Adam Torres and Michael Miller discuss Vedic Meditation.
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Show Notes:
How can Vedic Meditation help entrepreneurs and executives build the mental, emotional and physical resilience needed to navigate challenges and setbacks? In this episode, Adam Torres and Michael Miller, Vedic Meditation expert, Co-founder of New York Meditation Center, and London Meditation Centre, explore Vedic Meditation and Michael’s journey.
About Michael Miller
Michael began using Vedic Meditation as a tool to deal with a fast-paced LA lifestyle. It was a life-changing decision. Alongside some benefits like better sleep, more creativity, and sharper focus, he was also happier. So much so, Michael decided to become a meditation teacher myself. In 2008, His partner Jillian Lavender and Michael opened meditation centers in London and New York City to bring the transformative benefits of Vedic Meditation to as many people as possible.
They teach students, parents, business people, performing artists — professionals and high performers of every type. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do, Vedic Meditation works and delivers benefits for everyone. Anyone can learn this simple and profound technique to become more confident, productive, healthier, and happier.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Michael Miller, and he is a Vedic meditation expert, co founder of New York and London Meditation Centers.
Michael, welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam. It’s great to be here. All right, Michael. So I’m not even going to lie. I could use some more meditation in my life. Like it’s one of those things high stress, high, maybe fun, high anxiety, but being in media and doing what I do. I mean, it’s just a lot of traveling, a lot of things going on.
So when I saw that you were going to be on this show, I’m like, Oh, come on. I feel like you’re going to have some tools today for the audience. I feel like you’re going to, obviously Vedic meditation as well. But just to get us kicked off here, Michael, maybe just start with letting us know maybe how you got on that path to getting and becoming a meditation expert.
Sure. It’s, it’s great. And I think my path is not unlike what many people experience. Although I, I encountered meditation a long time ago when I was at university, I had a professor who was. You know, a bit of an old hippie. He meditated a lot in the 70s and he kind of gave us the opportunity without really explaining or instructing us just said, you know, maybe stare at something help control your mind.
And I sat down and I pulled out, I had a tennis ball in my bag, pulled out this tennis ball, and I stared furiously at that ball for what felt like the longest 10 minutes of my college career. My mind was all over the place. Something happened. There was a little quietening down that occurred and I thought, well, that was interesting.
Whoa. What’s going on and how do I get more? And so I went on a search and I did different stuff, different types of meditations. Okay, so first off, at college at that time, when somebody says, what’s happening and where can I get more, it usually means something different. Well, let’s start and then we’re not going to keep going down that line.
But yeah, I couldn’t let you drop that one. How do I get some more of that? Go ahead, Michael. Sorry. We, we all misbehaved in our youth. So, you know, I did meditation and I did yoga and I did martial arts and all interesting stuff. None of which really clicked or stuck with me long term. I, you can hear I’m American, I live in London now, but I grew up in the Midwest.
I moved to Seattle for graduate school. I started a business career. The whole meditation thing kind of fell away at some point. And then I was, I was living in Los Angeles, you know, I was doing a corporate publishing role. And it was full on, you 50, 60 hour weeks, going out at night all the time. burning the candle at every end, I could feel that it was unsustainable.
It was clearly not going to be, I wasn’t going to be able to maintain that pace in the way that I was and feel the way that I wanted to. And so my antenna were up, I was looking for something. And a friend of mine learned this technique that we call Vedic meditation. And I saw such a change She got very calm and very clear.
She had been a little Hyper happy and that happiness just settled into something that was really stable and nice. And then actually, she quit her job that she had been talking about quitting for 2 years. Wow, this really clear and it was a non dramatic decision. Yeah,
wow. Go ahead. It’s what she just said, you know, I bumped into her and she said, oh, by the way, quit my job. It was really clear and really cogent and And she attributed that to meditation and I thought something is happening. I should find out more. So the next time her teacher was in town, I went along to a talk that he offered and I loved it.
Yeah. He talked about the science and it was really important for me. There’s a lot of Ooby Gooby stuff out there, which, you know, is all interesting, but this technique has a lot of science behind it. The fact that there was this big body of evidence in support of the benefits that that meant a lot. He talked about meditation being easy and effortless.
