Vipassana: The Timeless Secret to Meditate and Be Calm

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Bestselling author Shonali Sabherwal's latest book Is for anyone looking to start meditating. This detalled guide. focused on Vipassana, shows you how to control the highs and lows in life, and take charge of your happiness. It teaches you how to reach a state of equanimity and be present in the moment through an ancient technique that was used by the Buddha to attain enlightenment. Lift yourself up on this journey from misery to happiness, from defilement to purity, from bondage to liberation and from ignorance to wisdom. Turn your life around through Vipassana.

Shonali Sabherwal is a macrobiotic nutritionist, chef, gut expert and author from Mumbai who has practised Vipassana for twenty-five years. She firmly believes that her life changed after her first Vipassana course in 1996. Her immense capacity to chase her dreams, ability to reach out to her clients in the lifestyle-disease space and a connection to a universal consciousness come from her meditation practice. Her previous works include the bestsellers The Detox Diet, The Beauty Diet and The Love Diet.

The mind is highly complex. There are a great variety of events that make up our mental world, including the many destructive emotions that give rise to our suffering. The most effective way to deal with these is to make constructive use of the mind itself. Accumulation of material wealth or drugs or alcohol will not bring about a more positive mind.

The most effective way to deal with mental pain is to reduce our negative emotions and enhance their opposites-positive emotions like loving kindness and warm-heartedness. However, we first need to calm the mind. The practice of Vipassana, as widely taught today, is an effective method for calming the mind, making it more sober and sensible.

In my own experience, nurturing concern for others brings a deep sense of joy and fulfilment. Often it is excessive self-focus that prevents us from living joyfully, with purpose and serenity. I therefore recommend combining Vipassana with a meditation practice that cultivates kindness and compassion towards others.

I believe that our lives on this earth are exactly that: we are mere participants in a play or many small acts of a play. While we go through the trials, tribulations and joyful moments of life, our only goal is to live with the human qualities of kindness and compassion and be in a state of love; living in the moment and being of service to others. I am doing this today after twenty-five years of following a technique that Siddhartha Gautam Buddha introduced to India 2500 years ago (and I say this with no attachment to ego). But I am proud of the technique that helps us to come out of negativity (suffering and misery).

Let's not forget the fact that it can also help you to come out of the cycle of birth and death (you can choose to believe it or not, but do read on) and that it exists right here. However, most of us choose to live in ignorance.

There are many disciplines that teach us how to make our lives more meaningful in order to live a better-quality, more healthy, stress-free, productive and content life. Without sounding pessimistic, death is a constant and the same for everyone. To quote Shahzeb Afzal, 'Death is a great leveller; time brings all luxuries of life to an end. All feelings of superiority in man are only an illusion and self-deception." The great question of life is not, 'How do we face life and live in this world?' It is, 'How will I face death and where will I live in the next world?2 There is no institution, except perhaps the technique of Vipassana, that teaches us how to have a 'quality death'. What do I mean by this? I simply mean that, at the time of our death, we should be able to look at our life and say to ourselves that we have truly lived a life, rising above our own negativities, to teach us the true meaning of dying peacefully and not fear what lies beyond death.

There is a fear attached to death because of the unknown. Many philosophical systems question what happens to us after dying. For this-with all the reading and studying that I have done on the subject-we must first experience our own 'life force' in order to know what happens to us after we exit the earth. I don't want to take a stand at this point-till you read through on what happens to us after we exit the earth-yet. But it will become clear as you read on.