Today, parents everywhere are looking for a new vision, a new approach to life for themselves and their children. They are actively beginning to delve within themselves for deeper meanings in life, taking initiations into the spiritual quest. As a result, they are undergoing tremendous changes. What has not been generally recognized is that the children of such parents are also going through rapid transformations and changes and are requiring guidance as well.
The souls that are presently incarnating through spiritually seeking parents seem to be endowed with a greater level of awareness than children of earlier, more materialistic generations. They are incredibly conscious and aware, and will be able to teach a great deal to those elders who are open and able to contact the child within themselves.
It is important that these children are not submitted to the models of development which will soon be irrelevant. Provided they have a space and an environment where they can open up and allow their wisdom to be seen, they will create new and more suitable developmental models for themselves.
For adults there are many models and teachings available to develop and integrate the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of their lives, and this is mirrored in the many approaches and systems of meditation outlined in this book. However, there is very little available along these lines which is specifically for children. With this in mind this has been written for use with children aged from five years to adolescence.
In years to come, meditation and yoga will form an important part of the school curriculum. This will occur as their role in enhancing each child’s development becomes clear to teachers and educators. In this respect, there have been some excellent studies, reporting the positive influence of yoga and meditation within the school environment. As a result, a growing number of schools and colleges throughout the world are becoming interested in these time-tested techniques and are gradually integrating them into their present educational systems.
However, the responsibility for bringing simple and enjoyable techniques of self-awareness and inner and outer integration remains largely with the parents. Today, as more and more parents and teachers adopt a spiritual life, a new understanding of the role and purpose of education is also evolving. They are beginning to see education as a foundation for a creative, practical and spiritual way of life. True education means providing an optimal environment in which each child’s self-regulated learning process can unfold naturally. After all, the very word ‘education’ comes to us from the Latin educare, ‘to lead out from within’, the highest qualities of each unique soul. In this process meditation proves to be the most efficient and practical means.
In the ancient vedic culture of India, a child was first initiated into yoga and meditation at the age of eight. Both boys and girls were instructed in the practices of nadi shodhana pranayama, surya namaskara and Gayatri mantra in a ceremony known as upanayanam or ‘the additional eyes’.
They were initiated into this daily sadhana and preliminary meditation, because it was known to create a progressive reorientation in the subconscious mind, paving the way for a life of ongoing initiation and higher understanding.
Surya namaskara is a dynamic exercise combining twelve major yoga postures. In it the sun is saluted as the source of vital energy. The ancients considered the sun to be the source of prana, knowledge and light. The children practised surya namaskara at the time of sunrise, facing the sun and exposing their body to it. Six rounds takes about five minutes and revitalizes the whole body by stimulating the solar energy within and increasing prana shakti.
Surya namaskara recharges and activates the body and nadi shodhana does the same for the mind, replenishing it with manas shakti. We are all a combination of mind and vitality. If there is an excess of manas shakti but a shortage of prana shakti, we will think, plan and fantasize a lot, but without prana we will have no energy or dynamism to actually accomplish anything. On the other hand, if there is an excess of prana shakti but the mental power is low, then, as an adult one will become a storm to society, or as a child one will be the tempest in the school, creating problems for colleagues, teachers, parents and society. With an excess of prana, action of some sort is necessary, so if there is nothing else to do, children will just ‘break and burn’. Many children suffer from this imbalance in varying degrees, and this is the origin of the phenomena commonly known as juvenile delinquency and vandalism.
To further balance these natural energies, the children of former times were also initiated into Gayatri mantra which they repeated daily with breath awareness at sunrise and sunset for about five minutes. This mantra has a tremendous effect on the different centres of the brain, centres of memory, reproduction, genius, understanding, interpretation and many others. It also helps overcome many fears, limitations and inadequacies. Gayatri mantra is a concrete and effective influence which will alter both brain and mind, in the same way that penicillin or streptomycin will exert an antibiotic effect on anyone who takes it.
If we look at this sadhana closely, we can discover much wisdom was involved in its formulation. Modern physiologists and psychologists have discovered that at the age of seven or eight, a child’s pineal gland begins to diminish its function. The pineal gland is a tiny organ situated at the top of the spinal column in the region of the medulla oblongata in the brain, directly behind the eyebrow centre. It has been found to exert a controlling influence over all the other endocrine glands of the body and it can hold at bay the onset of puberty. When the functions of the pineal gland undergo regression during childhood, there occurs an emotional upsurge, corresponding with the awakening of the reproductive system. This upsurge generally occurs at such an early age, when the children generally possess an unbalanced and immature psycho-emotional obsession as they try to adjust to a changing role in life.
If this phase can be delayed for eight or ten years, there will be no imbalance, and the mental, physical, emotional and psychological development will remain on par with each other. It was for this reason that children of olden days were initiated into mantra, pranayama and surya namaskara.
Unfortunately, this tradition was discontinued until the present day, because, in the course of time, due to inadequate explanation and the lack of scientific interpretation, there arose a great misunderstanding. Children and their parents began to think that the initiation was merely an unnecessary religious practice. It is only recently that scientists have discovered that nadi shodhana pranayama and meditation directly influence the physical body.
Through early introduction to meditation and yoga, each child is given the greatest tool to propel himself into a future free of neurotic behaviour, lack of purpose and unhealthy mental impressions. The two most important aspects of a child’s education are simultaneously attended to when yoga and meditation are integrated into the child’s daily life. The first is the touching, contacting and evoking of the universal self within the child’s own inner world. Here the most valuable techniques are those of meditation, especially adapted for children.
The second is the development of the personality, with equal emphasis on the body, the emotions, the mind, the imagination and the will. Without this simultaneous development of personality, the inner self or essence contacted during meditation, has no effective for its undistorted expression in the outer world.
