I’ve been an avid yoga practitioner for the last decade. Yoga can be a wonderful form of meditation, depending on your intention and awareness of that fact, when practicing.
And when I write and record my best music I also feel like I’m getting into an effortless flow-state, tapping into the subconscious and/or some creative source I can’t explain.
But I had yet to try a “100%” meditation-only technique up until recently when I finally took the time and signed up for a Transcendental Meditation course.
The reason I picked TM as my meditation technique was because I heard Ray Dalio speak so highly of it.
I also watched an introduction video on TM by Bob Roth before signing up. Both of them left me with the impression that TM is a basic, no-nonsense meditation that works. All that is required is that you do it two times a day for 20 minutes.
There is also research that shows that TM has a positive effect on everything from reducing high blood pressure to minimizing anxiety. I don’t have high blood pressure or anxiety, but I’m curios by nature and I always want to try things that can make me be a better version of myself, so I signed up.
The official TM course is a four day course conducted by The Maharishi Foundation, a non-profit educational organization. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the person who introduced TM to the US, so this is the reason behind the foundation name.
There are TM centers all over the world, and the one I ended up taking my course at was the Madison Avenue location in Manhattan.
The first of the four days is a one-on-on session with a certified TM teacher, and the three remaining days are group sessions. I enjoyed the experience and I’m so happy I took the time to learn something I can use for the rest of my life. I’d share more of my experience if it weren’t for the fact that when you sign up to learn TM you have to agree not to share too much of how exactly to do the technique. This is in order to avoid misunderstandings, which I can appreciate. If you want to learn TM the only place to do for real is via an official center, which you can locate on tm.org.
XO,
Seena