I don’t know how much you’ve tried meditation, but almost no one says that was easy. Yeah. Meditation so often feels like really. Hard work. And so this idea that it could be enjoyable or pleasurable that had me quite fascinated. And also, you know, the, the teacher himself seemed normal. And that was a big deal for me.
You know, I wasn’t looking for something wacky and far out, you know, I was a corporate guy. And so I jumped in and right away, it was different. It was different than what I had done before. First, I was meditating. You know, from the 1st day of class, I was meditating 20 minutes twice a day and when I heard that in the talk.
my immediate thought was no, no way that no way am I going to be able to carve out 40 minutes in my day and I did and it’s because I was sleeping better and I was waking up before my alarm. Wow. I was thinking more clearly. So I was doing the right things. I was getting more done. I was more efficient in my, in my work.
My action and and it felt good to do it. I looked forward to it and things we look forward to, you know, I don’t have to be disciplined about eating dark chocolate. Yeah, I want to do it. I figure out how to make it happen. And like that, I was looking forward to meditating because it felt good when I did it and I noticed a difference after.
So I got on with it. I was meditating. I did that for about a year and then I started my teacher training. That was about two and a half years more culminated to three and three months full time in residence training. Some of that was in India , I want to pause you on the training yet. I want to go stay in the beginning a little bit longer.
So what made this different than other types of meditation? Like, can you be a little bit more specific? Like, what was that thing that you’re like, you said it’s easy. Like, can you give me some examples? Like what that makes it different? Yeah, the way it works is different. So other types of meditation would be like a concentration style.
This is what people think about maybe the most stared a candle flame. Okay. Just close your, close your eyes and grit your teeth and try to not think. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. That’s another thought trying to stop the mind from thinking by using thought. You’re in a catch 22 from, from the beginning.
It’s hard, hard work. Mindfulness that we hear so much about also involves a little concentration, you know, come to the present moment and keep yourself there. Do the dishes. And just do the dishes, right? Focus on the dishes. Just do the dishes. Don’t think about the email you got from your CEO. Don’t plot how you’re going to respond to her tomorrow.
Just do the dishes. Do the dishes. And, you know, if the present moment is filled with stress or anxiety or fatigue, it can be uncomfortable to get into that moment and maybe not very pleasant to remain there. So in Vedic meditation, we do something different. Meditate. Meditate. We use the nature of the mind.
So the nature of your mind is to move towards what is interesting. Your mind is looking for what is charming. Your mind is, is moving towards perceived happiness. And what we do in Vedic meditation is you learn a little sound, a mantra that is chosen and personalized for you by the teacher. It’s a little meaningless sound, very simple, very melodic.
You think that silently inside the mind. So you’re sitting comfortably, you’re not cross legged, you’re not doing anything goofy. You just sit in a chair, you lean back, you close your eyes. You start thinking this little sound it naturally gets more quiet as you repeat it and it’s fascinating to your mind.
So your mind moves toward it. Your mind’s moving toward the mantra. The mantra is getting more quiet, more subtle mind and very subtle thinking. And then the mantra disappears. And for a moment, you’re dropped into this state. No mantra. No thought your awareness you without thinking serene inner contentedness, and this is a natural state and it is your ground state.
It is your source. Yeah, that’s where your intelligence comes from and your organizing power and your creativity and your happiness all sourced there. So you naturally touch that place. When you come out. You’re infused with those qualities, so you come out feeling emotionally balanced and intellectually engaged and kind of psychically charged, ready, ready to take on what is next.
So it’s easy when you do it because we’re working with the mind and what happens in the mind happens in the body. So your mind settles down like this, your body rests. Studies show five times more deeply than sleep during a meditation. So. You know, the kind of guy you are if you only sleep three hours, you know, if last night you slept three hours today would not be very fun.
You wouldn’t be thinking clearly. You wouldn’t be acting. Well, you wouldn’t be a very nice person to be around. Maybe if you got a beautiful hours of sleep. everything is different. The way you engage, the way you think, what it is that you get done. Now you start layering in 20 minutes twice a day, very deep rest.
