Vedic Meditation: Why It's Taking Off – with the Founders of London Meditation Centre

Jillian & Michael

​[00:00:00]

Arthur: Jillian, Michael, welcome to the Kollective

Institute of Ideas. It's such a privilege to have you both,

the

founders of the London Meditation Centre.

Several people over the years have, talked

about

meditation I don't know which moment it was, but it was like, right, I'm going to

to do this

 Went over

to your centre in London, what an experience it's been  

got

the

reputation. I'd love to hear more about your

journey to,

this moment. 

I learned this technique of Vedic

Jillian: meditation that we teach over 25 years ago.

 I was working in a

business [00:01:00] environment responsible for setting up

a publishing division of this international

publisher that I was working for.

I was stressed

 Tired spending a

lot of

time on a plane always jet lagged wasn't feeling very

happy,

I was working very hard and playing

Jillian: quite hard as well.

 It just wasn't looking very sustainable.

Some signals. So I came to meditation because this was way before

apps

and any of that kind

of stuff, this was

at

a time when,

I didn't know anybody was meditating. I learned through a

recommendation

of somebody

who'd been a bit of a business mentor to me and

a father

of

one of my friends

 He just was

somebody

who I really respected didn't think of him as

a meditator he

had tried all sorts

of things to deal with his

insomnia

He'd had

A long time of trying to find

something that worked nothing had really clicked and then he learned

Vedic meditation he started sleeping

 That was [00:02:00] interesting

for me so I learned

I was a bit of a step into the unknown I came to it some preconceived

ideas about what I thought meditation

was going to be like and it

wasn't like that at all

It was very easy, and it wasn't weird there was a lot of science behind it.

maybe we can talk a little bit about that. That was very reassuring

for me. 

I started to notice changes

very quickly.

Often people will say how long do you have to do this before you notice a shift? And

actually, it's

really days

and weeks and months, when you start to notice. It happens very fast.

I was waking up before my alarm

clock, I

had more energy throughout the day, I was feeling less anxious,

That was

a big thing for

me, I had

been feeling pretty overwhelmed by everything that I had on, and that was changing, and I just was happy, I was just a lot

more smiley, enjoying what I was doing, it was helping me a lot with the jet lag, that was a really

big change then I

continued working in business, I moved to Paris,

and then to London, which is where we're based today.

so And then

I [00:03:00] decided I wanted a break from full on

corporate environment, and

that's when I

met up with my meditation teacher and ended up being in Flagstaff, Arizona, up in the high Arizona near the Grand

Canyon for

nearly a year and a half, and I trained one on one, which was an interesting experience

in itself.

to become a teacher of Vedic meditation, and then I came out

of that

kind of mountain retreat in

2003,

was it? Yeah, 2003.

And I've been teaching meditation since then, but we actually started teaching full

time in 2008.

Michael: My story is somewhat similar, except that

I had tried a lot

of stuff.

I first tried to meditate

when I

was at university.

I had a, professor who's an old hippie and he wanted us to do it and gave us

time, but no instruction. And I

tried and I didn't really have any success but I felt there was something to it and then I started doing a search.

I did yoga and I did my first [00:04:00] sun

salutation in 1987. Long before yoga was the thing that it is today. today. I

was living in the Midwest, but then moved to Seattle for graduate school. So

, I

became West Coast and

There's a whole thing. I did drum circles

and I did therapy and I did

all sorts of things in

an

attempt to find some

calm and

some

clarity inside.

I'm not sure from the

outside.

I hope I didn't look like a disaster, but inside I didn't feel alone.

I didn't feel whole. I didn't feel complete.

 I was really on

a search. I then you tried to find that

in my career

and really threw myself

into a business career doing a number of different things.

I ended up coincidentally also in publishing,

corporate environment, very full on entertainment publication.

So it

had the intensity of the entertainment business and [00:05:00] the publishing business together. It was exciting and it was really hard

work. I was working for some very intense and working with

some super intense people and

I was not feeling great.

And I was,

I was exercising intensely

and I was, out and partying and

trying to find some way to

blow off steam and it wasn't really

working. And then a friend learned

to meditate and, even in LA at this time,

meditation was not really

out there, but I saw a huge change in her, just she calmed down and

she made some big life decisions.

And I thought okay, something's going on for

this person. Maybe I should

check it out

And I went to a talk.

and I really liked it. There was science and

there was

this discussion about meditation being easy and enjoyable.

I think so many people, and certainly I did not think

that about

meditation,

that it would

be,

Something that I

look forward

to doing.

[00:06:00] It always seemed like something super intense people had to be very disciplined about. And so I got interested. I, I

thought, okay,

well, I'll give it a try. I

jumped in. And right away it was different. I had been trying to do stuff and feeling like a bad meditator for more than 10 years.

And I did this

 I knew what I was doing. The

instruction was really clear, but also as Jillian was saying,

I

really felt

an impact. I was sleeping differently.

I was feeling focused in a way that

was really positive.

I was calmer inside. I didn't have that

background vibration of anxiety that

I'd been

Living with for

so long.

And other people were noticing the difference as, as well.

and I thought, okay this is worthwhile I

like it and something's happening.

And so I continued forward and then I decided to train as a teacher That was

A different program than Jillian. it Was

about two and a half years of study.

culminating in three and a half [00:07:00] months full time in residence first

in India.

And

then I was in the same area in Northern Arizona where I teach it was. So we've been teaching full time since 2008.

We formed London Meditation Center and also New

York Meditation Center. So we're back and forth.

Arthur: I'm hearing a

lot

from both

of your stories. The word

ambition

and busy, work hard, play hard There's so

much of life, particularly the

that, we live digital lives now.

You can't fully

remove yourself from the,

or the pools of life.

 It's

 Obviously

rooted you both

Do you find it hard, people say, okay what's it done to you? Do you find it hard to explain that?

