The document is a comprehensive guide on how to meditate, sharing personal experiences and practical advice on establishing a meditation practice. It distinguishes between concentration-based and awareness-based meditation and emphasizes the importance of developing mindfulness through structured techniques. The author asserts that meditation can lead to substantial life changes, including improved sleep, honesty, and patience.

2. How to meditate in 2016: A
complete guide

4. Note: This is a long post, almost e-book length,
but if you decide to read it through, you’ll get all
tips on how to meditate properly you need to
establish a long-term meditation practice.
2015 was a packed year for me. I worked hard at
my day job as the CMO of a start-up, Kerry and I
got pregnant again even as Leela

5. became a walking, talking hurricane, I launched
The Seeker as a bestseller in India while editing
THE YOGA OF MAX’S DISCONTENT, my first
international novel to be published by Random
House in 2016. All good stuff but a lot of it at once.
Through all of this, knowing how to meditate for 30
minutes in the morning and evening helped me
keep my sanity

6. Really. Without meditation, I’d probably be a
nervous mess but for the most part, I felt
reasonably calm and unhurried through the year.
That’s why I’ve developed some strong views on
how to meditate and meditation’s benefits and
often take offense (a gentle Buddhist offense!) to
some of its popular avatars.

7. Why, for instance, are most meditation teachers
slender, dreadlocked hippies with loose, flowing
clothes who talk about “feeling your vibrations”,
“finding your energy fields” and “letting go” rather
than serious seekers who’ve burnt in the fire of
asking “Who am I?”, “Why was the world
created?”, “What lies behind the predictable cycle
of birth and death?”, and other such

8. questions again and again to the silent, uncaring
universe, eventually finding their only answer in
meditation? One new age guru offers a
meditation-of-the-month if I sign up for her
program kind of like an ice-cream of the month
club, another sells a $299

9. Bluetooth enabled meditation headband to
connect me with my “head chakra”, and so on. I’m
sure there’s a kernel of truth in all this hyperbole
but my experience with meditation has been far
simpler so I wanted to share tips on how to
meditate properly with people who’re first entering
the bewildering mindfulness marketplace:

10. First off, here are my experiences with
meditation.
Call it past lives (which I believe in due to very
scientific reasons—a subject for another post) or
just innate inclination; I’ve been pulled to Eastern
mysticism since my engineering college days. The
pull intensified during B-School and I did my first
Vipassana meditation course then.

11. But I’ve truly learnt how to meditate in the last five
years, much of it during Kerry and my year off where
we did multiple Vipassana courses in Italy and India,
a month long Hatha Yoga Teacher’s training in
Madurai, and lived in a village high in the Himalayas
for a few months pretty much in silence.

12. What prompted the deep dive? Honestly, I was
just sick of how superficial my life was. I’d go to
office and try to muster up enthusiasm to gain a
couple of market share points for the brands I led
as a Director for a consumer products company.
The stuff that occupied friends and family—
houses, restaurants, kids schools etc.—felt
completely insignificant to me.

13. More importantly, I was deeply frustrated by how
inconsistent I was, one moment I was reading the
Upanishads and the Bhagwad Gita, the next
moment I was worried about being promoted from
Director to Senior Director at work or mulling over
someone who hadn’t shown me full respect at a
dinner and other BS like that.

14. Seeing my mother die from cancer and having a
very visceral understanding of how short and futile
life was had something to do with it or perhaps it
was just living in New York. I don’t fully
understand.

15. All I know was I wanted to truly silence my chaotic
mind and that’s what we set out to do in our
sabbatical in 2012. Since then, I’ve meditated
every day, sometimes for 30 minutes, sometime
for much longer, and have had enough discernible
changes in my life that I think I know how to
meditate and that meditation works

17. Now, let’s define meditation.
Again, this is something clouded in a lot of
hyperbole but if you read The Yoga Sutras of
Patanjali or The Dhammapada or any other
ancient Buddhist or Yogic text, a very clear
definition emerges. Meditation is the complete
dissolution of your sense of self.

