind turning inward, going back to its
source. It is the art of doing nothing, the art of letting go. And that is
why if you look at the Zen tradition also, for example, the whole
purpose of many of the practices is actually to go beyond the mind,
snap out of it or transcend it, rather than to keep engaging and
observing it, or trying to make it settle down. Zen Masters use all
kinds of approaches to get their students to ‘snap out of’ the logical
thinking mind, into the unknown pure ‘being’. More advanced
stages of mindfulness practice do take you to a more restful and
calm state of mind, but even then, to get the deeper benefits that
meditation offers, we have to transcend.
One of the big challenges is that even just one or two things that
trouble or disturb you are sufficient to take away your peace of
mind. It takes just one or two things to shake us, and that in turn
affects the way we function, approach the situations that come in
front of us, and interact with the people around us. Challenges will
keep coming in life, but for us to become bulletproof or at least
fairly resilient, we need to learn to deal with those situations that
disturb us and go beyond them. Everything else in life can be
perfect, and yet you find that that one problem or issue is sufficient
to make you lose your sleep. There is an interesting story that is
said to relate an instance in the life of the Buddha that comes to
mind here. I am not sure if it is really an incident that happened,
but the story nevertheless conveys a meaningful message.
A gentleman had been attending the sermons of the Buddha just
outside his town when the Buddha and some of his disciples had
decided to spend some time there while passing through the region.
With each passing day, the man became more inspired by the
teachings of the saint, and the ideals that his followers had
dedicated their lives to. Finally, after attending one more sermon of
the Buddha, the gentleman made an important decision. He
planned to approach the Buddha with the request of being initiated
as one of his monks. Having lived a good life, his family was taken
care of and his children had all married and were well-settled. They
had taken over the family business, which meant the man was free
to retire whenever he felt like. Considering all this, the man felt that
the time had now come to apply himself to making a difference in
society, as well as to strive towards his spiritual advancement.
He went to the place where the Buddha was staying and humbly
requested for audience with the Master. He was asked to wait for
some time, and finally one of the disciples of the Buddha came to
take him to where the Buddha was seated. Having bowed down, the
man placed his heart’s desire before the saint, asking him whether
he would accept him as his disciple, and ordain him as a monk.
Looking at the man for a moment, the Buddha answered: ‘Your
desire is a noble one, but we have one condition for anyone that
wants to take up the life of a monk in our order. You need to be able
to feel compassion for all the beings, which means you need to
accept all as they are. Please take your time to consider this, and if
you feel that you will be able to do this, come back tomorrow and I
will initiate you.’
The man gratefully bowed down once more, and after going
home found a place to sit quietly so that he could meditate on the
words of the Master. He sincerely looked into his heart to see if he
would be able to accept all. The next day arrived, and the man once
more set out towards the place where the Buddha was staying.
Having waited for a while, he was once more ushered in for an
audience, and paying his respects to the Master, placed a flower at
his feet.
‘Have you looked into your heart?’ asked the Buddha gently. ‘Will
you be able to accept all the way they are, and love all?’
The man looked up at the Master and replied in all honesty. ‘I
have given it a lot of thought Master, and I realized that I can accept
all, yes, except for two people. What they have done to me and my
family is very difficult to forgive, let alone forget.’
The Master looked at him with a lot of compassion and then
replied slowly: ‘Okay, I appreciate your honesty. In that case, we
will make an exception for you. You don’t need to accept all the
people in order to be ordained as a monk here. You will only need to
accept those two people.’
If we look at ourselves honestly, we will find that we are all a lot
like that sincere gentleman. We don’t have a lot of problems all the
time, maybe just a few. But those one or two things are enough to
shake us and spoil the quality of our life. A small thorn in your shoe
can make walking so uncomfortable, and a small grain of sand is
enough to blind your vision and irritate your eye. The true skill here
is to be able to accept those two people that are disturbing our
mind, it is only then that we can be truly peaceful and happy. And if
you look at life closely, you will find that those two people or
problems don’t remain the same throughout – they keep changing.
But time and again there will be these one or two things that can
make it difficult to sleep peacefully at night, or that can stop you
from feeling at ease. Just like with the thorn in your shoe or the
grain of sand in your eye that pricks or irritates you more if you rub
it, the more you resist or try to get rid of some unpleasant thoughts
or feelings, the more it seems to gain strength and power over you.
So here the key is effortlessness, not effort. Letting go, not
struggling. This is meditation. This is the skill we need to learn.
Our mind is often so busy and overloaded with impressions
nowadays that even our normal sleep isn’t sufficient anymore to
give all the rest to the mind that it needs. This is why even after
sleeping for seven-eight hours, you still don’t feel really fresh when
you wake up because even at night we don’t have the time to digest
all the impressions we accumulated. This is one more reason we
need meditation, as it gives much deeper rest than sleep, allowing
the mind to settle much more. True meditation is restful alertness,
where in just twenty minutes it can give our mind the same
amount of rest that it would normally get in four to six hours of
sleep. True rest comes through effortlessness, it can never come
through effort. We saw earlier how the body and mind work
according to different laws, and while the body requires you to put
effort, the mind is most effective when approached through
effortlessness. This principle holds all the truer when you want to
relax the mind fully and go beyond it.
I have experienced so many times for myself, as well as in many
programs that I have conducted, that in just a matter of fifteen
minutes people often feel fresher, more energetic, more alive, more
rested, more positive and more peaceful – just by doing a simple
meditation practice. Observing your mind and thoughts for 15
minutes may slow down the mind a bit and give you some more
clarity, but it rarely has such quick and powerful effects as a simple
dip into the consciousness that lies beyond the mind – even for
beginners, or people that may have never tried any such practices.
Of course, here guidance makes a big difference, and in the
following two chapters I will share many of the basic steps, tricks,
dos and don’ts that I have picked up and experienced over the last
two decades in my own personal practice under the guidance of my
Master, as well as valuable learnings that I observed during the
many programs that I have taught.
Consciously putting the mind to rest is meditation. When the
mind and nervous system are able to unwind and let go of many of
the unnecessary impressions, stresses and strains that we tend to
accumulate, you will find that it is naturally more anchored in the
present moment. But because it requires us to go beyond the mind,
it is not something you can learn by just understanding it
intellectually. It is a skill that comes with the right guidance, and
sincere practice. Are you ready to start exploring the unknown?
Wisdom Sutras
Meditation is not concentration or focus – it is the art of de-
concentration or letting go.
Effort can steady and focus the mind, but to transcend it you
need effortlessness.

10-Minute Exercise

Sit quietly with your eyes closed in a place where you will not be
disturbed. Find a position in which you are comfortable so that the
body can relax. Take a few normal deep breaths in and out, and for a
few moments keep your attention on the breath, observing it as it
goes in and out of the body on its own, effortlessly.
Now become aware of your thoughts. Whether good thoughts or
bad thoughts, do not resist, analyse or judge them. Just let them
come and go on their own, like waves rising and falling again in the
vast ocean that is your consciousness. You do not entertain or hold
on to pleasant or positive thoughts, and you do not judge or resist
any negative thoughts. Not giving any special attention to either,
you are not analysing them, nor are you focusing on anything. Just
remain there as a witness to your own mind and whatever is
happening right now.
The more the mind starts to settle down, the more it expands.
Allow the mind to expand in all directions. As the mind continues
to expand, you will further relax. Let go of all effort and unwind.
Whenever you notice that your mind has started galloping on
some or the other thought again, or if it has begun planning
something, gently bring it back again to itself. Take a gentle deep
breath in and breathing out once more let go and relax in the here
and now.
Do this for some time and then observe how you feel afterwards.
With some practice, you will notice that the mind naturally feels
fresher and becomes more aware and alert afterwards.
 6
Starting Your Meditation Practice

