The Crucial Missing Key to Meditation (Ep.1)

So if we were to travel back in time and ask the Buddha, what is the crux? What's it all about? What is the very core of meditation? The Buddha summarizes all his teachings in one verse in Buddhist scriptures. It's the most important piece and it's absent from most meditation and spiritual teachings today.

Welcome to The Meditate More Podcast where it's all about helping you to meditate more consistently so you can reap all the incredible magical benefits that meditation can bring to your life today. And here is your host, Manny Mandala. 

Hey, I want to give you a warm welcome to the very first episode of The Meditate More Podcast. We have a power-packed show for you here today because what I'm about to share with you is something you probably haven't encountered before. I'm going to share with you the missing key to meditation. 

So I've been studying meditation and practicing meditation for just over 19 years and I realized there's one big puzzle piece missing from the way meditation is being taught and the way meditation is being practiced and talked about. And it's an important piece. In fact, it's the most important of all the pieces. I mean, a key principle that the Buddha himself considered to be the most important part. And I will prove that with Buddhist scripture later in this episode. And practically nobody talks about it anymore. But I've come across it and I'm about to share it with you. 

And it's not only the Buddha who said this is the most important piece of the practice. I found this missing key in the esoteric core teachings of all the ancient wisdom traditions, be it religions, be it mystery schools, and even occult traditions and orders. At the core of all of them, there is a principle that's considered to be the most important one. And that principle has been lost in modern spirituality and in modern meditation practice. So, let's bring it back. I'm going to share this missing key with you today. 

Second, I'm also going to tell you how meditation can help you. Because at the end of the day, I think the reason people get into meditation is that they just want to have a better life. And you've probably heard of the benefits meditation can bring you. Such as more happiness, more serenity, enjoying life more, experiencing more inner peace. Basically, more of the good stuff. 

But it's also less of the bad stuff. Meditation can reduce suffering. Pain affects you less. You feel less depression and anxiety. Meditation's been shown to improve your health, to improve immunity, to improve your sleep, and increase longevity. Meditation can help you to become wealthier because with a clear mind, you get better ideas. Meditation can boost your productivity. It can reduce stress. You'll have better relationships. You'll gain more empathy, more patience, even charisma, and your brain gets an upgrade. Creativity increases, focus and concentration sharpen. And of course there's spiritual growth. If you practice the right way, you can gain deep insights into the self and the nature of this reality. 

So these are bold promises, but based on my experience, I can assure you that they're absolutely true. And scientific studies prove the benefits of meditation as well for the mind, for the emotions, and for the body. So I now consider my meditation practice the most important thing I do each day. It's more important, more crucial to my daily routine than working out, than healthy eating, and biohacking. And I've built many positive habits over the years. I've been a personal growth freak since my teens and meditation beats all the other habits I've learned hands down. So I'll show you a concrete example of this later, and I'll show you how you can get concrete benefits in your life from your meditation practice. 

And third, I'm going to give you a simple meditation technique that you can use today. So, we're not here to discuss meditation just as an intellectual curiosity. We're going to get our hands dirty, which in this case means sitting on a pillow. And it doesn't matter where you are in your meditation practice because these teachings are timeless. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner like I was in 2005, or if you're already advanced, these are principles that are going to help you in ways you can't even imagine right now.

You know, one of the guys I learned from put it like this, he said if somebody asks you what is your meditation practice like and your response is anything other than, “Oh my gosh! I can't even put it into words,” you're still at the beginning stages. If your response is anything other than that, you haven't even really started practicing in earnest yet and seeing the results quite yet. 

Now if you're a beginner or if you're very busy, I'll teach you my POM technique, and that's how you can start with as little as just one minute per day and start seeing benefits almost immediately. You can meditate longer if you want, of course, but one minute a day is enough to start and to see the first benefits. And I'll show you how in today's episode. But if you're already advanced, awesome. You can use the POM technique to really strengthen your meditation practice. This is a way you can take your meditation practice deeper and meditate longer.