Jillian: Yes. It's

such a big

topic, because people will say, okay, is meditation going to help me with my

high blood pressure? And I'll say yes.

Is meditation going to help with my migraines? Yes.

Is

meditation going

to help me sleep better? Yes. [00:08:00] Is meditation

going to help me on my fertility journey?

Yes. Is

meditation going to help me? lead me in the direction of being less reliant on medication to

get through the day.

Yes.

The

list goes on. And it is

so all

encompassing, It's affecting every aspect of our

life. And the reason it's affecting every aspect of our life is because we're

getting

to the baseline of who you are.

And when you

practice Vedic meditation,

you're not

simply working at the

level of the body.

There's all sorts

of things

we can

do at the level of

the body. We can stretch the body,

we can exercise, we can sit in cold plunges,

We

can do all

sorts

of things that will have an effect on the nervous

system at that level.

And then there's things that you can do at the level of the mind. you know, You can try to You can try to think certain thoughts and not think

other thoughts, or you can try to put attention on certain

things and not other things. You can work at that

cognitive level.

Arthur: [00:09:00] to

Jillian: things all have some value.

What we do in Vedic meditation

is we go deeper.

So we go beyond the mind, and we step

beyond thinking

itself. And we experience

consciousness,

the

next state of being, in that pure

state. It's a state where it's you, minus your thoughts. It's just that

baseline of who you are. You're awake

inside, and yet,

you're really

Very deeply rested.

And there's, the research is really clear on

this. 20 minutes of sitting down and doing Vedic

meditation, on the train. I was meditating on the tube

the other day,

here in London. I was resting my nervous system

many

times deeper than sleep. And that

rest is

so

important for us on so many levels because you get all that energy but also you reset the

nervous system

and you come back into balance and you clear out all of the muck

and the stuff [00:10:00] that's built up you over the years.

All of those stresses and toxicity

and all that stuff that we don't want in our system.

That just

gets in the way of us being.

Who

we wanna be.

I think people can

relate to the fact that there's something

deeper than all

of this noise that's going on in their head.

And how

do you find that? How do you get

to that? And then that's watering a plant.

Everything that grows from there is going to be affected.

Once you start. To

get into is it for somebody?

Why would you be thinking about

something like this?

Then,

We can

really hone in on this is how meditation is going

to impact that.

And so

much

of it has to do with the fact that this is unprecedented rest. There's just

nothing else you can do that's going

to give

you that rest that quickly.

Arthur: Because

some people say, Oh, see. My dad's oh, singing is my meditation, or people are like, , yeah football's my meditation.

, it's amazing because, it has like meditation, [00:11:00] meditative impact, but it's just not, for me, it's been very different.

I've

a lot of tennis and,

, there are

similarities,

it's just, it

is just different.

One thing

that is

interesting

to think about is I like many

have a very

busy brain always

thinking,

and Michael

you did an

amazing job in the

room by really the way you

hone in on,

on people's questions is extraordinary.

Your ability to listen really hit the point about these questions people have. And for me, what was really interesting,

Julian, is this, the idea that there's

no such thing as

bad meditation because other meditations

I've had quite limited other experiences in meditation before, but it was very much

Black or

white,

You're

either doing it or

you're not, you're there or you're not you're

either

completely engaged with thinking

about nothing

or you're being a,

or you're being a

bad person, if you're

competitive, not doing it right, you feel like a bad person,

that's just not where you want to be, whereas this one

let's go into what Vedic meditation [00:12:00] is and

The pragmatics work.

And then I'd love to hear about your course and what that looks like for people.

Michael: So this

is different

than other types

Of meditation. And I

very much had the experience of what you're saying of

trying to

meditate, actually not

getting clear

instruction,

but having this idea of meditation is worthwhile. So sit down, close

my eyes

and

try to experience or achieve some

internal state.

Which, if you had asked me to verbalize that, I

couldn't have.

I could not have told you what I was trying to make happen. But I

just had this sense, something's supposed to be happening, and so I'm going to try and get somewhere other than

where I am now.

And, trying

to think yourself into fewer thoughts, you're in a catch 22

from the very beginning.

So

often

the idea is [00:13:00] silence the mind,

sit down. Slam your eyes shut, grit your teeth, and don't

think, and don't think, and don't

think,

and don't think, and oh

no, don't think, because God, that's

another thought. And you are

in this loop that

gets really frustrating.

The mind is designed to move.

In Vedic

meditation, we take advantage

of this. Why is the mind moving? Where is it going? It is looking for what is

interesting. It's trying to

find a state of happiness. This is what all of our thinking is about. All of our thinking is this hunt for happiness. And in Vedic meditation, you learn two things.

You learn a mantra.

This is a very simple sound. It has no intended

meaning. It's

personalized for the student by the teacher. That's one of our

jobs, is

to choose the right sound for the

particular person.

You

think that silently inside the mind. So you sit

in a chair comfortably,

you don't have to be cross [00:14:00] legged in the middle of the floor or something.

You sit comfortably, you lean back,

you close your

eyes. And you begin to repeat

silently inside this little resonant, mellifluous sound and it begins

to get more quiet

inside. It starts to get more subtle. It self

refines. At the same time, the mantra is fascinating. It holds that promise of happiness for the mind.

And so the mind begins to

move toward it. And

the mantra

is getting more quiet and the mind is following it down and the mantra

gets so

subtle that it disappears and the mind is dropped into this state

of no mantra and no thought. Just pure awareness. This is this field that Jillian

was talking about.

You without thought. Your

baseline. Your source. And, then the first thing often that happens is you think, Aha. [00:15:00] This is it. And then it's not it anymore. You're back to thinking. But what we teach you is how to pick up the mantra and follow it

down again. And you go through that cycle several times in each meditation.

And that is absolutely correct. So in

this technique, thinking is not a problem.

We don't

try to control the mind.

