From mantra to manifestation: The meditation that brought the house back
What a war, a mantra, and an ancient donut of light taught me about trust
This is the fifth article in a series chronicling my 30-year meditation journey. Missed the beginning? Start here with Part 1, or read Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.
It started with a house.
Late 2021, a beautiful property popped up just a few blocks from where we lived in a quiet hillside neighborhood outside Barcelona. It had everything we’d dreamed of: sweeping sea views, warm wood finishes, tasteful architecture that even passed my wife’s exacting standards (she’s an architect, and not easily impressed).
The house had just been renovated—new appliances, smart layout, move-in ready. But the kicker? It was about 30% below market value. The couple who owned it were getting divorced and had to sell fast. They never even moved in.
We hesitated. Then pounced. I scraped together the reserve deposit and made the offer. It was a stretch, but it felt like a leap into a more grounded, permanent future.
And then, days later, Putin invaded Ukraine.
I remember sitting on the couch, watching the news as he warned of "consequences never before seen in history" if the West intervened. The implication was clear: nuclear war was on the table.
I spiraled.
Suddenly, buying a dream house in Spain felt reckless. I started running through contingency plans—Argentina, where my wife is from? Back to Buenos Aires? No, too exposed. Maybe the far south. Patagonia. Ushuaia. Somewhere to disappear if the world went up in flames.
The panic wasn’t logical, but it was overwhelming. I pulled out of the deal. Got the deposit back. And watched the house return to the market.
And now, on top of geopolitical dread, I was grieving the loss of something deeply personal—a vision of our future that had slipped through our hands. My family was heartbroken. I was wrecked.
I tried to meditate. I returned to old practices that had helped me in the past. But this time, nothing stuck. My nervous system was too fried. The techniques that once grounded me now felt like trying to stop a tidal wave with a cork.
That’s when I started looking for something new.
I’d heard of Transcendental Meditation before, mostly from people I respected. Mitch Horowitz. David Lynch. A handful of creatives I admired had sung its praises. I’d also read the criticisms: the cultish overtones, the steep fees, the secrecy, the grandiose marketing.
But I needed something. I figured, if people that discerning found value in it, maybe I would too.
And so I signed up for the introductory talk.
First impressions and a jarring video
The TM center was a quiet apartment tucked away in a downtown Barcelona building. Nothing fancy, but neat and welcoming. I buzzed in, climbed a few steps, and was greeted at the door by the man who would be my instructor.
And I’ll be honest—my first impression of him was excellent.
He was calm. Present. No forced friendliness or “guru” persona. Just a regular guy who radiated something rare: stillness. It was like he was already meditating, even while speaking. The moment we shook hands, I thought, This is the kind of person I want to learn from.
He offered me a seat and a glass of water, then dimmed the lights and said we’d begin with a short video.
It was an old-school documentary-style reel about the origins of Transcendental Meditation and its global spread, centered on its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. There were clips of him speaking to audiences, leading retreats, and charming celebrities—most notably, the Beatles. The film went on about how they’d followed him to India, how captivated they were by his wisdom and presence.
And… I’ll be honest again.
I didn’t get it.
The Maharishi didn’t come across as particularly insightful. He was hard to understand, even subtitled. The things he said felt vague—platitudes dressed in mystery. Be still and know the bliss inside you. That kind of thing.
I wasn’t looking for intellectual brilliance, but I was hoping for clarity. Coherence. Maybe even a spark of genius. Instead, I found myself… squirming.
I’d seen a few YouTube videos of him before, but this reel made him feel even less accessible. Less relevant. And in stark contrast to the grounded, no-nonsense presence of my instructor sitting beside me.
It was my first internal red flag. Why this guy? Why so much reverence for someone who, frankly, doesn’t seem that profound?
But I let it pass. I reminded myself that sometimes form doesn’t match function. That maybe his method was more powerful than his words.
And besides, the technique itself hadn’t even been explained yet.
Cash, peace gurus, and another red flag
The day after that initial talk, I returned to enroll officially and was asked to bring cash.
No invoice. No online checkout. Just an envelope filled with bills, handed over quietly in the same modest apartment. I asked why it had to be in cash.
"Most of this doesn’t stay with us," my instructor said. "It goes to support the Maharishi Vedic Pandits in India—men who meditate full-time to create global peace."
He explained that these dedicated practitioners—sometimes referred to as Maharishi Peace Professionals—live communally and meditate in large groups using advanced Vedic techniques. The belief is that their synchronized meditation reduces global conflict, a phenomenon TM calls the Maharishi Effect.
"Especially now," he added, "with what’s happening in Ukraine, it’s more important than ever that these people keep meditating. The world needs it."
That comment hit oddly close to home. Just a week earlier, I’d pulled out of buying a house because of that same war. I was still grappling with the fear of escalation. And now here I was, being told that my course fee was helping fund a spiritual battalion on the other side of the world.
I didn’t push back. I handed over the cash.
But it was another red flag. Not a dealbreaker. Just more tension between the grounded simplicity I respected and a metaphysical belief system that was starting to feel less incidental and more foundational.
A ritual cloaked in simplicity
When I returned for my first proper session, I was excited. The intro talk had ended on a practical note: this wasn’t about dogma or beliefs—just a simple technique. Sit in a chair, repeat your mantra silently, and let thoughts come and go. No breathwork, no visualization, no posture requirements. Just a gentle, effortless return to a sound.
But before I could learn the mantra, there was a ceremony.
My instructor and I stepped into a small private room. In the center was a little altar: a framed photo of Maharishi’s teacher, some flowers, incense, and a candle. Then my instructor performed what was clearly a Hindu ritual, chanting in Sanskrit, bowing, and making offerings.