When we walked out of the door, the first thing I saw was the majestic
sight of the beautiful Table Mountain against a clear blue sky. It is one
of the many things that makes Cape Town my favourite city in South
Africa.
‘We will have to squeeze a bit as I brought the truck,’ Francois told us.
‘I didn’t expect that there would be three of us,’ he apologized. Francois
is a big guy, with an athletic build – he had been a professional model
before he took up yoga and started various service projects in the poorer
and more dangerous areas in and around Cape Town. Apart from the
fact that he has a heart of gold, I was also happy for him to come along
because the neighbourhood we were going to was one of the dodgier
ones, and because he speaks fluent Afrikaans. This would come in
handy as the man we were to meet spoke only Afrikaans, we had been
told.
‘Do you know the address?’ Francois asked us. ‘Yes, we were able to
speak to his wife and her son, and she explained it to us. We have to go
to Delft.’
‘Okay, I know how to get there. How did you even find out about this
guy?’
‘I happened to come across an article in the Washington Post one or
two months ago,’ I replied. ‘A friend who knew that I am now working
in Africa had forwarded it to me.’
The article had caught my attention as it related the story of Fredie
Blom, a simple man living in this part of Cape Town, who was
considered to be the oldest man alive. An official declaration of the
Guinness World Records organization was pending, as these things
often take time to verify, due to lack of proper records. But as per the
records available, Fredie had turned 115 years earlier in the year, and
as I had just returned to Cape Town after many months, I did not want
to miss the chance to meet this gentleman. We had been able to contact
his wife and they had kindly agreed to receive us today. On their
request, we also brought some groceries, including some of Fredie’s
favourite things.
Having finally turned into the narrow road where the small house
was located, we parked the car and carried the box of groceries with us
up to the porch. ‘Good morning. You must be the people that called?
Please come in.’
We were welcomed by Fredie’s wife, Jeannette, her son and his
family. Placing the box with the groceries on the small wooden kitchen
table, she peaked into the box and smiled. ‘Oh, you have brought some
of Fredie’s favourites! He will be so happy.’
Jeanette was eighty-six years old, but despite the big age difference
between them, Fredie and she had been happily married for over half a
century already. ‘He can still walk without support, albeit not as fast as
he used to, and he still dresses himself,’ she proudly told us. ‘You know,
he used to be a very good dancer, and that is actually how we met; at a
dance. His health is still quite good, but sometimes he gets high blood
pressure,’ Jeanette shared. ‘But he doesn’t like going to the doctor. He
doesn’t like it when they prick his finger to take some blood, and he also
doesn’t like it when they put the tight armband around his arm to check
his blood pressure. So, he doesn’t go there much.’
She took us into the small living room and opened some of the
curtains to let more light in. ‘I apologize, there is no electricity at the
moment, so it is a little dark here. Let me get Fredie for you.’
 Fredie was born in 1904, but he didn’t look his age. Nobody would
guess that the man that slowly walked into the room had seen two
World Wars in his lifetime and was already in his forties when
apartheid was introduced in South Africa. ‘I don’t walk as fast as I
used to,’ Fredie said in Afrikaans, ‘but otherwise I am okay.’ He smiled,
which revealed that he still had all his teeth as well. He sat down in his
chair and we sat next to him and started chatting.
After telling him and his wife about what I do, I offered to teach the
couple some simple yogic techniques to calm the mind and also his
blood pressure, as it may be useful for him. They had never heard of
yoga and meditation but were curious to find out more. After teaching
them a simple breathing technique, I guided them through a short
meditation. Fredie went into a very deep state of relaxation – for a
moment we even thought that he had fallen asleep! After repeating the
instruction to slowly open his eyes again a few more times, he finally
did so. Both their kind faces now looked even brighter.
‘My heart and body feel strong,’ Fredie said when asked about his
experience, ‘and my mind feels clear and calm! I like it.’ Jeanette
nodded her head in agreement. ‘We will practice this every day, it will
be good for him, and his blood pressure.’ And then she added: ‘Please let
us know when you can come again. I would like to invite some more
people so they can learn about what you are teaching.’ It was touching
to see that even at this age, Fredie and his wife were so enthusiastic and
open to learn and explore new things.

It is experiences like this that time and again show me that

meditation is truly something that is both useful and accessible for
everyone. If a gentleman like Fredie can learn to meditate, and that
too at his age, why can’t you? If with the right guidance he could
have an authentic experience of meditation in just the first session,
why wouldn’t others? So, knowing that meditation is truly for
everyone, let us start on this fascinating journey knowing that it is
well within our reach. In the preceding chapters, we have already
laid the foundation for our new meditation practice and we have
learned and practised some of the important principles that will
allow us the prepare the mind to relax, let go and recharge itself by
moving inward.
The first thing to do is to prepare your body for the meditation.
Don’t worry, this does not require any severe austerities or extreme
flexibility, nor does it require perfect health. It does, however,
require taking care of certain factors that could make it difficult to
sit still and allow you to meditate properly. When the body is not
comfortable, the mind will not settle down either, so we first need
to make sure the body is comfortable.
Ideally, your stomach should be light and you should have
finished digesting your last big meal. After a meal, your metabolism
and the activity in the body goes up and all the energy goes towards
your stomach, to aid in the digestive process. In meditation,
however, your body goes into a state of deep rest, and your
metabolism goes down. Knowing just these basics is sufficient to
understand that in some ways both processes are directly opposite,
and therefore both don’t go together well. I am not saying that
people cannot meditate properly after a meal – some may be able to
sometimes. But here we are trying to make it as easy and accessible
as possible for everyone, so let us go down the easy path. Just
because some people have no problem jumping fences and climbing
walls, it doesn’t mean that all will be able to do so comfortably. So,
for the average person that is already struggling to manage life’s
challenges and still smile, we want to make our first few strides on
the path of meditation as simple and effective as possible!
With a light stomach, find a place where you will not be disturbed
much, if possible. Again, experienced meditators can happily
meditate in almost any environment, so this is not a must, but a
peaceful, quiet, clean and pleasant space is definitely conducive,
and it will also make it much easier initially for the mind to settle
down and for the body to relax.
 It is not required for you to sit in a lotus posture, or even cross-
legged, in order to meditate, but it does make a difference if your
back is straight. It will be more comfortable in the long run, much
better for your posture and it will keep your mind more alert, while
relaxed, as well. It will also allow you to breathe much more
comfortably, easily and deeply. Sitting in a very lazy, slouching type
of posture will not be comfortable in the long run, because it will
put unnecessary pressure on your neck and other parts of the body,
and it also increases chances of actually dosing off when going into
a more meditative state of mind. We also don’t meditate lying down
normally – that posture is more suitable for practices like yoga
nidra, that are nowadays often referred to as ‘body scan’
techniques. These can also be very relaxing, but in our practice, we
want to go one step further and actually meditate.
Find a position that your body is comfortable in, while sitting
with your spine erect. If needed you can take back support, or sit in
a comfortable chair, or sofa, if that works better for you. If you
prefer sitting on the floor, but it is difficult to keep the back straight
for a longer time without extra effort, then you can place a cushion
or something firm below your buttocks so that you elevate your
hips a little – this will make it easier to keep your back straight and
take the unnecessary pressure off your lower back.
You can either cross your legs, place them on the floor or stretch
them out in front of you – whatever works best for you. Just make
sure that you can comfortably sit in the posture for 15-20 minutes,
without having to change your position or move your legs because
your legs or back were getting sore or uncomfortable.
One more thing that will really help your body, and thus also
your mind, to be more comfortable during the meditation is to
make sure that the body is neither very stiff, nor very restless.
Especially with the sedentary lifestyle that most of us are living in
today’s world, where we are most of the day either sitting in the car,
in the office, at home, or somewhere else, it is important to make
sure to do at least a little exercise to improve the circulation and
also remove any stiffness or excess energy and restlessness from
the body. If you meditate in the morning before breakfast, this is
important because the body will be stiff from lying in bed all night,
and if you meditate in the evening after sitting in the office all day,
again the body will be stiff from sitting in one posture most of the
time. How you get rid of the stiffness or restlessness in the body is
up to you; you can choose any way that appeals to you. Some may
want to go for a run, do some yoga, put on some music and dance,
or just jump up and down for a few minutes, loosening up the body
and spend some energy. If you regularly find that your body is
either too restless when you sit for meditation, and it is difficult to
keep the body still, or you keep having a lot of restless thoughts,
desires, or some sensations in the body that won’t allow you to sit
peacefully, then increase this exercise a little more before you sit.
You can also keep an eye on your diet a little, reducing the amount
of spicy, oily and fried foods you eat, and also reducing your intake
of sugar.
This is actually the reason why many practitioners of yoga and
meditation often end up making some changes in their food habits
and diet over time – it is not that you need to follow a vegetarian or
healthier diet to benefit from these practices, but the more you start
becoming aware of how your body and mind react to certain types
of food, and how the food you eat affects how your body and mind
feel and function, you naturally start preferring things that make
you feel peaceful and fresh, rather than heavy, dull, uneasy or
restless.
Now that you are comfortable, having found a posture in which
you can easily relax and sit still for some time, you may close your
eyes and take a few slow and gentle deep breaths in and out. Take
your attention to different parts of the body and consciously relax
them. Here special attention can be given to the shoulders, neck and
facial muscles, as these are often the places where we are most
tense, and where a lot of the stress accumulates. I often tell people
to keep a smile on their face – not a big grin, but just a gentle smile,
as it is not possible to frown or keep a tense expression on your face
and smile at the same time. So, this helps one to relax the face as
well.
It is most comfortable to keep your hands on your knees, or in
your lap, with the palms open facing the sky. You don’t need to keep
your hands in any special postures or mudra, rather I would suggest
not to as it again involves effort, and it does not allow you to fully
relax. We often see statues of the Buddha and yogis sitting in a
meditative posture while their hands form different mudras, but
even though these mudras have a certain effect on our body and
mind, they are also used to symbolically convey certain principles
and states of mind. For us, who are starting our journey of
meditation, it is important to first build a solid foundation for our
practice – and that is to learn to totally relax and let go, to learn
effortlessness. Keeping your hands in any specific posture will
neither let your body nor your mind, relax fully. So again, let us take
the easy road, and choose effortlessness over effort.
Once the body has settled into a comfortable and steady posture,
take your attention to your breath for a moment. Just observe the
breath, and allow it to become steady, smooth and a little slower. If
you find that the breath is still a little fast, shallow or shaky, you
can consciously take a few slow, long deep breaths in and out, and
then again relax, allowing the breath to move at its own pace. Let
the breathing be effortless as well, allowing the breath to move in
and out of the body on its own. Sometimes it may be longer and
deeper, and smoother and lighter, and sometimes it may be a little
faster or heavier. Without putting a lot of effort to change it, just
become aware of it and observe it. Become aware of how every
inhalation is energizing the body, and every exhalation is relaxing
the body. This is a natural phenomenon that is happening all the
time, but when you begin to notice this, it becomes more effective
as you are putting your attention there. And as the breath is always
in the present moment, the mind also slows down, getting drawn
less into the past and the future, and becoming more rooted in the
present moment.
Now take your attention to any sounds or noises in the
surroundings, whatever they may be. There may be the noise of the
air-conditioning or a fan, there may be the noise of some people
talking in another room or nearby somewhere, there may be the
sounds of traffic in the distance, or some birds chirping. Whatever
noises may be there, just acknowledge and accept them, allowing
them to be there. Do not resist them. This is actually a technique, it
is a secret, that can free your mind from those disturbances. By
consciously taking your attention there and accepting the noises,
you will find that the sounds become relegated to the background
and they stop disturbing you. The mind then no longer gets stuck
there. Otherwise, sometimes some noises can keep distracting the
mind, and do not allow it to settle down. If you resist the noises,
then you are stuck with the noises and the mind will not be able to
go inward.
Once the mind is no longer caught up with its environment, for
some time keep the body totally still. This is another secret. When
the body is still, the mind also starts to further settle down,
automatically, because the body and the mind are connected. When
you keep the body totally still – except of course for the gentle and
effortless movement of the breath – the mind also slows down more
and more, even if it was active till now. So, we keep the body totally
still, sitting there as if you are a statue.
Remember that the law of the mind is effortlessness, not effort.
Don’t put any effort to control the mind or observe it, just let it be. If
it wanders, let it wander, do not resist any thoughts, while at the
same time not encouraging any planning in the mind either. If
there are some things that the mind is running after, some things
that you still need to attend to, that you want to change, or
problems that you need to solve, or things that you feel are still
missing in your life, or that are not okay right now, then this is the
time to practice the principle we learned in the first chapter.
Consciously remind yourself that right now you don’t need all those
things that you thought you cannot live without. Can you be happy
and peaceful without these things for now? Yes, you can be happy
and peaceful even without them, in this moment.
Once this first step is done, the next is to remember the principle
of dispassion. Feel that right now, this moment, you have
everything you need. Right now, you don’t need anything and you
don’t want anything. Really feel that for the next 15-20 minutes,
you don’t crave for anything, nor do you have to do anything.
Whatever goals, desires, or items on your to-do list, they can all
wait for 20 minutes.
Now consciously drop all your identities and labels. You may be a
father, a mother, a lawyer, a shop attendant, a singer, a son, a sister,
or anything else, but for the next 15-20 minutes drop all those
identities. Feel as if you have died, as if your life has dissolved. All
your relationships, all your responsibilities, all your notions and
dreams. As if all of it was a dream, and you have just woken up. Feel
that ‘I am nothing, I am nobody.’
Unless you drop those identities, those thoughts will keep coming
up. If you don’t forget about your business, thoughts of pending
matters, unpaid bills, tenders to be submitted, or customers to
connect with, may keep coming up in your mind. But if for a
moment you are able to drop all those identities, these thoughts
will not even come up. So, for a moment don’t give any importance
to any of your identities and feel that you are nobody, that you are
nothing. The past is gone, and the future is uncertain and hasn’t
happened yet. Dropping all your past impressions and ideas about
yourself and your life so far, as well as dropping the plans for the
future. During your time of meditation, you don’t want to do
anything. You are new this moment, in this moment. And right
now, you don’t have to do anything. Dropping the past completely,
and not getting lost in our plans for the future either – we learned
and practised this in the second chapter, remember? And we
learned to drop all our identities, all our labels, and everything that
is going on in our life right now, in the fourth chapter in detail.
The above application of the practice of dispassion culminates in
three beautiful principles that I have learned from my Master. He
taught us these as a preparation for meditation. Summed up, the
three principles are feeling that for the next few moments:

