Not Exactly Transcendental

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Sian Killean warns not to expect too much of meditation class.

I had been thinking about meditation for a long time. Is it really possible, I wondered, to enter a different state of mind which de-stresses you more than pills and potions could ever do? When my own stress levels started to rise (money, deadlines), I finally got around to trying it out.

There were plenty of mediation classes to choose from in East London. I noticed one in a Hindu centre in Hackney – not too far from me, and if the teachers are from India they ought to know what they are talking about, right?

I stepped out of the street and into a room filled with incense. No electric lights, only candles. In the flickering light I could see people sitting silently in a circle on the floor, presumably meditating. An Indian man signalled for me to take off my shoes and join the circle. I did as directed. I didn’t know what to do next, but I thought I could get by if I copied what the others were doing.

Suddenly, the silence was broken. The man in charge started talking about different parts of the body and the various emotions represented in each bodily organ. Then he played a YouTube clip of women talking about meditating. I thought this would last a couple of minutes; but a couple of minutes turned into 10, 15 minutes and more. Some people who looked like newcomers started to leave when it became apparent that the film was set to fill the rest of the hour-long ‘meditation’ session. Reluctantly, after a few more minutes, I too left the room (still incandescent with YouTube), and went back out into the noisy streets of Hackney.

I was reluctant to leave because I really had been hoping for some kind of enlightenment – or at least a few breathing exercises that would help me out.

As I exited, I was left with two questions: why didn’t the teacher show us more of the real thing – unless perhaps he thought we would be more convinced by something on ‘social media’? And what about his regular attenders? If I felt cheated because I could have watched that film almost anywhere, what on earth were they coming here for?

These are the things I was cogitating – just when I should have been meditating!

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