On top of that, I also created The Meditate More Challenge for you. This is for you if you've ever said, “I know I should meditate more, so why don't I do it?” This is for you if you've ever struggled to establish a consistent meditation habit, if you've ever felt frustrated that you can't make a meditation practice stick. I'll teach you The Meditate More Challenge in a series of daily concise emails, a personal meditation mini course delivered to your inbox. So you can go to meditatemorechallenge.com to check that out. 

I plan to sell this course in the future, but since this is a new podcast, a new project, I don't have the infrastructure for that set up yet. So for now, this course is completely free of charge and I'll teach you the whole challenge for free. And in return, I hope you'll give me feedback if you apply it. So make sure you go to meditatemorechallenge.com to check that out. 

So my name is Manny Mandala. And if you want to start or improve your meditation practice, you've come to the right place because what I'm about to share with you is something you probably haven't encountered before. And I struggle to put this in words. If you've ever had a psychedelic experience, or if you've ever participated in an ayahuasca ceremony, then you know what it's like to have an experience you can't quite describe with words. So that's my challenge. 

A couple of years ago, I had a life changing enlightenment experience. And words fail to describe it, but it's been absolutely profound and my perception of reality itself has shifted in a big way. And it's been ongoing since then and it's been deepening more over time and it's the coolest thing I've ever experienced. And that's why I want to share it. I want to share it because when I started meditating, I didn't even know if this was real, right?

You've heard about these mythical enlightenment experiences, enlightened masters, nirvana, satori, all these ideas floating around. But nobody seems to really be able to explain what they are and what they mean, or if they're even real. Because when I started meditating, I started like most people do—from zero.

And I got into it because I was in Singapore for six months on a teacher exchange. I was there to work as a piano teacher and one of my students told me about meditation and how it had improved his life and he recommended I give it a try. And what he said about it convinced me, so I took a lesson with his meditation teacher.

Now, his teacher was a genuine sannyasin. Sannyasin, that means a disciple of a meditation master. Meaning, she had dedicated her entire life to spiritual pursuits. She had even changed her name. She was all in, right? And we became close and so she gave me a peek behind the curtain. That means she told me things that most people aren't privy to when they just take a meditation class or just listen to material online.

She gave me some secret books. And I know that sounds hokey, but she really had some books that are not available for sale that you can't get anywhere. They're just given to the sannyasins, to the initiates. And so I got really interested in this topic and started studying more and practicing more. And as I meditated more, I started seeing improvements in my life. So I was like, okay, this is obviously the real deal.

And I'll just give you one example among many right now. One of the big benefits I got from meditating consistently was I gained complete control over my own emotions. I was actually able to step out of any negative emotion that I didn't want to feel like anger or fear or sadness. I could just decide, okay, I don't want to feel this. And I was able to step out of the emotion. Now, caveat here is that what we consider negative emotions are actually action signals. Our system is telling us something and these emotions have an important message. So it's important to get the message and not just mute the emotions. But you can take charge; these emotions, they don't have to rule you. They don't have to make your life experience miserable. 

By the same token, I was also able to choose any positive emotion I wanted to feel and feel that at will. So I could just decide to feel joy or happiness or very useful for getting work done: I could choose to feel motivation. I could even choose to feel confidence and I noticed that others picked up on it, too. So I was able to transfer positive emotions to other people. And if that sounds far out, I'm just getting warmed up, but that's when I knew I was onto something, right?

So that for me was proof that the kind of meditation I was practicing is the real deal. It's not just some mythical superstition from Asia or some New Age gimmick. This was real. I could see it in my life—some tangible, real, concrete results. And again, what I just described to you was only the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and all that started in the summer of 2005.
That's when I first sat down to meditate and I wasn't even sure if it's worth it, right? Because in the beginning—and if you've ever meditated, maybe you can identify with this in the beginning—it often seems like nothing's happening, right? You spend this time, you sit down, it takes discipline, it takes effort. But is there any point to even doing this? Because it feels like nothing's happening. 