We don't fight against it. The mind is our

friend. We offer up what it wants. Of course, other thoughts come,

and we get into great detail on the course about why

that is and the importance of it.

But the biggest baseline

instruction in this technique

is be easy. and be

effortless. And that makes it such a pleasure compared to most things

that call themselves meditation and really most

anything else that we do in life that requires effort and hard work

and often some

degree of [00:16:00] control. And here it's really about

let

it go.

Let the mantra do

its work. Let nature step in

and

take over. And

that will deliver, Arthur, as you were

saying, A meditation that is always

good. If you stay

out of the way, if you let nature take

the lead, you're going to have the meditation that you need.

It will feel different every time.

Fantastic.

Arthur: I'm going to quickly interject here. Because there's something here, which

is

counterintuitive, right? There

we are, we want a lot,

How do you get things in life? You move towards it. You do action. La de da. There's something quite counterintuitive about just like moving away from that, right?

You're completely taking a step back. I've got a friend who

he's an architect. He's remarkably calm. He's so busy. He's

got a team. And the other thing I just, he's so present and engaged and be able to invest in other people. And I said to him, dude, like, how'd you do it?

Seriously? Tell me, what are you taking? Give me some. And

and he said, it's funny, Arthur, because two or

or three years ago I started to

telling [00:17:00] myself, care less about

outcomes. Just and I've heard this before with a friend who, whose business reached a

certain size that they didn't need

these different clients that were

quite difficult and they invited their clients to,

Be referred elsewhere.

And

they've just seen

so much success follow from that, just caring less. Anyway,

I thought it was quite interesting, but please continue.

We want to hear about

Jillian: I think

it's an interesting point that you raise because I

think we get trained from a very

early age that success is commensurate with effort.

and the harder you try,

the more successful you're going to be.

It trips us up a little bit when

we learn meditation because it's, this is a technique of

not trying.

The only thing you can do wrong is

to try to get in

there and make something happen. And it's,

It's something that becomes quite deeply

ingrained that I have to put a lot of effort and a lot of focus and control in there.[00:18:00]

in order to lock in

and get a result

There's a cost to that, because what

it does is

it says, Okay, this

is my goal

I'm very set in my way about

how that's going to play out It's going to happen with these people on this time frame

over this particular

scenario.

Boom, right? Let's go humans have an incredible capacity to make things happen you get single minded,

you get locked in and you Just go for

it And, get

out of their way because they're coming, and yet what that does is it

says, right, it's

this way,

it's my way, no

other way.

So there's a cost to that, because

maybe actually we needed to just

tweak a little bit, or we

needed to adjust or

we needed to take in something that's happening over here, but no, not

available

for that,

because

I've, in order to

make

this happen, I'm going

this way. It's a very

limiting way actually to live our life

because it means

then

that we are expending a lot

of effort.

So that's

Arthur: Thank you very [00:19:00] much.

Jillian: It means that we're missing out on taking in any new cues from nature because no it's this way, it's this way.

When actually some client over

here might give you some interesting perspective and you think, oh gosh,

actually

they're onto something. We need to just adjust a little

bit here. But no,

I'm not available for that. I'm focused. I'm on it. I'm committed. I'm working hard. Boom. But

actually it's very narrow. I am on this track. When people learn to meditate,

Arthur: Okay.

Jillian: is what stress

does. It makes things very small.

Our responses are small and petty. Our ability to think outside the

box is not

there. Everything narrows down. Now when you take all that away, then

your whole perspective is broadening. It's like the lens on the camera

is going from really narrow and

broadening out.

I can pick all this up in my nervous

system because it's not

chock a block with

noisy,

stressy, [00:20:00] Irrelevant

thinking. So

it's, it really changes the way we move through the world.

Arthur: It's so funny because there's a book called super forecasters, which in essence, it

highlights that these people

are obsessed about forecasting. So it's what

they do more of

as a hobby, but they outperform predictions compared to specialists.

It's a very quick,

read.

But one of the interesting takeaways from the

book is these people.

They. They change their, they're

always changing their predictions based on new data, and they're changing

their minds, and they do it very slightly, even if by

a few

percentage points, I go back to, you're very kind and send very informative

emails.

There was one on

intuition the other day. And intuition is a funny one. I mean, what is intuition? It's your, people say

Jeff Bez is a man very much often quoted, but

He

talks about this idea of like your gut feel. What

does your gut say? But it's an amazing thing. And [00:21:00] Michael, you talked a bit about that during our, in our

sessions.

 But, if we're so caught up in thinking about

that we know the answers, whereas if we go back a bit, of course,

we're going to be,

More open. So those linkages

are quite interesting to

about.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. There's,

the human brain

is an amazing thing

and it is incredible at

processing information.

And there is

too much information. You can't process it all.

And these super predictors, they're taking subtle inputs and

adjusting. How do they know which ones to pay attention to?

I don't think they, because so many bits of information are coming in,

and they pluck something and adjust their

prediction as

a result. How did they choose from all of

those things? I wonder if we talk to them if they might say, I don't know, I just felt it.

I just felt this was the one to pay attention

to. I just had the sense [00:22:00] that this

was going to impact my prediction

in a different way. And of

course we should exercise our intellect, and of course

we should make comparisons, and of course you want to. have goals and and have a view of the future

of your company or of your own life and to be agile

and to be willing to turn on a dime and to have that flexibility and

adaptability so that when circumstances change, when new information

of value comes in, you're not

locked into some idea of how it

was all going to go.

That's,

That's always a recipe for disaster.

Arthur: Funny because the word sense, People who are overwhelmed by fear and sometimes it like hits them on a day or a moment, and they're

just so far away from their own

sense of self and sense. So

if we have

That on one side of the spectrum, and then I guess someone who's like super connected to [00:23:00]themselves and you can very much feel that this energy and I

noticed it

with, I noticed it with people,

 People who meditate that they're just connected with themselves

in a way that doesn't

rely

on the external

so much and then much

more, , gathered and They find it notably easier to connect with things that make them happy and authentic situations.

