My experiences with transcendental meditation thus far

About two months ago I started doing transcendental meditation (TM). At least, I thought I started with this meditation practice. I saw several videos on the topic ranging from the theoretical background to the practical nitty gritty of what you have to do to meditate in this way. The results were mixed in my experience. Meaning, sometimes I felt like I was walking on clouds afterwards and other times I felt that not much had changed immediately after coming out of the meditation.

These past couple of days I followed a TM course where I received a mantra. Whereas before I had come up with my own mantra, I now received one from a TM teacher. Unsure whether this has an effect on the effectiveness of the meditation I simply adopted the new mantra and abandoned the old one. The biggest difference between the two mantras is that I created the one myself and the other one was given to me.

I cannot tell you what my new mantra is, since it’s a secret. And so it is for all the mantras that other people have received. It’s a secret shared between you and the TM teacher. However, the one that came to my mind and I used for the first two months of my meditation was a sound, namely “vizu.” I had just come up with it and looked up whether it meant something in any given language. And indeed, “vizu” means destiny in Somalian. Seemingly pretty random, but it gave me the idea that at least I was on the right path with picking up TM.

However, from the get go I wanted to make sure that at some point I touched base with my meditation practice sooner rather than later. I wondered whether I was doing it right or not. Not in the least because I wanted to take TM seriously and I thought that if I start off incorrectly I would be wasting my time and energy. Ultimately this would lead to ineffective results if it would lead to any long-lasting results at all.

I do believe I noticed certain results from the meditation in months before the instruction. My general mood was a little bit calmer, but actually two days before the meditation course began I figuratively jumped out of my skin. It was hard to fathom at that moment where this frustration had come from and I felt that my meditation had not really helped me to prevent this undesired situation.

What I did notice was an incredible increase in synchronicity. Synchronicity is defined by Carl Jung and is “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.” Still kind of vague, but I hope I can elucidate the phenomenon by giving some examples I experienced myself. I do this because the practice of TM supposedly leads to a state of flow and to me synchronicity and flow are in some sort of way connected to each other. In other words, I think TM creates a heightened awareness of the things happening around you and you are therefore more likely to pick up on synchronicity.

To me, the synchronous events seem to be related to narrative or my life as a story line. One of the events that stood out the most was when I visited the Febo for a burger and some frites last Friday. A man that I had seen before walked in. He had come to my campus canteen about thirteen years ago and talked about religion with whomever was open to that particular type of conversation. I was there together with my girlfriend at the time and when asked whether we believed in “something” my girlfriend answered that she believes in some sort of energy going through the universe.

Not necessarily a very concrete answer, or as fixed as the belief in a god entity, but in a way compatible with the way that TM sees the universe I think. I am not sure of its significance, but in a way the man can be labelled as a messenger from God. He did not recognize me, but I recognized him, but I am not sure whether that is significant in any way. What is significant is what happened before and after.

Because before I had had an argument with my wife. I’ll save you the cause of the argument, but it’s safe to say that I had a very big part in it and that acted like a buffoon. In the end I was able to see the short comings of my behavior and able to realize that I had difficulty being vulnerable. I told my wife in the end: “I feel like I am on a cross roads and I need your help to cross it.”

The day after I had seen the “messenger from God” my wife and I stood at the side of the busy road we live on and waited for a lull in traffic so we could cross. Then a car waited to let us cross the street which normally never happens unless it’s busy and cars are basically lined up and driving slowly anyway. Now, there wasn’t much traffic so that was peculiar, but mostly very gallant of the driver.

It was a nice car. Initially I thought it was a Rolls, but it turned out to be a Bentley. After we had crossed the road my wife turned to me and said that they have a saying in Poland (my wife is Polish), that says that the devil drives by in a black Bentley. She wasn’t exactly sure about the type of car used in the proverb anymore, but that doesn’t impact its significance. The significance being that my wife thought about the devil and decided to share it with me while we had just crossed the road.

What do these two seemingly related events have to do with each other? I have no clue but I will be more vulnerable towards my wife and trust that the love we share will protect me from the devil or whatever it may present.

One of the maxims of transcendental meditation is to do nothing, other than to meditate twice a day. Of course, TM doesn’t tell you to sit around on your ass all day, but I believe to open yourself up to all possibilities. We are often told that we need to have purpose, but how do you find your purpose when you cannot look within to what drives you? Where are the sign posts that give structure and meaning to our lives and tell us where to go and from what to stay away? I believe that synchronicity may be a way through which the universe tells us that we are on the right path or not.

Anyway, now that I have followed the official beginners course for TM I feel that my state has been more constant. The importance of meditating twice a day no matter what has now also been impressed on me and I hope it will create more consistency in the way that I am feeling. Or rather, I hope it will elongate the consistency in the way that I am feeling right now, which seems to be in a steady line upwards.

Thanks for reading and perhaps I will expand more on my experiences in the future, but I am not going to make any promises. I’ll see where the universe leads me.