Ok, so its another one of those catchy headlines. But this could be the start of something life changing for you starting today and I don't want a penny for it.
The key to your health and happiness is not found in the things you do, what you have achieved, what others say about you, how far you run or how wealthy you are. These things are all outside of you and are open to change which can negatively impact your emotion and quality of life. The real key for your happiness and health exists inside of you. I will share my experience of how I found this.
Something was wrong, something was missing with my life. I couldn't really place my finger on it. I had a stable relationship, children, things were going well at work and had built some great friendships. Yet, I still felt the daily struggle to be truly fulfilled. I searched around and stumbled over a video of Russell Brand talking about his practices of Transcendental Meditation (TM). I had to know more. I found a teacher and my life changed and has now forever.
So, whats this all about?
The History of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Transcendental Meditation movement originated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the organisation, and continues beyond his death (2008). In 1955,the Maharishi began publicly teaching a traditional meditation technique learned from his master Brahmananda Saraswati, which he called Transcendental Deep Meditation, and later renamed Transcendental Meditation.
The Maharishi initiated thousands of people, then developed a TM teacher training program as a way to accelerate the rate of bringing the technique to more people. He also inaugurated a series of world tours which promoted Transcendental Meditation. These factors, coupled with endorsements by celebrities who practiced TM, along with scientific research that validated the technique, helped to popularize TM in the 1960s and 1970s. By the late 2000s, TM had been taught to millions of individuals and the Maharishi was overseeing a large multinational movement. Despite organizational changes and the addition of advanced meditative techniques in the 1970s the Transcendental Meditation technique has remained relatively unchanged. (Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transcendental_Meditation)
With only 20 minutes of TM a day you can achieve the following benefits:
Decreases:
- Stress
- Anxiety
Increases:
- Happiness
- Creativity & Focus
- Health
Unlike other forms of meditation, Transcendental Meditation involves no concentration, no control of the mind, no contemplation, no monitoring of thoughts. Anyone can do it, even children.
Let the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi explain (The following Q&A is from the TM website).
Q: What is Transcendental Meditation?
Maharishi: Transcendental Meditation is a simple, natural program for the mind, a spontaneous, effortless march of the mind to its own unbounded essence. Through Transcendental Meditation, the mind unfolds its potential for unlimited awareness, transcendental awareness, Unity Consciousness — a lively field of all potential, where every possibility is naturally available to the conscious mind. The conscious mind becomes aware of its own unbounded dignity, its unbounded essence, its infinite potential. Transcendental Meditation provides a way for the conscious mind to fathom the whole range of its existence — active and silent, point and infinity. It is not a set of beliefs, a philosophy, a lifestyle, or a religion. It's an experience, a mental technique one practises every day for fifteen or twenty minutes.
Q：What are the benefits of the TM technique?
Maharishi: Scientific experiments with people who practice Transcendental Meditation indicate that it tends to produce normalisation in all areas of life. It reduces stress, improves health, enriches mental functioning, enhances personal relationships, and increases job productivity and job satisfaction.
Q：Why does one need to be taught, if it's so natural?
Maharishi: Through instruction, what happens is that the mind, in its active state, learns to experience its own less active states, experience its progressively minimised active states, until eventually it cognises the transcendental state of consciousness. But in learning to do this, we must remember that the mind has usually been allowed to wander around so long in the realm of knowledge or power or the pursuit of happiness that it must be taught how to know itself again. That's why teaching becomes necessary. After learning Transcendental Meditation one knows what the natural state is. But to realise this, one has to be liberated from unnatural programs, performances and experiences. Most people have no experience with Transcendental Consciousness, pure consciousness, the pure nature of the mind. They are aware of active mind, which is the waking state of consciousness. They are also aware of the complete forgetfulness of the mind, the sleep state. And they are aware of the middle stage, the dreaming mind. But they are not aware of pure or Transcendental Consciousness. So the experience of that consciousness is taught in Transcendental Meditation, though it's nothing other than the very nature of the mind.
Q：What is enlightenment?
Maharishi: Enlightenment is the normal, natural state of health for the body and mind. It results from the full development of consciousness and depends upon the perfect and harmonious functioning of every part of the body and nervous system. When one is using the full potential of the mind and body in this way, every thought and action is spontaneously correct and life-supporting. This is life free from suffering, life lived in its full stature and significance. The goal of the Transcendental Meditation technique is the state of enlightenment. This means we experience that inner calmness, that quiet state of least excitation, even when we are dynamically busy.
Who does this?
TM works for everyone. It has helped people from all walks of life from military personal suffering from suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to people searching for that missing link to their life as I had.
this form of meditation is practiced by the following well know celebrities:
- Sir Paul M (Musician)
- David Lynch (Film Director)
- Liv Tyler (Actress)
- Hugh Jackman (Actor)
- Cameron Diaz (Actress)
- Jerry Seinfeld (Comedian & Actor)
- Russell Brand (Comedian & Actor)
- Dr Norman Rosenthal (Renowned psychiatrist & best selling author)
- Oprah Winfrey (Talk Show Host, Actress, Producer, and Philanthropist)
- Martin Scorsese (Film Director)
- Ellen DeGeneres (Talk Show Host)
What are the costs?
There are costs in the form of a one time payment. This helps run the foundation as it a non profit organisation.
Income based fee
• Under £25,000 - £390
• £25,000 -£40,0000 - £490
• Over £40,000 - £590
Helping those in need
Maharishi Foundation in collaboration with the David Lynch Foundation help support TM programs for the homeless, prisoners, and children at risk. For more information see:
David Lynch Foundation
In Conclusion
The claims of this form of meditation are certainly true in my experience. We all know that stress and anxiety are harmful to health, happiness, creativity and productivity. Hundreds of published research studies on TM verify its effectiveness for reducing stress, improving focus and clarity of mind, strengthening immunity and much more.
For more information on this life changing practice follow this link to the TM website http://uk.tm.org/.