(1) I am nothing,
(2) I want nothing, and
(3) I don’t have to do anything.

For a moment consciously bringing these to your awareness and

really feeling it is a technique that can really allow you to go into
meditation much faster. Feel that right now, for the next few
moments, you are nothing, you are nobody, and you want nothing,
and right now, you don’t have to do anything. And when you can
feel this, you will find that the mind starts settling down. Many of
the usual thoughts will not even come up now.
This is the point where you relax and let go. If some thoughts
come up, just let them come and go on their own. We don’t label or
entertain them. Thoughts come and go on their own, we don’t
analyse them. Whether good thoughts or bad thoughts, do not
resist, just let them be there. They come and go, like waves rising
from the ocean, only to dissolve back into it. Just like waves, these
thoughts are just there on the surface of your consciousness. The
more they settle, the stiller the surface becomes, and the more you
are able to see and appreciate the depth of the ocean of your
consciousness.
If you find, however, that your mind is stuck with a thought, that
it keeps coming back, or if you notice that some planning is going
on in the mind, gently bring it back to the present moment by
momentarily taking your attention to your breath. We have
practised this already in the fifth chapter as well, remember?
Accept whatever is happening and embrace it. If there are a lot of
thoughts, let it be, it is okay. Don’t try to quickly get rid of it or
quickly relax – it doesn’t work. The more you are able to accept and
just be with whatever is happening, the more both body and mind
will settle down and become peaceful. Meditation is de-
concentration; it is the art of letting go and just being. The more you
are able to ‘let go’, the more you will be able to go deep in
meditation. And this includes even letting go of the desire to
‘meditate well’ or ‘to go deep in meditation’.
I have experienced at different times when sitting for meditation
that something was disturbing me or that my mind kept thinking
about something, and that it made it impossible for me to go deep
in meditation. However, the moment that I decided that even if
meditation doesn’t happen, I am okay with it, and that I will just sit
for those 15-20 minutes, no matter what happens, the meditation
suddenly started becoming deeper. Giving up the desire to
meditate, and dropping the ‘doership’, are an essential and very
powerful step in the process of meditation. Here the fastest way to
reach the goal is to have infinite patience!
There is a beautiful story that is sometimes used to illustrate this
point of the meditation practice or any other spiritual practices.
There are different versions of this story that I have come across
over the years, but the way I heard it for the first time many years
ago goes something like this.
One day a Master decided to go for a walk around his Ashram, and
seeing the disciples involved in their service activities and spiritual
practices, he smiled to himself. He was getting old and he knew that
his body had only a few years left to live.
At this moment, one of his most senior disciples who was
accompanying him, turned to the Master and with a serious look on
his face asked, ‘Master, I have been with you with for the last few
decades, and I have been sincere in my meditation practice.
However, you yourself have told us that you will be with us in this
body for only a few more years. Please tell me, when will I reach
enlightenment? When will I be liberated?’
 Seeing the longing in the eyes of the disciple, the Master closed his
eyes for a moment and used his divine intuition. Opening his eyes
again, he looked at the disciple with a lot of compassion, and told
him: ‘It will take you four more lifetimes to reach enlightenment
and become liberated my son.’
Hearing this, the senior disciple’s face turned grey, and then this
made way for anger. ‘What? Four lifetimes? But I have given most
of my life to you and your teachings. I have been doing my practices
sincerely for the last few decades! This is outrageous.’
Having overheard the conversation between the senior disciple
and the Master, a young boy, who had joined the Ashram only a few
years ago, hesitatingly approached the Master, and in all his
innocence asked: ‘Master, what about me? Could you tell me when I
will be liberated?’
Once more the Master closed his eyes for a moment, and when he
opened his eyes again, he smiled at the boy and told him: ‘Do you
see that tree over there that you were watering? And do you see all
the leaves on the branches of the tree?’
‘Yes Master,’ the boy replied happily, ‘I see them!’
‘Well, my boy, it will take you as many lifetimes as there are
leaves on that tree before you attain enlightenment.’ The boy’s
smile became even bigger, and gratefully he bowed down to the
Master.
The senior disciple, who was still angry, turned to the boy and
asked him: ‘Why are you so happy? Don’t you see there are
thousands of leaves on that tree?’
‘Oh yes, I see them. But I am so happy because I can count the
number of leaves on this tree, it is a finite number. There may be
thousands, yes, but the Master has just told me that I will get
enlightened, once these are over.’
Tears of joy and gratitude rolling down his cheeks, the young boy
started dancing in joy, feeling so happy that he would get
enlightened one day. And it is said that at that moment
enlightenment dawned on the boy and he became liberated.
 One of the beautiful lessons that this story carries is that the
fastest way to reach the goal in meditation or any spiritual practices
is to not be in a hurry but to have infinite patience. This of course
does not mean that you just sit there waiting or keep on doing other
things; it means that you are able to practice without the
feverishness of wanting to achieve a certain goal or experience.
Having infinite patience means having the ability to practice
without any restlessness or craving for any experiences or results in
the mind. Applying yourself fully to the action, while dropping the
desire for the fruit of the action, or the outcome. It will allow you to
be fully in the present moment and truly go deep, as the mind is
able to fully relax. Wanting something to happen is still doing
something – and as we saw earlier, meditation is the art of doing
nothing, the art of letting go. So, here we also apply the principle
that we learned in chapter three: the ability to just be with what we
are doing, a hundred per cent, forgetting about all the times you
have already done this in the past, and how our experiences were
then. Sitting as if you are meditating for the first time, knowing
that every time you sit for meditation it is a new experience, and
forgetting everything you think you know about it, and what is
supposed to happen. Dropping all the earlier experiences, be it good
or bad, and just being fully available to experience whatever is
happening right now. Forget about what you are supposed to gain
from it, or how it will benefit you, and just practice with childlike
innocence and enthusiasm, without worrying about the result.
The more you are able to practice dispassion like this, the more
you will be able to drop even the desire to meditate or be peaceful.
And the more this happens, the more effortless, deep and profound
your meditations become, and the more joyful, peaceful and free
you will be.
Now how do you know that you are doing it right? How do you
know if you are meditating or not? It always helps to have a teacher
that can guide you and also confirm or assure you that you are on
the right track, but even if you are just practising by yourself there
are certain signs that you are practising properly or that you are
making progress.
The first sign is that after your meditation you feel more relaxed,
fresher, more centred and the mind is calmer. In some meditations,
you may not have felt the time pass, or you may not have been
aware of much at all, while at other times you may have an acute
awareness and yet the mind is very relaxed. You may have initially
felt that you had so many thoughts, as you were aware of them, but
then seeing that twenty minutes have already passed, it may
suddenly strike you that you did not have those many thoughts.
This means that there were gaps of thoughtlessness in between,
where you were not even aware at all – you had transcended the
logical mind. But despite the feeling that you had many thoughts,
you feel rested afterwards.
Every time you sit for meditation the experiences may differ, so it
is very important not to judge yourself or your experiences in
meditation or try to analyse them too much. It is also important not
to compare your experiences too much with others, or with things
that you have read or heard about. There are so many funny
concepts and misconceptions about meditation floating around,
and many people get stuck with those ideas. I have had people
coming to me to get guidance in their meditation practice, saying
they have still not been able to see the bright light that they had
read about somewhere and that was supposedly the indication of
meditation happening. The poor souls had been desperately trying
to see a bright light, which had only made their attempts more
stressful and tiring for the mind, rather than them actually feeling
better and more peaceful. All kinds of experiences can come in
meditation, but we don’t get stuck with them or get attached to
them. If you practice regularly, you may see some colours, smell
some fragrance, have some sensations as if you are floating, or you
may feel very light, or heavy, and all kinds of other experiences – or
you may have none of these at all.
 Looking for such experiences or trying to recreate them is one
more place where people sometimes get stuck. As my Master once
beautifully said when someone asked him about some of these
experiences that one of their friends had gone through, but they
hadn’t: ‘Meditation is not about the experience, it is about the
experiencer.’ So, don’t get stuck with experiences, comparing your
own with others or judging yourself. Take every time you sit for
meditation as a new experience, and welcome whatever comes with
open arms. This innocence and state of surrender is another very
important aspect and powerful tool to go deep in one’s meditation
practice. Because like I shared earlier, meditation is an art or skill
that comes by practice, not by knowing something intellectually. I
have of course shared certain guidelines, principles and tips with
you, but more important than that is having an innocent mind that
is willing to embrace and experience the unknown. Because
meditation is going beyond the mind, and therefore, it can never be
known intellectually, only experienced.
There is a beautiful short story that illustrates this childlike
innocence and the importance of our approach and state of mind
over the technical know-how of the technique. This story was
written by Leo Tolstoy at the end of the nineteenth century, but its
message is as true today as it was then.
The story tells us about three hermits that lived on a small island
somewhere in a big lake in a remote part of Russia. Over time word
spread about the three saints and the miracles they performed, and
the local bishop became worried that the popularity of these
hermits may start affecting the position and authority of the
church in these regions. After contemplating the problem, the
bishop came up with a solution: he would visit the old men and
teach them the ways of the church. This way, even if people still
considered them as saints, it would not lead them away from the
churchly traditions.
The next day the bishop set out for the lake and upon reaching
the shore, he requested the captain of a fishermen’s boat to take
him to the remote island where the three men were living. When
asked if he knew about the three saints, the captain replied that he
had heard stories from the local people about some of the miracles
that the saints perform. ‘But I don’t think going there is worth your
time, your eminence,’ the captain added. ‘From what I have heard,
these saints are simple people and not very educated.’
The bishop, however, was adamant about wanting to visit these
hermits, and the captain agreed to take him to the island. Having
come near, he provided the bishop with a small rowboat as the
main ship could not go further in the shallow waters near the
island. The captain promised to wait for the bishop to return.
Having reached the shore, the bishop was received by the three
saints, who appeared to just look like three old poor men, living a
very simple life of austerities there.
‘I have heard about your earnest quest for God and salvation,’ the
bishop told them, ‘and I find your dedication quite admirable. Could
you tell me how you are seeking God and His mercy? How do you
pray?’
The three saints looked at each other for a moment, and then one
of them reluctantly told the bishop that they actually did not really
know how to pray or serve God. Their prayer, in all its innocence,
was simple: ‘Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us.’
Having heard this, the bishop explained to them that even though
their intention was pure, their prayer was not proper. He then went
on to teach them how one was supposed to pray as per the holy
scriptures that God had given to men. He explained to them the
various doctrines that have been mentioned in the holy scriptures,
and then taught them the Lord’s Prayer, known as the ‘Our Father’.
This turned out to be a big challenge though, as the men had great
difficulty in remembering the correct words of the prayer. By the
time the bishop was confident that the hermits had finally
memorized the prayer, it had already become nighttime. Once more
emphasizing to the three men the need to pray only in this correct
manner, the bishop then got back to his rowboat and returned to
the fisherman’s ship.
The bishop boarded the ship, but then as the captain turned the
boat and starts sailing back towards the shore of the big lake, a
small light appeared in the dark behind them. Initially, the bishop
thought it must be another small boat that was also on its way to
the shore, but as the faint light drew closer, he suddenly saw that
the small lamp was held up by one of the three hermits as all three
of them came running towards the boat.
The bishop, in all his astonishment of seeing these men run on
water as if they were on solid ground, quickly asked the captain to
stop the boat. As the saints reached the boat, they humbly greeted
the bishop, and after catching their breath for a moment, one of
them asked him, ‘Your eminence, please forgive us, but we have
forgotten your teachings again. As long as we kept repeating the
prayer you taught us, we were able to remember it. But when we
took a small break, we realized we had forgotten some of the words,
and before we knew it, we could not remember any of them
properly anymore. Please teach it to us once more!’
Realizing that the old men were truly saints, having been blessed
by God, the humbled bishop realized his mistake. ‘My dear brothers,
it was my ignorance to think that I can teach you anything about
faith and how to serve our heavenly Father. Please continue praying
in your own way, as you have done till now. Your prayers reach the
Lord, there is no doubt about that. Please pray for all of us sinners.’
Feeling relieved, the three saints happily returned to their small
island, walking across the surface of the lake.
This story touches upon another important aspect of an
authentic meditation practice as well, and that is having a sense of
honour and respect, or reverence for the practice. I feel it is
important to explore this a little more in detail here, because with
