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Marty Pelosi is a primordial meditation teacher out of The Center of Balance in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Today on the podcast, Marty takes us through his amazing life story and how he managed to find balance in his life and how he is helping others do the same through meditation. Marty is a very enlightening individual. I’m very excited to have him on the podcast today. Please welcome, Marty Pelosi.
Listen To The Episode Here
Meditation with Marty Pelosi
Marty, where are you from?
I’m born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. We live in New Jersey now in Howell.
What was it like growing up in Brooklyn?
Very different than New Jersey for a few reasons. I was a totally different person at that time.
What kind of person were you?
Ego-driven. The cliché about Brooklyn is the Brooklyn tough guy. It really was one hangout that didn’t get together with the other hangout. There was a lot of fighting, violence, most of that stuff. At least in the 80s, that was real. There was always drama, put it that way. I was buying right into it.
At what point did you feel, “Shit, this is problem. I’ve got to start doing something here.”
I remember feeling threatened by where we were for her and myself and Jackie, my wife.
I remember a particular point. I have two daughters: Samantha and Madeleine. Samantha was a little girl at that time and we were in one of our many apartments in Brooklyn. I remember feeling threatened by where we were for her and myself and Jackie, my wife. That was the first moment that came over me that said maybe it’s time to look to move somewhere else. You have kids and you start thinking about the kids is what happens. That’s why we first made our way to Staten Island for a couple of years and then finally out to New Jersey.
Were you heavily involved in music at this point or was that something you just did on the side? I knew you’re a pretty good musician.
My whole life at that point was about music. I moved out of my parents’ house on my 18th birthday. I always had a job. All of us, we always worked, all the band members. Music was really my life at that point. Of course, music fit right into my ego life.
Why is that?
Think about the 80s. The bands of the 80s were literally about sex, drugs, drugs, sex and then music.
So, you’re living that lifestyle?
Yes, we never made it really big but we did a little bit of traveling. We did enough to get in enough trouble with that whole lifestyle. I know now looking at it from this perspective why I didn’t make it and the answer is I’d be dead, that’s for sure.
It always works out and you can’t see it at that time. Marty, what I love about your story too is because you’ve been on both sides of the spectrum like what you were just talking about. When I talk to you now, you just seem like you’re in a very amazing, enlightened place. You’re extremely a collected and gathered person and I really respect that of you. How did you get to that place of just where you are now and the transformation really?
I feel like so many people even in those days in the 80s, a lot of the people that I knew at that time, a lot of us always had the feeling that there just has to be something more. I see that today too when I teach and even take classes. When we go to workshops and seminars and you talk to the people, one of the common denominators is we all had this sense that there’s more than meets the eye to this life. What happened for me, and I think pretty typical and a major event happens to a lot of people that we call it the kick in the ass really brings on a little bit of a shift. That’s the way it was for me. The event was after Samantha was born and it was just perfect, really the best day of my life up to that point. It was a perfect delivery, a perfect day. A couple of years later, my second daughter Madeleine was born. It wasn’t perfect. She was born with what looked like was going to be something that was going to affect her and us our whole life. That was really the event for me.
Now, I have to look back at that because of course I didn’t know it at that time. Looking back, that was certainly the big event that forced me basically to say to myself, “How could this happen? Why?” Then the questions of, “Is there a God?” The common question is, “How could God do this to me?” All of those questions arise usually when something horrible happens. That’s pretty common. That led me on my path which that’s been over twenty years now. I’ve been through the whole realm of spiritual things starting with a little bit of religion. I think that’s pretty common too. We don’t know where to look for God, so I guess we’re taught, “Look in religion.” One thing led to another. The way I see it now is I’ve been guided the whole way.
You had that moment with Madie and her being born. What were some of the next steps you took? You’re absolutely correct, a lot of people have that moment and it’s life changing, but the key is to stay on that path because we still have a lot of distractions we have to work through and we really have to work at it to stay on that path. You mentioned you dove into religion a little bit. When did the meditation and everything begin?
That really came about ten years later into my little personal shift. I think another thing that’s common is a lot of pain and suffering from that event. Then there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, which I feel like a lot of people live with. A lot of people think that you have to live with this confusion and pain and misunderstanding. I had a couple of years of that. What happens and what happened for me is you feel like there’s got to be a way out because you need a way out. Coming from that point of view, I fully understand the idea of suicide, I really do. Suicide is clearly the ultimate way out of misunderstanding, confusion and pain. It’s all synchronicity, Kevin. Once you’re opened up, in a sense there’s almost nothing to do. Almost you could say the less you do, the better.
All of a sudden, I could have been Channel 13, which I probably never watched up until the day that I did watch it. A guy like Wayne Dyer would come on. He always did these free broadcasts for PBS in Channel 13. After my little dive into religion, I have to say that the first spiritual teacher that I totally, fully connected with was Wayne Dyer. He was really the first one and that went on. It still goes on today but I couldn’t listen to anybody else really for a couple of years.
