The world is in a constant state of flux, often pulling us into its struggle. Yet, ancient wisdom and modern experience both suggest there is a place within us that remains untouched by the storm. To celebrate the World Meditation Day (December 21), declared last year by the United Nations, we bring you four distinct voices—from an Osho disciple to a corporate leader—sharing how they found their ‘Lotus in the Mud’ through the transformative power of silence.
Meditation introduced me to myself
~ Sally Forrest
From the outside, my life looked complete. I had the career, the credentials, the stability, the “good life” that so many people work hard to create. I was capable, at the top of my career, and outwardly successful.
And then, one day it all changed when my mother died suddenly.
The news was unexpected and it devastated me.
I remember sitting in my office thinking I have everything external, but what is the use of all this when the person you love is no longer here to share it with.
I also realised I had no internal skills to deal with this devastating news.
I did what many of us do when life becomes unbearable: I went in search of the external answers. I read, I learned, I tried to “solve” my way through the pain. I looked for a framework, a teacher, a method, anything that could help me make sense of the senseless.
That search is what first led me to meditation and a deeper understanding of myself.
I met Vikas Malkani, my spiritual teacher, and found a place where I could breathe again.
My mind kept trying to explain the situation, to bring logic to the pain, to find a reason for this painful truth. In those early days, meditation felt unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.
Sitting still made me more aware of what I was carrying and brought up many regrets and what-ifs.
Slowly I began to witness the waves of pain and not be destroyed by them. That was the moment I understood that meditation was not a way of escaping the truth, it was a deeper return to my inner truth.
Meditation was an introduction to myself.
I have meditated now for over 20 years; my practice today is steady and grounded.
I count my blessing each day and focus on the good things in my life. We all have a life of duality, and we can easily focus on what is bad and get carried away with that, leading to a downward spiral of thoughts.
Instead, I apply a technique that I call “Stop”. I bring my mind back into the present moment and see the beauty and positives around me.
It can be as simple as enjoying the air I breathe or the fresh water I drink, or appreciating I have a home that is clean and a bed to sleep in…
The impact on my life has been profound. Meditation has expanded my awareness and softened my reactivity. I recover more quickly from stress. I listen more deeply in my relationships, and I speak with more care. Perhaps most importantly, it has strengthened my connection to intuition, which is central to my work guiding others toward clarity, courage, and confidence.
It is easier to hear the inner voice when the mental noise quiets.
If I could leave you with one gentle insight, it would be this: start where you are. You do not need to be calm to meditate. Meditation is how you learn to be with life as it is, and in doing so, you discover that you are stronger, wiser, and more supported than you ever realized.
Meditation has become an essential life skill as I go through the ever-changing flows of life.
Sally Forrest is a transformational entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and international author. A pharmacist with an MBA, she spent two decades in senior corporate leadership before helping to open an orphanage in Thailand.
Now Managing Director of SoulCentre and SoulKids™ based in Singapore, she integrates strategic insight with holistic wisdom to empower clients worldwide with clarity, confidence, and certainty.
Website: http://www.soulcentre.org
Are you experiencing the sorrow of the world?
~ Shireen Chada
Nearly thirty years ago, I stood in a car rental office in Florida, waiting for paperwork, when a brochure caught my eye. Its first line asked, “Are you experiencing the sorrow of the world?”
I was. I’d just landed my first engineering job after years of work and a graduate degree. This was supposed to be the triumphant moment. Instead, I felt hollow and strangely heavy with a sadness I couldn’t name. That brochure led me to a meditation center, and my life cracked open.
I’d always trusted logic. Engineering made sense to me. But something in those early meditation classes spoke to a part of me I hadn’t known existed. Within weeks, I had an experience that changed everything. A flooding sensation of love, as if God was pouring into me directly. I felt I belonged somewhere I’d been searching for across lifetimes without knowing it.
Then my teacher mentioned the “magic hour” for meditation, between 4 and 5 AM. I laughed. I was going to bed at 2 AM most nights. But I tried it anyway, setting three alarm clocks around my tiny apartment. One in the closet, one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom. By the time I’d stumbled through all three, I was awake enough to shower and sit.
One morning around 4:20, I slipped out of my body entirely. I found myself flying upward into infinite light, completely free, my mind silent for the first time. When I came back, I felt connected to everyone and everything.
These days my practice is non-negotiable. I sit from around 3:30 AM until 4:30 or 5, then again for half an hour between 6 and 7 in the morning. In the evening, another hour. But the sitting is only part of it. In the Brahma Kumaris tradition, we bring spirituality into daily life, so I also practice while walking and moving throughout the day. The meditation doesn’t stop when I stand up.
I’ve meditated through illness, through cancer treatment, through a former mafia member threatening to shoot me. The practices held.
What I’ve learned is practical. You can train the mind like you train the body. When I was on heavy steroids during one illness and plunged into emotional darkness, I developed specific techniques just to function. When I was recovering from a mastectomy, I combined spiritual exercises with walking and yoga. These weren’t abstract philosophies. They were survival tools.
Thirty years and over 20,000 hours in, the restless striving that once drove me from India to the US has quieted. I still work hard. I write, I teach, I create courses. But the frantic quality is gone. Meditation has become how I stay connected to God throughout the day, how I metabolize whatever life brings. It is my most reliable relationship.
If you’re curious about meditation but unsure where to start, I’d say this: don’t wait until your life is calm. Mine never was. Start where you are, even if it’s messy, even if your mind won’t cooperate. The practice meets you there.
Shireen Chada has practiced meditation with the Brahma Kumaris for over 30 years, accumulating over 20,000 hours of practice. She is the author of seven books including ‘Experiencing God’ and ‘Soul Fitness’, co-host of the Spiritual Sense podcast, and creator of the Release Your Wings YouTube channel.
Website: https://releaseyourwings.org/
Meditation makes you rise above the world
~ Swami Chaitanya Keerti
We live in an ever-changing world. Some people, and they are very few, understand this change as nature of the world, accept it and flow with it. Others complain about it, resist it, try to swim upstream and transform life into a struggle.
Real meditation means moving from the periphery to the innermost centre and settling into Being, which is never changing.
This, indeed, is the real art of meditation–the real secret. It helps us find a centre within our own Being and relax into it. And just an hour of such relaxation rejuvenates us and fills us with a tremendous amount of energy. Just one hour or even less time, half an hour or 15 minutes, can refresh our Being and unleash much creativity. Those who meditate know this secret.
Osho reminds us: The world goes on; only it will not go on in you. You can remain in the world, and there is no need for the world to be in you. The world is not a disturbance. When you get involved in it, when you become the change, then it creates problems.
Meditation makes you rise above the world and you attain the inner space of Lotus in the Mud.
Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, writes articles on meditation and spirituality for various newspapers, and travels to conduct Osho meditation workshops in India and around the world.
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