Okay.

Jillian: I think that's a function

of

their state of consciousness, and

that's a

function of their capacity to ground themselves in that baseline that

we were talking about.

If I have to look for all of my information

and my sense of who I am

from the ever changing chaotic

world out there, or seemingly chaotic world you everything's out there and I'm looking for my stability and

my

sense of

who I am based on How many digits I've got in my bank account and, what

job titles [00:24:00] I've got and how much education I've got and

who I hang out with and all of these things,

All of

that is constantly in flux.

If

I am able to drop down into something that is baseline, stable,

unchanging it's the

core

of who I am,

This is what the Vedic texts talk about you self realization, it's like my individual self is realizing my universal

baseline self, then that's my reference point. I've settled down

and then I can come back

out into this very busy demanding world But I'm not Know

discombobulated

when

something shifts because I've got my anchor overboard.

I am grounded in something that is deeply settled and foundational and energizing and coherent and it has infinite organizing, I can drop into that quantum

level.

and that's

my [00:25:00] baseline.

And then it's not like meditators are sitting around just with their eyes closed, luxuriating in

this sort of blissful state of whatever.

This is

a technique for busy people. This is a technique to get that, plug in, and then

get out there

in the world,

and take all that adaptability and

all that creativity, and take it out, because boy, the world needs it right now.

Arthur: Have you both heard the term

Michael: Yes.

Arthur: Okay, so

I'm

going to want you to flex. How many people have you got to meditate? I mean,

it's hard to know, but go on.

Jillian: Thousands and thousands. Yeah.

Michael: We must be starting to approach 10, 000 people around the world.

Arthur: Wow. Very different

people I come across have done your course. I want to hit on that. So go on the pragmatics of this. Let's go into a little bit of pragmatics and then you and your

course.

Michael: In order to learn you can go to

our website, londonmeditationcenter. com or newyorkmeditationcenter. com.

Even before

that, [00:26:00] actually, you can read Jillian's book. Do you have a, do

you have a copy of your book here? So

This

is called Why

Meditate Because It Works.

I'm going

to

try and get it here like that.

Why Meditate Because It Works.

So you can get it preferably at your independent bookstore. And of course,

online as

well. It is fantastic. It's going to really introduce you

to the ideas and the potentials of meditation. It's

going to bust the myths, the misconceptions that people have.

then come to an introductory talk.

That'll be one

or the both

of us talking in detail about how this technique works. works.

And then

we talk about the structure of the course. And what you do is you come along.

This has to be taught in person. It is

a simple technique and it is subtle and there needs to be

an exchange of energy

and information.

At the

molecule to molecule level.

This [00:27:00] is a fantastic way

for us to communicate. And, we're fans of Zoom. And that's how you can do

your

intro talk.

To learn this,

we need to be in person.

So you come along,

you receive your mantra, you learn how to use it

on the first day. And then the next day you learn how

you're going to fit meditation into your life.

When and where, and how do I fit it around

exercise? And

People are always worried about my coffee. You're not going

to take away on my

coffee. I can still drink coffee,

right? Yeah. It's all fine.

On the third day, the

next day, we look at the effect of meditation

on consciousness and the nervous

system.

What's happening

in the mind. Therefore, what's

going on

in the body? How is meditation getting in

and

unwinding the stress, the impressions, the distortions that we have all taken on over the years and held onto.

Meditation purifies this out quite

quickly. And when you understand the mechanics of how [00:28:00] Vedic meditation works

first, it's interesting.

You remember that. I remember you being so fascinated by this

day and sort

of the explanation

At the mechanical scientific level of why this is working.

People really love it. And then you come for a fourth session the next day. So four

days in a row.

It's just two

hours

each day. On the

final day, you look at the road ahead.

What's going to happen as I continue to do this?

What will

be my personal flex as a meditator? And that is

calm and

clarity and creativity

and a healthier body

and a better functioning brain that leads to more creativity and more.

intellectual capacity

and better memory. My reaction time gets faster.

Jillian: Younger.

Michael: Younger. I become a more available person to the people around me. Ultimately this comes to

relationships.

Jillian: Yeah.

And I

just want to pick up on something that,

Because often

people will come to us and they'll say, I don't have [00:29:00] time to meditate, man.

Like my life is

maxed out.

How am I going to sit down

and close

my eyes? So what we do is it's 20 minutes in the morning. So normally I say to people,

right, your day doesn't start until you've got

your meditation done.

Get it in early

and then get on with your day. So you go into

the day taking all

that energy

and all that clarity

into your day.

And then late afternoon,

early

evening we

sit down and

we do another 20 minute meditation. And that might be on your commute. Or it could be, I was just

talking to one of my clients yesterday, he

works in the city. He's got two really big churches near him, near the office. And he either,

he'll go to

either one, he can sit down there in the church, and he does his

meditation. He went down there yesterday at 3. 30 in the

afternoon, took a break

from work,

did his meditation,

came back up to

the office, raring to go. We just get really, Clever at finding these

places and we can do it anywhere You know anywhere that you can safely sit down and close the [00:30:00] eyes You don't need to be

on the special pink cushion in the class You

know with gongs going or you don't need an internet connection.

You don't need anything

You know, we want to get you self sufficient and you've got a tool for life And so

this idea that I'm too busy to meditate, It's What everybody reports once they learn this is they actually feel like they have more time because they're so much more clear headed

They're so much more able to

focus on the things that matter.

They're more efficient. It was so much my experience I was getting obsessed about stuff

that shouldn't even have been on

my to do list,

you And I was And then once I learned to meditate, I was like getting other people to do that bit and I was

able to get onto the stuff that actually was relevant for me.

