ABOUT JOHN
‘Rebellious by nature, pure at heart' - The Times of India
'Bold as love’ - Bina Shah - New York Times Correspondent
’One of the world’s foremost meditation teachers’ - Cygnus Review
John Siddique is a sacred teacher, writer, and poet whose work brings lived spirituality into ordinary human life, shaped by literature, deep contemplative practice, and cultural renewal.
He is the author of nine books, including Signposts of the Spiritual Journey and SO, and is widely recognised for a voice that is both grounded and quietly radical. His work has been featured by The Guardian, the BBC, Time Magazine, The Spectator, Women & Home, Platinum, and others. His meditations have been downloaded many millions of times worldwide.
John is a former Poet Laureate of Canterbury and was Poet in Residence at California State University, Los Angeles, for the British Council. He holds an MA in Literature and Creative Writing from Manchester Victoria University and is an Honorary Fellow of Leicester University. He is the Project Co-ordinator for the Royal Literary Fund and WritersMosaic in the North of England, where he works across literature, culture, and public programmes to shape contemporary literary conversation.
Alongside his literary life, John has taught meditation and inner inquiry for over four decades. His teaching emerged not from institutional ambition but from early necessity, shaped by a difficult childhood and a lifelong devotion to contemplative practice. He began meditating at thirteen and started teaching in his early twenties. He is an initiated yogi, having studied under Sri Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, whose teachers included Ramana Maharshi and Swami Sivananda.
Following a series of profound shifts in consciousness, including a near-death experience in 2014, John set aside all spiritual labels and lineages. Since then, his work has been defined by an insistence on authenticity, embodiment, and the refusal of spiritual performance. He does not teach ideology, belief systems, or escape. His work is concerned with how awareness is lived, day by day, within ordinary human life.
At the heart of John’s teaching is a simple understanding: that authenticity and awareness are not aspirational states but prerequisites for human dignity, connection, and survival. His work invites a movement beyond fear and separation, not through transcendence, but through honest presence and lived responsibility.
John’s approach is known for its clarity, warmth, and integrity. He has no interest in gathering followers, building personality cults, or offering consolation. His work exists as a space of encounter, where people are invited back into their own authority, humanity, and lived truth.
He lives and works between the UK and abroad, continuing to write, teach, and create spaces for deep listening, cultural conversation, and embodied awakening.
Visit John’s Literary & Artistic Blog
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“The Master views the parts with compassion,
because he understands the whole.
His constant practice is humility.
He doesn’t glitter like a jewel
but lets himself be shaped by the Tao,
as rugged and common as stone.”
Gratitude to my teachers
Though I am not aligned with any formal religion or tradition, I bow in love and gratitude to those who have walked before and beside me as guides through their teachings, presence, and inspiration:
Stephen Levine, Donald Shimoda, Paul Brunton, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta, Pema Chodron, Ram Dass, Swami Janakananda, and most especially beloved Sri Swami Satchidananda and my students, who perhaps are my real teachers.