18. In true meditation, your intellect, your ego, your
chattering mind, your whole concept of “I am” is
extinguished completely. What’s left is Brahman,
the universal consciousness, according to yoga-
vedanta, shunyata or nothingness, according to
Buddhism, Tao, according to Taoism,

19. and a million other concepts, all pointing to the
same indefinable, absolute reality (vs. our limited
conditioned experience). Call it what you will, I’m
with the Buddha when he asks us to first reach
that point of complete dissolution, the liberation
from the prison of our hapless thoughts, before
worrying about what happens after

20. How do you reconcile meditation with
ambition?
If dissolving the self is the goal, then isn’t it
counter to one’s ambition to grow through
working, living etc.? Will I lose my edge? Actually,
no. Meditation isn’t teaching you not to work.
Rather you’re learning to become just a medium
for your work to express itself.

21. With your mind no longer possessed by a
thousand petty thoughts about yourself, what you
like, what you dislike etc., your work happens
through you not because of you. Or in the words
of the oft-quoted Bhagavad Gita imperative, you
work full-heartedly without personal attachment to
the results of the work.

22. Does meditation truly work?
Barely for the 1st six months. Then, you start
noticing small changes and in about three years,
you’ll be a completely different person. Here are
some tangible things that’ve changed for me since
I learnt how to meditate:

23. Sleep: Pre meditation, I was an anxious sleeper
who’d lose sleep in stressful times. Literally. I
couldn’t sleep for days after going through the
break-up of a six year old relationship. I’d toss and
turn all night before important presentations at
work. You could find me jogging often at midnight.

24. Now, I sleep a deep, dreamless sleep for seven
hours straight the moment I finish meditating for
thirty minutes at night. I could lose all my money
(or worse lose all my writing since I’m terrible at
backing up regularly) and I wouldn’t lose a second
of sleep.

25. Honesty: This one is a hard one to explain. I’ve
never been dishonest per-se but I was used to
cutting corners, mostly in petty, laughable ways.
For instance, I’d stand in the Business Class line
in an airport if the Economy Class line was too
crowded and say “I’m a platinum member of Star
Alliance” or something like that

26. Less than saving time, it was about the thrill of
beating the system, a phenomenon I’ve seen with
many of us who grew up in the developing world.
Now, I can’t anymore. Everything that doesn’t
seem radically honest feels wrong. Not by any
deliberate intention, it’s just a spontaneous choice
from within.

27. Patience: By far, the biggest one. If I don’t
meditate for even a day, I can see an immediate
difference in how my thoughts start rushing. As a
result, I interrupt people, finish their sentences,
judge them as slow and incompetent, and in
general, am all round insufferable. I don’t turn into
an angel with meditation but I’m better. Just a
little. And it’s not just emotional

28. patience, it pervades every aspect of life. Earlier,
for instance, any kind of noise would bother me.
I’d be impatient with people snoring in a hostel
dorm room or the noise of trucks or trams outside
my window while traveling (shameful for a
committed budget traveler like me). Now, my mind
just notes, “a loud sound”. And I turn around and
go back to sleep.

29. Diet/Weight/Energy: Within a year of starting
meditation, I quit alcohol and caffeine and became
a vegetarian. As a result, I’ve lost twenty
pounds and doubled my energy. I’m not saying
this is the “right” thing to do. If a Paleo diet or two
glasses of wine

30. a day works for you, that’s great. All these diet
changes happened spontaneously without any
active attempt on my side. These choices came
from within me because they felt right for my body
and my mind; the habits quit me rather than me
quitting them, as it were.

31. How to meditate: the complete guide.
I have very strong views on how to mediate mainly
because almost all the advice I read on the
Internet when I was first trying to to learn
meditation was wrong. Or rather incomplete. I’m a
rational soul. I don’t want to be told to repeat So
Hum when I breathe or mutter some “secret
personal mantra” which means nothing to me. Nor
do I fully comprehend wishy-washy instructions
like “just be

32. present and let go”. The ashrams in India weren’t
more helpful because they all had special
instructions taught by their patron Gurus, most of
whom in all honesty didn’t strike me as particularly
enlightened. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready as a
student for the right teacher to arrive.