And that's kind of like the gym. If you go to the gym once, twice, even for a week, you can look in the mirror afterwards and you won't really see much of a difference, you won't see much of an improvement. But I tried from time to time, I thought, ‘Hey, maybe there's something to this because there's a lot of people into this. Maybe it's worth it. Let me try. I have personal friends who told me it is worth it. So I'm going to give it some of my time.’

And then once I started seeing the first results, that's when I said, “Okay, I'm going to do this regularly.” And by 2008, I was doing 20 minutes a day. And that got me even more results and motivated me to increase to 40 minutes a day. And it was after meditating for four months for 40 minutes a day that I started to really gain control over my emotions like I described.
And in 2016, I decided to make spirituality, spiritual study and practice the sole focus of my life. I realized, like, this is it. There's nothing more profound that we could possibly be doing in this life than this pursuit, right? And I started meditating two hours a day. And, yeah, I've gone to India. I've done the 10 hours a day, although I don't think you have to meditate in India, but it was another life changing experience that I'll speak more about in other episodes. 

But yeah, suffice to say, just like the sannyasin, who initiated me, I decided I'm all in and I left the cities, I moved to nature and I became even more focused on the practice and on the study. I've lived in the jungles of Peru and Mexico to do shamanic ceremonies. I've lived on a farm in Brazil to study spiritism with a group of very experienced mediums. I lived in a cabin in the mountain for a while by a waterfall, just to focus on spiritual study and meditation practice. 

And in early 2023, something big happened and this is where I struggle to find the right words to describe it. Maybe the best way I could put it is that reality itself shifted. That's kind of the best way I can describe it and I got a glimpse of what the Hindus mean when they describe this reality as Maya, which means illusion. But that's not quite the right words either because words cannot describe this experience. So you have to experience this for yourself. And like I said, it's the most awesome thing I've ever experienced and that's why I want to share it. 

One of the reasons I started this podcast is to motivate you to get to that point. It's so worth it. I can't put it in words. So I started this podcast to motivate you to meditate more, and hence the name, The Meditate More Podcast. I want you to have this life-changing experience as well. What it's done, it has given me a first hand insight into the nature of this reality. So that's not something I learned from books or other podcasts or courses. This is something you have to experience for yourself. 

So if you are where I was back in 2005, if you want to get started with your meditation practice, or if you're looking to go deeper, you're in the right place because I'll share everything I've learned with you in this podcast, and I've been interested in success habits and health habits and personal growth since I was a teenager. And of all the techniques I've learned meditation, if done correctly, I will talk about what that means has been the best one has been the most impactful one. 

So let's get started with some practical how-to steps for meditation. And I'm going to just quickly explain the POM method that I mentioned before. So POM stands for Progressive Overload Meditation. You've probably heard of progressive overload. It's usually used in the context of the gym, bodybuilding, or fitness training. It just means that you slowly increase the weights you lift or the number of reps you do, or the intensity you work out with over time. 

So basically you start small and you gradually build up. So let's say every day you train a little harder than you did the day before, but it doesn't seem harder because your body adapts to the growing challenge and to the change. And that's how muscles grow. That's how they get bigger and stronger.

And I also recommend this approach to meditation. So don't just stick to 20 minutes a day or five minutes a day. That's the common advice out there: Just make meditation part of your daily practice and just every day do five minutes or every day do 20 minutes. Don't stagnate like that, but also don't push yourself too hard.

Don't jump straight into the deep end and start trying to meditate two hours a day when you haven't built up that muscle yet, right? I made that mistake. That doesn't work. You can do it, but you're not going to be able to make it stick, right? Try to push yourself little by little. And it's totally fine to start with five minutes a day. It's even fine to start with one minute a day, but get started, right? Just do whatever you're comfortable with today, and then increase that time by one minute tomorrow. 

Okay, so there's two ways of doing this. The first way is to use a timer, and you set it to five minutes, or to one minute, or whatever you feel comfortable with right now. And you meditate for that duration. You can make it 20 minutes, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then tomorrow, you do one minute more. 