the commercialization and so-called secularization of meditation
over the last few decades, some important aspects of this ancient
practice have knowingly or unknowingly taken a backseat or have
even been removed altogether.
We currently live in a time where meditation has become so
fashionable and lucrative, that there are not just a few but many
meditation apps for your phone, iPads and other devices, and many
offer premium subscription packages that allow you to unlock an
even wider range of quick-fix meditations. You have options that
cater to all types of hectic lifestyles, with some apps even offering
‘meditations’ as short as one or two minutes – short enough to fit
into the tightest of schedules, with the promise of giving you more
peace of mind or space in your head. Most of these meditations have
been ‘invented’ or developed by people that may have very limited
or no knowledge or understanding of the ancient traditions and
context in which these powerful practices were taught and
practised, and this results in many of the so-called ‘meditations’
being actually more like snippets of soothing nature sounds or
instrumental music with a picture of some beautiful landscape in
the background, or worse.
It seems that in an effort to make the concept and practice of
meditation more accessible and less foreign for the masses, many
have tried to remove the cultural or spiritual elements and context
of the practice, in a similar way as yoga has in many places
undergone such a transformation – or sometimes I would even say
distortion. One of the reasons that the word ‘mindfulness’ and
‘meditation’ are frequently used interchangeably is that still many
corporates and other institutions seem to be a little hesitant, to say
the least, in introducing anything culturally or religiously coloured
as meditation to their executives and employees, while something
as secular and neutral as mindfulness is much less of an ‘issue’. The
world has come a long way, and we are much more open-minded
than a few centuries ago, but it is in instances like these that one
realizes that still not all embrace wisdom and useful techniques
from all over the world, in the same way, they have happily
embraced clothes, fashion, technology, food, music and movies
from across the globe.
We shouldn’t shy away from the traditions that meditation came
from though, as in an over-zealous effort to secularize things, we
often end up throwing away the baby with the bathwater, where
we strip the practice of some of the elements that actually form its
very essence. Of course, one does not have to be a Buddhist, or a
Hindu, or a follower of any other religion for that matter, in order to
be able to practice meditation and benefit from it. But a sense of
honour, reverence and respect for the practice and the tradition,
and a sense of faith in oneself, the technique and the teacher are
very important aspects of the meditation practice, or any spiritual
practice for that matter. Because if you look at honouring, at having
a sense of reverence, then you will see that it is nothing but a total
attentiveness of the mind, coupled with a tinge of gratitude.
Whether it is you receiving a guest at home or picking up a book
or object that you have a lot of reverence for, in both instances, you
will find that your mind comes fully to the present moment,
coupled with a subtle feeling of gratefulness and happiness. A
random person walking into your home does not invoke a similar
state of your mind or consciousness, nor does picking up an old
newspaper and putting it away somewhere else. And this is exactly
why in ancient times so much emphasis was given to honouring
the Master, the practice and the tradition.
The whole purpose of meditation is to consolidate the mind, to
bring it back to a calm and composed state from its scattered and
chaotic condition and to allow it to settle down and finally
transcend itself. The moment one sits down with a sense of
reverence for the practice, more than half the job is already done.
But if this aspect is missing, the meditation practice many times
takes on the form of mere mental exercise, where one desperately
tries to calm a restless mind. And then people wonder why it is so
difficult to even just focus the mind on any one thing for more than
a few seconds. Those who have joined some mindfulness classes
may have realized that really being mindful or aware turns out to
be much more easily said than done. You would think that just the
awareness of the need to be in the present moment with what you
are doing right now would allow one to consciously practice it –
why would you need a course or training? But the truth is that
many are not able to do this so easily and becoming conscious of
this fact often only adds to the tension, leaving a beginner more
disheartened than hopeful of achieving that coveted state of inner
peace.
The monks, meditation masters and the icons of liberation and
enlightenment, like the great saints and sages of the ancient yogic
traditions, including the Buddha, all share the common ground of a
practice that is rooted in and part of an ancient tradition that has
perfected it and that has preserved it and handed it down through a
system of masters and disciples, and a reverence for the tradition.
But when meditation became interesting from a big business
point of view, the over-enthusiastic marketing departments lost no
time in stripping it of many of its cultural and traditional baggage,
in an attempt to make it as modern as the gym around the corner.
Peace of mind at your fingertips, and that too at very affordable
rates. One of the leading apps proudly boasts to offer 3-minute
sessions that fit seamlessly into a busy schedule – just the thought
itself can actually make you more stressed! Honestly, anyone who
has any authentic experience of true meditation can tell you that
this has become something very different, no matter how big an
expert someone may claim to be. It is therefore also not very
surprising that most studies of the modern mindfulness apps
available for your phones and tablets show that there is hardly any
evidence at all of these apps actually working, or even remotely
doing what they promise their users they will do. The people
making these apps may have the knowledge of branding, coding
and designing, but they may not be masters of a tradition that has
perfected and preserved these ancient techniques with sacredness
and proper understanding.
 I have come across so many people who have started referring to
their meditation workshops or practices as mindfulness, because
they feel it appeals much more to the mainstream crowd and I have
even heard people refer to the arrival of ‘secular mindfulness’ that
made it even more accessible for people from all backgrounds and
walks of life. I often feel that this obsession with wanting
everything to be secular and stripped of anything that could be
interpreted as even vaguely religious has done more damage than
good. Has religion as such gotten such a bad name in today’s world
that anything vaguely or potentially religious is synonymous with
blind belief, a distorted view of reality and dogmas? Or is there this
underlying fear that you may accidentally end up practising
something that is part of some other religion than your own? Is our
faith really that shaky – be it in our own rational mind and
thinking, or in our own religion, if we follow any?
Of course, we also see the other extreme, where some may make
you feel like the only way to meditate properly is to leave all that
you know behind and join a retreat in a mountain spa or a
monastery far away from civilization. Again, the truth does not lie
in the extremes, but in the middle path. Nobody will argue that a
peaceful retreat in the stillness of nature, with the soothing view of
mountain ranges or the ocean will help you settle down and be less
distracted, but that does not mean that you cannot learn to
meditate and experience true stillness in the comfort of your home.
Rather, a practice that is compatible with your existing day-to-day
life and routine stands a much better chance of truly helping you to
become more peaceful and resilient in the long run.
The reason why I wanted to address these points is because I have
seen more often than not that by taking these ancient, time-tested
and beneficial practices and techniques out of their context,
tradition and culture often results in stripping it of some of its
essential aspects as well. The ancient Vedic and Yogic traditions
have always welcomed a scientific and inquisitive approach, rather
they encourage it. It is the foundation of these systems of
philosophy and practices, and that is how thousands of years ago
the sages with their scientific mindset went on to explore and
develop these ancient techniques, like meditation. They knew,
however, that in order to learn and be open to experience
something, a receptive mindset and reverence for the teachings and
practice are of great importance, as we are dealing here with
something as subtle as our mind. So, bringing in this element of
respect and reverence for the practice can really help you, and make
it much easier to manage your mind and learn how to actually
meditate.
During the early years of my martial arts practice, I noticed how
even in our training the reverence and respect for the master and
the tradition played an important role, and how that in turn
actually made it much easier to learn new things. Because the
reverence and respect were there, the mind was naturally more
focused, more aware, and more in the present moment. And when I
met Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and experienced what it was like
to meditate with him, under his guidance, I realized that I had
finally found a true meditation master.
I have been learning from him for the last twenty years and have
also learned many things from him personally. The power of
tradition, of tried and tested techniques offered and explained by
someone who has truly mastered them, is a completely different
experience than trying to figure something out on your own. Thus,
adding this element of reverence for the technique and the practice
will really help you.
And that is how you will keep going deeper into the practice, and
it will give you so many benefits. The more you learn to relax the
mind and for a moment allow it to turn inward and settle down, the
more the mind starts expanding. A mind that is tense feels as if it
contracts, and the more you relax, the more there is a feeling of
expansion. And the more the body and mind settle down and go
into a state of rest, the more your system will start releasing built
up stresses and strains.
 You are allowing the nervous system and mind to rejuvenate
itself, and in the process, they unburden themselves from
unwanted impressions and strains. You may therefore experience
these releases happening on three different levels: in the physical,
mental or emotional sphere. On the physical level you may feel
some stiffness, discomfort or some tingling sensations. You may
even have a sudden jerk of one of your arms or so, if a muscle was
very tight and it suddenly relaxes.
When I started meditating regularly, I remember wondering why
as soon as five minutes into my meditation I would sometimes start
feeling some pain in my back, or some stiffness in my legs, while I
had no problem sitting in the same position while watching TV or a
movie, even if it was for more than an hour. First, I thought that
maybe it is just because while watching TV, I am not as conscious or
aware of my body and how it feels, but I learned that it is not just
that. In meditation the body is able to throw of so many pent-up
stresses and strains, and one of the ways this gets released is on the
physical level.
You may also sometimes find that while meditating you start
getting a lot of thoughts, effortlessly, about all kinds of random
things. You are not consciously thinking or remembering things,
nor are you actively planning something in your mind. These are
just random thoughts, coming in one after another, and these may
just be impressions that are getting released because the mind is
finally settling down. So, this does not mean that your meditation is
not happening, or that it is not working – you are doing it right, and
that is why this release occurs. You will find that with regular
practice these thoughts will become fewer, as you have started
clearing out all the backlog of unnecessary impressions that have
been putting a strain on your nervous system. If thoughts come, it’s
not a problem. Let them. Whether good or bad, positive or negative,
let them. Don’t label them, because then you will want to hold on to
or entertain the good thoughts and resist the bad ones. The art of
doing nothing means . . . doing nothing. So, also when a thought
comes, we do nothing. And just like a car that was driving very fast
takes some time to come to a standstill, even if you apply the brakes
fully, the mind will initially also be active sometimes, but we just
let it settle down, give it time. We are dropping the effort, the
concentration, the observing and letting go, just being. The initial
focus or awareness of the surroundings, of our body, of our breath,
is not the goal – they are a means to bring together and consolidate
the scattered mind before it can drop even that.
It is like how the scriptures also describe one of the ways to
liberation or freedom: have one desire, to be free, that is so intense,
that it makes you drop all others, and when only that remains, drop
that also. Like that one strong desire that dissolves all others, the
initial awareness of the mind is like the alum that is put in the
water to purify it, and that then dissolves itself, leaving nothing but
pure water. Here we see that most of the commonly practised
mindfulness practices and meditations are actually just the
preparation part, not the actual meditation. They never go beyond
the mind.
Finally, it is also possible for different emotions to come up
during meditation. Here it is again important to remember that if
and when this happens, we don’t need to analyse them because
these are just releases happening to unburden your system. We
hardly ever stop to think about the impact that not expressing our
emotions has on us. Of course, we often cannot, and should not,
express it when we feel angry or annoyed or frustrated, because we
live in a society and we follow certain rules of decency. Imagine if
you did not hold back and fully expressed your anger every time
your annoying boss took credit for your work? You will lose your
job in no time! In the same way, you cannot always express your
displeasure with a certain member of your family every time you
feel that way because your home will soon turn into a warzone. But
not expressing an emotion does not mean we don’t feel it, and every
time we go through it, it leaves some impact on our nervous
system, even on a hormonal level. And when we allow our body and
mind to rest deeply, they naturally start releasing these
unnecessary burdens on the system.
The more you become rested and peaceful, free from stresses,
strains and worries, you will find that all those things that you have
been looking for and running after, like happiness, peace, a sense of
freedom and well-being, are already there. It was just covered with
all the mental clouds and now the sun of your true nature can shine
through again. Just like when you were a small child. So now all
that is left is to find the time to make meditation a part of your life.
Wisdom Sutras
Meditation is a skill that comes by practice, not by knowing
something intellectually.
Reverence greatly enhances your meditation practice. It is a
state of mind where the mind is fully focused, in the present
moment, with a sense of joy and gratitude, effortlessly.

