Thirteen Years In: Custodianship, Commitment, and the Quiet Work of Becoming
What Remains When the Path Is Uncertain
Author’s Note
I’m sharing this reflection at a moment of transition—personal, professional, and generational.
What follows began as an anniversary note marking thirteen years since Mina and I completed our Teacher Training Courses to become Certified Teachers of the Transcendental Meditation® technique. It quickly became something else: a reckoning with time, commitment, and what it means to remain faithful to meaningful work when the surrounding structures seem in flux.
This essay is not an attempt to settle accounts or offer tidy conclusions. It is, instead, an honest pause—a moment to take stock of what endures when certainty recedes. The experiences described here have clarified something essential for me: that the value of this work lies not in institutions alone, but in lived experience, ethical transmission, and the quiet, cumulative effects of sustained practice.
I’m publishing this here because Substack has become a space where reflection can remain unfinished, where thinking aloud is not a liability, and where readers are willing to sit with complexity rather than rush toward resolution. If you’ve ever found yourself navigating a calling through uncertainty—distinguishing essence from container, or purpose from appearance—I suspect some part of this will resonate.
As always, my hope is not persuasion, but companionship in inquiry.
Thank you for reading.
—Baruti KMT-Sisouvong, PhD
Thirteen years ago, Mina and I completed our respective Teacher Training Courses (TTC) to become Certified Teachers of the Transcendental Meditation® technique as part of our respective Graduate Programs—she for her Master’s and me as part of my Doctoral coursework. It is an anniversary that marks far more than the attainment of a credential. It marks a threshold we crossed—together, though physically apart—and a path we have continued to walk with care, conviction, and humility.
For six months, we lived in different states, immersed in study and discipline. Mina began her course in July 2012 and completed it that December, not far from where we had studied in graduate school in Iowa; I began mine in August and completed it in January 2013 in Antrim, New Hampshire. During that time, we wrote one another more than 150 letters. They were not love letters alone, though love was certainly present. They were letters of inquiry, reflection, doubt, reassurance, resolve, and collective envisioning. In hindsight, those letters were also part of our training. They taught us how to remain oriented toward what matters even when conditions are uncertain.
That lesson has stayed with us.
Becoming a Certified Transcendental Meditation teacher required a substantial investment—of time, energy, financial resources, and trust. We did not enter this work lightly, nor did we imagine that the years ahead would be free of challenge. What we did sense, even then, was that we were committing ourselves not merely to teaching a technique, but to custodianship—to the responsible, ethical transmission of something ancient, subtle, and immensely practical.
During my final five days in Antrim, the course hosted a visitor. He asked each of us to deliver a short presentation reflecting on what we had gained from the course. As the last to present, I returned to my seat when he casually remarked, “All of you are good, but you are very good. You and your wife would be a great fit for Cambridge.” Presumably noticing my expression—shaped by five winters in Iowa and a growing desire for warmer climes—he quickly followed up in a jocular tone: “We know you want warmer weather; but you would be great in Cambridge.”
This was the first invitation to consider Cambridge and the greater Boston area as a place to plant roots. Over the next few days, he approached me twice more. On the third occasion, as we were preparing for lunch, he added, “You know, there is support for you at the highest levels of the Foundation were you to consider Cambridge.” With that, I told him I would call Mina, as by then our phones had been returned to us full-time.
Later that evening, I shared the exchange with Mina. She responded simply, “Well, you know Cambridge is a lot like Berkeley.” In hindsight, her being a Berkeley Grad and with that unadorned observation, the die was cast. During Spring Break 2013, we drove two days from Iowa to Cambridge. We were hosted by a gracious couple living not far from Harvard’s campus. We walked the city, visited several neighbourhoods, met with a well-regarded professor who had practised TM for many years, and were later welcomed into his home, where we met his wife and additional practitioners and teachers from the region. Only later did we learn that many of them had independently concluded that we would be a good fit for Cambridge. We had much to reflect upon—both during the remainder of our visit and on the two-day drive back to Iowa.
After conducting due diligence in nearly every area, we accepted the invitation with care, aware that serving a community well requires patience, presence, and a willingness to grow alongside it. The work has been deeply rewarding. Thousands of individuals have learned TM through our combined efforts. We have witnessed nervous systems settle, creativity re-emerge, resilience strengthen, and lives recalibrate in ways both quiet and unmistakable.
