Chitra Ramaswamy: ‘I’ve always thought meditation is basically self-inflicted insomnia: forcing yourself to tune in to your inner hurricane bawbag’

Published on Tuesday 17 January 2012 00:00

MEDITATION. Does this word, with all its associations of stillness (shudder), journeys into your deepest self (scream) and David Lynch (help!), make you want to run for the hills?

Does the thought of sitting quietly in a room for ten minutes make you want to beat yourself about the head with an egg timer?

If the answer is yes, then you are a meditationphobe. That is someone who believes that hell isn’t other people, or even Michael Madsen on Celebrity Big Brother. No, it’s you. And meditation is a supersize portion of you, with a side order of crazy.

I’ve always thought that meditation is basically self-inflicted insomnia: forcing yourself to tune in to your inner Hurricane Bawbag, to the voice that resides at the back of your mind, sounds like Gollum and is usually to be found whispering, “Remember the time you fell over in the playground and everyone saw your Miss Piggy pants? Oh, and you’ve left the oven on.” You know the one I mean.

Not that I haven’t given meditation a shot. Most meditationphobes have. In fact, our main reason for loathing the practice is our inability to do it for more than two seconds. I couldn’t go a moment without a nasty thought popping in for a visit, like a Kardashian pitching up on Sunday night just as Sherlock is starting.

But a few days ago, I decided to give it another go. Why? Because it’s January, the month of pointless resolutions made off the back of articles you’ve sort-of read in a magazine (oops, sorry folks). This is how I discover mindfulness meditation, which doesn’t require emptying your mind but is instead about paying attention to it. It can apparently also help with pain, weight-loss, ADHD and meeting new people (seriously, there is such a thing as a meditation flash mob).

I’m sold. I drink a camomile tea, sit on the floor with my legs crossed, close my eyes, then need a pee. When I return, my phone is flashing. I listen to my voicemail, then end up checking my e-mails. So far, so stressful.

I’m going to be mindful for ten minutes, which in meditation time is the equivalent of ten hours. I close my eyes again and immediately start worrying about the clock. How will I know when ten minutes are up? Should I just wait until my teeth fall out and I get arthritis?

I fixate on everything to do with ten minutes: I write and repeat it ad nauseum, count my rapid eye movements in groups of ten, and eventually develop an irrational hatred of it. I observe mindfully that meditation appears to be giving me ADHD.

I open one eye and spy on my phone. It has been two minutes. Aha, a plan! I put my phone on to timer and set it to go off in ten minutes. I close my eyes again. Finally, some peace. Thoughts come and go like buses up Leith Walk. I listen to my breath, the water gurgling in the radiator, the television next door. My mind goes silent for whole, glorious seconds.

Then, a knock at the door. It’s Ma Ramaswamy. “I’m meditating,” I say softly, brimming with zen. Another knock. “I’M MEDITATING!” I scream. She scampers off.

Afterwards, I ask what she wanted. “To tell you to think about your eyes while you meditate,” replies Ma R, cryptically. I tell her she can’t interrupt my meditation to tell me what to think about while meditating. “Yes, I can,” she says. I open my mouth to go the next round, observe myself mindfully, and drift away instead.

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