What are the different lineages of meditation that you teach?

So what type of meditation is this? 

I get asked this question a lot when people are interested in my Addicted To Being Mediation Course, and it’s a good question! Meditation is an overused word in English and it can mean a lot of things, so it gets even more confusing!

So let’s break this question down:

Meditation is a way to come into self realisation through connection with the unified field that connects us all. The deepest meditation point samadhi is when ‘you’ no longer exist as a ‘you’. Bringing that into “waking” life is done through “Sakshi” Consciousness and Sumiran where your meditation doesn’t finish when your eyes open and you get off your meditation cushion, but continues throughout the day. 

1. Meditation  

2. Sakshi  

3. Samadhi 

4. Sumiran 

Almost all cultures and traditions had ways to enter these states.

In the past, people would work with a Meditation Master or Guru in a specific tradition and lineage. Generally what happens though is after the Master that started that tradition leaves the body; the teachings are not so ‘alive’ anymore. Things can be confused easily, misunderstood, translated and can seem outdated with modern life. 

In most spiritual traditions it’s believed that having a Master who is alive, a direct conduit to exist is important. In english we might have a lot of bad connotations with words like Master or Guru as there are so many teachers claiming these titles, but it’s better to think of an enlightened being, or person who can you can see and feel when you look at them that they have had direct experiences of spiritual truths and can be a guide for you to do the same. 

In some situations students of meditation would train with different Masters, and perhaps even become Masters themselves over time. 

The Masters would ‘download’ new techniques and often share with their disciples the various techniques they’d learnt through their own journeys. This is the situation of my Master Sadguru Osho Siddharth Aulia in India. He describes himself as a “spiritual scientist” and has been a disciple of many lineages, including Guru Nanak Devji, Osho and Sufi Baba Shah Qalandar, and in his school he teaches a variety of techniques. There is no control element, but so much respect and gratitude towards him.

This mixing of techniques, and additional ‘spiritual downloads’ to enhance techniques is very common and so there are very few untouched lineages. There is also the fact that many of the basic teachings are truths you find everywhere, and so you could say there is much overlap. 

Anything that is not one tradition and updated with modern wisdom is considered "Post Lineage" a term outlined by Dr Theodore Wildcroft.

In Addicted To Being I share a range of techniques with you that could be ‘pigeon holed’ into Non Dual Tantra, Vipassana, Sufi, Tao, and Osho meditation techniques.

The idea being that we each resonate with different techniques. We each will find our own path, but we are all going to the same ‘mountain top’ and have the same view at the end.

So it’s NEVER a question of what is better than another. There is no one magic technique but there are certainly tips, tricks, and little details when using these techniques to reach the meditation bandwidth that make all the difference. 

Belinda Matwali