I’ve meditated every day since I was 21 years old. So I’ve put in a heck of a lot of cushion and chair time in the past 56 years. (Yeah, I’m old.)
What keeps me going with meditation is feeling like I’ve always got something to learn from the experience. Like life itself, no moment in meditation is the same as any other moment. Something always is changing in my mind, my surroundings, my body.
I used to believe that there was One Best Way to meditate. Namely, the way that my guru taught. Looking back, that was an absurd belief. There are countless (almost) approaches to meditation. What appeals to one person won’t be attractive to someone else.
Increasingly, I’m realizing that I need to revisit assumptions about meditation that I embraced for a long time. Here’s three of them that came to mind in some reading I’ve done recently.
Shorter can be better. For several decades, when I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), I meditated for 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day. The notion was that this was a tithe of 10% of the initiate’s time to God, the Supreme Being. Eventually I reduced that time 1 to 1 1/2 hours a day. God would just have to deal with it.
Now that I’ve become spiritually independent, I meditate for about 15 minutes every morning. One reason I go with this rather short time is that mindfulness has become my meditation. and mindfulness can be practiced throughout my waking hours.
An article in the December 13/20, 2025 issue of New Scientist offers support for brief periods of meditation. Here’s an excerpt from “Microdosing mindfulness” by David Robson. I”ll share a PDF file of the full story.
Too busy to meditate? Microdosing mindfulness has big health benefits | New Scientist
When Eli Susman arrived at a Buddhist retreat, he expected to spend most of his time there in deep meditation. After all, the Plum Village Monastery to the east of Bordeaux, France, had been established by Thich Nhat Hanh, sometimes known as the “father of mindfulness”. With a newcomer’s enthusiasm, he decided to test how long he could spend in silent contemplation, embarking on a mammoth 3-hour session.
Afterwards, he proudly told one of the monks. “It was almost like I expected a shiny badge for my efforts,” recalls Susman. Instead, the monk simply smiled brightly. “Three hours?” he asked Susman. “How about three breaths? That’s all you need to tune in to the present moment.”
Susman’s curiosity was piqued, and during his psychology PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, he set out to investigate whether such a brief period of contemplation could really reset someone’s thinking and bring about a meaningful change in their mental state.
The short answer is yes. According to a growing body of research from teams around the world, those who complete extraordinarily brief exercises – lasting as little as 20 seconds a day – report feeling peace and joy that lingers long after the exercise ends. By breaking ruminative thought cycles and calming the physiological stress response, these micropractices (also known as microacts) may enhance our physical health, too.
Thinking is just fine; not-thinking is also fine. I used to view thoughts as something to be avoided in meditation, since I’d been given a mantra to repeat, and it isn’t possible to say a thought in my head while also silently speaking a mantra.
But after I started to explore Buddhist’y methods of meditation/mindfulness, I realized that thoughts are as much a part of how I experience reality as perceptions and emotions are. They’re just one more thing to be aware of. If thoughts are there, I try to be aware of them. If thoughts aren’t there, I try to be aware of their absence — which typically entails being aware of what is there, since an absence is a lack of something, not a thing.
In his book, Depending on no-thing, Robert Saltzman says in response to a question:
Hi. So you have become aware that your mind has a chattering aspect, and that vexes you because it keeps you, you say, from dwelling in the here-and-now.
I cannot agree with that statement. If the chatter is in the foreground, that is the here-and-now, your here and now. The “other” here-and-now — the one you imagine is being obscured by the chatter — is a fantasy; completely non-existent.
Your here-and-now is the chatter. And what might or could be your here-and-now if only that effing chatter would stop, is the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
When you finally acknowledge that — when you notice it and really see it — you are in the here-and-now. You may not like chatter. You may not like the headache you have either, or the bad diagnosis you just got from the doctor, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. You may not like this moment of awareness, but likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it.
“Use your words” is good advice for both children and adults. During my RSSB phase of meditation, I bought into the premise that really real reality was ineffable, beyond words, so words could only take us farther away from that reality, not closer to it.
Then I was exposed to labeling as part of mindfulness. When my mind is overflowing with thoughts, I’ll say to myself “thinking.” When anxieties fill my psyche, I’ll say to myself “worrying.” This usually helps me get out of an unproductive frame of mind. Labeling has a way of producing some distance between an uncomfortable thought or emotion and a more peaceful state of mind that I want to return to.
It’s sort of like the label becomes a stepping stone that allows me to move from a mental place I’d rather not be in, to a more pleasant place.
Here’s an excerpt from a story by J. David Creswell in the January 2026 issue of Scientific American, “Use Your Words” Can Be Good for Kid’s Health. I’ll share a PDF document of the story.
Why ‘Use Your Words’ Can Be Good for Kids’ Health | Scientific American
Studies show that writing or expressing what we are feeling can help adults mentally and physically. Kids are no different
In a desperate parenting moment after dinner, I told my six-year-old, who was mid-meltdown, “Use your words!” He had just started yelling and hitting his eight-year-old sister because she wasn’t sharing a stuffed animal he believed was his. Both kids froze for a second, giving me just enough of a pause to slow my own quickly rising emotions.
