Daily Telegraph
ISSUE 1936 Tuesday 12 September 2000
By Sally Brampton
The stress and demands of work gave Sally Brampton insomnia.
In
meditation she found a cure - and an oasis of calm.
It began with insomnia. I doubt I'd have found meditation
otherwise.
I like the perfect symmetry of that moral code, that good
things
should come out of bad. And meditation is very good indeed.
Although
why it should be so remains a mystery to me.
At ease: Sally needed meditation 'to calm the noise'.
Meditation, her teacher assured her, 'is a long, warm bath,
a
holiday for the mind'
The insomnia was no mystery. I had just taken over as the
editor of
Red magazine, with all its attendant delights and pressures.
After
10 years working as a writer, an emphatically solitary
state, I
suddenly had a staff of 25. Unused to the company of people,
I felt
by the end of the working week that my head was so filled
with
words, thoughts and other people's ideas that I was
submerged in a
sea of noise. Plus, there was my marriage, which was going
through a
difficult time.
It was then that insomnia took hold. Falling asleep at night
was no
problem. But every morning, at 3.10, I woke, my head filled
with
sound and confusion. The precision of that time was - and is
- a
mystery to me. Why 3.10? Why not 3.20 or 3.30, or even 3.12?
The
weary inevitability of those two hands on the clock began to
drive
me mad. As did the lack of sleep.
I wanted sleeping pills. My doctor was kind but firm. Waking
in the
early hours is a sign, not of an over-active mind, but of
depression. Curiously, I didn't feel depressed. Confused,
yes.
Anxious, certainly. Sad, definitely. But not depressed. I
begged
some sleeping pills from a close friend. He gave them to me
reluctantly: "You don't want those. What you need to do
is
meditate." I couldn't have been more surprised. His
sandals are
Prada and the only rice that he ever eats is white basmati.
The very next day, another friend suggested I meditate. He
works in
advertising, the most cynical of cultures. It was not his
enthusiasm
that was astonishing so much as his good humour, for which,
in the
past, he has not been celebrated. "It's all down to
meditation," he
said. "These days, I smile all the time."
He gave me the name of his meditation teacher. And his
e-mail
address. So much for the spiritual highway. Then a former
colleague
took one look at my bleary eyes and drawn face and said:
"You need
to meditate." She gave me the name of her meditation
teacher. It was
the same one. I e-mailed.
The reply came back. "Obviously, there is no escape.
Come and see
me. We'll talk."
The talk is by way of an introduction to Transcendental
Meditation
(TM). It lasts for about 90 minutes. The name of my teacher
is
Jonathan Hinde. I had no idea what to expect. White robes? A
flowing
beard? Sandals at the very least. What I find is a man in a
suit,
shirt and tie. His eyes are blue and gentle, his face calm
and
unlined. He must be somewhere in his forties. The office is
piled
high with files and paper, with computers, telephones and
faxes.
There is no altar, no hint of mysticism other than a faint,
lingering scent of incense.
He says two things that strike a chord. The first is that TM
is not
a religion, a cult or a philosophy, but simply a technique
to calm
the mind - and by extension, the body. The second is an
image. He
draws it in blue Biro.
Try to imagine the mental landscape as a cross-section of
the ocean.
At the top are the waves, the disturbed, choppy workings of
the
water. At the bottom is the deep, quiet peace of the ocean
bed. Most
of the time, our minds stay in the surf, pulled and battered
by the
ebb and flow of daily life. Scientific research maintains
that we
use only 20 per cent of the brain's capacity. The rest stays
in the
depths, untouched and unacknowledged. What TM teaches you is
to
allow your mind to sink into the tranquil waters.
Meditation, he
says, "is a long, warm bath, a holiday for the
mind".
It is this that seduces me. He asks why I want to learn.
Without
thinking, I say: "To calm the noise." It seems an
absurd demand.
Ever since I can remember, my head has been filled with
sound.
I sign up for the course. This is where the commitment
begins. You
must agree to attend four 90-minute classes, on consecutive
days.
That's a tough call in a busy life - deliberately so, for it
sets
the path, not merely for the days ahead, but for life. One more
injunction - you must meditate without fail for 20 minutes
twice a
day, morning and evening.
You can either learn one to one (as I did), which is
expensive, or
in small groups, which is still expensive, but less so. Then
again,
I still see Jonathan for an hour every two weeks or so, and
am free
to call or e-mail if ever I have a problem. Analysis would
cost me
far more.