33. So eventually I learned by reading everything from
the yoga sutras to Vedanta to Zen Buddhism and
vipassana text and meditating for hours on my
own. Slowly, it began to work. The concepts
became clearer and my life began to change. We
each have to go through our own experimentation
but if you want to save months of spinning in
circles, this is a summary of what I’ve learnt.

34. First off, there are only two broad meditation
approaches:
Concentration-based meditation.
Awareness-based meditation, popularly called
mindfulness.
And in 99% of cases, I strongly recommend
starting with a concentration-based approach and
slowly it will evolve by itself to an awareness-
based approach.

35. First, you dissolve your sense of self by
concentration on an external object. As you gain
mastery in this approach, your mind will become
more and more one-pointed and as a result
you’ll become increasingly aware when the
familiar scattering of thoughts start to occur.

36. To have this awareness at every moment of the
day, to be able to distinguish between the subject
(you) and the object (the constant flux of thoughts)
spontaneously rather than getting sucked into the
maze of your thoughts, is the goal of awareness
based meditation—and of life itself.

38. How to meditate: Begin your concentration-
based meditation today.
Step 1: Select your object of concentration.
Step 2: Select your point of concentration.
Step 3: Start meditating.

39. How to choose your object of concentration
The three most common objects are:
Your breath.
An image: Anything you feel some affinity for. For
instance, I’m a big fan of the Buddha so
concentrating on his image worked for me in the
beginning. My friend is a musician who
concentrates on his guitar.

40. A mantra: You don’t need a Guru to give you a
magic collection of words. Mentally repeating any
word or set of words that make sense for you—
Om, Buddha, Amen—will do the trick.

41. There are a variety of other objects—chakras,
deities, vision boards, fabric patterns etc. Just
understand the basic construct: you are using an
object as an aid to shift focus away from yourself
and your thoughts. The nature of the object is
immaterial; anything that can hold your attention
for some length of time works.

42. How to choose your point of concentration.
A point of concentration will help improve your
focus by zoning it into a smaller area. Some
recommendations depending on your object of
concentration:

43. If you choose your breath: The area between
your upper lips and the tip of your nostrils. Or the
contraction and extension of your chest during
inhalation and exhalation.

44. If you choose an image: Visualize the image in
the third eye (your forehead between the two
eyes) or in your heart. The former works better if
you’re more intellectual/analytical, the latter if you
consider yourself more emotional. If you choose
a mantra: If you’re saying it aloud, focus on your
lips. If you’re repeating it mentally, again focus on
either your heart or the space between your eyes.

45. How to meditate
Posture: The only two characteristics of a good
meditation pose are sthira (a pose of attention)
and sukha (a pose of comfort). If you’re sitting
cross-legged on the floor and your mind is
screaming in agony, then it’s not a good pose for
you because it’s not sukha. On the other hand, if
you’re lying on the bed attempting to meditate,
that’ll likely not work as well since it’s not sthira.

46. So choose anything, sitting on a chair, sitting on
the bed with your legs stretched, or sitting on a
cushion on the floor, anything that allows you to
be both comfortable and attentive. I’d just
recommend keeping your spine erect for
attentiveness and your hips at an elevation to your
knees for comfort.

47. Meditate: Close your eyes to avoid all
distractions, straighten your spine, and
concentrate on your chosen object at the point of
concentration. You’re meditating. Time: 30
mins/morning, 30 minutes/night. Everyday. In six
months, you’ll see noticeable changes on all the
dimensions I mentioned above. Any lesser and
you’ll be attempting to get into a state of
meditation vs. meditating.

48. Obstacles: Too many to list. There’ll be some
external ones—your kids waking up early, a late
night at work—but mostly your mind plays havoc.
He said that, she failed me, they don’t understand
me, I hate him, she loves me, many branched and
endless are the thoughts of the unsteady mind.
Don’t give up. It’s going to get better soon.

