A series of new studies have recently come out touting the benefits of teaching kids to meditate.
Well stop right there: allow me to say with utmost humility -- here stands the expert.
My sister Mallika and I learned to meditate when we were about four and seven years old respectively (she's older). This was early on in my father's discovery phase of the transcendental meditation movement. Contrary to popular belief, he was not always the go-to-Guru that many now see him as. He was in fact a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, cantankerous by-the-book old school physician who ironically had little faith in the ways of alternative medicine and stress relieving techniques like meditation. On somewhat of a lark he discovered a TM Center in Cambridge Mass not far from where we lived and he worked and figured he may as well give the hippie delight a try.
And so began our regular attendance to group meditations and lectures down at the TM Center on Mass. Ave where, while our parents meditated endlessly, Mallika and I (and numerous other kids of recently recruited meditators -- my dad has always had an instinct for starting movements himself) were forced to entertain ourselves in spartanly furnished rooms that smelled of broccoli and tofu.
Soon enough, we too were brought into the (meditation) circle. It started with my father offering us a dollar for every minute we were able to stay completely silent. Mallika, of course, was a natural at it and she quickly amassed a great fortune. I, on the other hand, struggled greatly with such discipline, though I did eventually discover numerous loopholes -- as in while I couldn't say anything, I was not barred from making noise with other parts of my body, nor did it mean I couldn't watch TV while "meditating."
This forced my father to up the ante, which he needed to do anyway (Mallika was already into triple figures by this time). So came a more traditional sitting technique for meditation. Staying still, ideally in lotus position -- yeah, right -- with eyes closed repeating a "secret sound" or "word of wisdom." My rambunctiousness had settled down some by now (I think I was about 8) and meditation had its own appeal -- my father told me that by meditating, I could eventually gain superpowers and end up like Superman or Batman. Hello!
Gradually it became clear that perhaps x-ray vision, spinning the world backwards on its axis, and other such magnificent tricks may require lifetimes of focused meditation. And yet, there were in fact more attainable quests. In 1986, when I was 11 years old, I intensified my meditations all through the summer, which seemed to be working as my team the Red Sox streaked through the regular season and then pulled off a miracle in the playoffs to reach the World Series. Then came Game 6 against the Mets. Bill Buckner, Mookie, (unsung goat Bob Stanley) etc., etc. The benefits of meditation became largely questionable and took a major hit as far as I was concerned. I was jaded.
I got back on the plan in subsequent years, probably because by then heavy D was climbing the ranks of the TM Movement and had become somewhat of a star in cultural circles where all of a sudden things like yoga were gaining momentum and trendy appeal. It was around that time that I was taught "advanced meditation techniques" during an intense series of group instructions back in those broccoli and tofu smelling rooms at the Cambridge TM Center. I think I can confidently claim to be the only teenager at the time who went directly from JV Football practice with a bunch of testosterone fueled teammates to hanging with born-again vedantists who boldly believed that if we could just get something like 7000 people meditating at the same time, we could create world peace.
I'm not kidding. Now 16 years old, I went to DC for a two-week meditation course where we meditated like nine hours a day, and then when we weren't eating broccoli and tofu, talked about it for like another nine hours. I was the youngest by about six years, I believe. One guy described his feeling after a week of the course as if he were having a neverending orgasm.
"Yeah, totally," I agreed, not really having any idea what he was talking about.
The course culminated with our learning the "flying sutra," which basically was a sound that triggered spontaneous hopping -- branded levitation. You know, the whole "awakening the kundalini" etc. At the time, it seemed some sort of miracle and I was really proud of myself for achieving such a feat. Over time, it became questionable what the real benefit was in being able to hop around a foam covered room with dozens of others...
Continue reading at intent.com!
Follow Gotham Chopra on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gothamchopra
Deepak Chopra: Walking the Pathless Path: Do We Need to Travel to Have a Spiritual Journey?
Ed and Deb Shapiro: Why Saying 'No' Is Saying 'Yes' to Yourself
Jeffrey Hull, Ph.D.: 6 Ways to Do Nothing in a Wired World (PHOTOS)
Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.: The Cause and Effect of Mindful Leadership
Deepak Chopra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra - Book
Alicia Keys marries Swizz Beatz, Deepak Chopra officiates
Honeymoon on the high seas: Newlywed Alicia Keys displays baby bump aboard her ...
Deepak Chopra Gathers Experts To Discuss The Path To A Nuclear-Free World (VIDEO)
There is plenty of research that transcendental meditation benefits students— offering relief from stress and improving brain functioning, but it's a good reminder that not all kids will take to it and want to practice it for life.
the world that big D desires will become real feeling wise and verifiable empirically sternwise [ scientifc rigour]
when Dr Chopra and his friends donate major money to Maharishi Vedic Pandits who are also yogic flyers
evryone deplores tragedies ; how to end tragedies ? fund Maharishi vedic pandits
the goal is 263 000 such which requires an endowment fund of $ 17 000 000 000
OLD and NEW media Huffpost included havnt ended tragedy they make money from tragedy as long as unenlightened people watch bad news
e.g. i would love for Dr Chopra et al to take on Bill Goldfinger Gates about the fact that drugs are not neccessary if Maharishi Ayur Veda is available on a large scale and all other modalities of alternative medicine are widely practiced by MDs
Gotham should be very thankful that he wasnt in Germany at age 8 in 1951 as i was ; fortunately I wasnt aware of Germany in 1946
one of my TM teachers Frau Eickhof taught TM for one reason never again will there be a war in my land
Gotham may not fully understand the TM-Sidhi practice. It's not about just "hopping around on the foam," it's about stabilizing the state of yoga, pure consciousness, and enjoying the many practical benefits that result. Many published research studies document the positive effects of Yogic Flying, especially the increased coherence in brain function.
The assembly of 7000 Yogic Flyers he mentions (it was actually over 8,000) was not intended to create permanent world peace during the program's two weeks. Scientists set up in advance to monitor specific, measurable quality of life indicators (crime, accident rate, war deaths, etc.) to see if this historic assembly—the largest group of meditators ever gathered in one place—would have a peace-creating effect on world events as predicted. The assembly's global harmonizing effect was dramatic and has become legendary. The results of this experiment and many other such studies on TM's societal effects were published in peer-reviewed science journals.
Deepak may have gone his own way for his own reasons, but Maharishi and his worldwide TM Movement continues on, teaching effective meditation and creating a more peaceful world.