Looking back, I realize I never actually explained to my kids why words can help. But putting feelings into words is how we begin to name what’s happening inside us, and that naming can start to change the experience itself. Sometimes, as research shows, the words we choose to describe our lives can shape our mental health for months and years to come.
As a psychologist who has spent the better part of two decades studying stress and resilience in my Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, I explore how verbalizing our feelings can transform experience. It can help us manage heated moments and also supports healing from life’s hardest situations.
Research published over the past 40 years on expressive disclosure—literally, using your words—shows it can lead to significant health improvements, especially for those coping with stressful life events. After writing about a challenging situation, people report fewer doctor visits, reduced pain, stronger immune function, and better outcomes for conditions such as asthma and arthritis.
There are some rules of thumb we’ve learned from these studies with adults.
First, writing about a difficult life event three or four times in close succession (such as on consecutive days) tends to be more effective than spreading the sessions out. Second, the sweet spot for the duration of each writing session seems to be at least 15 minutes; shorter sessions can even backfire, making health worse. Third, for those who don’t like to write, talking through one’s feelings works just as well. In fact, when one study directly compared talking and writing, talking came out ahead because people can express more in 15 minutes when speaking than when writing.
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It’s interesting that we have nothing from Shiv Dayal Singh or Jaimal Singh about the need to meditate 10% of the day. There’s no mention in Sar Bachan or Spiritual Letters of a daily time quota for meditation.
Jaimal stated that time wasn’t a factor, as he wrote that even a few minutes of bhajan is as good as hours.
It was Sawan Singh who instituted the 10%, 2.5 hours a day rule. He even made it part of the initiation pledge, which Charan continued.
From that change, Sawan fundamentally altered RSSB Sant Mat from a joyful yoga method of liberation to a more drudge-like endeavor. Read Spiritual Letters and compare it with Sawan and Charan’s books, perhaps you’ll see what I mean. Also note that the Sikh gurus never had any 10% of the day for meditation. Nor did Kabir. 10% bhajan a day isn’t Sikh, it’s Sawan.
RSSB might better be called RSSD. Radha Soami Satsang Drudge. As Sawan and Charan put it, our job is to meditate to drudge through millions of years of karmic evolution to someday achieve freedom. These gurus say 2.5 hours is the minimum to get there.
Know, actually know, anyone who got to Sach Khand? I don’t. But Sawan assures us that if we don’t get there in this life, the Master takes us through subtle planes after we die. Then again, Sawan also says that if we don’t get there and have even one carnal thought, we might be reborn as a zoo animal.
Drudgery on a path of uncertainty, great holy rewards or great karmic peril, liberation imminent or eons away. But keep staring into the darkness, there is no other way. So they tell us.
This all points to a fundamental problem with gnostic paths like Sant Mat. For all their promise of high heavens and enlightenment, the follower is forever struggling. Everything the Path promises is always just out of reach.
This is why some people leave Eastern Paths for Christianity. Like this former kundalini yoga teacher:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzt9n13AfHs
We may reject Mr. Shreve’s born-again choice, but I think he makes a very strong point about the false promises of Indian gnostic mysticism. He found that no matter how many hours he put into meditation, he’d gotten nowhere.
What we forget during sant mat style meditation is that 2.5 Hrs daily meditation is too obligatory even before initiate starts his/her Journey.
And this obstacle itself becomes hurdle more many people to start
its a sahaj way not Hath way. 2.5Hr rule take it away from sahaj way.
These are all duality arguments. From a different perspective they are not opposed at all.
Learning to calm down emotions, quiet thinking down so that you see more clearly and feel more deeply what is happening around you, within those around you, and even yourself, is not opposed to thinking or even emotions. It is in fact aligning these things in a more balanced way.
Where people defend too much thinking and too much emotions that is often a form of denial of what else is really going on within and around you.
Two and a half hours a day of meditation minimum. It’s a goal. Maharaji was asked once if a person should feel bad if they don’t get their 2 1/2 hours in. He said it’s not like that. It’s s goal you work towards because you yourself begin to want this. Then if you miss it you feel bad as if you didn’t get a great meal you were hungry for. And once having tasted then, then we long for it.
You don’t miss meeting that number. You miss the state of bliss from that invested time in something pure and wonderful.
Brian, if you didn’t get value from that time it is understandable you would question it.
But for those of us who do, then we hate the loss of that happiness.when we don’t put in our time. So that drives more time. Maybe not at a single sitting. Maybe throughout the day, until it is a continuous living meditation, a personal relationship with the divine.
How long does it take to put aside the world and live in the sea of light and love with your Master beyond the sky, beyond the stars? Who can calculate that?
Jaimal Singh had a great standard. He said, “Don’t get up from meditation until you have tasted the nectar.”
So, Brian, let that be your standard. And if you are not tasting that nectar, then that is the sign that you have not yet conquered the intrusion of the world and your own psychology, and you need to stay put a little longer focusing on the divine.
What else do you want to focus on?
That’s how you help build an atmosphere for progress and happiness, not by giving up, but by accepting our distracted condition, and submitting. And in submission, learning the joy of complete surrender.