Your journey into meditation begins with a ceremony
involving
flowers, fruit and a white handkerchief. As he describes
this,
Jonathan catches sight of my expression. I am not fond of
rituals.
He smiles. "If you like ceremony, you will enjoy it. If
you don't,
it's over very quickly."
My initiation takes place at 9am, at the TM Centre just off
Baker
Street in London. The centre is comfortable and
businesslike, and
the ceremony is mercifully brief. Still, I am torn between
laughter
and enchantment as I watch Jonathan, in a grey suit, shirt,
tie and
socks, standing before a makeshift altar framed by a
portrait of a
maharishi (or teacher) chanting, his hands occupied with
fruit and
flowers.
Then the teaching begins.
I can tell you little more. TM is an ancient art, handed on
by
generations to followers and teachers. The belief is that if
it is
taught wrongly by one person, and that person teaches four
people,
who teach another four - all incorrectly - that the power of
the
practice will eventually die out.
Followers of TM claim that the more people who meditate in
one area,
the more calm and security settles in that place. But it is
the
personal benefits that are so compelling. There was a time,
after a
hard day's work, when I used to hurry home for a large glass
of
white wine. Now, I hurry home to meditate.
It doesn't eradicate all the scratchy irritations of the
day, but it
does make them much easier to deal with. And each time you
meditate,
it's different. Sometimes you feel calm, other times
peaceful, and
at others full of optimism and joy (neither of which come
easily to
me). I'm a writer and, like most writers, am by nature
introspective
and inclined to depression.
It is the alleviation of that, more than anything, that
convinces me
of its real power. More even, than the extensive empirical
research
collected in thousands of papers from universities around
the world.
A study published in Psychosomatic Medicine found that
meditators
needed 87 per cent fewer hospitalisations for heart
diseases, 55 per
cent fewer for tumours and 87 per cent fewer for disorders
of the
nervous system. As so many modern illnesses appear to be
stress-related, it is not surprising that some more
forward-thinking
GPs recommend it.
And, in a culture obsessed with youth, the effect of TM on
ageing is
profound. In a study published in the International Journal
of
Neuroscience, short-term meditators were discovered to have
a
biological age some five years younger than their
chronological age,
while long-term meditators were around 12 years younger.
Madonna, Demi Moore and Trudie Styler are all devotees, and
so are
an increasing number of stressed-out City executives:
entrepreneur
and trouble-shooter Sir John Harvey-Jones is one of its most
vociferous advocates.
Meditation is like a good secret that you don't share with
anyone.
It is free and you can take it anywhere. Everyone's
experience is
different, which is why it is essential that you are taught
by a
qualified teacher who can guide you through any
difficulties.
What is daunting, at first, is its extreme simplicity. You
are given
your own mantra and taught how to use it. To begin with, I
thought I
was somehow doing it wrong. Thoughts marched into my head,
elbowing
the mantra aside. Everybody, says Jonathan, feels the same:
we are
so used to thinking. What you learn in meditation is to
leave
thought be, let it merely exist.
The effects of meditation are not always benign. In the
first month,
I thought I had discovered the holy grail. I was calm,
peaceful,
exuberantly happy. The second month, I found myself banging
off the
walls, at times crying uncontrollably. TM delves into the
subconscious, moves through layers of memory and history.
Not all
memories are happy and it is those hidden hurts it probes
and
ultimately heals. The process is painful, and sometimes
violent.
But, as the saying goes, better out than in.
This, too, is why you need a qualified teacher, with whom
you can
discuss such reactions and concerns on a regular basis.
Within the
month, I was fine. Meditation is, for me, an intense and
private
joy. And the insomnia? These days, I wake at 5.20am, which
is not
very late but better by far than 3.10am. During the summer
months, I
even began to take delight in waking and meditating with the
sun.
It used to take me hours to connect to the day. Now, after a
cup of
good strong tea, I meditate and greet the morning with
profound
cheerfulness.
And that, in its own way, is a miracle.
There is no "cheap" way to do TM. The standard fee
nationwide is
£490 for a four-session course. The reduced fee (negotiated
on an
individual basis) is £355. TM may be available on the NHS,
if it is
prescribed by your doctor for certain stress-related
conditions. It
is recommended that you attend the introductory session
before
approaching your GP.
Sally Brampton's article appears in full in the latest issue
of Red
magazine, out now.