In our present education system, the importance of learning to read, write, add, memorize, analyse and compute logical data, etc. has been overemphasized at the expense of the development of emotional and intuitive faculties, and the exploration of the child’s rich inner world. It is for this reason that parents must harmonize their children’s development by introducing them to creative and imaginative forms of meditation.
The ideal situation is where the children undergo spiritual training in an ashram for some weeks, months or years. In the daily situation, it is suggested that parents share their own spiritual pursuits with their children. In the home, the parents should include their children in some of their own practices, suitably adapting and explaining them in terms which children will understand and enjoy. It is natural that when children see their parents engaged in meditation or yoga asanas, they will want to do the same. Parents should always welcome and utilize such an intrusion. While it may disrupt the intensity of their own sadhana, it is surely one of the responsibilities of adopting the householder life. Parents can practise a more serious form of sadhana when the children are asleep, and should not deny themselves the wonderful and fulfilling experience of watching their children’s awareness develop and expand rapidly before their very eyes.
Meditation enables the child to tune into his higher self for guidance. Through meditation he will discover his centre of individual consciousness and will, and this will enable him to perceive clearly what is occurring in his mind, body, emotions and imagination, as well as that which is taking place in his environment, giving the faculty of imagination and fantasy a positive direction. The child learns that there is an inner world which is just as real as the external material world. Young children are innately in touch with the intuitive realms and are able to enter and exist with imaginary friends in a wonderful world of make-believe and play.
This contact with the imaginative and intuitive dimensions is mediated via the pineal gland. In yoga it is called ajna chakra, the third eye or the eye of intuition. This state of awareness is contacted through the eyebrow centre and it is this hole through which Alice, the young heroine of Alice in Wonderland, fell, when she entered the strange world of wonderland. Similarly, great scientists and mystics have received their inspiration and creative ideas through this tiny psychic gland which has been called the ‘doorway to the infinite’ and the ‘seat of the soul’. It has been found that the child’s free access to the world of make-believe gradually closes off after eight or nine years, as the pineal gland atrophies. After puberty, it is virtually lost with the assumption of a sexual role and characteristics, and the shifting of consciousness towards the genital region.
Therefore, the role of meditation practices in preserving the potency of the child’s pineal gland, will enable him to avoid a degeneration of awareness and to remain in touch with the intuitive dimensions. This will enable him to become an inspired and illumined individual who has access to higher understanding and inner knowledge.
Meditation allows the child to relax and to discover the centre of his being. It is very important that modern children and adolescents are able to do this effortlessly, for they are constantly being harassed by contradictory and competitive directions, requests and demands on their time and behaviour patterns. Children are placed under countless stress conditions such as examinations, recitations, being bawled out by teachers and parents, exposure to peer group pressures, too much homework and constant concern about being socially acceptable. Only in meditation is a space provided for listening to the voice within. Meditation will enable a child to be fully present and relaxed, so that he can give of his best in an examination or performance. It will help to solve personal and interpersonal problems and conflicts through contact with inner wisdom, and lead him or her towards fully creative and responsible adulthood.
A child must encounter meditation in a form which is enjoyable and in terms which are easily understood. Meditation sessions with children must be short – not more than 15 minutes, and they must be very absorbing and engrossing, active and inspiring. Never allow them to become boring.
The best meditation practices for children are chidakasha dharana and visualization, as they give full rein to the imagination. Om chanting, trataka, yoga nidra and prana vidya techniques are also recommended, and surya namaskara and a few asanas should be practised each morning.
Each meditation session should be preceded by five to ten minutes of pranayama. This will relax the mind, stabilize excited energy and detach sense awareness in preparation for the inward journey of meditation. After each session, discussion of the experience should follow, encouraging self- expression. Everything the child says should be accepted, even if he is obviously exaggerating, as initially imagination is required until he becomes more open to the subtle effects which will inevitably occur.
The whole family should come together for five to ten minutes of Om chanting each morning, either on rising or before the children leave for school. Upon returning from school or in the evening, children should be given a guided meditation, or perhaps a yoga nidra. This will help to harmonize their energies into the home and family environment and away from the activities of the day.
Yoga nidra should include body awareness, breath awareness, sensations, active story-form visualization and a resolve or sankalpa. During visualization you can read a short story that has a deeper meaning behind it. In the yoga nidra state, the child can more easily grasp the deeper meaning. A resolve is an important part of yoga nidra for children, whether the child makes a long time resolve or one for the next day. Researchers the world over are proving yoga nidra (and similar techniques) and the use of a resolve, to be a very effective learning procedure, capable of vastly expanding conscious memory recall capabilities.
There are countless guided fantasy meditations which can be adapted for children in either the home or classroom situation. Guided fantasy and image formation enable children free access to their imagination and it also brings about a release of their creative energies. It can be used to enable children to examine their belief systems, diagnose their self- concepts, evolve feelings, facilitate body awareness, clarify mental understandings, integrate the various parts of their personalities and tap their internal wisdom.
The parent or teacher first establishes full physical and mental relaxation, then leads the child or children on a guided fantasy experience, before bringing them slowly back to the present situation. Adequate time should be provided to ground the experience into awareness, either by discussion or drawing.
To instruct children in the practices of meditation, all that is really required is a teacher or parent who personally understands and practises meditation, and is able to enter into the vivid world of the child. To work with children, he or she must also become a child and see the world through their eyes. If the teacher or parent can enter the child’s world, he will be led to many charming places and treated to special observations and a view of the world which is otherwise not accessible to him. This is because the adult mind is usually set on a long range goal, whereas children live in a more spontaneously aware state, perceiving their whole psychic and physical surroundings from moment to moment.