Or a method that I think is better is you benchmark yourself. Instead of a timer, you use a stopwatch and you just sit and see for how long you feel comfortable to meditate. You just sit down and start the stopwatch, close your eyes and start meditating. I'll tell you how in a minute. And when you feel the itch to get up, when you start to get antsy, then check the stopwatch and see how long you were able to meditate for easily. So that'll be your benchmark. And then tomorrow you'll use a timer. Tomorrow you will use that amount of time that you did today, plus one minute. And so you gradually increase with progressive overload, just like people do in the gym. 

So that's my concept of POM. POM (Progressive Overload Meditation). And you can use any meditation technique you want for that. I will discuss what the best meditation techniques I've found are in future episodes, because I've tried dozens of different techniques over the years. But for now, just don't worry too much about that. Just start simple, close your eyes and focus on your breath. That's it. 

Breathe through the nose and focus on the breath going in and out of your nostrils. And whenever you notice that your mind is thinking about other things, bring it back to the breath. That's it. Keep it simple, stupid. KISS, right? You know that one. So again, sit down, close your eyes, focus on the breath, and when the mind wanders, bring it back to the breath, and that's it. 

Okay, so I'm keeping this very short and sweet and very simple today just to get you started. This is only Episode 1. Don't worry. We're going to take this a lot further very soon. But I want to move on. I want to get into the most important part of the podcast: The Dhamma Discourse. 

So let's talk about the Dhamma. The Dhamma is the core teachings of Buddhism. And I'm not a Buddhist. I don't subscribe to any institutionalized religions, but you know, meditation mostly reached the West through the Buddhist tradition or traditions rather. There is the original Buddhism, which is where the Vipassana retreats come from. That's called Theravadan Buddhism. Then you have the Mahayana Buddhism. That's where the concept of the Bodhisattva comes from. 

Obviously, you have Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet, Zen Buddhism in Japan, and we'll talk about this later. For now, just realize that the Dhamma is the core teachings of Buddhism. And other spiritual traditions have meditation practices as well. But in the West, we mainly got meditation from Buddhism. So many people are meditating these days. So I think the case could be made that it's worth having a look at where this came from, right?

Let's have a look at the origins of meditation. And at the start of the podcast, I told you there is a missing key to meditation that's been lost in our modern world and that's almost never discussed anymore. What could I possibly mean by that? Any guesses? All right, so let me set the stage first. Let's have a look at what's going on with the spiritual community and the meditation community in the West these days. Let's have a look at what the internet thinks are the most important topics related to meditation, right? What are the most important aspects of meditation according to the internet today?

And I researched the most common topics on meditation podcasts, meditation blogs, and youtube channels, and here's a quick list. This will be brief. It's a quick top 17 topics discussed today related to meditation: stress reduction, manifesting goals, mindfulness, sleep relaxation, self-acceptance, visualization, gratitude, breath work, goal setting, spiritual growth, body scanning, emotional healing, guided meditation. 

That's a big one. Guided meditations all over YouTube. They make a lot of money. So people want to do that one. Mantras. affirmations. Now, what do they all have in common? Think about it and I'll reveal the answer in a few minutes. But now let's have a look at what the Buddha actually said it's really all about.

Okay. And as I said, folks, I'm not a Buddhist, but we got meditation from Buddhism. So let's at least have a look at what the Buddha said is the most important aspect of meditation. And we'll look at other spiritual traditions as well. But let's start with Buddhism since that's where the West got meditation from.

Okay. So if we were to travel back in time and ask the Buddha, what is the crux? What's it all about if you had to boil it all down to the core, to the essence? What's the most important part of your teachings? What is the very core of meditation and spiritual practice? And we're in luck, we can find out, because the Buddha summarizes all his teachings in one verse in Buddhist scriptures. And that is the puzzle piece that I'm talking about. It's the most important piece and it's absent from most meditation and spiritual teachings today. 

