What to look for in a meditation teacher
Simply: someone,
you'd want to sit with.
Vedic Meditation is passed on person to person, nervous system to nervous system. Not from a book or an app, and not in a video call.
What you learn matters as much as how it is taught.
If you want to read more about why we emphasize teacher embodiment, I wrote a bit more about it (in a slightly different context).
Max Benjamin
I grew up in a small town in 1980s Germany and learned to meditate as a teenager. Drawn early on to the fundamental questions of life and existence, I went on to study Law, Cultural Sciences, and Physics in Berlin - and these days I'm a parent to a teenager myself. He's not a meditator these days, but that's alright.
My professional background is in relationship centred worked. I've worked with Google's SIY Leadership Institute and been a coach and mediator since my time in University. Over the years I specialized in guiding organizations and leaders through pivotal moments.
More importantly, I teach meditation for about 15 years, and today I practice and share Vedic Meditation in the Shankaracharya Tradition of Northern India. With over 3,000 hours of advanced training in the Himalayas under my teacher Thom Knoles, I bring a grounded depth of experience to this work.
Lineage
These are my teachers.
Shri 1008 Mahamandaleshwar Maharishi Vyasanand Giri Maharaj
This is Thom Knoles, my teacher, who taught me everything I know about Vedanta and Vedic Meditation, and by whose standard and example I share my knowledge. He is my North Star in practical and philosophical questions - a storyteller and teacher like no other.
His podcast, The Vedic Worldview, is worth a listen.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
My teacher's teacher, under whom he learned for 25 years. Maharishi is known as the founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement and teacher of public figures including the Beatles and David Lynch - the one who first brought this style of meditation west.
I teach exactly what Maharishi taught, but as an independent teacher, in no way affiliated with the Transcendental Meditation organization he founded and left behind.
Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati
We mostly call him Guru Deva - a Shining Teacher. He lived alone in the forest for most of his life, until accepting election as Shankaracharya of Jyothir Math in his seventies, holding this highest spiritual position in Northern India for thirteen years. During those years, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was his disciple and student.
On lineage and appropriation
A word about tradition.
These days, there are quite a few opinions circulating around the touching points of religious or spiritual traditions and western lifestyle. Meditation as neoliberal self-improvement, Westerners appropriating Eastern or tribal culture, older cis-men promoting their worldview, and so on. Because many of these analyses are truthful in their own right, we handle with great care the traditions and customs around the body of knowledge we draw from.
Our approach is one of cultural appreciation and respect. It is precisely this what makes Vedic Meditation so effective - its standardized teaching protocol, and the dignified way its current teachers regard the tradition of Masters, of all genders, who upheld it for millennia.
This wisdom dates back at least 5,000 years, preserved through an unbroken lineage known as the Shankaracharya Tradition - passed from teacher to student, generation after generation. Each teacher has been entrusted not to innovate, but to keep the teaching intact while making it relevant to their time.
My relationship with Transcendental Meditation
I teach Vedic Meditation and was trained by Thom Knoles. Thom was trained as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation ("TM") by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and taught it for over 25 years with organizations affiliated with Maharishi. Since 1997, Thom has continued to teach this meditation as he learned it - independently and separately from the TM organization, using the term "Vedic Meditation."
I teach Vedic Meditation independently and separately from TM organizations, and am not affiliated with those organizations.
Articles from the undertow.
Occasional writing.
Thoughts on having a body, being in relationship, and the Vedic worldview ~ published now and then on Substack.
All writing