The one area in which our research proved incomplete was housing. Yet, as Nature would have it, we reconnected with a Masonic Brother whom I had momentarily forgotten lived in Boston. He, in turn, introduced us to another Brother who was instrumental in helping us preview and eventually secure our first home as we began building our lives in the metropolitan area. To each Mason who assisted us along the way, we remain deeply grateful. Their generosity set the tone for the years of work that followed in Cambridge and greater Boston.
At the same time, the past several years have brought undeniable strain—personal, professional, and systemic. Decisions made upstream have had downstream consequences of which we suspect many remain unaware. Some have gone unacknowledged directly; others have required rapid adaptation without the assurances one might reasonably expect after years of service. These experiences have tested not only our logistics, but our discernment.
And yet—here is the truth that has become increasingly clear.
The value of this work does not rest solely in institutions, websites, or administrative structures. It rests in lived experience. It rests in alignment with principles deeper than any single individual or organisation can consistently embody. The technique works. The outcomes are real. The people who benefit from this work are not abstractions.
To recognise this is not naïveté. Mina and I believe it is maturity.
There comes a moment in any long commitment when one must distinguish essence from container. That moment is rarely comfortable, but it is clarifying. It invites a deeper fidelity—not to appearances, but to purpose.
As I write this, I am holding our youngest son, Malcolm Aurelius, as he sleeps. The future is not fully mapped. Transitions are underway—some chosen, others imposed. And yet, my commitment has not diminished. It has sharpened.
Why?
Because this path has never been about certainty. It has always been about alignment. About returning, again and again, to the posture of the seeker—willing to study deeply, to act when necessary, to refine purpose, and to remain open to change without losing one’s centre.
Growth, I have learned, is not linear. It is cyclical and ascending. Each phase of expansion returns us to the beginning, but with greater clarity and responsibility. This is as true for individuals as it is for families, organisations, and traditions. I am reminded here of the observation attributed to Barry H. Gillespie: “The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.”
This insight mirrors the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress (MPGP) that emerged from my doctoral research—a framework that recognises growth not as a terminal destination, but as a perpetual process of becoming.
Thirteen years on, and now as I am holding our middle son—as he suffers from a mild stomach ache—I remain grateful. Grateful for the training, the sacrifices, the community we serve, and the inner stability that makes adaptation possible at all. I remain committed to my family, to the careful study of consciousness and human potential, and to offering what we know to be of genuine value to those who need it—not as an accessory; but as an asset.
Institutions may evolve. Circumstances will change. But the quiet work of becoming—of aligning inner awareness with outer action—endures.
And so we continue.
Not because the path is guaranteed, but because it is worth walking.
Thankfully, we own comfortable walking shoes.
Suggested Practice: Distinguishing What Endures
This practice is offered as a quiet inquiry rather than a technique. It may be undertaken in writing, in reflection, or simply held inwardly over several days.
1. Begin with Stillness
Set aside a few minutes in which you are not trying to resolve anything. Sit comfortably. Let the body settle. Allow the mind to do whatever it naturally does. The intention here is not control, but presence.
2. Name the Path You Are On
Gently bring to mind a commitment you have been carrying for some time—work, vocation, relationship, study, or service. One that has required endurance rather than enthusiasm alone.
Without judgement, notice:
What initially drew you to this path?
What has sustained you when certainty receded?
There is no need to answer immediately. Let the questions rest.
3. Distinguish Essence from Container
Now ask yourself, quietly and honestly:
What is the essence of this commitment—the part that feels alive, necessary, or aligned?
What are the containers through which it has been expressed—institutions, roles, titles, structures, expectations?
Notice whether any tension has arisen between the two. If so, simply observe it. Clarity often begins as discomfort.
4. Identify What Has Endured
Reflect on what has remained steady even as circumstances changed:
a practice,
a value,
a way of orienting toward others,
an inner reference point.
This is not an inventory of achievements, but of continuity.
5. Return to the Posture of the Seeker
Ask yourself one final question:
If I were beginning again—without certainty, but with what I now know—what would I still choose to carry forward?
Let the answer arise over time. There is no urgency.
6. Close with Gratitude
Before concluding, acknowledge—silently or in writing—something or someone that has supported you along the way. Gratitude does not erase difficulty, but it often reveals proportion. And always remember:
Growth rarely announces itself as progress. More often, it reveals itself in what we refuse to abandon.
This practice may be returned to periodically, particularly during times of transition. Each return is not repetition, but refinement.
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About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development. He also serves as Host of the On Transcendence Podcast.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.