And it

just shifts those priorities and you feel like you

have more time. And this is a big thing because how we use our time is

critically

important. You have 30 minutes, you do not get that 30 minutes back. So what are you doing that's

going to [00:31:00] give you a return on that investment?

And 20 minutes twice a day ain't that long.

That's a bit of faffing around on Instagram, and 20 minutes is gone. What are you

doing with your time?

This is a very clear investment.

Arthur: I meditate straight away

in the day and then I do another 1, another one at about

three o'clock

when I want that kick, I'm like, oh, brain's quite busy.

productivity's starting to

decline. I get

that here and I'm like,

wow, it just can't.

But there's

two interesting facts that you'll know

the specifics on one was the rest get compared to sleep

like for like time wise. And then the second

was the change in your brain structure. Can we just go into those two data points?

So I'm

Gonna

Michael: one of the best ways to measure physiological rest

is to look at how much

fuel you

are burning. If the

body's resting, you need less fuel. And the main fuel of the body

is

oxygen.

So

[00:32:00] if you are

resting less

or resting more deeply, then your oxygen metabolism goes down.

You don't

need to burn so much fuel.

If

we call, we're all sitting in chairs.

If we call

just sitting in a chair calmly the zero point, then

after you have been deeply asleep for 567 hours, your

oxygen metabolism drops, By you 10, maybe 15%.

you sit down and practice vedic meditation for just a few minutes, and that oxygen metabolism level drops to 20%, 30%, even a 50% drop.

So

if we do the maths, that's two to five times deeper rest than sleep. for that 20 minutes. And that is so powerful. And I'm, I'm Arthur, I'm sure you

feel this yourself that

you get up in the morning

and you got up

early and you're a little bit [00:33:00] tired and you meditate and you come

out and you feel completely different whereas

Arthur: Silence.

Michael: feel lethargic. Whereas, you have a late Friday night, you get up still early on Saturday morning, you

meditate, you feel better.

It really

makes a huge difference and that is the physiological

rest

that's happening.

Arthur: There were so many great anecdotes During

course,

but one I really liked

and resonates is, you talked about this concept , when

When one smiles, that'll keep on the street. It actually comes,

to that. It's an actually

an authentic smile which I've seen that change, which is, it's quite bizarre.

It's completely true. And then the other one, I don't know it's just such a night and day difference. [00:34:00] One thinks,

oh, yeah, i'm gonna get 20

25 minutes less sleep. No, that doesn't make sense. Why would I

do that? But

and I explained to friends, I'm like

no because if I do it then as soon

I finish, I'm there.

I I'm,

So does this comment the idea that the more, the better we are in ourselves, the

what we can give to other people, right? If we meditate, we can

give more

to other people.

It's

very linked to

what this gives

gives you. Does that resonate with you? Transcripts

Michael: Maybe you could talk about the, if.

the, you, because you were

asking before about the effect on

the brain and there is this movement from the back of the brain, the stress center, to

a higher

level of functioning.

Jillian: And that affects every thought you have, and every behavior that comes from that, so how

we are in the world

is a function of how

conscious we are.

You're semi conscious. then you're going to be less effective so

let's talk about it from the point of view of how much,

what's your quantity of [00:35:00] available consciousness or

awareness?

and what we

can get a

Very clear read on

is how

Vedic meditation changes that.

Executive processing function that we have.

It's our higher executive processing center in the brain as

human beings,

which

has a cascading effect into the power of our thinking. And as

a consequence of that, the repertoire

of behaviors that we can come up with. So

when we say Vedic meditation changes your

brain, we can measure that.

That's not just woo.

So we can

hook somebody up

to an electroencephalogram, which is

an EEG, and it's looking at electrical brainwave activity. So it's looking

at types of

brainwaves,

it's looking at frequency, and it's importantly,

it's looking

at coherence in the brain.

This

is a

really important point.

What we see on somebody sitting there for 20 minutes,

meditating, is that we will see

these moments of

[00:36:00] peak coherence.

And what that is demonstrated as is coherence between the left and the right cerebral

hemispheres. So they're talking to each other in a very coordinated way. This has a big impact

in terms of your creativity

and your potential to come up with

good solutions, good ideas, and insights to problems. Very

important.

The other thing that we'll see is a lot of activity moving from the back of the brain coherently through into this prefrontal cortex which

is known as the CEO of the brain. It is your higher executive processing center. Now what the research shows

is that when you're tired and when you're stressed your

prefrontal cortex goes

offline, shuts down, and then we're into the back part of the brain which is

not good

when it comes to making good decisions because then you're being driven

by

Anger and fear and all those

base emotions that are actually not

that helpful

to us.

Arthur: you the

Jillian: brain

and we

are [00:37:00] expanding the dendritic web, those

interneuronal connections. So as a

consequence

my thinking is being upgraded and as a consequence, the behaviors that

come from those thoughts are Upgraded,

And who you are and

how you are

is what everybody

experiences when you go out in the world.

And if you're going out into

the world and you're tired and you're

a bit stressy and you're in kind of me consciousness,

how the heck

do I get through this day kind of mode, then that is not a generous

place to be.

That's not what,

We want to be dumping into the

atmosphere

and onto our friends and our family. When we take care of ourselves and we upgrade

our consciousness state, we clear out the stress

reactivity out

of our system,

and we've got energy and

we can hold the present moment, we can listen, we can be

there

in

that moment

of

reality, and not Going over old ground or

speculating about what

might be around the corner, [00:38:00] but actually present, then that transforms every interaction that you have and as I alluded to before, there is plenty of evidence in our world

today

that we need to get better at this

A people, as humans, there's an

opportunity for

more effective interactions.

It's

Hard to do that, no matter how many self

help books you've read or how many podcasts you've listened to. You might know that

there are certain ways that are optimal to behave, but when you're

in a moment

of stress reactivity,

that all goes out the window. You're having a stress reaction.