I didn’t understand a word of it. It was brief, maybe ten minutes total. But unmistakably religious.
And that was a jolt.
Because one of the big selling points of TM—repeated often in its marketing and on its website—is that it’s not a religion. It’s “scientific,” “universal,” and “compatible with all beliefs.” But this? This felt like stepping into a temple.
When it ended, he handed me my mantra. A two-syllable Sanskrit word. He told me not to share it with anyone, and not to worry about what it meant.
“It’s not about the meaning,” he said. “It’s about the vibration.”
He smiled. Warmly. Genuinely. I believed that he believed.
And despite the dissonance, I was intrigued enough to continue.
I told myself: Maybe the ritual is just tradition. Maybe the practice itself is what matters.
Still, that little voice in my head kept whispering: If it looks like a religion, smells like a religion… maybe it is.
A luminous donut and a full-circle ending
After the payment and the initial ritual, we began the actual practice—the part I’d signed up for. And I’ll admit: my skepticism didn’t disappear overnight. But as we moved through the following few days of the course, something in me began to soften.
The practice was simple: sit down, close your eyes, silently repeat your mantra, and gently return to it whenever the mind wandered. No posture requirements. No breath control. Just stillness and sound.
And somehow… it worked.
Even after that first proper session, I felt lighter. Less anxious. I slept better. And as the days went on, I found myself looking forward to the meditations. Not out of discipline, but out of relief.
By the third day, we were meditating for longer stretches, up to 15 minutes. That’s when it happened.
Eyes closed, body still, repeating the mantra, I suddenly saw it.
A luminous ring of light pulsates in the darkness behind my closed eyes. A glowing circle with a hole in the center just floating there, gently vibrating.
It was what my Taoist teacher CK Chu used to call, half-jokingly, “the luminous donut.”
Back in New York in 2008, when I was first learning meditation under his guidance, he’d say, “If you see the donut, you’re in it. That’s the zone.” I hadn’t seen it in a long time.
And yet, here it was. Clear as ever.
No one at the TM center had mentioned this phenomenon. But I recognized it immediately. And I remember thinking:
It’s all the same. Different roads, same destination.
Whatever label you put on it—Daoist, Vedic, Zen—when you truly drop in, the stillness feels the same. And in that moment, I felt at ease. I felt peace. I felt like I had found my center again.
From that point on, I was in.
I kept meditating twice a day—20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon—as recommended. I kept it up for several months, and it was transformative. The anxiety that had wrecked me after the house fallout and the invasion? It receded. I felt grounded again.
And here’s the kicker.
That inner stability gave me the bandwidth to return to more active forms of inner work, particularly the techniques of Neville Goddard. His approach—relaxing the body, entering a meditative state, and vividly feeling the reality of your desired outcome—had always fascinated me. But now I had the nervous system space to really do it.
And so, sometime in the weeks after the TM course ended, I started visualizing again. Specifically, I began imagining the feeling of finding a new dream home. Not necessarily the same one we’d lost, but something aligned. I didn’t know how or where. I just leaned into the feeling.
And then—less than a month later—my wife walked into the room, stunned.
“The house is back on the market,” she said.
I was floored.
We’d assumed it had sold after we pulled out. But apparently, the new buyer’s mortgage had fallen through. And now, it was available again. Same condition, same low price.
I called the broker. We signed the papers.
We live there now.
I don’t claim that TM singlehandedly conjured the house back into existence. But I can’t deny what it did for me. It cracked something open. It gave me just enough calm and clarity to begin engaging with life from a different frequency—one rooted in stillness rather than panic.
And from that place… synchronicity becomes more than coincidence. Alignment becomes a living force.
In hindsight, I see that passive meditation—TM, Daoist stillness, mindfulness—can lay the foundation for more active forms of creation. By soothing the nervous system and restoring a baseline of wellbeing, it becomes possible to imagine again. To visualize. To believe.
Even prayer—especially the raw, desperate kind we reach for in our darkest hours—can serve as the first step back toward alignment. When life breaks you open, stillness is often the only medicine you can handle.
But once your system stabilizes, once you can breathe again, something else becomes possible.
You start imagining a better future, and believing it might actually meet you halfway.
You find yourself back in the zone.
And sometimes—just sometimes—the luminous donut reappears.
— ✦ —
In the months after the course, I came across the work of Dr. Herbert Benson: the cardiologist who first scientifically studied Transcendental Meditation in the late 1960s and coined the term “relaxation response”. His book, The Relaxation Response, sold millions—affirming what TM showed: slow heart rate, calmer brainwaves, less stress, and even improved gene expression.
Here’s the kicker: Benson concluded that any simple, meaningful word—“amen,” “thank you,” or “peace”—used as a repetition device can produce the same benefits as TM’s proprietary mantra. The key elements? Sit comfortably, close your eyes, gently repeat the word, and don’t judge yourself when the mind wanders.
What struck me most was what TM’s movement never said. Despite being the first scientific voice to validate their results, TM organizations rarely acknowledge Benson’s findings. His work dismantles the idea that their technique has some mystical exclusivity.
Since then, I’ve happily experimented with different mantras—sometimes sacred, sometimes secular—but always returning to stillness first, visualization second. Benson reminded me that structure matters more than dogma. That peace isn’t algorithmic. That alignment often begins with the simplest practice.
Because at the end of the day, the method is just a doorway.
You step through—or not—but the fundamental transformation happens inside.
Previously in the series → Part 1: Mind control… but in a nice way, Part 2: How two plane crashes led me back to my mind, Part 3: Cockblocked but enlightened, Part 4: The Times Square Taoist master who changed my life.
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