In 1996 shortly after my 10th birthday I learnt Transcendental Meditation in Sydney. To be precise it was at the Manly Transcendental Meditation Centre which at that time was located at 68 Wood St just back from Little Manly.
Learning the technique
I am very lucky that my mother (Fran Fergusson) has been a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique since 1978 and so she was my instructor. I remember going into a candle lit room and shortly thereafter my Mum whispered me my mantra (a meaningless sound) which acts as a vehicle to take the mind naturally beyond thought to the transcendental field. She taught me how to think it effortlessly just like thinking any other thought and then left the room for me to practice for 10 minutes on my own.
Silence. Softness. Golden Light. Bliss. Lot’s of thoughts. Then, no thoughts. No-thing. Pure Transcendence. These are just few words that don’t do justice to the experience but shed some feeling of what it was like when I closed my eyes and begun my practice. It was very simple and because I learned at such a young age it has been an integral part of my life ever since. 
Fruits of practice
In High School I topped my grade every year for 6 years in a row. My friends used to ask what my secret was. I was too shy to tell them about my daily Transcendental Meditation practice but instead said it was because I was a vegetarian. LOL! Little did they know.
I put all my success in life down to my regular practice of TM. It’s my secret weapon that brings silence and peace to my busy work day or my dynamic exercise – surfing, rock climbing or skateboarding etc. Even if someone paid me $1 million bucks I wouldn’t stop my practice because that’s how valuable it is to me. I find that if I do happen to miss my evening meditation then I won’t sleep as well at night and I may be a little irritable with my friends. I am also a very spiritual person and I have grown so much in the subtler spiritual realms of life because of TM.
These days if you want to learn to Transcendental Meditation in Sydney there is a great new centre in the CBD located at 47 York Street. The TM teachers there are Beth Eager, David Wratt, Fran Fergusson and Dr. Tim Carr. They hold regular classes and group meditations which have become quite popular.
Why can’t I learn Transcendental Meditation from a book or CD?
This is a question I’ve seen come up quite often on the Internet. One naturally wonders, “why there aren’t any YouTube videos giving step by step instruction?” There are two obvious reasons that come to my mind. The first being that everyone gets a mantra which is ideal for them and so general YouTube tutorial won’t give the correct mantra.
Secondly, you need the one-to-one instruction to make sure that you’re doing it right, that you’re effortlessly thinking the mantra just like any other thought and not straining in any way. I recently started having singing lessons and realized that there would be no way to know if I’m correctly matching pitch without my teacher saying, “yes, you did it!” Similarly with Transcendental Meditation it is therefore essential to have a certified teacher to be able to check your meditation for it’s correct effortless practice.
If you have any questions you can contact the Transcendental Meditation Sydney Centre over on their website.
– Asher Fergusson
Asher Fergusson was born in Sydney, Australia during the 1980′s and grew up on the Northern Beaches. He loves surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, outdoors, star gazing, photography, travel, India, rock climbing, art, meditation, and yoga. Asher is currently working as a web developer. This article was first published in Asher’s blog, under the title “Transcendental Meditation Sydney – My Personal Experience”