What were some of the things he was saying that really resonated with you?
The idea of, “Change your thoughts, change your life, how about that?” That was a pretty radical idea fifteen, twenty years ago maybe because of just where I stand, but I don’t think it’s that radical anymore. I think almost anybody could understand that. If I stand here with bad thoughts, it’s easy to explain that you can’t have a good life with bad thoughts. At that time, he really, really opened the door into this idea of fuller, deeper awareness which is what all of us know there is. We just don’t know where it is and it seems allusive, but he was really the first one. What was so great about him is being who he is when he found another spiritual teacher that he thought was great. He would bring him up and talk about them at his lectures. I remember one time in the Jacob Javits Center, Jackie and I were there and the kids were there, Samantha and Madeleine.
I love how you guys would bring them as well, that’s great.
They were so clearly open to all the messages of something higher than what we are typically used to connecting with.
It’s amazing. I was going and a lot of times, people ask me especially at workshops, “How did you get them to be here, to come or to go?” All we did is say we were going. They didn’t know where we were going. It could have been to the circus and they would say, “I want to go.” They did go and I would say, “Sure.” I’m just going to listen to a lecture. It was always so amazing to me that they never got bored. They never got restless at these things. They were so clearly open to all the messages of something higher than what we are typically used to connecting with.
They are both so ahead of their time. They’re just very mature and well-grounded people at such a young age. You don’t see that a lot. I had no idea you brought them to those seminars at a young age. That makes a lot of sense. It’s like they wanted to be there too.
They did. Another thing I hear a lot because they’ve been doing these things with us really since they’re little girls, seven, eight, nine years old is what did we do as parents to create such children that are so connected. My answer is very little. That’s my answer. It’s more of what we didn’t do. It really is.
You let them find their own way but you were there to guide them.
Believe me, as a parent, it’s harder than you would think. It really is. Sometimes to step out of the way as a parent is pretty difficult. Like anything else, that’s a practice as well and it becomes easier and easier I think.
I’m guessing by listening to Wayne Dyer and him bringing in other people, you probably dove even deeper into more workshops and more seminars and probably really open the door for you.
It really did. I’m so lucky to have a family and a wife that really let me pursue whatever would come up. I would get this feeling I have to go to this workshop. This system would not work in a lot of marriages, let me put it that way. My wife has always let me go and explore.
A lot of people want to start meditating and they want to start opening the door. They have so much going on in their life, it’s tough to sit down and actually do that and open the door and get into that right place. Do you have any advice on how to begin, on how to silence the mind and all that?
I’ll first say what Deepak Chopra says. That’s who I learn to meditate from, the Chopra Center and Deepak. What they say and what he says is, “If you don’t think you have time to meditate once a day, you need to meditate twice a day.” It’s true because I have two businesses, a busy family, a big family that keeps me very busy. There’s people I know that are way busier than I that if you want to find the time and it’s important to you, we could all find the time. For me, when I made the decision a couple of years ago that this is undeniably something that I’ll do for the rest of my life, one of the things I had to do is wake up just a little bit earlier. That’s what I did. That’s a meditation that pretty much I never miss in the morning because all I have to do, whatever my plans are for that day, is wake up a half hour earlier to fit it in. It really is something that I feel like everybody could fit into their schedule. It’s like so many other things, you have to do it to get the benefit. Just realize that you could do it to get the benefit to realize you could do it. Something has to come first. There’s no rules to meditation. If you had to create one, it would be just a tiny drop of discipline. That’s all.
I’m glad you said there’s no rules to meditation because a lot of people think you got to sit in a quiet room, cross-legged Indian style with the candles lit and everything. Really meditation can be anything you want it to be as long as it works. It can be walking out in the backyard and just appreciating everything you see. It could be sitting in silence but you don’t have to be in Indian style, it could be the most comfortable position for you. Would you like to elaborate on that?
A hundred percent, there really are no rules. The meditation I teach is a specific meditation. I teach it and I do it every day and I also do other meditations too; guided meditations. It’s important not only be limited to one style of meditation. I’ve been telling the people that I teach now at the end of the class, for two days I’ll talk about this specific meditation practice and how great it is. I realized that it sounds like this is the only way. I don’t want it to be that. It’s not that. There really are many ways. At the end of my class I’ve been saying, “Let this just be the tip of the iceberg, the beginning. Even if you do practice this meditation twice a day for the rest of your life, still let it just be the opening to maybe a book you could go out and buy. If you feel driven to a workshop or a seminar, go do yoga, whatever it is.” I think that’s important. I think to teach that is important as well. It’s not my way or the highway. I can teach you in my opinion an unbelievable system of meditation that is thousands and thousands of years old.
Marty, what technique are you talking about right now? What meditation?
It’s called the Primordial Sound Meditation.
How does it work?