10-Minute Exercise
Practice the process that has been described in this chapter to start
meditating. You can start with 10 minutes, gradually increasing the
duration until you get used to 20 minutes – it is the perfect time.
Familiarize yourself with the main steps, and then just let go and
enjoy the practice. Remember the story of the three innocent saints:
your feeling and sincerity is more important than following all
instructions by the letter. As a general rule you could go by the
following steps:

1. Find a proper place to sit without much disturbance, and

prepare your body by having a light stomach, and doing a
little exercise or stretches to warm up and loosen up the body.
2. Sit in a comfortable posture with your spine erect, and then
consciously relax the entire body. Become aware of any noises
around you and accept them, let them be.
3. Allow the breath to settle down, and then keep the body
totally still. Allow the mind to settle down even more.
4. Drop all your pending work, desires, ambitions, and identities
and labels. For the next 20 minutes, you are as if dead, totally
content in this present moment. You are nothing, want
nothing, and don’t have to do anything right now.
5. Now totally relax, allowing thoughts and sensations in the
body to come and go on their own, as and when they come.
6. When you are done, take one to two minutes to gradually
come out of the meditation, before you open your eyes and go
back to your other activities.
 7
Finding the Time to Meditate

Like many train stations in Assam, Diphu station is not very big, and
my train would only stop there for a few minutes. Seeing many of the
coaches rushing by already, the long train came to a screeching halt.
‘Swamiji, your coach has already passed. We will have to go to the end
of the platform! I will take this bag.’
One of the volunteers that had come to drop me off at the station
took my suitcase and carrying my backpack myself, we quickly ran to
the end of the platform, dodging people that were getting off the train
as well as those trying to get on it in time, while also being careful not to
step on some of the people whose train had been delayed, and who had
decided to get comfortable and were sitting or lying down on the same
platform.
We found the carriage and quickly went inside. ‘Swamiji, this is your
place. Seat number 12, lower berth. Excuse us, Sir.’ The volunteer
placed my bag under the seat after the gentleman already sitting there
moved aside a little. ‘Are you comfortable here? Do you need anything
else? We hope you will come back again to Karbi Anglong!’
‘I hope so too!’ I replied to the volunteer and thanked him for his
help. ‘Don’t worry, I am comfortable. You go, the train is about to start
moving.’ Quickly touching my feet in a gesture of respect, the boy ran
off, jumping onto the platform just in time as the train was now slowly
rolling out of the station.
Placing my small backpack next to me on the seat, I placed my shoes
below the seat, pulled up my legs and sat back a little. The benefit of
travelling by sleeper class is that the beds allow for one to sit
comfortably in a cross-legged position as well. I checked the time on my
phone and realized there was about half an hour left before they would
start serving the dinner parcels on the train – this gave me just enough
time without any disturbance. I closed my eyes, relaxed my shoulders,
took a few long deep breaths, allowed the breathing to settle and
started my evening meditation. Soon the sounds of the train rolling
over the railway tracks, the children talking in the compartment next to
me, and a person listening to music on his mobile phone started fading
into the background until they no longer caught my attention. For a
moment I became aware of the sound of the air-conditioning in the
coach trying to keep up with the hot and humid air that had come into
the carriage with us from the outside – weather that was typical for this
time of the year in these parts of Assam – and then even that
disappeared from my awareness. The mind started expanding, and
before I knew it what remained was just a subtle awareness of the body
moving back and forth, or left and right a little, swaying along with the
carriage of the train as it moved across the not entirely even tracks or
terrain. The body and mind had gone into a deep state of relaxation,
and all that remained was a sense of gradual expansion. When I finally
became more aware of the body and mind again, I took a few moments
to become aware of my surroundings as well, before I opened my eyes
again. About 25 minutes had passed, and I felt much fresher. My mind
was also much more settled.
Opening my eyes, I looked at the smiling and curious face of the
gentleman that had been sitting in my place when we had boarded the
train. It appeared his seat was opposite of me. ‘Were you meditating?’
He asked me hesitantly. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking.’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I replied, ‘And yes, I was.’
 ‘I noticed your dress, and the way the boy who accompanied you
interacted with you. Are you working for some spiritual organization?
Hare Krishna? You speak Hindi fluently, but you look like you have
come from abroad?’
I smiled. ‘Yes, I am originally from the Netherlands, but I have been
living in India for the last ten years now. I am a disciple of Gurudev Sri
Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of The Art of Living. You must have
heard of him?’
‘Oh yes, yes, I have seen some of his discourses on TV. I like him, he
speaks in very easy language, it is not difficult to understand. So, you
came here for work?’
‘Yes, I am overseeing many of our humanitarian service projects of
the organization in the North Eastern Region, and I just finished
conducting a meditation retreat and some yoga programs here in
Diphu.’
‘Oh yes, I saw you were meditating. I also tried it for some time, but I
can’t get my mind to stop thinking. I go for a morning walk every day
though. Well, not every day, but as often as I can. You know how it is,
nowadays we have much less time for these things.’