You pay off the fatigue debt, fatigue debt that most people are carrying. You know, that, that heaviness that’s in the background that if you slow down at all, you just feel exhausted. That starts to lift. You start to build up a surfeit of a bank balance of, Energy and adaptability that you take into your life.
So, a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this thinking about time and otherwise, like obviously precious resource for everybody what kind of strategies, like talk to me about some strategies that you recommend when it comes to integrating a Vedic meditation practice into your, into a schedule, like what does that look like?
Well, I think most people panic a little bit and think, my God, 20 minutes twice a day. But what you find, you know, what I found is within two weeks, I was sleeping an hour less than I had been prior, waking up before my alarm, getting through the afternoon without a triple chocolate muffin. You know, it was a huge, a huge difference.
So having invested 40 minutes, I earned myself 60 and that was a good return right off, right off the bat. We’d like to meditate before breakfast. You know, when you get up in the morning, do it first thing before you start looking at your phone before you start responding to emails before the day gets rolling, because if the day gets rolling, it’s going to get away.
So, I get up early, I’m a 5am guy, I get up, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, I do a little bit of stretching, and then I sit down and meditate first thing, and it’s done and out of the way, and having gotten that very deep rest as a result of meditation, I come out feeling good, I’m ready to go into my day, I make a nice cup of coffee, I start doing my work, it, it kind of slingshots me into action.
Then, what we like to do, and again, this is strategy, before dinner, because the thing that people think is, oh, I’ll meditate before bed, and one of two things happens. You get tired before bed, or yeah. You’re too tired, you’re too tired, and all you do is clonk out, you fall asleep, or it’s too late, and I think, oh, I just won’t do it.
You start missing it. If you do it before dinner, think of it like topping up your, your gas tank. That’s a great, that’s a great way to think of it. But beginning of a road trip, fill the tank. Then I, I like to drive about halfway, maybe even a little further. And then I fill my tank again. So I’ve got a nice full tank as I finish up the trip.
So you meditate in the morning, that takes you through the activity of the day. Then you meditate late afternoon, early evening. You top up again before you go into your personal, and your social, and your family life, or evening business commitments. You get that little bump that lifts you and takes you through.
And then when it’s time for bed, you’re not trying to squeeze yet another thing in. Yeah. And having meditated at, say, 5 o’clock, you rebalanced your system and you cleared out the stress chemistry that got created during your workday. You’re actually in a more settled state. Rest begets rest. You get that rest early evening by the time it’s time to go to bed.
You’re actually in a good state. That’s amazing. Michael, can I just jump in and say, there’s a lot of flexibility within that. It doesn’t have to be exactly 6 AM and exactly 6 PM, of course, the same chair wrapped in the same Pashmina, you know, this is super flexible. We have people who do it. On the train, you can do it when you’re flying.
I mean, you’ll love this when you learn because jet lag is a thing of the past. It’s really quite stunning. You can do it sitting in the back of a Uber. You can do it in your office. You could be in a cafe. It’s not location dependent and that flexibility and adaptability that makes a huge difference.
That is a big deal. And one of the things I do want to bring, well, with some of the time we have left here, because I know we’re we’ve definitely talked a bit about it, and I know there’s so much more to go into. You’re a podcast host as well, so I, I can’t, I want my, I definitely want my audience to, to go and check it out.
So it’s speaking of meditation, yes? Correct. Speaking of meditation, it’s really Interesting conversations with, with fascinating people who are out there and they’re meditating and, you know, story about how they came to it. And that’s always an interesting thing. Some, you know, some people’s lives were really in challenging places when they came and learned other people, you know, just get this idea.
Oh, this seems like a fascinating thing, or some friend learns and says, you should do it. But then I think most importantly, what they see as a result of doing it, you know, I’m, I’m yet to teach the person who says, Well, my life is perfect. But I have 40 minutes that I don’t know what to do with in my day.
So I’m going to learn to meditate, you know, nobody, everybody, everybody learns because they want to see something happen. They want to see a return in the other 23 hours of the day. And I, that’s what I love about those conversations is I get to go really deep with people about how meditation is affecting their, their lives.