And we might afterwards think, Oh God,

why did I say that? Or, we berate ourselves, but it was a moment of stress reactivity. Meditation is changing that because it's

clearing out that stress from the system. So

then I can go into these interactions and

that is what is having the biggest impact

on

the people around us. If I go into a situation in good shape, [00:39:00] as

opposed to going into a situation and I'm not fully present.

Arthur: And what

was the fact about the lobe

Jillian: prefrontal, cortex. yeah. So this prefrontal cortex It lights up

invading meditators. It

gets very active. very holistic brain signature, and there's a lot of coherence in the brain. We'll see a lot of alpha brainwave activity.

This

is good

in terms of positioning us into a state of restful alertness.

Body's deeply

rested, and yet brain is highly alert. and

Very clear and coherent. We want that prefrontal cortex. This is the

higher executive processing center of the

human brain, and we don't want that to be offline. And so

what meditation is doing is it's enlivening that in

the process

of meditation.

But

here's the interesting thing,

because your brain

is malleable. We

have this function called neuroplasticity and

what

a lot

of research on

this, you know What you do with

your brain [00:40:00] changes it. it.

is not a rock. It's not a static

thing. It's constantly adapting to the functionality that

it is experiencing So you learn a musical instruments and you start learning French or you know you

are asking those interneuronal

connections to spread to

form and develop What you do with your brain changes it.

So when you look at the longitudinal studies on Vedic meditators,

what we see is that

the

brain

normalizes. That optimized

state

that I was describing that's happening in meditation starts to become the new normal. And so this plays out

as improvements in memory and

concentration and creativity and all of

these metrics.

By which we look at

how

well

are we performing

mentally?

What's

causing that? You are literally

[00:41:00] changing the brain chemistry. You're

changing, you're increasing the oxygen flow. That's very interesting. What's

happening in

meditation, the oxygen flow

to the brain increasing significantly.

So all of these things are happening

automatically.

It's not that I'm doing

anything. I'm

simply sitting on the tube with my eyes

closed

and my bag on my lap. And I'm thinking this meaningless sound for 20 minutes.

and then I

come out nice and slowly job done from the outset. doesn't look like much, just like somebody sitting there with their eyes closed, but actually what's going on beneath the surface

is positively

transformational.

Arthur: Wasn't there a study that showed that neuroplasticity

increased

after six weeks?

Jillian: Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah.

Arthur: By, by what? What

percentage

was that again?

Jillian: This

was a study, it was a very

interesting study because it was done on newbies, like people that had just

learnt to meditate. And they were

Young

people and there were a group of

students who

had learned to [00:42:00] meditate when they were very young, 10, 11,

12. So they'd been meditating

for

a while, and then

there was

a group

of new meditators

who had just learnt in

a few weeks.

I think it was about 3 to 4 weeks

actually.

They were in

their late teens.

So they're all the

same age but some, one half had

been meditating since

they were 10 or 11, and the

others had only been meditating for about 3 or 4 weeks. So this

brain signature that I was describing was evident in both

groups. Very interesting. This comes back

to what we

were saying, there's no ramping up period with Vedic meditation.

It's not like I have to

do it for a few months, and then I've worked my way up to this optimized state. It is happening

from the get go,

and we could see that in the results of this

study.

New meditators were experiencing these

moments of peak coherence, just like the meditators who'd been meditating for many years.

[00:43:00] But then something interesting happened. They

kept the recording

and measuring equipment going and they told

both groups to stop meditating and just sit there with their eyes closed. And

what they saw with

the long term meditators

was a continuation, a

prolonging of that

optimized brain signature

even after meditation.

It was there. The newbies, they

just

went back to pre

meditation, more chaotic brain functioning, but

it was interesting

to see

the longitudinal effect

in those students Who'd been meditating for a

long time.

Arthur: Fascinating. And this life's complex, right? I mean, there's so many compartments that,

Joy comes from, opportunities

come from, challenges come from.

There must be, I mean, We know

so many different people have

done, who do your

course.

Please

could you share

some

of those different stories and the quirky [00:44:00] impacts because there are so

many

of them and I know

it would be,

very,

Jillian: We could do

a whole podcast just on that. 

Michael: Great,

a great thing to do. We do have

a podcast about that. I have a podcast called Speaking of Meditation, which is conversations. Yeah let's have

you on it.

It would

be great. It's, really interesting

conversations with fascinating people who are out there in the world and meditating and the impact.

that it has had on them. And there's one story about

a woman named Lily who

learned when she was 13

and then came back and did the adult course. She did a kid's course. Then she did the adult course

when

she was doing her A levels. And then, she went to Cambridge and then graduated

and was in the working world and

what her life is like.

As a meditator, from the beginning and in a family

of meditators.

and her

[00:45:00] report is,

I don't know

what it would be like

to not

meditate except that I see

in my peer group. a very different experience of the world.

And those people who made

fun of me at boarding school for

meditating now

in our mid twenties are coming

to me and

saying, how do I learn?

Because you've

got something. Going on. I feel that I

really need

And I love that. That's such an unusual Situation

that someone learns that young and is

really surrounded

by meditators for most people. They're the one in their family, in their social group and there is such a range of

reasons

That people learn.

Jillian: I'm thinking of one

woman who

Arthur: It's a

Jillian: she learned and she, she

was not in a good place when she when I met her, she, I was doing some

work on Harley Street with a, an oncology center and she had been going through cancer treatment.

Very [00:46:00] high powered lawyer, very successful but

very out of balance

and

Nervous system

had been strained for a

long time and she got through that treatment program and in that she learned to meditate and she has two young girls.

And she could see the impact of it through what was being reflected

back to her and her behavior and the

reactions of her

children,

She's

I'm no longer shouty mummy, I'm actually nice mummy. And if I

don't

meditate, my kids are going to tell me, mum, you need

to meditate, because

there is direct feedback,

Boom, when you

do this,

you're a different human, and I

like that meditating one better, thanks.

