I’ve been practicing meditation for the past 8 years. I first started with a YouTube video labeled, “You Don’t Have to be in the Himalayas to Practice Meditation”. Back then, meditation had been in my rear view for some time and for whatever the reason, I clicked on this video and my life as a meditator began. That first 10 minute meditation session left me in the most calm, free, and unconvoluted mental state I had ever felt. At that point I knew for sure, that there is something to this meditation.
Funnily enough, I ended up in the Himalayas several years later. Through my travels between Buddhist Monasteries and Hindi Guru Ashrems I ended up finding my way to a small family village in the lower hills of the Annapurna mountain region whom housed their own Yogi. I practiced and learned more about meditation there too. So…if you want…you can also learn how to meditate in the Himalayas :p

Through meditation comes mindfulness, readily waiting in the background, waiting for the coach to put him in. We can develop mindfulness well-enough without meditation and many people do have a predisposition to self-awareness. However, meditation adds a new layer, several layers in fact, to our abilities of understanding ourselves and our internal workings at minute details – one of these layers being the development of self-compassion and self-understanding, as well as pure compassion for the world around us <3