Meditation (A Start Here Guide) by Patrick Harbula is a great book for beginning to practice meditation. It quickly and efficiently covers several forms of meditation, what meditation does, why it works, and how to apply it. It covers multiple types of meditations and is written in a religiously neutral manner for the most part.
Most books assume you know or at least have an idea why you want to meditate. This book makes it clear what meditation can do for you and how it can help you. I would never have started meditation had it not been for my instructor in martial arts compelling me to do so. It seemed hokey in the beginning, but after a short while practicing, it was life-changing. This book may very well be the catalyst which helps you unlock progress on your journey to exploring meditation.
Even though this book can feel a bit new agey at times, it includes a lot of good content in a short space. The content is accessible to pretty much any faith as long (as you’re a bit open-minded in your interpretations). Beginners and even more advanced practitioners can get a lot out of this work.
Reading This Book
If you’ve been meditating for a while, you probably only need to read chapter 4. If you’re new but don’t care about the history or benefits, start with chapter 3. If you want to skip the more religious parts, avoid chapter 5, and skim chapter 1. You may also want to quickly trod through chapter 2 since some of the benefits arguably read a little too freely into research.
If you are more of an agnostic or an atheist, you can still get a lot out of this book if you gloss over the more new age sections. Even mantra meditation and similar are powerful if you don’t believe in anything related to the origin of the mantra. The trick is to use it as a set of sounds to focus on to drown out the rest of the mind.
This book is short so it might be worth just reading through each part and skipping sections which don’t jive with you. Most new age works make me start to skim at some point. I read this book all the way through from the introduction to the conclusion, but, I would have taken some shortcuts if I didn’t plan to write about it. A lot of the work is great, but there are parts which feel over the top. It’s a solid foundation to meditation overall.
What It Does Well
Patrick Harbula writes in a way I wish more people did in spiritual works as well as standard non-fiction. It is clear, concise, to the point, and doesn’t leave you wondering what he’s trying to convey. If you just want the meditations, you’re looking for one single chapter in the book. This isn’t a slight; the writer is able to fit a book’s worth of knowledge in 30 pages.
This sounds like a bit of a slight, but what he does well is sum up a complex set of exercises into something extremely approachable with a little knowledge. Once you can first wrap your head around meditation, his meditations are trivial to use. The rest of the book is trying to get you there and steer you through the process and give you fuel to keep going. How well it does in this regard is a little more questionable, but I feel it’s largely applicable to anyone with a more spiritual leaning when starting out.
Patrick doesn’t douse you with metaphors or aphorisms. You get told straight what works nd why (in his interpretation). Once you match the mindset he lays out, the meditations are absolutely trivial to employ. If this book connects with you and you decide to commit, you will get a lot out of it. You just have to keep putting in the effort.
Meditation (A Start Here Guide) is a powerful work when used right. It gave me several new ways to approach meditation without imposing on what I did already. It works well in conjunction with other systems without trying to assert its dominance. Some works on meditation try to tout their system by disparaging others, this one does not.
Considerations
While I don’t fit the ideal reader for this work, I do wish the work had more exercises. It teaches a lot and explains a lot without being imposing, but it reminds me of the “cool teacher” in school. The content is great, but doesn’t try to force you to use it. You can read this and take nothing away without quitting if you decide not to practice.
I felt myself ambivalently glossing through sections. It was talking about something potentially important, but I didn’t feel the rigor to keep with it. Some of the sections feel like complete common sense because it tries to speak to someone truly down on their luck. If you have a bit of wisdom under your belt, you may feel a lot of the arguments are things you worked out already. The intention is to be accessible to even the weakest readers.
What’s the Verdict?
If you’re looking to learn to meditate from scratch, Meditation (A Start Here Guide) is a great work to read. It goes over the history, the benefits, and the mindset before teaching you many different techniques for meditation. None are dived into too far, but they don’t need to be. The explanations get you going well enough to explore what works for you.
Once you find something that works and you like, you can go from there, but you take away many techniques you can practice on for years too. This tactic makes Meditation (A Start Here Guide) an enjoyable read. Afterwards, the spiritual side of meditation gets touched upon.
The later sections can be of use to more advanced practitioners. There are so many different types of meditations which are useful. The book can get a little new agey, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you read through it, you’ll take something home about meditation. If you apply yourself and practice what’s written inside, you’ll have gotten the basics to meditation down. You’ll also get the basics of approaches to meditation you haven’t explored if you’re a more advanced reader.
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