But she said and I think

about it also in terms of this how we're dealing with

demands it's a very

interesting Factor that meditators

will describe

in

different ways, and I don't know

if you've noticed this but

we did a

program of

teaching

teachers

and I had one [00:47:00] young guy who

learned who worked with relatively young children.

And he said what he was

noticing with meditation

was that beforehand,

if a child had

been acting up or, dysregulated,

he said I would just

be in there boom! And I'd be reacting and I'd be zeroing in really fast. And he said what

was interesting with

meditation,

and this by the way was only after a few

weeks of meditation, he said,

I feel like there's more

space between me

and

the child and

he said I don't

know what it is.

I can't put a time on

It It might be like You know

a

10th of a second. There's some spaciousness some

buffer zone

between me and

the stressor. And what

that was doing was it's allowing him to

meet

the stressor in a very

different way. And as a consequence,

he wasn't rushing the situation. He wasn't as reactive.

He wasn't as

[00:48:00] narrow.

He was actually,

had

the space to meet that moment

in a

very different way, in a healthier

way for him and for that child. And it's

a very interesting concept when we

think about the speed with which the world is moving, and the speed with which information is coming

to us

and

what that is.

asking of us,

and

to just

build in

a little bit more buffer.

how that reflects in the response that we come up with?

Arthur: There's

a film, I'm forgetting the name, but I think it's called Limitless. . It's called Bradley Cooper. It's about this

pill that's invented. And in the film you watch him go from this, someone who's completely uninspired,

he's a failed, failed writer

and to taking this pill, suddenly he can think like a genius, but he has more time in these moments.

It's interesting. Of chaos,

where he just, he's able to think for a few more seconds

and just [00:49:00] navigate a lot of different information and just speak with such transparency

It's funny, I noticed

just small moments,

nothing quite like that but there is

a sense of we're like just having a bit more control over situations and being more transparent with people communication and getting more from moments and people

everything and do you, can you think of more

quirky stories of someone

because one thing's really interesting.

I remember the last

session. Michael's don't

make any big life decisions, because things are going to come to you

and you're going to have clarity on things like, talk

to us

about those changes you've, you've

heard or.

Michael: Yes. I mean, we would always say when you learn to meditate, because

so much change is happening in those early days, and there's some release of old

sadness or

old anxiety. Anxiety. I,

I

remember a week after I learned to meditate. Sort of these bubbles of [00:50:00] anxiety were coming up

that were quite strong.

And, I was functional. It's not like it, it brought my life to a halt. But there was stuff moving out

of the the system that was important and and for the

good.

And, I wouldn't have

wanted to make a big life decision based on

that feeling that

I was having in the moment. Somebody has carried a lot

of anger around.

And they learn to meditate and

they start releasing that old irritation

And then on

Tuesday, they get an

email from their line manager. And they fire something back, it's because of you, my whole

life is miserable.

And

then,

Come Friday, that anger has started to clear out

and

they're thinking, Oh, quitting my job was a rash

decision.

Pay,

paycheck, that was

an okay thing to have.

Arthur: yeah.

Michael: And this is why I

told you and

the people

On the course.

[00:51:00] Just delay.

Don't go off your birth control. Don't quit your

job. Don't decide

to move country. Just let

Don't get a pet. Don't get a pet.

This is

a

big life decision.

Jillian: But I think you do,

yeah, you do notice those changes.

And, I

was thinking about one woman who's, she's a photographer and her whole

thing is about what she sees in the world, and she's turned up on day four and she's

God,

there's a place on my street. She's

been living there

for years, I've never seen it before.

She's been walking past

it, for day after day.

She's a visual person. And

then she was like, Oh, I just

saw, I'm seeing all this stuff.

Or, I

have one other guy,

He has these amazing eyes. We're talking about eyes, Oh, yes. And he gets

on the

train and he's like I'm just making eye contact

with everybody, and one of the women in the thing's yeah,

you got magic

eyes, Dude, but

He's I'm just looking at people, I'm smiling,

I'm

like,

and they're talking back to me

and he's having all of these moments of [00:52:00] interaction

that when you're blinkered you don't see that over there or

you don't connect with these people,

Because you're

just like, hellbent on getting there, And the world is passing you by, or you're passing

it by.

You and you're not awake to what's going on

and I think, that richness of life gets, cut out of the picture because,

I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm busy.

Let's go and I think that's something

that people really

talk about a lot. The, this, the, what their senses are delivering to them and that can change lots of things.

It can change what they eat.

It

can change,

How much they drink. It can, I had a guy come in on day four of

my course and he

goes yeah, I know, I think, I'm, I'm

drinking, I'm noticing

I'm drinking less coffee. And I was like, oh, okay, and he's yeah, I've only had cups, you know. This was at 10. 30 on a Sunday morning. I was like, oh, okay how many would you normally have had? He's Scandinavian and when they make,

coffee, they make these big

pots of

coffee and it just glug, and he said, Oh,

five or [00:53:00] six

by now,

And he'd just be drinking it like

water, but he hadn't been because there was more conscious awareness on the

decisions that he

was making and the

choices

he was making.

It's just, it shifts that because you're more present, you're more awake, you're not clouded. The nervous system isn't foggy and

noisy and distracted.

Michael: It does come back

to meditation delivers what

you need.

And you

were asking in the beginning, what do you get from it?

That is so different for different people.

I'm sure I told a story on your course about a

couple who learned and the woman

was the one who initiated them

coming along

and she

was super stressy and, angry and worked

up.

And we saw her maybe six weeks later after they had been practicing and she was so calm and

clear, She just walked in

the room and you could

feel how

different she was

and she was really reporting

that, whereas her husband was like this [00:54:00] super laid back dude, like

totally relaxed.

Arthur: Okay.

Michael: And for him, that was actually his stress

response.

He wasn't actually that relaxed. What he really was a little standoffish.

and a little resistant and a little withdrawn.