It’s better. And they’re, they’re affecting the people around them. Can you give a story, like either, I don’t know, from either your practice or even from the podcast? I don’t know, just just to give us a feel for the content. I always like to, I won’t, I won’t ask the question that way I normally ask it.
Normally what I tell a podcaster is I’m like, So choose between all your kids, which is the favorite? What’s your favorite episode? But I won’t do that to you. That’s painful. That is, that is tough. It’s so mean to choose. Do that. But when I really want, when I really wanted somebody, that’s what I tell them, choose between your kids.
If you only got one episode, which one is it? Which one do you save? So what did they come up for you? I’m thinking of one because I just saw this woman recently. And it’s, it’s really an interesting story because she, she learned when she was very young, 13. Her family was meditating. Her mom had learned and then her dad had learned and, and, and, and she, Was witnessing the difference in them, you know, she said her her mom would get home from a big crazy day at work and sit Down and meditate.
It was just like a reset Oh out of that. So what a great habit to pick up from your parents I know it’s amazing and and everybody hears this and they’re like, oh god If only I’d started when I was 11 or 13 or whatever it was So she did like a kid’s course, and then she came back when she was 17 and in the, in the UK, they’re around that age.
They’re doing really intense tests. They call the a levels in order to get into university. And when she started her a level studies, she thought I need to be really doing this for real. She was, she was away at boarding school, came and learned. And was on it, you know, as a 17 year old at boarding school on her own meditating every day.
And then, you know, she went to Cambridge and graduated. Now she works in communications in, in London. And she said, this is very interesting. She said, I don’t know what life would be like without meditation. Oh, because it’s always been Around in my family and in my life, but what I witness in myself, you know, it’s not like it was all easy.
She studied hard and it was tough along the way, but she said, I feel like my journey has been a little different, a little smoother than what I witnessed in my friends. And now in her mid late twenties, her friends are coming to her and saying, you know, you know, that thing you do, like, can you tell me how to do it?
That’s pretty cool. Cause she has this sphere of influence too, like for her friends and helping them. That’s awesome. You know, I call it a branch of the tree and you know, there is a big branch that is Lily. I think she might be the second episode. And in the first season, and she’s just a lovely, lovely person.
I spent a little time with her recently and, you know, she’s on it and the people around her are on it and inspired by her. Oh, man, this is great. Well, Michael, man, this has been a lot of fun having you on today. Now I wanna, I know you have a multiple centers here. You have a center in New York.
You have a center in London. How do people follow up? How do they connect? What’s the best way? Well, listen, I want to pitch my partner’s book, which is called why meditate, because it works. Why meditate? Because it works by Jillian Lavender. Your internet retailer will deliver it to you tomorrow. And it is great because.
It goes in depth to the science and the effect on consciousness and relationships and why somebody who is living a busy, demanding, noisy life and, and would want to do this. So I really recommend that. Do listen to the podcast, speaking of meditation, and then you can find us on the web. If you search London meditation center or New York meditation center, Those pop right up.
We have a lot of people come in from all over the world to learn. You’ve got to learn this in person. Yeah. To learn Vedic meditation properly. It’s got to be an one to one molecule to molecule experience. You do that and you can learn in a small group of people and, you know, people will come in. We travel all around the world.
We taught in Copenhagen recently and in Los Angeles. Actually, that’s a different story for another time, but I taught in Antarctica a couple of years ago. Whoa. Fantastic. This is something that you can find. Look at London meditation center in New York meditation center. You can find us on Instagram, reach out and we will figure out how to get you going.
We’ve got colleagues all around the world. Fantastic. And one more time, the name of that book. I got, got I love to support authors. Give me that book again. Why meditate? Because it works. And the author is Jillian Lavender. Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put links to the website and all that good stuff in the show notes so that you can just click on them and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, Be sure to hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Michael, man, I, I think you’re giving me an excuse to go out to London, man. I got to figure it out, but we would love it. It will be great. And it’s going to make a huge difference for you and you can report back to your listeners.