It works that it’s pretty similar to Transcendental Meditation, which is done by over 200 million people or something. It’s the largest system. This is similar. The main difference is they are both mantra meditations, which means that I’m going to give you a sound that you are going to repeat in your mind, but the difference between if I gave you the word, let’s say, microphone and I said meditate on that. You would say, “Microphone, microphone, microphone,” ultimately, that would lead to singing and there’s a band and music. That’s the way thoughts are. They have a vibrational frequency that attract other thoughts. What I give you is a word, it’s a sound and it’s a vibration that actually has no meaning. It’s a Sanskrit word that has no meaning. If you repeat something that has no meaning, this is how it takes you into the state of meditation. That best part about it is the sound that I give you is the specific sound that the universe was making at your time of birth. The moment that you came, you manifested into the world, the universe, this planet specifically and the sound is between the moon and where you are on the earth. There’s a specific sound that was humming at that time. It’s very intense. I give you the closest word to that sound in vibration that brings you back to that place of perfection and purity that you were born with.
Transcendental Meditation is unbelievable obviously. It’s the system that has done the most to bring meditation to the world really. They also have a mantra but it’s not a specific mantra. It’s not a specific vibrational sound for you. I have to stick up for Primordial Sound Meditation here.
Marty, talk about your center that you’re just opening and what that’s about and what you plan to see people achieve down there.
My daughter, Madeleine, and I are partners in this center. I’ve been told from people that have the insight to tell me I’m a pretty old soul. A funny story is the person that told me that also told me that in the past life, I was pulling Madeleine on some cart. She was like the queen and I was the ox. As old the soul as I am, she’s older. Both of my kids are older.
I believe that. She’s a wise one.
My main thing will be to teach meditation which is at least an eight or nine-hour course over two or three days.
They both are incredible and have wisdom. I have to think about where they just have it. We started the center. It’s called The Center of Balance. It’s in Colts Neck, New Jersey. My main thing will be to teach meditation which is at least an eight or nine-hour course over two or three days, depending on the time the person has that I’m teaching. We could move it around to take either two or three days. That will be my main part.
It’s a very small group you like to teach to. It’s not open to thirty people. What is it like? Four or five people, maybe less?
I really like three and that’s because of how I explained it before, with your personal mantra, there’s a fifteen or twenty-minute time where it’s one-on-one. We’ll have a first lesson about the history, the basics and where we’re going with the course. Then the second session will be one-on-one with the person that I’m giving the mantra to. If there are four people, you have people sitting around for over an hour. I’d like to do three people, 20, 30, 40 minutes of sitting around is fine. Three people seems to be perfect but what we’re going to do and we’re going to start it probably in October is start a group meditation. It doesn’t have to be just the people that I’ve taught. It will be a guided meditation by me. The people that I taught will do their personal primordial sound mantra. If people come that don’t have a primordial sound mantra, I’ll just give them a mantra for that meditation. There are thousands and thousands of different mantras for everything. Raising vibration and clearing your mind, there’s a mantra for everything. That’s another class that we’ll be starting. We’ll be doing that once a week.
My daughter Madeleine is licensed in massage and also studied the ancient science of Ayurveda, which is unbelievable and amazing. In this tradition, there are three legs to the stool they say. That’s yoga, meditation and Ayurveda. We’re offering the meditation and the Ayurveda along with massage because we feel like there’s enough yoga around.
I don’t think there’s enough of what you’re doing around, so I think that’s great.
We feel like these components are missing quite frankly. What Madeleine is going to is going to be really special. She’s going to do maybe a 90-minute working with a client that will be maybe 40 or 45 minutes of a nice massage and then a little break in between, have a cup of tea or something and then a little bit of Ayurveda. Very simple about what foods may be good for you. She’s really well-versed in all of that. It’s amazing knowledge.
The more we learn about this ancient wisdom that is available out there to everybody, it just really points out the direction, not just this country, this country more than some other countries. The world has been leaning away from this ancient wisdom more towards, let’s face it, money, power and greed and ego. We’re here to do our part to bring it back. What we’d like to do there is start to create a nice little community and have some ongoing classes. We’re also going to have some guest speakers come in every now and then. Some people that we know that we’ve been lucky enough to meet and take some classes with. It seems like there’s really a push for this, Kevin. People are really opening up to this.
I really wanted to say this at the beginning how you coming into our life was really a beautiful display of vibrational energy. You helped all of us because you worked on all of us, but my wife in particular, she was within an eyelash of surgery that we all knew wouldn’t have been good for her. She knew it too. As you know, you run out of things to do and places to go. In a pretty short time, you created a new wife for me. I’m very thankful for that.
You guys are just awesome people. I love you guys so much. Thank you for coming on, Marty. I really appreciate it. Maybe in a couple of months when you guys get going, we’ll bring you on again and we’ll just see what you guys are up to, what the community you’ve been building. I’m looking forward to that.
That sounds good, Kevin. I appreciate it.
Marty, do you guys have a website or anything that people can look into this?
Yes, the TheCenterofBalanceNJ.com.
Marty, thanks for coming on. I’ll see you guys soon.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
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