Jillian: Stuck.

Michael: He was stuck. He was stuck. And when he learned

to meditate, he got unstuck.

and he started exercising

and

he quit this terrible day job he had.

And he

was a musician. He

formed a new band and

He and his wife were pregnant within six months. He freed up energy and was

able to sleep. Step up and step into life in a really different way And I think this is an important thing because people think well meditation is going to turn me into some spaced out bliss bunny

And I had a woman who worked in tech, super dynamic,

super successful and she learned and I saw her six months Later, and

she said, I was worried meditation would [00:55:00] cause me to lose my

edge

What I lost was my edginess,

and I

thought it was so beautifully said,

She was still dynamic and she was still on top

of it.

She just, wasn't as sharp unnecessarily as

she needed

to be, but actually she was

getting

more done.

Arthur: I

remember you talking

about this

very young

girl, I think she was about 15 who did the course,

and

was like, oh, I'm just annoyed that I didn't do it earlier.

Michael: Wishes they

did it earlier. Everyone who comes.

Arthur: And

Then there

was someone who works in a bank who, who quietly goes to a room and they

have

post post it note saying, leave it, leave me alone.

I'm

meditating.

Jillian: People find their way to get it done, it's

like, uh, But

that's the good thing. You can do it anywhere.

Arthur: One thing that strikes me

is that , we've touched on it, but

The world's there's a lot of things happening

every day On a

macro level

and. What we know is that what happens on

a micro level,

Adds [00:56:00] up to the macro.

So if we

think

about, you do,

you talk about

different people need different things from these things, some people are struggling to.

Cope with a

new job is very demanding, but they're

they're doing very well in the grand scheme of things. Other

people are just, they're

fighting for that.

Every day is just a struggle,

which makes me think about,

The homeless and access to the course. Do you, and it's interesting, you have different cultures that embrace things like meditation and it's in schools, et cetera, et cetera.

What

should we be doing?

, if a government minister, for example, listens

this what would

be, how would you be trying to get more people to do this?

Michael: Oh, gosh.

Jillian: We would

love

to be

Michael: I mean, if you know those people, put us in touch. Because, we've gone in It's a tricky thing because people

need

to want to learn. You can't go

in and impose on [00:57:00] a population that you think would

benefit from meditation and

Make

them do it. It just doesn't work, of course.

People have to

Seek it

out. And We've gone into a couple of

state schools in, in London and made that available to the teachers. Because if teachers

are meditating, then as with Jillian's example, they are different with the

kids. And that has

A spreading effect.

And

You,

we try

to work from both levels,

Can you

get more people meditating generally?

And, we're doing what we can there, but also can you get people meditating who have a broader impact,

who are influencing. More people who have contact with a lot of people because not everyone is going to meditate. And

if

enough people and people who are

in [00:58:00] contact with other people are doing it, that does have a spreading

effect and it is changing the

world.

Arthur: God,

we've touched on

so much today and really grateful for

your

Time and

all the stories and

we'll see where this goes.

this goes.

We've covered

so many great things. Apart from your new book.

Michael: Yes, the new book,

Jillian's new book.

This is fantastic. This

Jillian: is my new book. I did

a talk

at the Dew Lectures. The Dew Lectures

are great.

They're What is it? It's like

Ted

Michael: in a barn in Wales.

Jillian: Wales. It's

set up by

Claire and David Hyatt and they're great people who

have this annual event called the Do Lectures.

And people come from all over the world. And I got

asked to speak

at that

in 2023

And off the back of that they have a publishing arm, the Do

Books. And

there are now about 42 titles. And so

mine

is

coming out

in

April it is due recent. and it's all about the power of meditation. As a

daily reset to bring us back to homeostatic balance to come back to ourself

and to be able

[00:59:00] to deal with the demands

of this demanding world that we're in and the importance

of that.

So it's not

going to teach somebody to meditate, you need to come along and learn, but it's, I want it to inspire people in this pocket.

Book format it's good because it's not long.

It's easy to get into,

um, But it'll give people a little insight into the science of this Settled in a state and

all the benefits

that flow

from that.

Michael: Yeah, that comes out the 3rd, the 3rd

of April. Go to your independent bookstore and pre order that. Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur: Yeah, and just the last night really is thinking about,

oh is this for

people who are really struggling and that always is for people who are doing so well, and they just want more. And when people

ask me, Oh but how do you have the time? I don't know, but I want to do it.

It just it's it's just like getting an extra 2 hour

sleep.

right? It just doesn't make

sense to not have that. And when it ends up being an extra 25 minutes of your day, given

just wake up

early for the first one, it's just it doesn't

make sense to [01:00:00] not

do that.

 The time thing is just such a big push back from people. Can you think of someone who's incredibly

busy? Who's just

and the way that they explain that

navigation? Amazing.

Michael: meditator for a couple of years. And, had a full on life, family and a busy career. And then he got a particularly

big film

that kind of

took over his life and his meditation fell away for a few months

while he

was on set.

And as soon as the film wrapped, He

emailed me

and

he said, listen, I need a private session. We need to sit down

together. I need you to get me back on track. I don't have

time

to not meditate.

And I thought that was, it really encapsulated,

Yes, it is

an investment of time.

And

that investment means you are healthier

and [01:01:00] happier and your brain

works better and you get more done and you get along better with people.

Do you not have time

for those things? I'm

so busy

that

I'm willing

to be sick and

old and less intelligent and get less done and

not get on with the

people that I care about. That's what I have time for.

That just does not make sense.

It just does

not make sense.

Yes, it is an investment. And pull

out your phone and open the screen time app

and you'll see how much time you

have.

Because there's

an extra hour in there for sure of just fiddling around on

the screen.

Or whatever it

is that you do with

your time. It is possible

to carve it out.

It will give you more

time.

The return on that investment is

multiples.  [01:02:00]