From master meditation and yoga practitioner, Yogi Theo Mann, comes this posthumously published short, simple, and helpful guide on how to meditate. Yogi Theo dedicated much of his life to the study and practice of meditation. He distilled his vast knowledge of the subject into a guide for beginning and intermediate practitioners that focuses on what works and what doesn’t work when one is seeking enlightenment through meditation. Written for his friend’s father in 2011, The Essence of Meditation is now available to the general public.

From the Author (Book Excerpt): I hope that this brief guide proves useful to those who invest the time and energy to read and understand it. I offer the fruit of my experience as a meditator. I urge anyone that is learning to meditate to do so diligently and not to worry too much about teachers, teachings, and books. The more ideas about meditation and spirituality with which we fill ourselves, the more apparent certainty we have to discard to get a fresh start. This applies also to people who have been following a single lineage for many years. The creative director is a higher truth than all the teachings in all the books on earth, and it has to be experienced firsthand. I offer my experiences and viewpoint in the humble belief that these are the views that can truly help each of us to find our own way to inner freedom. With love, Yogi Theo Mann

About the Author: Yogi Theo Mann was born Theodore J. Gillmann in Los Angeles, California in 1967. He earned a mechanical engineering degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a graduate degree in product design from Stanford University. He worked in product design for several years before going on a spiritual adventure that took him to India and Thailand. It was in Thailand where he learned he had a brain tumor. After three brain tumor operations that left him disfigured, almost deaf, and with motor skill impairment, he died in Los Angeles in April, 2023. He wrote his book, Tales of the Great Dharma King, in the months just before he passed away, by dictating it into his phone.