If you want to follow along and get all scholarly and scientific you can find that in the Pali Canon. And in case you're not familiar, the Pali Canon is Buddhist scripture. It's the complete scripture of the original form of Buddhism, the Theravadan school of Buddhism and the verse I'm talking about specifically is in the Dhammapada. That's the core of these Buddhist scriptures. The core of the Pali Canon is the Dhammapada. You could almost say the Dhammapada Is like the buddhist version of the Gospels. And that's not a perfect analogy but the Dhammapada holds the core teachings of Buddhism just like the Gospels hold the core teachings of Christianity. 

So here it is, verse 183 of the Dhammapada. You ready? “Not to do any evil, to cultivate good, to purify one's mind.” This is the teaching of the Buddhas. So we could say these are the three tenets of Buddhism, the three most central teachings of the Buddha. So again, they are: purify the mind. Great, we're doing that. The West is meditating. And what else? Two are missing. Not to do any evil, to cultivate good. Why is nobody talking about the other two principles anymore? How did that one get lost, right? What could be more basic, fundamental and common sense? Or is it common sense?

And there are going to be two kinds of listeners out there. Some will be like, “Okay, you just told me the obvious. You just told me to tie my shoelaces.” But there are actually a lot of people who don't even agree with that. “Well, that's just the Buddha's opinion, right? That's just like your opinion, man. And who knows if the Buddha is even real.” 

Well, okay, this goes far beyond Buddhism folks. This is actually at the very core of every spiritual tradition ever. For example, the same two principles are found at the very core of Christianity. In Christianity, this is known as the Golden Rule. And again, for the scholarly, you can read along in Matthew 7:12 and in Luke 6:31 where it says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. For this is all the law and all the prophets.” This is all the law and all the prophets, meaning, this is it. This is what it's about. This is the crux and the core of all of Christianity's teachings. 

So when Jesus summarized the very core of his teachings, he said it's all about the Golden Rule. And when the Buddha summarized the very core of his teachings, he said it's all about doing good and not doing harm. That's the exact same principle. And it's at the core of the main religion of the West, which is Christianity, and the main religion of the East, which is Buddhism. 

But let's keep going, because this Golden Rule can also be found in Hinduism, where it says, “Never do to others that would pain you.” That can be found in the Panchatantra 3:104. It can be found in Zoroastrianism, where it says, “Do not to others what is not well for oneself.” And you can find that in the scripture Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29. You can find it in Jhanaism, where it says, “One who neglects existence disregards their own existence.” You can find that in the Mahavira. 

It's found in Confucianism, where it says, “Do not impose on others what you do not yourself desire.” And you can find that in Analects 12:2. It's found in Taoism. “Regard your neighbor's loss or gain as your own loss or gain.” You can find that in the Tai Shang Kan Ying Pien. I butchered the pronunciation, I'm sure, but that's the transliteration. You can find it in Baha'i, where it says, “Desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.” And you can find that in Baháʼu'lláh 66. 

It's found in Judaism, where it says, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” That's in Talmud, Shabbat 31a. You can find it in Islam. “Do unto all people as you would, they should do to you.” That's in Mishkat-al-Masabi. You can find it in Sikhism, where it says, “Treat others as you would be treated yourself.” And you can find that in the Adi Granth. And the list goes on. 

Okay, so when properly understood, you can even find these principles at the esoteric core of mystical traditions, such as Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Tarot, Alchemy, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Theosophy. Anthroposophy and even Thelema. So at the superficial level, this missing key has been lost from all of those traditions, too.

Okay, just like it's not being talked about in meditation, it's not much talked about in Freemasonry. It's not much talked about in many of these traditions. But it's at the core of all the spiritual traditions of the world. They all agree on the one thing that really matters, that morality is objective. And the simplest way to define it is the Golden Rule. Do good, don't do harm. And I don't stand alone with this perspective. 

One of the most respected theologists, students of religions and spirituality was Huston Smith. Huston Smith lectured and held a teaching position, teaching philosophy and religious studies at MIT and several other high profile universities. And he has a book that I recommend you check out. It's called The World's Religions. 

