Learning Vedic Meditation with Jillian Lavender in Portugal
Caroline Sylge learns Vedic Meditation from scratch in the gorgeous Olhao, and finds an easy meditation technique to set her up for life
I am sitting up in bed feeling serene in the Music Room, my bedroom for the duration of my retreat. Cosy, in a good quality duvet, enjoying myself immensely as I absorb myself in A Time To Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor, which I found during a lovely quiet hour to myself in the library the evening before. I’m at Casa Fuzetta, a gorgeously renovated private house in the fishing village of Olhao, and here to learn Vedic Meditation over four days with Jillian Lavender, the co-founder of London Meditation Centre and a leading expert in Vedic Meditation.
My bedroom is understated and serene, with shuttered windows which open onto the inner outdoor area of the house. Gracing my bed for when I emerge from it is a gorgeous pink and green flowered cotton dressing gown hand printed in India (which I succumb to buying before I leave). I have my own linen yoga mat to use, a locally sourced notebook has been thoughtfully placed on my bed, and in my bathroom are large glass pump jars of sustainable and beautiful La Eva products. Everything at Casa Fuzetta, in fact, has been thought-through with similar care and there is gorgeousness everywhere, from the chandeliers, chaises longues and stylish, individually sourced wooden furniture in the rooms to the art-filled library and elegant, rooftop pool overlooking the rooftops of the town.
There are just three beginners here - all women in our 50s, in professional jobs - and a fourth guest, a Spanish businessman, here to develop his existing practice. Everyone is kind and easy going with each other, and we have a daily schedule of group time and alone time mapped out from the start by Jillian and her assistant, Emma, both of whom are shining examples of calm, fun and flexibility throughout our retreat. We could have learnt the technique over four days in London or New York, on a non-residential course, but jumped at the chance to learn here instead. The space is elegant, the food divine, and we are not trying to fit in ‘real life’ at the same time - which makes learning doubly easy.
“I went to Portugal for four days and got some sunshine - but I brought home something that I feel very sure will support me each and every day for the rest of my life”
So how do we start? Vedic Meditation, we are told on our first morning, is a 5000-year-old meditation practice originating in India that involves you sitting comfortably (whatever ‘comfy’ means to you - no cross-legged poses needed), closing the eyes, and having a preference to think a sound called a mantra to orient the mind towards quieter levels of thinking. Our small group witnesses Jillian perform a short and simple ceremony in honour of the lineage of teachers who have passed this knowledge down over thousands of years in the marvellous meditation room, which is graced with delicate pink walls and - at its top - surrounded by differently coloured stain glass windows.
Then Jillian takes us each in turn into a charming room so we can receive our mantra in private. These are chosen from a specific selection of meaningless sounds, Jillian tells us, for their resonance to suit our mind-body physiology, our life stage, and the state of the world, and we are told to keep them private, because ‘their power is in the subtle’. I practise and play with mine on my tongue and in my mind, until the time comes for us all to meditate together using our mantras for the first time, by simply closing our eyes and what Jillian calls ‘picking up the mantra’.
Jillian’s language is straightforward, yet precisely chosen, throughout the retreat, and this helps us learn quickly and easily. ‘Have a preference to think the mantra, but nothing more’, she says, as we sit on our chairs with shawls around our shoulders. ’Work lightly with it - take it as it comes - don’t attach to how you ‘say’ it, how often, or whether it’s in rhythm with your breath or anything else’. It’s pretty easy, and 20 minutes later, Jillian tells us to stop thinking the mantra, but to keep our eyes closed, so that we come out of our meditation slowly. A few minutes on, we open our eyes, and just like that, we are meditators.
We realise quickly that, although we are in a beautiful space, the point is to bring the practice straight into your life, twice a day and every day, after this very first session - so really, it doesn’t matter where you learn. I forget my mantra on my second group session, and panic - but no matter. After a check in with Jillian, when I am reminded of it - and reassured this is a natural part of the process - I pick it up easily again and have ‘remembered’ it ever since. ‘Your mind is always looking for whatever is most charming, and finds a mantra more charming than anything,’ Jillian explains. ‘It is like a vehicle that the mind hops onto and moves with so that you experience finer and finer layers of thinking. A point comes when the mantra disappears and the mind falls quiet. This is a state of pure inner contentedness, where the mind is alert, but with no thoughts going on.’
In this state, our de-excited systems experience a profound level of rest, deeper than sleep, which enables us to release stress and exhaustion, and re-emerge to re-engage with your life in a more skilful way. This release of stress is why, Jillian assures us, we all feel exhausted on the retreat, for we are releasing an accumulation of stress and tiredness that’s been building up over years. Each group and solo meditation session shifts continually and is often packed with thoughts, but Jillian reassures us that thoughts are a result of release of stress, and so a thought-filled meditation is a valuable meditation in which lots of stress has been released. ‘The only thing you can do wrong when you meditate using this technique is to try,’ says Jillian. ‘There’s also no such thing as a bad meditation - except the ones you don’t do’. All we need to do is ‘have a preference for picking up the mantra’ and carry on.
My destress process is helped along by a fantastic couple of all over body massages with La Eva products deftly carried out by local therapist Justine in one of two serene treatment rooms set aside for the purpose, and I spend the rest of my time when I am not meditating doing my own yoga practice on the rooftop, reading in the windy sunshine, catching up on sleep, and enjoying the Ayurveda-inspired veggie meals either in the open plan kitchen or on the sunny courtyard terrace with our little group. Cooked and served by two local chefs - Sara Lopes and Ricardo Santos - with love and attention, these colourful, tasty meals inspired by flavours from around the world are a feast for the eyes each day and utterly divine. Lunches include celeriac cream soup with apple and goat's cheese croutons and a sweet peas, leek and mint pesto risotto, while dinners feature the likes of garam masala carrot coconut soup, followed by a lentil, pumpkin and spinach curry with basmasti rice, mango chutney, raita and home made naan.
Jillian and Emma arrange some diverting (and optional) trips together, including a visit to the lively Saturday market and a boat trip out of the harbour to a famed fish restaurant, but while it’s lovely to do a bit of shopping and experience the lively town, my favourite times are back inside the Casa, feeling cocooned and rested, gently laughing and chatting over the delicious group meals, or listening to Jillian’s talks and advice, which are always clear and interesting. As my understanding of the technique develops further each day, I become quite certain I’ve finally found a simple but profound practice that will work for me back home.
Now, in the mornings when I wake, I’m often genuinely excited that, after sitting up in bed, sipping water and closing my eyes, I gently think my mantra for 20 minutes to steady and ready myself for the day ahead. And in the afternoons, I actively look forward to the same closed space of rest and calm, when I can climb inside my mind, pick up my mantra, re-energise and reclaim myself again.
Jillian and her partner Michael’s aftercare has also been a crucial part of the process. Every week, they send those new to the practice a Meditator’s Map email with useful and reassuring tips to help you keep going, and every Wednesday evening, there’s an optional live online session in which they explore a life issue, then lead a group meditation. I don’t attend these live, but I always listen back to them and find them enlightening. Cleverly pivoting on a question from a meditator, they cover everything from relationships to socialising to how to respond to crisis such as the Ukraine war, and to me have become supportive and reassuring guidelines on how to deal with being human in our currently supremely challenging times.
I went to Portugal for four days and got some sunshine - but I brought home something that I feel very sure three months on will support me each and every day for the rest of my life.
Currently you can only learn meditation from scratch with the London Meditation Centre on a course in London. Once you can meditate, retreats run at Casa Fuzetta in Portugal and across the globe. Read about Lily Spicer’s experiences on a rounding retreat in Somerset here.
