I started writing in 2019 on a blog I created called MindfulnessQuest (It’s no more there). It was my humble attempt at writing “something”. I had never written anything earlier and the prospect of putting myself out there felt daunting at that time. After a decade of writing code (I was a software developer in my past life), writing about myself and my experiences was hard. “Who would want to read this?”
The thinking mind was at full swing, “What if nobody reads …” However, at some point, a thought came up, “What if I put out my worst work (unedited ramblings) out there and see what happens?” So I wrote my first experimental book, Meditation Is Not About Emptying Your Mind:
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MFMDYWK
Yes, the book isn’t my finest work (I don’t think there will ever be “my” finest work). It was a collection of articles I had written for MindfulnessQuest that I turned into a book. The book specifically does not talk about Nonduality but touches on its aspect here and there. This was the time I was beginning to fall in love with writing. It felt cathartic to express myself using the writing medium.
To date, it contains spelling and grammatical mistakes. I didn’t have the money to hire a professional editor and neither did I have the popularity to get approved by a traditional publisher (though I tried and got rejected many times). I wrote based on my experience at that time with the whole heart. The book goes into a lot of usual details (run of the mil content) about different types of meditations, but there are pointers sprinkled here and there that remind of our essential SELF.
One of the most heart touching moments for me was when a couple of readers expressed their appreciation for this amateur work. I remember them saying, “We don’t care about the grammar, we love the message!”. That was an enlightening moment. I realized I didn’t have to be perfect. All that was needed was to keep channeling from the Heart. In the Heart, there is no place for fear and doubt. So the river of life kept flowing resulting in more imperfect books, but all were written with the Heart.
The idea was that I don’t need to be perfect to write a book. It was only my ego that was looking for the “right time and the right opportunity”. There is never a right time because there is no time. There is only NOW!
With love,
Jagjot