49. This is what will happen next
Your meditation will evolve by itself. In about six
months or a year, my mind went from
concentrating on the Buddha’s image to his
qualities of determination and compassion by itself
as my thoughts became subtler. Soon enough, the
image dissolved completely

50. and I started to drift into a more awareness-based
meditation. Now I don’t meditate as much as just
sit without a timer, without any alarm, just devoid
of thought, and I automatically know when thirty
minutes are up and it’s time to get up.

52. How to meditate: What is awareness-based
meditation (also called mindfulness)?
In awareness-based meditation, you don’t force
your mind to concentrate on any external object.
You just observe reality as is. A thought emerges.
You note it arise, then you note it pass away.
Soon, you become more and more aware of this
constant arising and passing

53. of thoughts and a realization dawns deep within
you that the whole interplay of thoughts, ideas, “I
am this”, “I am that”, is insubstantial, constantly in
flux. As a result, you give less and less importance
to it and don’t grasp onto every thought, every
desire that arises in the mind. This is true
meditation because you’re slowly dissolving all
concepts of yourself, which is the ultimate goal of
meditation.

54. I don’t recommend awareness-based meditation if
you’re just starting out. The mind has to be trained
to go from scattered to one-pointed before you
teach it how to become completely devoid of
thought. But if you’re in a hurry to start, here are
the steps to begin:
1. Sit still, focusing very lightly on your breath,
emptying your mind of thoughts.

55. 2. The moment you get distracted and random
thoughts start to emerge, just note them. “Now I’m
angry because I’m remembering what Mary said at
lunch.” “Now I’m worried Michael just doesn’t get the
basics of that project.” In your act of noting, they’ll
start to disappear. New thoughts will arise. Keep
noting them and they’ll pass away too..

56. 3. If the mind is exceptionally chaotic, just bring
your attention back to the breath lightly and repeat
Step 2 above.
That’s it. The effects of awareness-based
meditation last well beyond the thirty minutes of
meditation because you’re training your mind to
stay unaffected by the millions of thoughts and
distractions that assail you every minute of the
day.

57. Running is not meditation…
…unless you’re zoned into concentrating on just
one object, be it your right foot pounding the
pavement, or your breath going in and out of your
nose, to the exclusion of everything else. If you’re
just thoughtless because all your psychic energy
is going into the act of running,

58. that’s great but it’s not meditation because you’re
not willfully training your mind to become one-
pointed or aware. That’s why the effect won’t last
beyond the time you run. The same holds true for
swimming, dancing, reading, writing or any other
activity where you lose yourself for a period of
time.

59. Unless you’re consciously training your mind to
focus on a singular microscopic activity
(concentration based meditation) or to not react to
the flurry of thoughts coming and going
(awareness based meditation), you aren’t
meditating.

60. Lastly, what’s the point of all this? I’m happy,
productive, peaceful, why do I need to learn
how to meditate?
Have you ever felt a strange emptiness, as if
something indefinable was missing from your
grasp even in moments of great achievement?

61. If yes, meditation is right for you. I won’t delve into
mysticism in this post (let’s meet for a cup of tea in
New York for that) but meditation originated
because early pioneers of the spirit realized that
man’s soul cries for the infinite in a finite world,
that’s why nothing in the world of people and
objects ever truly satisfies us.

62. We all live two lives. The happy, smiling pictures
with “I feel blessed” messages we post on
Facebook and our own private mental torture
chambers. Recognize your reality for what it is
and maybe, meditation can bring your two lives
closer in 2016. And I’ll be genuinely happy if this
guide can be of some use in that quest

63. Good luck and don’t forget to drop a note in the
comments below to let me know if this was helpful
or if any part needs more clarification–I’d love to
hear from you.

64. PS: 2016 looks to be another packed year for me
with a new book, a new baby, a new business,
and maybe a move to a new country. I’ll continue
to meditate to keep things simple. Sign up here so
we can keep each other honest!

65. For more details
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