What this man told me was right. One of the biggest challenges in
life is finding the time to do the things that are really important for
us, or that you know you should be doing. This is one of the main
things that distinguishes successful people from the rest – and here
successful does not only refer to those with a high-level position in
their company or those with a big bank balance. Here I am mainly
talking about the people who are truly happy, contented, fulfilled,
grateful and peaceful in life, no matter what their profession, social
status or income is like.
It is not that most of us don’t know what is important, or what is
important to us, but we keep saying that we don’t get time to do
those things, not realizing that in order to get time, you have to
make time. If you keep waiting for the day that you will finally get
time to do those things you have been postponing, it will most
probably never happen. Unless, of course, there is a sudden
pandemic and life suddenly comes to a standstill. Apart from all the
negative impact that the lockdown has had on people across the
world, it has also resulted in almost everybody I know finally
getting some time and space to do things that they had been
wanting to do for a very long time, even years, but they were simply
not getting time for. And in the process, it also led to many people
re-evaluating their lives, and where they were heading, and what
they want to do with their lives. In this way, I know that for many
this sudden interruption of their busy lifestyles has also been a
blessing in disguise. A moment to slow down, introspect and look
inward.
Let’s face it, life has become much more hectic in the last few
decades, and it only continues to speed up. Everything is faster, and
it is becoming more and more common to ‘have to schedule some
time’ for the most basic things in life, be it meals, exercise or some
time with your family.
I remember the time of my primary school days, before we all had
mobile phones and voicemail or messenger apps. If you had to call
someone, you would pick up the landline phone, dial their number
and if you got lucky, they answered. If they did not, you had to
presume that they were either busy or unavailable, and you would
just have to try again later. With mobile phones the scenario
changed, as people started carrying them wherever they went, and
nowadays you can even see whether someone is ‘online’ on most
messenger apps. If you don’t pick up their call, someone will
message you, and if you don’t reply within a few minutes, you
sometimes even have to justify why you didn’t reply right away.
Your boss may expect a reply to the email they just forwarded to
you within the hour and may not appreciate it if you don’t call them
back immediately after you missed their call. Nobody considers
that you may be busy right now, or even worse, may actually have a
life. However, in this rat-race where we try to squeeze maximum
activities and experiences into the same 24 hours of our day, we
often end up running after things that promise us the peace and
happiness that we are looking for, while that lasting joy and
fulfilment seems to keep slipping through our fingers. We manage
to do two or three things at the same time, and in the process miss
out on fully experiencing or enjoying any of them. There is a short
parable by Leo Tolstoy that beautifully captures our predicament,
and it goes something like this.
Once upon a time, there lived a man in India who had lost all that
he had. Dejected and having given up on life, he sat on the side of
the road just outside the town, near a local temple, begging the
people passing by to give him some change. There was not a day
that the beggar was not found sitting there, on that same spot,
begging anyone that passed by to give him something. Many years
passed and the beggar became old, until one day he finally passed
away.
Kind as they were, the workers of the nearby temple decided to
arrange for the final rites to be performed for the man, and so they
did. And after this was done, they decided to clean up the place
where the beggar had been living all these years. They removed all
the rags and clutter, and also decided to dig up some of the soil of
the place and take it away.
As they were cleaning the area, one of them stumbled upon
something hard in the ground. Removing a little more of the earth,
they discovered a heavy pot that had been buried there and upon
opening the cover they discovered that it was filled with gold coins.
Shaking their heads at the irony, they realized that the poor man
who had been asking all passers-by for small change for years had
actually been sitting on such a treasure all this time, without ever
finding out. Sitting on such riches, he had died a poor and miserable
man.
And before we judge this beggar, we better introspect as in some
ways we are not that different. Remember the story of Mullah who
was looking for the keys outside of his house, while he lost them
inside? We say we don’t have time to meditate, to look inward, but
why is that? It is because we are so busy trying to gain things,
achieve things, and experience things that somehow promise us the
peace, joy, fulfilment, love and sense of freedom that we are looking
for. But what we have learned, and what we have realized in the
earlier chapters of this book, is that it is in the end exactly that, just
a promise. It is a promise of happiness later, never now. And we
realized that true happiness is only in the present moment, it is
only now, never later. And it can only be experienced when the
mind becomes calm, when it comes to the present moment, and
when we become free from the burden of the past and the
uncertainty of the future.
We need to realize that the switch is inside and that we are
ignoring the shortcut that has been presented to us, trying to reach
our goal via a much longer route, that may or may not even lead us
there.
Remember the joy, freedom and peace that we have all known as
small children and know that you have not lost it forever. It is still
there, inside, but it has been covered by the mud and dust of stress,
desires, craving and aversion, and limitless ambition. When you
remove this dirt, you will find the treasure that was buried there all
along, and that has all this time been within your reach. And this is
not as difficult as you may think, but it does need awareness and
understanding, along with a pinch of commitment.
The awareness has already dawned, as we have discovered in the
earlier chapters how relevant and important it is to make
meditation a part of our life. We also saw that it requires us to
actually slow down for a moment and be totally with what we are
doing, rather than just downloading an app for a three- or five-
minute meditation, packaged and marketed to fit in perfectly with
our fast-food and multi-task culture – something that is
contradictory to what meditation is all about. However, that does
not mean that meditation is not for people with busy lives and a
hectic schedule – rather it is the opposite. Meditation is all the more
needed when we live a busy and stressful life; more than a luxury, it
becomes a necessity, if you want to maintain a certain level of
happiness and productivity.
But awareness of the problem and the solution alone is not
sufficient. For you to get to the point where you actually start
‘doing’ it, you need to also really understand why is it important.
You may have read a book about delicious cakes with elaborate
descriptions, beautiful pictures and all the instructions on how to
make them, but unless you make some and eat them it will never
give you the experience that actually eating a piece of pie does, nor
will it fill your stomach. You can read all the books you want about
changing your life, but nothing will happen unless you decide to do
it, and that comes from acknowledging the importance you need to
give it because life is all about priorities. You have read about the
importance of being in the present moment, of the mind being
peaceful, here and now, free from cravings and aversions, but all
that is useless unless you experience it. And that is why we need to
meditate – to actually experience that state of mind, to realize it.
Because otherwise, it is no different from expecting your stomach
to be filled just by reading the menu card – it will never happen.
I know many people who wanted to quit smoking but only very
few did it. They all know that it is bad for your health and that it
may even cause lung cancer in the long run, and yet this doesn’t
stop them from lighting another cigarette. Everybody ‘knows’ that
it is bad for your health, but very few actually ‘understand’ what
this really means. In the same way, I know some people who were
able to quit smoking overnight when they were suddenly
confronted with the death of a close friend or relative – be it due to
lung cancer or a similar condition. Suddenly the dangers or
suffering of such a condition became very real for them – they
finally ‘understood’. And when this understanding dawned, it made
quitting smoking that much easier for them. It now seemed like
such an obvious thing to do.
 I could give many more examples of cases where people suddenly
‘understood’ the importance of doing something, whether it was
exercising, changing their diet, following traffic rules, or anything
else, and it allowed them to change their habits or priorities
overnight. It is just a matter of you realizing the importance of what
you are doing. After all, you always find time to eat something,
albeit a little late maybe, no matter how busy your day was. Why?
Because you know it is important. In the same way, you make sure
that you take a bath and brush your teeth before going for an
important meeting, no matter how tight your schedule is, right?
Well, I sincerely hope you do, for your sake, and for the others, you
will be meeting.
You have made it a habit to take a bath and brush your teeth
every day because at some point in life you realized that it is
important. When you were small your mother had to maybe tell
you, or force you, to brush your teeth, but now you don’t need
anyone to tell you or remind you. In the same way, we need to
understand that in our modern world it is necessary to make
meditation a part of our daily routine as well. We have understood
the importance of dental hygiene, but we have often neglected to
take care of our mental hygiene. So just like you take a shower to
clean and refresh the body once or twice a day, we need to meditate
once or twice a day to clean and refresh our mind as well. And don’t
worry 15-20 minutes is enough, just like when you take a shower.
We don’t spend hours in the shower, or brushing our teeth, and in
the same way, we don’t have to give up all the other things in our
life just because we want to meditate also. It does, however, require
you to revisit your priorities a little. It does need a little bit of
discipline and commitment.
And before you freak out and go into a rebel-mindset because the
first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words discipline
and commitment is you losing all your freedom and precious time,
let us address this misconception. We often feel that a discipline or
routine robs us of our freedom to do what we want when we want.
It binds and restricts us. But the interesting thing is that it is
actually the other way around.
If you look closely at your life, you will realize that it is the
disciplines you have that make you more comfortable and freer.
Your discipline of brushing your teeth saves you from toothache,
bad breath and other discomforts. It makes you freer, as nobody
with a toothache or half his teeth would be very comfortable. Your
discipline in your diet keeps you more healthy and fit. People who
have no discipline in their diet often end up being unhealthy and
they end up suffering all kinds of discomforts and ailments, leaving
them much less peaceful than you are. In the same way, having a
discipline of exercising makes your body fitter, more comfortable
and it makes you feel better overall. You may not have any of the
stiffness, pains and aches and other discomforts that your
colleagues experience due to many hours of sitting in the office,
without taking time out to exercise the body a little.
I know people who would tell me they felt bad for me that I have
to get up early every day to do some exercise, some yoga, to do my
breathwork techniques and meditation, while they got to use their
morning to sleep in. They did not realize that that little investment