Now, when I first started studying spirituality about 20 years ago, that was one of my starting points. I said, “Okay, if I want to find out what's really going on with religion, with spirituality, I'm going to have to look at a broad picture. I'm going to have to look at all the religions. So I can see, what do they all say? Where do they agree? Where do they disagree? What's the overlap?” So I picked up Huston Smith's book, The World's Religions, and it was one of the first books I read about spirituality and about religion. 

And in this book, he discusses, I think, seven or eight of the biggest religions of the world today and their sub religions, right? Like when he talks about Christianity, he looks at Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity. And he came to the same conclusion. The Golden Rule is the crux of it all. Morality is objective and it can best be expressed as: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

In fact, he thought this quote was so important that he put it on the cover of his book. If you look up the book on Amazon, and there's a new version now that may be different, but the version I had, it says, "The World's Religions - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - Huston Smith". That's the cover of the book of one of the greatest religious scholars of the last century. 

So all spiritual traditions of the world agree on one thing that really matters: morality is objective. And the simplest way to define it is the Golden Rule. Do good, don't do harm. Now, I'll be honest, when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, I was agnostic and I even flirted with atheism for a while. And one reason was because I saw that every religion teaches something different, right? In one religion, God is a blue elephant. And in another religion, he's a man who was nailed to a cross. And in another religion, he's a warlord. 

And I believe that's one big reason why people give up the search for spiritual answers. They think, as I did, if there was an answer, it would be universal, right? It wouldn't be different in Asia and in Africa. And with every religion teaching something different, it seems like they just make it up as they go. But that's just the surface. That's just the outer shell. That's just the exoteric aspect of these religions.

All these religions have an esoteric aspect. A core teaching. A central message. And that is the same in all of them. The Golden Rule is: Treat others as you would like to be treated. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All religions, all wisdom traditions, all mystery schools, even occult orders teach it. They all state one simple fact: morality is objective. That's what spirituality is all about. That is the core of it. That is the crux. Don't cause harm, do good. It's a very simple spiritual principle. 

When I first got into meditation, I heard a Dhamma talk by Tenzin Palmo. Maybe you've heard of Tenzin Palmo. She was one of my greatest inspirations when I first got on the spiritual path. She actually spent 12 years in a cave meditating. And in 2005, when I first got into meditation, I heard a Dhamma talk by her, right? This is my Dhamma Discourse. She also gave a Dhamma Discourse. 

She talked about the Dhamma, the teachings of Buddhism, and the spiritual wisdom of Asia. And the way she put it was, as long as we seek happiness for ourselves, we will always reap disappointment. But when we seek happiness for others, we will find happiness for ourselves. That has stuck with me to this day. She called this lesson spiritual kindergarten. I think she was being generous. I think this is a spiritual toddler school. And humanity has lost it—literally lost it. 

Objective morality is not being talked about anymore. Not even in the context of meditation, spirituality, religion, all kinds of other distractions are being discussed, which is nothing wrong with these other aspects of these practices, right? Don't get me wrong, but we have to focus on the core and what it's really all about. And this objective morality has been around for eons as this is nothing new, right? 

You've heard there's nothing new under the sun. I'm not telling you anything new, but I'm going to tell you what names this principle has been known as. This objective morality is also known as Natural Law. It's known as Cosmic Law, as Moral Law, Universal Law, Spiritual Law. It's known as the Law of Cause and Effect. As you sow, so shall you reap. As the Law of Behavioral Consequence, as Consequentialism, and as Karma. That is the Dhamma, that is Natural Law. And that's what it's all about. 

You've heard that life is a test. Yes, indeed, this life is a test. And there is one question on the test. Are you ready? I'm going to give you a spoiler. The test will take place soon. When the test is given, you must be ready. But the good news is, there is only one question on the test. What's the difference between right and wrong? 

Now, just like in school, you cannot cheat on this test. You can't walk into the test with a book to look up the answers, not even a holy book. YOU have to know the answer to the one question that is on the test. What is the difference between right and wrong? Dhamma, Natural Law, Karma, Moral Law, Cosmic Law, Universal Law, Spiritual Law, Cause and Effect, Consequentialism, the Golden Rule. Got it? 