2 and 1/2 hours a day away from all troubles? It’s a bargain.
hAHAHA Spence … you are right with one eye closed
Some of the near and dear one’s love sports, they cannot have enough of training etc for events like marathons, to others do not even use the word “running” …hahaha
The ones who find their joy in it are indeed fortunate. And the others may find joy in something else. When I was a runner and a swimmer I loved it. There was happiness there.
Now I have a better idea of where happiness comes from. A living understanding. It comes from Life. Life exists, and we can all have a personal relationship to Life. But we rarely spend time developing that relationship. Hence the necessity of a teacher and spiritual meditation.
Otherwise we have no idea even where to look. We are students wandering in search of a class. And when we discover we are all in class already, then we know immediately we must find our Teacher.
“Life is like a foreign language.
Everyone mispronounces it.”
Robert Morley
My Vote is to honor, and stick to the Tithe. I agree with Spence, and disagree with the others, after 38 years of Meditation practice. But I only did the Tithe in one single sitting, my first 7 years. Since then, I’ve broken it up to fit my schedules. Now, I break it up in to early morning and late afternoon.
Sawan Singh didn’t invent the Tithe.
THE BIBLICAL TITHE
There are 24 hours in each day. So 24 hours divided by 10 = 2.4 hours , which is the Tithe of our time, is 2.4 hours of Meditation per day seeking God in your body on loan…His Temple, asking Him to open His Windows of Heaven. Jesus taught his disciples to seek the Kingdom within.
So here is the Biblical challenge of tithing , if we want God to open our Windows of Heaven,…INSIDE,….not out side, where all the physical world of insanity of sickness, wars, etc. rage on.
Our challenge is given in Malachi 3:8,9, 10:
‘Will a man rob God? Yet, you have robbed me, in tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse; for you have robbed me, even the whole nation. Bring all the tithes in to the Store House, that there might be food in my house, and prove me now, here with, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Like Brian, I have tried most of the other meditation techniques, but always return to how Sawan taught it, Yogananda’s Breathing Hung Saw technique did nothing for me, other than give me head aches and make me dizzy.
I don’t see why we view 2 and a half hours of meditation as drudgery. Rather, it is simply time to be in our own being and explore our own consciousness. It is in that way a great privelege…. We don’t think it is drudgery to watch tv for 2.5 hours or read a book for 2.5 hours….
It is strange that spending time in one’s own being is viewed this way.
I see it quite differently. What a joy to be able to sit still and be in one’s self without distraction.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Blaise Pascal.
What is there to complain about when being able to meditate 2 plus hours is really just being within one’s own self.
Nam , true Nam is only repeated once
Susman: “It was almost like I expected a shiny badge for my efforts,” recalls Susman. Instead, the monk simply smiled brightly. “Three hours?” he asked Susman. “How about three breaths? That’s all you need to tune in to the present moment.”
As with Susman’s ‘shiny badge for my efforts’, for many, meditation and the hours put in does seem to serve as a ‘badge’. The promise or expectation of some sort of reward is initially a strong pull, not only to meditate but also to latch on to one of the numerous organisations that offer anything from union with a sky God to bliss, permanent happiness, and so on.
Basically, meditation, instead of quietly providing insights into the nature of self and perhaps, for others, health benefits, has become a hoped-for supernatural reward system. Unfortunately, such aspirations can become addictive. Even when some clarity filters through, years of psychological commitment renders one afraid to break free of their particular group, teacher and teachings.
Susman’s more awake monk, seeing that he (Susman) was hoping for a reward, points out that: “How about three breaths? That’s all you need to tune in to the present moment.” And once one has got over the psychological need to be safe, secure and rewarded, all that ever remains is the present moment. But sadly, for many, that is not enough, or too real, or perhaps not even consciously seen, so they stay on the merry-go-round of hopes and expectations.
Taking on some guru’s teachings can be a way of avoiding the realities of each present moment – as Saltzman points out: “You may not like this moment of awareness, but likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it.”
@Ron E.
It is my understanding that all meditation practices that demand , a mentality, effort etc with the adition of “to the complete exclusion of everything else” …as there is to be found in many other human activities, to be labeled as “climbing of the Mnt. Everest, although offering all sorts of co-lateral mental and physical gains, are …to use the words of kodo sawaki ..”good for NO=thing”
Nothing beside reaching its set goal.
If one reads the teachings of the Indian mystics, from before the era of Kabir, one finds no-where swaid by any of the numerous mystics and schools that these practices are developed to make life here better in any way
Sachkhand means Realm of Truth
Live in Truth here and NOW
One is always in Meditation
24HRS
Question is are you brutally honest with your self?
The answer is to be found in analysing personal motives; analyzing without referring to anything or anybody outside.
BEFORE … before we do anything, WE are there … and THERE inside ourselves, in our own house are the answers to be found …reasons why the great human thinkers stated ..KNOW THY SELF.
The roots of plants are in the soil, and grew from seeds in the darkness .. like motives.
Everything relate to sant mat should started with questions
WHY am I …. xxxx
All our actions starts INSIDE US for our reasons that motivate us set us into motion.