Shireen Chada

Shireen Chada is a meditation teacher, author and writer on the interior life. She has been sitting in meditation since 1995 and has taught it for more than thirty years. Her work is for people tired of overthinking, old emotional patterns and fear.

Before teaching full time, she spent eighteen years studying how people move through cities, first traffic signals and then emerging technology in transportation systems. She holds a degree in civil engineering from Osmania University and a master's in transportation engineering from Texas A&M, and from 1999 to 2010 she was research faculty at the University of South Florida. In 2010 she left the university and made meditation the whole of her work.

Shireen has practiced for thirty-two years with the Brahma Kumaris in the Rajyoga tradition. She directs a meditation center in Florida and sits on the national leadership team for Brahma Kumaris USA. Having sat with thousands of people in retreat, she has watched the same thing happen again and again: people want stillness, but when they sit down their mind won't let them. She writes about why.

She has written eight books on the inner life, including Free Your Mind from Overthinking, Awakening from the Matrix and Soul Fitness. She hosts the podcast Spiritual Sense, with weekly episodes and guest conversations. She also writes weekly essays on perception and the inner life, and a slow read through the Ramayana that looks at the epic from inside each character at the moment of choice. Her guided meditations include courses on Insight Timer and a library on the Release Your Wings YouTube channel, covering themes such as trust, Yoga Nidra and soul healing.