Okay. So now let's compare that to what the internet thinks is the most important aspect of meditation. I asked you, what do they all have in common? Did you figure it out? So here's the list again. The top 17 topics on meditation podcasts, blogs and YouTube channels today: Mindfulness, stress reduction, manifestation, sleep, relaxation, self acceptance, visualization, gratitude, breathwork, goal setting, spiritual growth, body scanning, emotional healing, guided meditations, mantras, affirmations.

What do they all have in common? They're all for oneself. They're all about what can I get out of my meditation? How can I relax? How can I achieve my goals? How can I accept myself? And even when taking the spiritual angle, the question is how can I get enlightened? How can I attain nirvana? How can I get out of samsara?

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. I call this ME-ditation. And you may have heard that the goal of meditation is to transcend the ego, to drop the ego, or even to destroy the ego. That's the ego. Everybody's meditating, all the while thinking, me, me, me, me, me, all day long. So the West has adopted meditation. Good, nothing wrong with that. I'm a fan, but we missed the point entirely. 

Now, I want to make one important distinction here. This is for you. Okay, this isn't moralizing or finger wagging or you should do this because the traditions say so. No, this is for you. This is how you get all the benefits you want out of your meditation and your spiritual practice. This is for us. This is how we get all the benefits we want out of our meditation and our spiritual practice, right? 

One big shift that happened for me as I walked along this spiritual journey was I started thinking a lot less me and a lot more we, right? We, not me. We, not me. We must follow all three tenets to get the benefits I mentioned in this episode, right? Purifying the mind is not enough to reap the rewards. This isn't a cafeteria pick and choose where you can say, “Oh, I'll take the selfish enlightenment just for me, please, with extra fries and a diet coke.” It doesn't work that way. 

Selfish enlightenment is a contradiction in terms. Enlightenment has also been described as an experience of oneness. So it's the realization that we're all one. So as I do good for others, I do good for the all, which helps me. And as I do harm to others, I do harm to the all, which also hurts me. This should be common sense, right? 

So the missing key is why people aren't getting enlightened. Meditation is everywhere. But who's enlightened? People are actually saying, like, this is something I hear a lot, “It's not possible to get enlightened in one lifetime.” Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But in no uncertain terms, you can never make true spiritual progress in a selfish mindset. 

If you engage in spiritual practice without objective morality, you will create a cage around yourself in the astral and you will be like a hamster in a wheel. There will be a lot of movement and zero real progress. This will keep you stuck and cut you off from all the things you really want. And you may even connect to all kinds of lights and entities, but it will all be astral spirituality. And if you don't know what that means, I'll explain more about that in future episodes, but for now, I'll just give you one more big clue.

Enlightenment is also known as liberation. And liberation is another word for freedom. Okay, so the goal of meditation is Enlightenment. Enlightenment is also known as liberation. And liberation is another word for freedom. What does that mean exactly? Freedom is at the core of spiritual practice? What does that mean? It's a riddle. Okay, chew on that one for a while. And if you think you know the answer, feel free to send me an email, manny@mannymandala.com. And I'll go more into this topic in future episodes. 

Okay. So in summation, at the very core meditation and the Dhamma are about objective morality. In fact, all religions, all spiritual, esoteric, mystic practices are all about objective morality. That's the very core of it all. Up is up, down is down, right is right, wrong is wrong. These principles are not subjective or relative, okay? Up is up and down is down is only a subjective statement if you are crooked. And the same is true for right is right and wrong is wrong. 

All right, I hope you enjoyed the first episode of The Meditate More Podcast. I had a lot of fun creating it. And if you are one of those people who say, “I know I should meditate more so why don't I do it?,” if you struggle to make your meditation practice stick, I used to have that problem, I don't anymore, and that's why I created The Meditate More Challenge. It will show you how I solve that problem and I want you to have that too.