in the morning not only makes me healthier but also lets me be at
ease throughout the day, and much more effective at all my tasks.
Taking out that extra time for meditation ends up adding a lot more
energy and efficiency to your day. Not just that, since meditation
helps the mind relax, you will observe a great improvement in the
quality of your sleep.
I have had people who fell asleep during their first meditation
sessions with me, because their body was so tired that when it
relaxed so deeply, it took the rest that it desperately needed. And
that is also fine. They felt so good afterwards, and once the body
and mind became more rested, they were able to meditate as well.
In the same way, people often share a drastic improvement in the
quality of their sleep once they start becoming regular with their
meditation practice, because the mind is much more peaceful, and
it is becoming better at really ‘letting go’ at night as well. After all,
true rest can only happen when you drop everything else that you
are doing, including all your plans, worries and ambitions.
Whenever you are not able to do that, your sleep isn’t as peaceful.
We would have all experienced at some point or other that you may
even end up dreaming about those issues or plans that were still
going through your head when you hit the bed. In meditation, we
learn how to really drop everything, even if it is just for a while.
Once you have really ‘understood’ that making this discipline
part of your daily routine is the most intelligent thing to do, all that
is left is to just do it, and to become regular with your practice. The
more regular you are with your practice, the easier and more
effortless it becomes. Even in the ancient scriptures on yoga and
meditation, continuity in the practice has been given an important
place, as that is what will really help you make it part of your life,
especially in the beginning, and it will also give you the maximum
benefits of the practice. It is said that anything that is practised for
forty-eight consecutive days becomes a habit, and if you continue
doing it without a break long enough, becomes part of your nature.
Ask any athlete or person that exercises or works out regularly
what happens if they take a two-week break from their daily or
alternate-day exercise routine – they will tell you it takes a few days
again to get back to the same ease with which they were exercising
before the break. The same applies to your meditation practice to
some extent.
Another important point is to commit to your practice and stick
to it, instead of trying different things every other day or trying to
mix different techniques. At different times different masters may
have given various techniques or instructions depending on who
their students were, but don’t get confused with that. See what is
relevant for you and what works.
Sticking to one practice, at least for a considerable amount of
time, will allow you to progress in the practice and reach
somewhere. It will give you results. Trying something new or
different every few days is like digging one metre in a thousand
different places and wondering why you are not finding any water.
Try digging one thousand metres in any place and you will
definitely find water! So, sticking to a practice, being regular and
honouring it can greatly help you to progress on your inward
journey. And if you still feel that you don’t have the time, you need
to make time and see that this will benefit you so much more than
almost all the other things that you are spending your time on. As
long as you still have plenty of time to worry, get stressed, get upset
or get depressed, you need to wake up and see that you definitely
also have the time – and should take out the time – for a meditation
practice.
If you feel in the beginning that your meditation is boring, just
know that it is just a phase you are going through, because you are
not yet really resting and you are still waiting for something to
happen, you still want to engage the mind. Learning to meditate is a
beautiful journey of learning to love being quiet and still for some
time, of learning to love doing nothing, of learning to love this
present moment, and to let the mind settle fully. It is a journey that
will open up a whole new dimension of joy to you that is much
more profound and long-lasting than what you have been used to
till now.
Remember, meditation is a skill that comes by committed
practice, not by ‘knowing’ something intellectually. So, unlike most
mindfulness exercises, you don’t have to focus, concentrate or
visualize anything. All you need to do is stop doing – moving from
effort to effortlessness. You are consciously giving your mind a
break from all the worrying, thinking and planning that it is so used
to doing, and you are allowing it to slow down and recharge.
Now that you are starting your meditation practice, it is also
important to remember not to compare your experiences with that
of other people, or with things you have heard or read somewhere.
Because even though such experiences – seeing colours or a bright
light, hearing sounds – may happen at some point, they are just
that, experiences, and most of them are subjective. Trying to create
such experiences, getting attached to them or taking them as a
benchmark for your progress on the path of meditation will only
confuse or distract you, or even worse, cause you to get frustrated,
making you leave the practice altogether. Remember, meditation is
not about the experiences, it is about the experiencer.
So then how do you know that you are making progress? What
are indications that you are getting closer to your goal, and that
your meditation practice is starting to bear fruits? When you feel
fresher afterwards, and when you start noticing that in a subtle
way that sense of joy, enthusiasm, peace and freedom starts
increasing in your life.
Have you ever wondered what real peace is? What real peace of
mind is? It is a mind that is naturally focused, in the sense that it is
not scattered. It is a state where the mind is effortlessly focused on
this very moment, on what is happening right now. When you are
totally with what is happening right now that is real peace. It is
when somewhere, subtly, you feel that this moment is not okay,
that your mind goes off to the past or the future. Real peace is when
you are here and now because it is okay.
In the same way, real freedom is freedom from the past and from
the future, where you are comfortable in this moment. Because if
this moment is not okay, if it is not perfect, there will always be
some desire that comes up. After all, a desire means simply that:
that the present moment, that what is here right now, is not how it
should be. And any desire, whatever they may be, will not allow you
to go deep in meditation and will hinder your quest for peace. You
can keep sitting with your eyes closed, but your mind will keep
going on its own trip and meditation will not happen. So, when we
apply all the principles that we have learned in this book to
transcend the desires during our meditation, you will find that this
sense of acceptance, peace, freedom and joy starts to pervade other
parts of your life as well, and more and more you will find that they
become a part of you, even during your day-to-day activities.
 Normally for as long as we are awake during the day, we keep
looking outward. We engage ourselves in all kinds of activities,
whether it is doing our work, talking, experiencing or thinking, and
all this tires and drains us, however nice it may be. Except
meditation. In meditation we take a break from all these activities
of the body and mind, and we stop looking outward for a moment.
When we start looking inward, it brings such rest, relaxation and
relief, and that is exactly what the world needs today.
There is such tremendous uncertainty, fear, tension and
depression in the world today, and sadly enough the global
pandemic is just one of the many factors. Amidst all these
challenges that the world is facing, and that we are facing on a
personal level, we need a tool to stay afloat, something that will
carry us through until we find solid ground again. Meditation can
be this tool to survive, that allows us to dig deeper within ourselves
and find our inner spiritual strength.
We are fortunate to be living in a time where the ancient wisdom
that has been handed down to us in the tradition from thousands of
years, and that had been authenticated by the scriptures and the
experience of so many masters and practitioners over the ages, is
inspiring researchers in leading institutions across the world to
look at the benefits it brings to our lives with an open and scientific
mind. The various benefits of meditation are too numerous to
mention here, but now that even institutions like Harvard, Yale and
many others have published well-researched papers on its manifold
benefits, it should suffice to say that meditation as a practice has
finally been welcomed as an ancient boon for our modern-day
problems. For too long we have neglected the importance of
knowing how to manage our mind, emotions, and the vital role
these play in all aspects of our lives.
I remember the great tsunami that happened in 2004 the day
after Christmas, that went down as one of the deadliest ones in
recent history. Some of my close friends in India immediately
travelled to the most heavily affected regions of India and Sri Lanka
as well, and in the weeks and months that followed they did
tremendous relief work there under the banner of the Art of Living
and its sister organization the International Association for Human
Values. They shared with me about the programs and initiatives we
were doing there for the survivors of the tsunami, and one thing
they mentioned really stuck with me.
They told me how people got the material aid they needed very
quickly, as there were so many national and international
humanitarian organizations that had rushed to their aid. But even
though they got the food and medicines that they required, people
weren’t able to eat. They couldn’t even sleep at night because they
were so traumatized due to what had happened. This was an aspect
that is often overlooked when providing aid, and it is where
organizations like The Art of Living really make a difference.
Most of the survivors had lived on the seashore all their lives, and
their whole life and livelihood revolved around and depended on
the ocean. Most of them were fishermen or involved in some work
related to the fishing trade. But now that the ocean, that had
provided for them like a mother all their lives had suddenly turned
into their greatest enemy, it was too much for them to digest. The
one that had supported their lives till date, had suddenly taken
away their homes, their boats and many of their near and dear
ones. Many people had lost their father, mother, children or other
relatives in that one moment of pure destruction. And it had left
them so traumatized that they could not even sleep at night, as the
sound of the waves and the ocean that had been their lullaby all
their life, now carried with it nothing but the memory of the terror
that the tsunami brought with it, and everything that it had
successively taken away from them.
They had been provided with all the material aid and support
they required, but it was almost pointless. People couldn’t eat,
couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t pick up their lives again. However, after
several sessions of some of the breathing techniques and
meditation people shared that they were able to sleep again at
night. The sound of the waves and ocean was no longer
traumatizing them – and after some more time they could actually
go back into the sea again and pick up their lives as they knew best –
as fishermen. They had been able to regain their inner strength and
connect with the peace, stability and confidence that had been with
them all along, and that nobody can take away. They were able to
let go of the trauma, fear, despair and anger that had overpowered
them completely.
They may have lost everything they had depended on for their
security and stability till then, be it their family, their social
support, their savings, their home, or their job, but the true
strength and peace had remained untouched, as it lay safely deep
within them. But in order to find it, access it and tap into it, they
had to look inward. And so, do we.
Wisdom Sutras
Wisdom is understanding why the practice is important and
acting on it.
For the practice to bear fruit, it needs to be done regularly
with honour and commitment.

