Knowledge: 4 Techniques of Meditation
During my projects, people who are struggling always gravitate towards me. I remember struggling. Feeling like I didn't fit in. Oddly, even how to make friends. Especially, how to keep friends. I know I don't look like this. I look confident.
I am confident. I'm confident because of practising 4 techniques of meditation every single day since 1989. One hour each morning.
I'm telling you this because when people love my projects — which give them relief from the struggle while they are there — I know they will feel the struggle again when my project wears off.
Practising my 4 techniques of meditation ensures that doesn't happen to me. It is a full stop each morning. Everything that was promised me when I received the 4 techniques in 1981 has been given. So long story short, I'm expressing an interest in a Churchill Fellowship so I can propagate what has done wonders for me. And others can access it themselves.
Here are the 1st 2 Churchill questions and my answers.
Question 1
What change do you hope to make in the UK? Please tell us why you think a change is needed and what difference it could make, including who you think would benefit most. Please write 1500 characters or fewer.
Answer 1
Invited to speak at The Art of Assembly, I watch former Whitworth Art Gallery director Alistair Hudson deliver his presentation asking what system could replace capitalism. All systems are flawed. Maintaining them calls for monitoring. As history proves, monitoring can get out of hand. We need individuals to monitor themselves with contentment through inner peace.
At peace ambassador DR Prem Rawat's global one day events, before he takes the stage, I watch videos of incarcerated people in terrible prisons going through Prem’s Peace Education Program (PEP). Preparing to receive 4 techniques of meditation. Even though many will never be released, they are transformed by that inner peace.
Prem, ‘Be a lotus — your roots in the mud, your beauty untouched resting on the water.’ 1978, as a 18-year-old, to generate this feeling I become a follower. I do the 1970s version of PEP. 1981, Prem shows me the 4 techniques. I have meditated upon them every morning since 1989. 1978, I am an uneducated girl born in Moss Side Manchester. 2025, I am multi-award-winning playwright, performance and visual artist. My meditation anchors me in the mud. I AM a lotus flower. I don’t have to enact one.
Why wait till someone is in prison or having other difficulties because the mud is slippery and hard to stand up in? I want to make PEP available in beautiful art and museum buildings. With access to art inspiration, techniques, and supplies the participants use to express their transformation.
Question 2
Why are you the right person to carry out a Fellowship? We value all the different ways that knowledge is acquired, including from working, volunteering, studying or personal experience. Please tell us about the lived and/or learned experience which you think would make you an effective Churchill Fellow. Please write 1500 characters or fewer.
Answer 2
1976, I am 16. My boyfriend is killed by his other girlfriend on the doorstep of the flat we share. I go down the Reno, a cellar club in Moss Side, with my old gang. I meet Tom. Tom is looking for God. 1977. We meet Prem Rawat on a cassette in Manchester Town Hall. I can remember the relief I feel. We both attend Prem Rawat’s 1970s version of PEP in Manchester Ashrams. (Proof that systems don’t work.) 1978. Tom gets Knowledge — 4 techniques of meditation. I receive them in 1981. It is the first time me and my 18-month-old daughter feel comfortable with each other. Neither me nor Tom practise. We sell weed. Which gives us status in the Reno. We buy a semi with a black & white apex and an owl. My hair is blown every week. I shop in Altrincham boutiques — they know me by name. Tom becomes an alcoholic. 1989, Prem does a knowledge review in London. I attend. He walks between us checking if we are doing our techniques properly. I vow not to waste the experience. It’s hard, twitchy, to sit still for an hour each morning. I drive past Tom on the steps of a pub, looking identical to the other ‘gangsters’ in oiled jackets. I carry on driving — back to our old council house. I leave the semi, the dough, the clothes, cut my hair short. I practise for 5 minutes a day. Then 10. Until I master the hour. Tom spends the weed money. I relentlessly pursue becoming a writer. A year later Tom surfaces looking like hell. We practise knowledge together, peacefully, until 2001.
The Last 2 Questions
I'll post the remaining 2 Q & A here next week. When they feel as authentic as these answers.
Lead Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash