Tim Brown, meditation teacher

How were you first introduced to the practice of meditation?

I’d returned to Sydney from Uzbekistan where I’d been working for two years helping to reform the country’s agricultural sector. It was a tough time, coming home, readjusting to Western society. I was single then and I was faced with a lot of challenges – settling back with my family, and into the next phase. One of my aunts suggested I take up meditation, but I was a rugby boy and I was doing the party circuit in Sydney. Meditating was far from my mind. I ended up working in brand strategy development in the city and we worked pretty hard. These were the dotcom days, it was full on. But I took up the practice and adapted it to my life willingly. It gave me such a lift and eventually I thought: I have just got to pass this on to other people.

What happened next?

I had learned from a guy called Thom Knowles who had been teaching Vedic meditation in Sydney. He’s a big name internationally: he is a neuroscientist and was retained by some major HR companies in Australia. He’s taught more than 10,000 people to meditate and has been teaching for 30 years. Thom had to leave Sydney to go back to his home in Flagstaff, Arizona, just at the time I wanted to become a teacher, so I went to live with him for 12 months. We hiked all through those mountains in Sedona and I learned to teach meditation. Then I came home to Sydney and I have been a full-time teacher for eight years. I have students all over the world and I’ve taught about 1,200 people to meditate.

So how does it all work?

We have a lot of disorder in our minds – stress does that to us. Our bodies create cortisol and noradrenaline in times of stress; that’s the ‘fight or flight’ phenomenon. This kind of constant stress, or what I call background excitement, sees us lose creativity, intelligence and sleep. It robs us of the ability to be happy and healthy. Meditation can rapidly deexcite the system. Just 20 minutes of meditation can help your body create serotonin and dopamine, or what I call the ‘stay and play’ chemicals. You can upgrade your creativity, intelligence and energy, and you will start to think more clearly.

You’re a teacher, so of course you believe, but where’s the proof that meditation works?

There are about 800 independent studies that prove the medical benefits associated with meditation. I could talk about them in depth; they each impressed me. But overall, they each deal with the third law of thermodynamics. As you de-excite any system, it becomes more orderly. More important than the science, though, is that in my experience – and in that of my students – 20 minutes of meditation is like gaining three or four hours of deep sleep. That’s been very handy lately as my wife and I have three kids under the age of three.

Can you explain the difference between ashram-style meditation and the style you teach, which is called household meditation?

India is the source of meditation. It was developed about 10,000 years ago by people who had families and social responsibilities and the stresses associated with that. They incorporated meditation with their lives to help cope. It wasn’t about sitting up in a mountain with a big rock against the door and not speaking to anyone for months. What people associate with ashrams and reclusive meditation is very different to what I teach, which is meditation techniques for the ‘householder’. I teach people to incorporate 20 minutes of meditation once or twice a day into their busy lives. It’s not about getting out of life, or away from life, it’s about getting into it more.

Tim Brown is holding an introductory session on 30 Oct; venue to be confirmed

Contacts: +61 2 9327 7825; www.timbrownmeditation.com