10-Minute Exercise

Take a strong commitment to start your meditation practice

tomorrow itself, and to practice for forty-eight consecutive days
without fail. Initially, you may start with 10-15 minutes per sitting,
gradually increasing it to 20-25 minutes, as per your natural flow.
It is ideal to practice twice a day, once in the morning before
breakfast, and once in the evening before dinner, but if that doesn’t
work out, don’t make that an excuse to not do it. Anytime is a good
time for meditation, except maybe right after a meal. Even if twice a
day is initially difficult, make sure that you practice at least once a
day, to get regular with your practice and to progress.
To have even better results from your practice, it would be good
to fix a time for your meditation and try to stick to that time most
of the days, if not all, especially to begin with. If that means you
need to get up a little earlier so that you can squeeze it in before
breakfast and heading out to the office, set your alarm and plan
accordingly. If you are planning your meditation at any other time
of the day, but you are having difficulty finding the time – or you
feel that you don’t have the time at all – then for the next one or two
days keep noting down what you actually spend your time on. This
is a very interesting exercise that can be a real eye-opener. You will
find that the amount of time you spend just browsing the internet,
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube, or any other social
media, is actually much more than you had imagined. Add to this
the time you spend watching movies, TV serials, as well as the time
that you are just gossiping or complaining or worrying. Now take
all that time, and decide to reduce it by 20-30 minutes, that you will
instead invest in actually feeling better, happier, more rested and
more peaceful, meaning, your meditation practice.
Now that your schedule is set, set a reminder for the forty-eighth
day of your practice. Completing your first forty-eight days is an
achievement that should be celebrated, so don’t let it go by
unnoticed. And may it be the beginning of a journey full of beauty,
joy and peace, that never whither and that you carry with you
wherever you go and share with whoever you meet.
 Continuing the Journey: What Next?

Chances are that you can more or less place yourself in any of the
following three categories of people who picked up this book and
successfully completed reading it, and practising some, or all, of the
exercises provided.
The first is someone who is new to meditation. You have started
your practice, but you feel that you could use a little extra help to
really get into it and settle the mind a little faster and more easily.
What would really benefit you, in this case, is to explore learning
some of the pranayamas or breathwork techniques that I also have
been practising for the last twenty years. It is a selection of a few
very effective techniques that we teach in the Meditation and
Breath Workshop of The Art of Living. The Sudarshan Kriya, which
is a rhythmic breathing technique taught by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar, has proven an invaluable tool for me in the last two
decades of my meditation practice. We have certified trainers
across the world who conduct these programs, and to locate
upcoming workshops near you, you could just visit the global
website of The Art of Living.
I also conduct these programs, and to find out more about my
upcoming workshops, keep an eye on the event calendar on my
website. Harnessing the power of the breath is one of the most
effective ways to quieten and energize our mind, as I had already
mentioned earlier in the book, and I can strongly recommend any
practitioner of meditation to learn a few of these powerful
breathwork techniques to complement and deepen their
meditation practice and speed up their progress.
The second category of people that may have picked up this book
are those that had already dabbled with mindfulness or meditation,
but who never really got serious with their practice, or who were
still looking for an effective and authentic meditation technique.
This book would have given you a lot of practical knowledge and
tools to get going, and you may have even been practising for a
while now using what you have learned. However, you feel that you
would like to go even deeper in your meditations by connecting
with the practice and this ancient tradition on a more personal
level. In this case I could strongly recommend joining one of the
Sahaj Samadhi Meditation workshops that the Art of Living offers,
as it provides practitioners with a personal mantra that is unique
for you. These mantras have been handed down for ages in this
ancient tradition, and the mantra given to you is a personalized tool
that will help you to transcend the mind much more effortlessly
and go even deeper in your meditation practice. It will also aid your
progress on the spiritual path. I have personally practised this
technique of meditation and have not come across any other
meditation technique that is as effortless and effective. But, because
you receive a unique mantra for your own practice, it needs to be
received in the proper manner and given by a qualified teacher that
is part of this ancient tradition. Those who are keen to learn more
about this, or who would like to be initiated into this practice, can
find more details on the Art of Living website. I regularly initiate
practitioners into this ancient tradition of meditation, and more
details of my programs can be found on my website as well.
The third category of people that you may find yourself in are
those that have been practising meditation, whatever style or
tradition you follow, and it is adding value to your life. However,
you also feel that you would like to sometimes get away from all the
daily hustle and bustle of your family or work environment and
spend a few days to go much deeper and probe the subtler layers of
your consciousness and being. At home, you may have the comfort
and convenience of being able to create your own space, practice at
your own convenient time and in whatever way you prefer, but at
the same time it is still your home, with all its distractions and
limitations.
 This is the reason that in most traditions they also emphasized
practising in a group, together, in a special location that is even
more conducive to the practice. Because to deepen one’s practice, to
get into a structure and discipline, and to increase one’s progress,
practising in a group can be greatly beneficial. You will find most
monasteries, ashrams, or meditation retreats set in an environment
that is much more conducive than your busy home or office
environment. And whenever you mind is wagging its tail, or your
commitment is going down a little, you will find that being in a
group will give you the support and occasional nudge in the back to
keep going, and to pull through, especially on those days when you
don’t really feel like doing what you know you should be. This is the
main reason why the Buddha also gave so much importance to the
Sangha, or the community of practitioners, as it can be a support
for one’s practice.
It is to cater to this need as well, that we also conduct Advanced
Meditation Programs under the Art of Living, which are special
retreats, ranging from four to seven days, where in an environment
conducive to meditation all your needs are taken care of. Light,
nutritious meals and comfortable accommodation, coupled with no
other distractions will allow you to fully focus on what you came
for: to get away for a few days and go deep into your meditation
practice. Experienced teachers like me will guide you through a
range of profound and powerful guided meditations and other
processes, as well as allow you to explore some of the ancient
knowledge of the scriptures that will give you more understanding
of the practices and the path. We have many advanced
practitioners who make it a point to join such retreats two or three
times a year, taking a few days from their busy schedules to refresh
and rejuvenate themselves, and deepen their meditation practice.
Wherever you may find yourself, I wish you nothing but the best
on your meditation journey, and I look forward to meeting you one
day, and hear about your experiences! Let us not shy away from
sharing this beautiful and much-needed knowledge with many
more people, as these are trying times, and many are struggling to
stay afloat.

For more about the programs of the global Art of Living

Foundation, visit www.artofliving.org
For more information about my courses or to connect with me, visit
www.swamipurnachaitanya.com
 THE BEGINNING

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This collection published 2021

Copyright © Swami Purnachaitanya 2021
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Jacket images © Akangksha Sarmah
This digital edition published in 2021.
e-ISBN: 978-9-354-92057-8
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