Two Engines on the Peace Train
If you’re interested in peace, meditation can be a friend. Most of the time in this blog, I focus on The Work of Byron Katie as a meditation practice. I discovered The Work in 2006 and fell in love with it right away. Its ability to shift my experience of a situation from stress to peace is amazing.
But I was not new to meditation in 2006. In fact, I had been practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) since 1976, when I learned at age six. Today, I want to share a little bit of this other meditation that I practice. It is the second engine on my peace train.
Like The Work, TM Is a Simple, Elegant Practice
When I learned TM, I learned the children’s technique at age 6, which is done with the eyes open walking around. When I got older, I began practicing it 20 minutes twice a day sitting comfortably with my eyes closed. And for the past thirty years, I have practiced the advanced TM-Sidhi program for about an hour and a half twice a day.
During the practice of Transcendental Meditation, my mind settles down and my body experiences a profound level of rest. Everything becomes very quiet. This allows for deep-rooted stresses to loosen and be released.
When I come out of meditation, my mind is clearer, I feel more energetic and creative, and my emotions feel much lighter. This experience of peace from the meditation supports me for many hours afterward.
TM Supported Me in High School and College
High school and college were not so emotionally challenging for me. I attribute that to my daily practice of TM. I felt emotionally good inside most of the time because of my meditation. And when stress did come up, it dissipated pretty quickly as I continued my regular practice.
I also never felt any desire to drink alcohol. In fact, I’ve ever had more than a sip of alcohol in my life. Yet, I had as much fun (or more so) than my friends. When I was feeling good inside, why would I want to color that with alcohol? It just didn’t appeal, and still doesn’t.
Living in an Ashram
During my 20’s, I was a part of the TM organization where I studied and practiced TM in larger groups, up to 1600 people at times. The experience of meditating with that many others in one place was powerful. It was like the mind had no resistance to slipping into the inner quietness of meditation. Those large group meditations are some of the fondest memories of my life.
Learning to Integrate My Experience
If you know me, you may know that I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of guy. So when I focused on meditation in my twenties, that was pretty much all I focused on. I still had a lot to learn about taking care of my health, my finances, and my relationships.
What I got from meditation was an experience of self-sufficiency. I could be happy with almost nothing because I was learning to access an inner fulfillment. But I didn’t exercise my worldly muscles, and they became a little weak.
Luckily, life has a way of balancing things. When my grandmother needed support, I left the ashram and began work as a photographer. I also began my relationship with my current partner, and from him, I learned about The Work of Byron Katie. The Work has helped me integrate the peace of meditation into my daily life more fully.
I now have two ways to come back home to myself.
Two Different Approaches for Moving Inward
TM provides a way to quiet the mind without dealing with the specifics of what is stressing me. I just close my eyes and settle inward. The Work, on the other hand, allows me to deal with specific stress points by questioning my thinking.
I compare both practices to bringing the light in a darkened room. TM is like slowly turning up the light for the whole room. As the light increases, the shadows shrink and disappear. But until the light is fully bright, some shadows remain.
The Work is like bringing a light to one specific corner which still remains in darkness. I bring light to a specific point of confusion, causing that particular shadow to disappear. The combination of TM and The Work allows me to bring light to my life in two different ways.
The results are the same: more peace, more clarity, more energy. And the two approaches are complementary. By doing The Work regularly, I bring less stress to my meditations and can settle more easily. And by doing Transcendental Meditation regularly, I become accustomed to letting go, which makes diving into The Work and exploring with an open mind easier.
Let’s Meditate
I invite you to join me by adding both engines to your peace train. They have both stood the test of time for me. I am grateful to have these two means of expanding peace in me.
To learn Transcendental Meditation, go to tm.org.
To learn The Work of Byron Katie, join my online class, The Work 101 for Busy People for 9 months of in-depth training.
Have a great week,
Todd
“I live in constant meditation, and if a thought should ever show up as anything less than goodness, I know that it would spill over to other people as confusion, and those other people are me. My job is to enlighten myself to that, and to love the spent rose, the sound of the traffic, the litter on the ground, and the litterer who gives me my world.” Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy.
Further reading: Be Here Now, How?