Okay. You can get that for free. Just go to meditatemorechallenge.com and sign up for the challenge. You'll then get the first email. It's one concise email per day for seven days and each email has a power-packed lesson to take your meditation practice to the next level. I think you will love it. It's free for a limited time. If you listen later, it may not be free; at the time of recording it's still free. So check it out now at meditatemorechallenge.com. 

And if you've enjoyed this podcast, please tell others. Okay, the more you spread the word about The Meditate More Podcast and Manny Mandala, the more episodes I can make. I've been reviewing my notes from 20 years of spiritual study and meditation. And there's so much gold that I want to share with you. So if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast, because in the next episode, we'll discuss another very basic idea. 

Okay, this one is also missing from most spiritual teachings today. So you probably haven't seen it before, but it's so fundamental. I was debating if I should make it episode one. My current spiritual mentor starts his teachings with this concept. And it's all about the question: what is truth? So this question is very important, and it's worth chewing on a little until the next episode. I'll give you some questions to think about until next week.

Should it be "what is truth" or should it be "what is the truth"? Does it need a definitive article or not? Should we capitalize truth or not? Is there both a truth with a small t and a Truth with a capital T? Are they the same? Are they different? Does it matter? Are my truths the same as your truths? When I ask you, what is truth, do you know the answer? If I was to ask you, what is truth, what would your answer be? If you don't have an answer, that raises the question. Why do you not know what the truth is? Has someone hidden the truth, or does it not exist? If it doesn't exist, how can we ever know anything? If truth does not exist, then how can we know that it does not exist? If truth does exist, why do you not know it? Has someone hidden it? Is that a truth? Is it true that truth does not exist? Is that a contradiction? Is it even possible to make a true statement if truth itself does not exist? If truth does exist, how can you find it? Can you find truth by thinking about it? Can you find truth by researching it? Can you find truth by meditating on it? 

All right. I hope I just tied your mind into one big pretzel because that was the intention. It's kind of like in Zen Buddhism where they use their koans. Koans are riddles that are supposed to confuse the mind to the point where the mind gives up trying to figure it out rationally and you get to a state that lies beyond the mind, which is pure consciousness. So think about these questions and we'll talk about them next week in Episode 2 of The Meditate More Podcast. We'll also share tips for your practice. We'll discuss how meditation can improve your life. You won't want to miss this so subscribe. 

This podcast is going to talk about things that most people have never seen or heard before. I've been traveling the world for the past 23 years. First, I was a traveling musician and later a digital nomad. I've traveled and lived in almost 60 countries, and I only spend about one or two weeks per year in my home country to visit my family. So the truth is, few have lived a life like I have, and in my travels, I found spiritual teachings that 99.99% of people don't even know exist. And I'm going to share all of this with you. 

So this will be a podcast about meditation, yes. It will be a podcast about the Dhamma, about Enlightenment. It will give you practical tips for your meditation so you can make more progress and reap the benefits that meditation promises. This podcast will also explore how ancient wisdom can end your suffering, how ancient wisdom can bring you deep happiness and fulfillment. It can help you to find lasting happiness and a meaningful, fulfilling life. 

All right. But we will go further than this. We're going to explore other spiritual topics. For example, we'll talk about spiritism, about channeling, about séances. We'll talk about shamanism, psychedelics and ayahuasca. We'll talk about Christianity and Buddhism, and we'll talk about the occult. In the end, it's all about the true nature of the Self and the true nature of this reality. So I hope you'll enjoy it.

So go to meditatemorechallenge.com and sign up. You'll get a concise meditation lesson delivered to your email every day. You will get some of my best content free for a limited time. So go to meditatemorechallenge.com. So thanks so much for listening and very special thanks to Lex Van Someren and Mariano Roguin of Mantra Tonic, who were very gracious to provide some of their music for this podcast. Thank you for the music, guys. I really appreciate it. 

I'll see you on the next episode, so make sure to subscribe to the podcast now. And remember to meditate more, meditate more, meditate more, because it is so, so worth it.